CHE: Shouldn’t our leaders refer to terrorist cretins as “terrorist cretins”?
posted at 4:15 pm on July 18, 2007 by Allahpundit
Certainly not. To do so would be judgmental. And once we act judgmentally, the terrorists have already won.
Besides, all the really good epithets are already reserved for “Christianists.”
[T]he vast majority of statesmen believe in purely operational talk after terrorist acts. On July 4, Franco Frattini, the EU’s top justice official, announced a wide array of new antiterrorist measures, including an EU-wide passenger-data-recording system, and criminalization of bomb-making instructions on the Internet. “We will find a better way to discourage and detect terrorists,” Frattini said.
Why does such a better way not include a call for sterner moral judgment, forcefully expressed?
Should Ayman al-Zawahri, deputy head of Al Qaeda, be the only “leader” quoted making moral judgments — that Arab regimes are “corrupt” — in a week of terrorist incidents?…
Let’s mention just one key goal [of moral condemnation]: the education of the world’s Muslim youth. Instead of hearing moral praise and encouragement for terrorism from jihadists, which then gets mixed in their minds with the nonjudgmental, tactical talk of Western officials and media, they’d have to absorb a steady stream of insults of terrorists’ intelligence, morality, decency, and reasoning. Young Muslims would have to get used to hearing jihadist heroes described as savages, scum, and uncivilized losers, along with the reasons why. It would intellectually force them, far more than they are forced today, to choose between two visions of the world.
That last paragraph’s hopelessly naive but follow the link and read her five explanations for western moral squeamishness. Numbers two and four are right on target, although I wonder if there isn’t a sixth, unspoken unreason: the fact that Bush, notably among western leaders, is famously willing to use this rhetoric, such that any other head of state who follows suit risks guilt by association. If so, they’re more gutless than I’d thought.
Blowback
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Ohhh… THAT Che. I was like… wtf?
Dash on July 18, 2007 at 4:29 PM
Islam thinks the whole world belongs to them. They kill each other over just about anything and have no problem putting non Muslims to death or into slavery. While we in this country all stand back and smile as they scream their bloody rants ( they are just expressing themselves), we should be putting the entire world of this genocidal cult on notice.
No mega-mosques (military bases) anywhere either.
Hening on July 18, 2007 at 4:30 PM
I consider myself a normal human being. When the media and company refer to Christian leaders using unsavory language, it does not discourage me at all. As a matter of fact, I become more deliberate in my support for them. Now I can’t imagine name calling resulting in the fall of Al Qaeda.
Zaire67 on July 18, 2007 at 4:43 PM
Christians and Jews have to listen to total BS towards their beliefs every day in America…criticism is accepted as part of our belief in liberty and freedom…Muslims do not tolerate criticism or discussion of their belief…if 9/11 did’nt wake the left up nothing ever will…they don’t even have the balls to face their enemy …choosing instead to try and invent a conspiracy within our own country…as usual it is up to us to protect the spineless traitors…
DCJeff on July 18, 2007 at 4:56 PM
Those braindead weasels who follow a deceiving, thieving, slaveholding, murderous pedophile warlord should expect a little moral censure for their subhuman homicidal attempts at mimicking his medieval cretinous scumminess.
Not to be overly judgmental.
profitsbeard on July 18, 2007 at 5:06 PM
The “non-judgmental” attitude toward jihadis is so ridiculous. They want us converted, conquered or dead, but what so many of us in the West are worried about is that we might (gasp!) offend them. Let the insults begin!
Bigfoot on July 18, 2007 at 5:09 PM
That’s not “naivete”; that’s called propaganda, and it WORKS.
OK, Fox might might have a hard time instantly overcoming the lifetime of intensive brainwashing some of the cells use on their bombers. But any tiny bit of doubt we can plant in the enemy’s mind helps us.
More to the point, the liberal media don’t really use “neutral terms” to describe terrorists. They use the most flagrantly supportive language they can. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS describe terrorists in anything but the most glowing terms – as if they are creatures of legend: slaughtering America’s incompetent soldiers like so many brainless sheep. And for every terrorist killed, a hundred more spring like dragon’s teeth from the desert sands.
Basically, the media describe Arab terrorists as if they were supervillians: kind of like Lex Luthor, only a little smarter and a LOT more pious.
The Islamofascists know they cannot possibly gain any military objective. The bombings are NOTHING except bloody PR stunts to support their propaganda war. And we’re not just letting them win the war – many among us are actively helping them.
logis on July 18, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Problem is, as Matt Stone and Trey Parker point out in the Cartoon Wars episodes of South Park, media and entertainment are scared to death of the Jihadis, deep down. They’ll never say it, but that’s what it is, and they’re just hoping they’ll go away. Basically like Churchill said, hoping the croc makes them the last meal.
Stone and Parker are forbidden to show in the same episode something as innocuous as Mohammed handing Peter Griffin a football helmet with a salmon on it, but can show Jesus, George Bush and a bunch of random people crapping on each other and an American flag draped in the ground. That’s pretty damning.
Bad Candy on July 18, 2007 at 5:16 PM
profitsbeard said it beast as far as I am concerned. I can only add; what would France do?
On-my-soap-box on July 18, 2007 at 5:17 PM
I don’t think so. It is more naive to believe you can have victory by military power alone. That seems to be the current belief of the leaders of the West.
Resolute on July 18, 2007 at 5:49 PM
Yes, profitsbeard. Very beasty of you.
RushBaby on July 18, 2007 at 5:50 PM
On-my-soap-box-
Indeed.
Have to agree with logis-
our media doesn’t give neutered or non-judgmental assessments of the jihadis, but makes them into folk heroic icons by pandering to their savagery, kowtowing to their intimidation (What Mohammad cartoons!?!) and handing out moral equivalencies (e.g.: our uniformed soldiers, heroically battling against civilian-disguised terrorists, are condemned for any mistakes they make in the heat of a fire fight, but the same terrorists can blow up markets or mosques and are still give the honorific title of “insurgents” and are not simply condemned as homicidal maniacs) like the moral imbeciles they are.
These are not “lions of Allah” or “resistence fighters”, they are vicious theocratic tyrants with a subhuman morality and a proud contempt for all elevating human achievements. Anything above the level of the butcher knife, at least.
The general media are craven, lickspittle cowards.
With the Danes being a rare exception.
And the non-mainstream online sites (AH, LGF, Jihadwatch, Gates of Vienna, etc.) that tear through the quaking veils of p.c. b.s that the major channels try to drape over the eyes of the naive.
profitsbeard on July 18, 2007 at 5:55 PM
Sorry HA, not AH.
(Although that’s the relief I often feel seeing it’s take on the news.)
profitsbeard on July 18, 2007 at 5:57 PM
The best thing to call them is stupid. Ridicule is more powerful than moral outrage.
Bad Penny on July 18, 2007 at 6:30 PM
It’s hopelessly naive? I haven’t yet given up hope of persuading fellow depressives to keep their disease to themselves, nor will I.
Kralizec on July 18, 2007 at 7:04 PM
We’re not talking about “normal human beings.” We’re talking about people who are taught to love death in the service of a dead-end religion in a culture that’s big on saving face and avoiding shame (rather than actually accomplishing anything), so let’s riducule them — mercilessly!
Tell it, profitsbeard!
Nichevo on July 18, 2007 at 7:13 PM
Well said, well said.
4shoes on July 18, 2007 at 10:04 PM
The Muslims are counting on their “military” power alone. Kill enough people and then the rest will allow rule by Muslim imams. Hey, it worked for 1/5th of the world. All that’s left in today’s modern caliphate are cowards and crazies.
Mojave Mark on July 19, 2007 at 12:55 AM