Just after 9/11, the Reuters news agency announced that they wouldn’t use the word “terrorist” for Al Qaeda (search) fighters. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, said the news agency. This was too much for most news outfits, including this one, which continues to call bin Laden and his cohorts "terrorists."
But now there are questions about what to call the people who are killing and maiming Iraqis and coalition forces in Iraq. The New York Times ran a cover piece last Friday about one such individual. The man, who carried a live grenade to the interview and said that Saddam had “done nothing bad,” referred to himself as a “holy warrior.”
The Times reporter didn’t seem to know exactly what to call him, at one point referring to the man as a “fighter in the resistance.” But Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland says references like that don’t fit at all.
“It is a misnomer to call the war against the U.S.-led coalition and its Iraqi allies a nationalist struggle… This war is led and fought by a small, embittered minority of oppressors.”
“This is not a group of resistance fighters," says Hoagland, "but a group of gangsters desperately trying to get back what they have lost.”
And that’s the Asman Observer!
For further reference, check out:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30085-2003Dec2.html
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