Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Just change the name and the problem will go away

This morning’s Washington Times notes that something called the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) last week released two documents urging government officials to use terms such as violent extremists, totalitarian and death cult to characterize al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. The NCTC doesn’t want government official characterizing such groups as violent MUSLIM extremists, ISLAMIC totalitarian weasels or ISLAMO-TERROR-FASCIST death cults, apparently that’s just a bit too descriptive – even if it’s true.

As the NCTC puts it, "Avoid labeling everything 'Muslim.' It reinforces the 'U.S. vs. Islam' framework that al Qaeda promotes," according to "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counter-Terrorism Communication," produced last month by the center. Yes by all means don’t inflame the perpetually inflamed by calling them what they are. That might cause the poor dears to do something really dire like fly planes into tall buildings – oh wait, I recall something like that already happening even before we were calling them whacko ISLAMIC-TERROR –FASCISTS.

And before that it was the USS Cole
And before that it was the Kobar Tower bombing
And before that it was the African embassy bombings
And before that it was the first attack on the World Trade Center
And before that it was a car bomb targeting Americans in Riyadh
And before that it was the bombing of Pan Am FLT 103
And before that it was a long line of bombings, hijackings, kidnappings and murders dating back to 1787.

So sure, just as not referring to the KKK as a white supremist group has shut that organization down and not calling Germans Nazis avoided a world war in the 40s and eschewing calling communists evil helped bring down the wall and end the Cold War by all means let’s not call ISLAMO-TERROR-FASCISTS what they are and the problem will just go away.

This is Orwellian government stupidity of the highest order (insert any of a billion jokes about “government” and “stupid” here). Next they’ll want us to refer to the ITF as misguided non-specific youth for peace and understanding through the early non-natural demise of innocents by means of high-energy kinetic devises.

I’m not crazy about suspending the fed gas tax and sending government rebates to the least productive among us, but I’d quadruple those programs before I’d pay one penny to the dunderheads at the NCTC.

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