In The Wall Street Journal, Tom Goss argues that reporters use the word "militant" to give terrorists a break:
What is the motivation of journalists in trying to mangle language -- such as going out of their way to refer to terrorists as "militants," as one Mumbai story on yesterday's Times of London Web site seemed to do? Do they somehow wish to express sympathy for these murderers, or perhaps make their crimes seem almost acceptable? How are we going to effectively confront terrorists when we can't even identify them as such?
Blake Hounshell counters:
It's a perfectly accurate description of people who shoot innocent civilians, and it can also be applied to people who attack police officials and soldiers. It can accurately describe leaders of terrorist groups who may not be personally involved in conducting attacks, but are nonetheless "militant." I don't see the word having any positive connotations whatsoever. Do you?
I actually think both the words "terrorist" and "militant" are often abused. Jeremiah Wright was often referred to as "militant," which in this context just means "loud, angry black man." It didn't mean, for example, that he engaged in actual violence, so you'd have to assume that the description is unflattering and a somewhat deliberate inference of a more sinister motive than Wright ever actually evidenced.
'Terrorist' is similarly abused. Now that the campaign is over, it's safe to say without giving someone cardiac arrest that comparing William Ayers to Osama bin Laden because they're both "terrorists" is like comparing the Red Sox and your local little league team because they both play baseball. Bin Laden is a terrorist. Ayers was a privileged kid playing martyr. Al Qaeda has killed thousands of people. The Weathermen killed several of their own members accidentally, and it's not clear Ayers was personally involved in that incident. This abuse of the term also has other, more serious consequences, like non-violent protest groups having their rights violated on the basis of being defined as "terrorist" groups. If anything, the word is used too glibly.
I don't know that the phenomenon Goss describes actually results in anyone believing that the murders in Mumbai were anything but terrorists. Mostly, it seems Goss is angry that the media doesn't ascribe the general motives of Islamism as they are generally understood for an attack the underlying intentions of which are not yet really known, and may be more political than they are religious.
--A. Serwer
