FAIR has long complained (Extra!, 7-8/95; Extra Update!, 12/98) about corporate media’s avoidance of the word “terrorism” to describe the murder of doctors who perform abortions, even though it meets the standard definition: the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve a political purpose. But the term is still glaringly absent from the corporate media discussion of attacks like Scott Roeder’s assassination of abortion provider George Tiller. (For an exception to the rule, see an Oregonian editorial, 1/29/10.)
The choice of terms makes a crucial difference in the way the issue of violence against women’s health clinics is discussed. Take an AP piece that ran after Roeder was convicted, which ran under the headline “Conviction Angers Anti-Abortion Militants” (1/30/10):
Testifying in his own defense, a remorseless and resolute Roeder insisted he had committed a justified act for the defense of unborn children by killing Dr. George Tiller, one of the country’s few physicians to offer late-term abortions. It was a bold legal strategy that, if successful, had the potential to radically alter the debate over abortion by reducing the price for committing such an act of violence.
When it failed, those who share Roeder’s passionate, militant belief against abortion were outraged: One said they are getting tired of being treated as a “piece of dirt” unable to express the reasons for such acts in court. So while relieved at the outcome, abortion-rights advocates worry a verdict that should be a deterrent will instead further embolden those prone to violence.
It’s hard to imagine AP publishing an article that treated the claim that “terrorism” was justifiable as a “bold legal strategy” with the “potential to radically alter the debate,” or suggest that handing out a lesser sentence to a “terrorist” might avoid “emboldening” others in his movement. That’s because the word “terrorist” comes with an assumption that killing people to promote your cause is inherently illegitimate. When the issue is abortion, however, it seems like the corporate media thinks the jury is still out.
Something tells me that Roeder won’t be waterboarded (or murdered) in an attempt to find out who’s planning the next assassination.
Or maybe just for kicks.
And while the corpress avoids the term “terrorist” for these psychopaths, they have no such compunction about the label “Christian”, do they – although their actions are the very antithesis of the Golden Rule.
WWJD? What did Orwell say?
Newspeak news speak on parade.
They also call Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad “Militants” instead of terrorists. So feel reassured their weaseling isn’t always partisan, it’s just that they’re weasels.
The fools probably confuse the word “militant” with “military”.
And, in fact, there is no agreed definition for terrorism, although the one given in the article is pretty good. Others use the definition “Acts of war by NGOs”.
The 9/11 attack on the Pentagon wasn’t really an attack on civilians, although there was some collateral damage, so the idea of attacking civilians being terrorism isn’t totally consistent. Also consider the 1982 (1983?) attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon and the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia; Both are terrorist attacks against the military. And how about Major Hassan in Texas?
Terrorism is more consistent with attacks by civilians than attacks on civilians.
And the Cole, let’s not forget the attack on the Cole in Yemen.
Of course, terrorism through history has been mainly the domain of governments. Genocide, religious pogroms, atomic and firebombings – these and other atrocities have been carried out or sanctioned by governments – “democracies” and dictatorships alike.
Terrorism today, as it’s viewed through the corpress lens and thus in the popular mind, is seen as pretty much the sole province of fanatical “Islamists” – the context for their actions, morally illegitimate as they are, wholly missing from the frame.
Terrorism breeds terrorism. Our brand is wholesale, theirs retail. It doesn’t matter to the victim or her family, does it?
The only way to end the horror is to live by the principles we say we honor. If we were the nation we claim to be, there would be no need for “The War on Terror” ™ – sham or not.
But we aren’t, and the killing will continue unless persons of conscience the world over force an end to it.
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
Oh, and a search on “hamas” and “terrorist” brought up over two million results. All of these aren’t corpress cites, of course, but I don’t think you can make a case for the NYT, WP et al being “soft on terrorism”, can you?
Well, perhaps you can. You might want to check how many times the attack on Gaza is described as “terrorism” by them.
As regards the Beirut and Cole attacks, those were military targets, weren’t they? The victims were “enemy combatants”, to coin a phrase, to those who carried them out.
Whatever you think of their actions, can you justifiably call them “terrorist” in nature?
What do you think?
“What do you think?”
I think that ‘Fred’ has everything upside down, which is why he’s talking out of his ass.
Good article. I’m pro-life, but I believe Roeder’s actions were terrorism. Perhaps not as severe as the actions the media more commonly call terrorism, but a form of terrorism nonetheless. Ends rarely justify means, especially when those means are terrorist.
The end NEVER justifies the means. A terrorist is not a terrorist when “we” approve of what he does. Is dropping bombs on civilians terrorism? Only when other people do it; not when the U.S. does it. The U.S. has shown during the combined Iraq-Afghanistan debacle the utter hypocrisy of this nation and its political leadership.
I forget who said something to the effect of, “There is no such thing as a successful terrorist. If they are successful, they never were terrorists in the first place, they were freedom fighters.”
Fred:
Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians; Hezbollah the elected leaders of Lebanon. Have the governments of Israel & the United States committed ‘terrorist’ acts?
My dictionary had a better definition of terrorist than it did criminal. What is regarded as criminal seems to be defined by state and federal statute. While the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament include laws against murder and lying, the two Commandments of the New Testament both speak of love (not the hates, prejudices, and teachings of men).
Terrorist acts are criminal acts. A state of war is something else.
The new republican senator from Massachusettes put the discourse about abortion in its place: The appropriate context being in the privacy of a doctor’s office between a woman and her doctor.
isn’t the use of drones on non-combatants “terrorism”? when Madeline Albright was asked about” collateral damage” during air-strikes(such as drones),her answer was that these occurences happen during war. hey, Madeline, why don’t you give that answer to the families of the victims of 9/11? why is it different when “they” do it to “us”? the killing of civilians is unacceptable in every case.,…end of discussion!
Glad someone mentioned the attack on USS Cole in Yemen.
Does anyone remember the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967?
Many more sailors were killed on the Liberty than on the Cole!