C-Poll

The latest C-Poll is closed. You can read all about it here!

September 8, 2004

Can we dispense with the euphemisms now, please?

Hundreds of children dead. Hundreds missing. Children bayoneted for requesting a drink. Children shot in the back as they fled. Does the word "evildoers" still seem so laughably simplistic?

Do the terms guerrilla and "militant" and "gunmen" and every other wire-service euphemisms for Islamist terrorists rise to the challenge of describing the depravities of Beslan?

Even the word "terrorist" seems inadequate nowadays, drained of its dread through overuse. "Monsters" or "devils" would be more apt, but it's wrong to dehumanize the men and women who committed this barbarity. Even dogs know other dogs are dogs. These people don't see others as people at all, but animate meat in thrall to the wrong god. Better off dead, really. And you get gold stars in Paradise for pulling the trigger. How do you vanquish such people?
Read the whole article, then check here to see speculation on how such an atrocity might happen in our country.

1 comment:

Tim said...

Reader 'Chocolate' writes:From the Washington Post, 9/7/04:

"..surveillance tapes from inside the school had picked up a conversation in which one hostage had bragged over is walkie-talkie about executing children during the siege. "One asks "What's happening? I hear noise,' and the other says "It's ok, I'm in the middle of killing some kids. There's nothing to do.' They were bored, so they shot kids [emphasis added]," Putin said, according to detailed notes taken by former CNN Moscow bureau chief Eileen O'Connor...."

Leaves you speechless.
Chocolate