I Don't Understand

It appears that the enemy has beheaded yet another person, this time a Korean man, in an attempt to sow terror in our midst. I am very sad for his family, and for the agony he must have suffered in his last moments.

There are two things here that I don't understand, though, one about the reporting and one about the man himself.

The headline of the article I linked above is "Iraqi Militants Behead Korean Hostage". It's old news that the Western media cannot call a person whose intent is to terrorize, a terrorist. It's an unpleasant situation that the press has so lost track of objectivity that they prefer willful blindness (as long as the objects of the words they use are enemies of America, Israel and freedom in general, anyway), but it's hardly shocking. So, they have called these monsters "militants" - they didn't use the quotes of course. Hmmm, OK, first, how do they know that the "militants" are Iraqi? The AP seems to accept without any doubt that they are, yet it is well-known that most of the hardcore resistance in Iraq to the government and the coalition forces comes from non-Iraqis who came there for the purpose of fighting us. I just don't understand why the media could be so sceptical of the nature of the group, but so sure of their identity: any objective analysis would put the odds at the nature and identity of the group as likely the opposite of the AP's choices.

Unless, of course, the AP has intentionally chosen terms such as this because they want to minimize the horror and revulsion naturally felt at a terrorist (one who engages in acts of terrorism, which acts in turn are "use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."), while simultaneously making the terrorists seem like indigenous freedom fighters. After all, a militant is someone who has "a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause", and after all, sometimes we can all be militant, can't we? In other words, the only reason I can see behind the obviously deliberate choice of terms that are wrong or misleading, is that the AP is consciously "with the terrorists": they want us to lose.

It's a sad realization, even if it's one I've been coming to for a long time, that there is no logical rationale behind the editorial choices of Western "news" organizations but that they are on the other side. Perhaps I understand what they are doing, but I really don't understand why.

The other thing I don't understand is the passivity: the pleading on camera just plays into the enemy's hands; it won't spare your life. Sadly, I've seen many examples of Westerners - and of Muslims - being killed by jihadis, and what's striking is how seldom they fight back. If you know you are going to be horribly killed, why not try to run every chance you get: better to be shot trying to jump out the window than beheaded. Why not try to fight? Why would you ever sit barely resisting as they position you and begin to kill you? Yet people seem to do that. Fabrizio Quatrocchi was a brave and laudable exception. Most people just seem to sit there and take it. I don't get that at all.

UPDATE: And on the "on the other side" track, note Tom Gross' essay on BBC bias. (hat tip: Silflay Hraka)

UPDATE (6/23): Wizbang has a list of links covering the beheading of Kim Sun-Il.

Posted by Jeff at June 22, 2004 05:36 PM | Link Cosmos