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Saturday, May 15, 2004

Homicide Bombers

All right, time for one of my pet peeves. Since I complain often enough about the mainstream (i.e., liberal) media, I ought to toss a complaint in the direction of Fox News. And this is it. I think their use of the term "homicide bomber" rather than "suicide bomber" is, well I was going to say silly, but that seems wrong for such a grim subject matter. I know that it comes from something President Bush said, saying that suicide bombers are really homicide bombers. When he said it, it was a rhetorical device denying suicide bombers the matyrdom they tried to claim. The fact that Fox uses the term for all suicide bombers annoys me. Suicide bombing is accurate and specific. They are detonating bombs which kill themselves in the process. Homicide bombing is, while not exactly inaccurate, not very specific. Any terrorist using bombs is trying to kill people, but the term homicide bomber doesn't really tell me whether the method the bomber was using would have killed himself as well. Or rather, it does, but only because I already know "homicide bomber" really means "suicide bomber." I know Fox wants to be different, but did they really have to adopt the term "homicide bomber"? I'd be happier if they called the "insurgents" terrorists, which would be more accurate.

Update: A bit of rewriting for clarity. Nothing substantive.

New Post: I'm not the only one who thinks this way. More above.

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