Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Call them what they are

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004 | 8:54 a.m.

EARLY THIS WEEK the Associated Press reported, "A bomb strapped to a bicycle killed 13 people Tuesday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, most of them children who halted a soccer game and rushed to the site after an initial explosion.

"The double blast, blamed on Taliban militants, might have been intended to lure U.S. soldiers or hit the provincial governor."

Militant? Nonsense, because only a terrorist would place a bomb that had the potential to kill innocent children. Later in the same story President Hamid Karzai called the attack a display of "cruelty and barbarism." The Afghan leader went on to add, "Terrorists must know, however, that their acts will only further strengthen our resolve to step up our fight against terrorism until the menace is completely eliminated from our land."

Also during recent days an Associated Press story from Jerusalem told readers, "Today, troops in Nablus killed two members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia loosely affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, witnesses said. It was not clear if the men, identified as Naim Atari and Aboud Kasas, had been resisting, the witnesses said."

If ever there was a terrorist organization, it's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The words guerrilla and militant have not only been misused, but they also have been abused by several news organizations. A terrorist is a terrorist no matter what media organizations call them. I chuckled last month when one reporter wrote that an Israeli spokesman called a known terrorist a militant. Knowing the spokesman resulted in me giving him a phone call to ask if he had used any description other than terrorist. The answer was a loud "no."

Last spring in Herzliya, Israel, I met with Dr. Boaz Ganor, who heads the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT). As I wrote before, "Ganor separates the violence created by guerrilla warfare from that resulting from terrorism. A violent act against a military ship or base by a group seeking liberation can be seen as guerrilla warfare. The same amount of violence brought down on civilians is easily defined as terrorism. Guerrilla warfare is just that -- war -- and should be answered by military action. The act of violence against civilians is terrorism and must be considered an act against civilization. The act of terrorism must be answered by the world and not by just the army of some nation. Any overlap that might exist must be defined by the courts."

The nonsense used to justify blowing up a busload of children, a disco full of teenagers, a school or playground with children, as an act to gain liberation of some kind, is unacceptable.

Earlier in a policy paper, Ganor wrote: "Hiding behind the guise of national liberation does not release terrorists from responsibility for their actions. Not only is it untrue that 'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter,' but it is also untrue that 'The end justifies the means.' "

Ganor believes there are even rules in guerrilla warfare and writes, "When the organization breaks these rules and intentionally targets civilians, it becomes a terrorist organization, according to objective measures and not according to the subjective perception of the definer."

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell, writing in the New York Post, tells readers that the British Broadcasting Corporation recently ordered its reporters not to refer to Saddam Hussein as an ex-dictator. Well, Saddam has been an ex-dictator since last April and a terrorist is a terrorist no matter what the media calls them.