They Destroy, They Do Not Terrify

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LESSON IN MENTALLY CORRECT
LANGUAGE USAGE


Politics has nothing to do with it.

Marketing uses words. Even in war and insurgency, words are used. But are the words used correctly?

This is simply a critique of the word "terrorist" as applied to those who destroy, maim, and kill as a means of accomplishing their goals.

I have seen "terrorists" who were unable to stop a fledgling democracy from holding free elections. Insufficient "terror" was generated.

I have seen "terrorists" who were shocked to discover that U.S. Marines run toward shots that are fired, and not away from them.

I have seen women bravely attend school in lands where such an act by the allegedly "inferior gender" used to be punishable by death.

I have seen "terrorists" who began to kill women and children, who occupied a school building, who kidnap defenseless civilians.

I have seen "terrorists" hide behind scarves and masks, afraid to reveal their identities.

I have seen average civilians, surrounded and infested by "terrorists", stand in line to vote, and look into television cameras, with no disguises or concealment of faces.

I wonder who is truly terrified and who is simply hoping to cause terror.

This use of "terror" and "terrorist" may be very inappropriate.

We do not call someone a surgeon if they've never operated on anyone.

We do not call someone a chef if they've never cooked anything.

So why do we call someone a "terrorist" if they fail to inspire terror?

If a person kills, that's a killer.

If a person rapes, that's a rapist.

If a person destroys, blows things up, but fails to scare people, that's a destructionist, not a terrorist.

The Main Stream Media (MSM) seems to like saying that beheading videos or threats of nuclear attack "strike fear into our hearts." Not my heart. I have had zero fear ever since 9-11. I'm more observant, more skeptical, more suspicious, but not more fearful.

Not one person I know, including soldiers in Iraq, is "terrorized" by anyone. If shots are fired, they have a healthy "fear", or actually the better word is "avoidance reaction", to being an easy target. They don't cringe in cowardly terror. They get angry and fight back.

"Fear" and "terror" are not operative in much of the world. Governments may give in to "terrorist" demands out of concerns for public opinion, but I doubt that even weak governments have much real "fear". The only thing they fear is civil war, or not getting elected again.

I will not refer to those who kill civilians and blow up buildings as "terrorists", since they fail to cause much terror.

I prefer to refer to them as "destructionists".

Why glorify them by granting them a title they have not earned, and thus do not deserve?