Independently of Stephen Pollard’s comment, a friend of mine emailed me yesterday to draw my attention to the murder by another Al-Qaeda offshoot of the head of the Egyptian diplomatic mission in Iraq. The email implied that there was some connection between the branch of the global Al-Qaeda franchise killing over there and those busy killing over here at around the same time.
Thankfully, the BBC clears up any confusion. The agents of Al-Qaeda who murder innocents in Iraq are different from the ones who murder innocents in the UK because the ones in Iraq are “militants“, whereas the ones in Britain are “terrorists“. If you are planning on blowing yourself up in the midst of a crowd of civilians and want your actions to be viewed more favourably in the eyes of the World, I’d recommend taking a trip to Israel, where, even if you are a British-Islamist “terrorist“, as soon as you arrive you become a member of a “militant” group.
[UPDATE: At Harry’s Place Gene notes that the BBC Thought Police have moved silently to normalize the situation. There are no terrorists. There were no terrorists. There is no terror. Phew.]
Welcome back, Poutergeek.
Welcome back, Damian, though not on the best of days. Flew back from Germany into Stansted yesterday. Children work in London, but safe. Rather admiring London’s stoicism at the moment. As to the militants / terrorists terminology, nothing new there, nor in the man heading the Telegraph website letters saying it’s all Tony Blair’s fault. Nor in the usual web sources suggesting the Israeli Embassy knew all about it. I guess they knew about the Red Sea parting first, but beyond that…
The transformative power of travel is amazing! Surely these vast intelligences at the BBC are being wasted, they should really be at work for Condé Nast Traveler!
But don’t you think its appropriate to use “militant” rather than “terrorist” to describe at least those in Iraq who attack military targets (US troops, US trained Iraqi troops) rather than civilians? Isn’t a “terrorist” always someone who aims to kill mainly civilians?
Well, what do you expect of the beeb? They have an agenda, and your puny lives can’t turn them from the objective! Still, they aren’t quite Pravda…..yet.