The reporters and editorialists writing for the Times might do well to consult a dictionary. Mine defines 'guerrilla' as "a member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy..."

The first point: The monsters who perpetrated this outrage were most assuredly not "operating... in occupied territory". The second point: Are we to understand that the torturing, raping, and killing of innocent children is adequately covered by the rather bland description "harrass and undermine"?

Surely those oh-so-perceptive and nuanced-thinking individuals at the Times can come up with a better and more apt word than 'guerrillas'?

I suggest they look under the letter T.

The NYTimes has never seen evil anywhere...except in the Republican Party. Killing children is only wrong if the children are children of the terrorists. You very seldom hear about the children killed by a homicide bomber attacking Israel. Or the children killed in Iraq by terrorists in a car bomb near a police stations. But it's an instant photo-op if there's a dead child in the home of the terrorist who's been targeted by the U.S. or Israel in response. I can only assume the NYTimes has special filters on the cameras that remove any evidence of unbiased coverage. And they're working for editors who have the same type of filters on their computers...to filter out any signs of unbiased reporting.

Not sure what you've been reading! Saturday night on the Times web site (and perhaps Saturday/Sunday) the relevant articles showed a little hand (dead, I think), clutching a cross. It also showed a photo of a mother grieving over her dead child (perhaps 2-3 years old), her head peeping out from under a blanket.

Here's a link to the first shot.

Here's a link to the second photo.

I saw those photos and wept.

You people are an insult to truth, the way you draw conclusions on the slimmest evidence.

Repent.

Did Bush refer to them as anything like "Islamic Nazi Baby Killers" and I somehow missed it?

I read that Times article differently: rather than glorifying what the killers had done, I thought the point of the article was to outline the cold, deliberate nature of their plans, and thereby show the threat we're all up against.

Old Munro is back...though deeply engaged in University of Virignia readings etc.

Fascism was a worldwide authoritarian ultranationalist ideology that spread 1922-1938.

It may be argued that the seeds of todays problems are not merely the establishment of the state of Israel but the seepage of Fascist/Nationalists/Anti-Semitic/anti-Democratic ideology into the underdeveloped and basically authoritarian Arab Muslim realm.

The inhumanity, brutality and ferocity of this new Murder Cult of Bin Laden's Islamofascists will know no limits.

Anything Hitler did, Stalin did or Saddam Hussein did can be and it is horrible to think might be surpassed by Bin Laden.

Bin laden and his Murder cult must be expunged to the very last before it is too late.

Failure to do so will have terrible consequences not only for Israel and the West but also for the Muslim world which could be devasted in the crossfire of a full scale nuclear world war.

No one sane wants that.

But don't say it could never possibly happen.

Let Rome, London, New York be obliterated with millions dead.

The resulting economic chaos and feelings or rage could unleash a firestorm -war to the knife- upon any center of Islamic extremism.

Civilized values will simply disappear. The dogs of total war will be unleashed.
The consequences of such a war are almost too horrible to contemplate.

One can only pray that the Republic and democratic values could survive such an ordeal.

One can only pray the globe and humanity itself could survive such a cataclysm.

That is the meaning of the war we are in.
We cannot appease the Islamofascists and risk the takeover of Pakistan or Eqypt. Here is one last sobering thought. Will the ideology of "diversity" and "tolerance" survive the coming years? As Dana C. Munro wrote in 1927 "no historian can prophesy what the future holds in store. He may argue from past analogies and traits already discernible in the present that certain results are probable...only posterity can prove the prediction false."

That is the supreme issue of the day. Will there be a posterity?

Not if Bin Laden works his wicked, ungodly, diabolical will. Let us not mince words here Bin Laden and his movement are very evil, very dangerous and must be defeated lest our entire way of life face the death, blood, ashes and ruin of the Russian school house. Never forget the little innocent hands. Never forget their grieving mothers. Never forget the heartless terrorists. Gen. Franks is right. We have only two choices now: "fight 'em here or fight 'em over there."

What Munro said, to a syllable.

"You people", Frank?

What part of what I wrote was not "the truth" as you see it?

Please, I wish to be enlightened.

NYTimes in denial (cont.):

NAMING THE ENEMY [Andy McCarthy]
"The NYT doesn't want to. If you labored through its page one analysis yesterday of the siege in Russia in which nearly 340 people were slaughtered, you'd have to have gone deep into the newspaper and waded down to the 24th paragraph of the story to learn that: "While the extent of international support may be debated, the attacks bear some trappings of Islamic militancy. Officials here in Beslan said they had found notebooks with Arabic writing, and witnesses reported hearing Arabic exhortations, though the attackers mostly spoke Russian." (Emphasis added.) Elsewhere toward the bottom of the report, the reader also finds indications that the Beslan operation was "financed by a man believed to be an Arab associated with Al Qaeda and identified as Abu Omar as-Seyf." What is the good reason to be hesitant about noting that this latest barbarity, like its numerous predecessors, is the work of militant Islam? An enemy that doesn't get identified, doesn't get wiped out -- and lives to fight another day, resulting in more Beslans, more Madrids, more 9/11s, etc."

Bernard, here you go... This is from the OED, Rummy's preferred Dictionary, as you'll remember from the discussion of his use of "slog." (If you have a problem with using the OED, I suggest you contact him directly.)

Guerrilla:
1. A person taking part in an irregular war waged by small bands operating independently (freq. against a stronger more organized force) with surprise attacks.
2. A war waged by guerrillas.

The Times could look under T, true. But when they show the photos I linked you to, I think the meaning is pretty clear. They didn't show pictures of Chechnyans celebrating.

Submitted by Bernard:
Frank, just because you prefer a dictionary definition different from mine
does not explain how my comment represents, in your words, "an insult to the
truth."

And not to quibble - and granting those pictures are worth a few thousand
words - I still don't see the dishonesty in noting the Times' failure to use
the single most pertinent word to describe those responsible.

Care to try again?

It's also worth pointing out that the New York Times has referred to them as terrorists.

"Some sifted through the rubble and pulled out hints of the terrorists' preparations..." from this article.

The Times also printed a piece by two writers from Der Spiegel, entitled Unbridled Terror.

From this article in the Week in Review: "How many innocent lives equal the life of one terrorist?" and "One unknown in the equation, says Giandomenico Picco, a longtime hostage negotiator for the United Nations, is the intent of the terrorists. In more innocent times, Mr. Picco helped solve hijackings and hostage-takings by terrorists who had specific, achievable goals. That is not always true today."

And here, the line "The week that ended with a deadly siege at a school in southern Russia began with another, smaller act of terror" suggests that the school siege was comparatively a larger act of terror.

In this piece, C. J. Chivers writes, "A brief gun battle ensued, as the terrorists overwhelmed the few police officers at the ceremony, who had been caught unaware."

I don't think I need to go on: the Times has clearly characterized it as an act of terrorism. They have also, as I pointed out earlier, shown dead children.

And how could I forget? The very article Stephen links to opens up with this sentence:

"Inside the charred, bullet-pocked wreckage of Middle School No. 1, there lies evidence of the terror Russia faces: Two parts of the library's wooden floor had been pried up, evidently by the heavily armed attackers who seized the school last week and held more than 1,100 hostages for 52 hours."

..."the terror Russia faces." Gee, I wonder where that "terror" comes from? Certainly not from mere rebels, insurgents, or guerrillas, because they themselves were not explicitly referred to as "terrorists" in the small inkage of this column. Hmm. Terror -- maybe it comes from global warming? I guess the New York Times isn't clear on this.

Frank, you've amply demonstrated that there are people at the Times who are familiar with the word 'terrorists' and even know the proper context in which to use it. So why, in the specific case we are talking about, do you suppose they chose to use the arguably more romantic "rebels" and "guerrillas"?

I suspect that writers are like readers: they write conceptually, just as we read conceptually. In the context of all the prior usages of the word terrorist and/or terror, they probably didn't even notice the variation. And remember, the article Stephen cited used the word "terror" in its opening, so it's not as if the writer was equivocating on how to characterize it. (The writer had referred to them as terrorists in prior articles, even.) I am working on a post on my blog which demonstrates that the Times was using the word from Day 1, and that it made its way into an editorial on Day 2.

I am not sure what the issue is. I know Stephen isn't the only person to register this terminology complaint: Michelle Malkin also did (it was picked up at Free Republic), so has Daniel Pipes, and doubtless others. I can't tell if people are oblivious to the use of the word terrorist, or if there's some sort of shibboleth which people are looking for in an article.

But it's not the most difficult thing to check. All you have to do is use the Times' search engine. You can put search for the terms Russia and school, and come up with every article and then look for the word terror using your browser's find function. Or you can add "terrorist" in as a search term and not see any where it's not mentioned.

What makes me angry is that when the Times (or any source) is irresponsibly demonized, it makes it very difficult to maintain a dialog, because a common understanding is also more difficult.

My blog post on this is up. Except for a Robert Klein joke, most of it has been mentioned in some form here...

Most of us here do read conceptually Frank.

And yeah- you don't know what the issue is do you? You think that because the NY Times uses the word terror that means they understand the concept.

You use words all the time with out regard for concepts and meaning.
Like demonized.

You think the NY Times is being irresponsibly demonized.

Idiot.

Grumpy, I have no idea why you behave this way, and I don't care. Were you rejected by Maureen Dowd or something? Cheeses.

Frank, I appreciate your attempt to explain your point of view, even though I don't agree with it. To my mind, the words "rebels" and "guerrillas" in this context are - to borrow your terminology - conceptually inadequate, especially when, I think you would agree, the word terrorist is perfectly valid, perfectly apt.

To my mind the words chosen signify a romantic association that is, given the context, at least mildly repulsive. It is not very different from calling the perpetrators of this most recent outrage 'freedom fighters' or 'patriots', which terms may, in fact, be used next - for aren't the "rebels" ostensibly working for Chechnya's independence?

Torturing, raping, deliberately killing innocent women and children do not, for me, deserve such latitude of romantic association. The Times was right to call this atrocity terror. But, at least for me, the decision to call the perpetrators anything other than terrorists was wrong.

Bernard, a writer is obliged to vary his/her text and vocabulary, though, to retain the readers' interest. I think that now we're in the land of "where do you draw the line?" (Daniel Pipes objected to the Times' referring to them as "heavily armed captors." I fear that reader prejudice against the Times is at work here.)

Note that the Times -- and that writer -- did refer to them as terrorists on several occasions.) I think you have to give readers some credit here: the thread of the stories was always, from Day 1, that they were terrorists; no one was referring to them as "freedom fighters" or any such thing. Readers can follow the thread across articles; I'm sure you'd agree this is not like switching from the Spider Man 2 movie to Dodge Ball and starting from scratch.

Here is a link to some pictures of the massacre of children

http://dailyblitz.motime.com/

Very harrowing.

Frank, it's evident that you don't have many ideas about anything. Even when someone spells them out for you.

"Torturing, raping, deliberately killing innocent women and children do not, for me, deserve such latitude of romantic association. The Times was right to call this atrocity terror. But, at least for me, the decision to call the perpetrators anything other than terrorists was wrong."

Where did you get this idea from Frank?

__Bernard, a writer is obliged to vary his/her text and vocabulary, though, to retain the readers' interest.__

Who is obligating them to that Frank-- you?

Maybe you keep a copy of the The Style Guide for Maintaining the Interest of Idiots at hand when you post on your blog. Most of us here expect more from the NY Times.

Maybe idiots need to be entertained when they read the news in order to maintain there interest. The rest of us find that accurate information is quite sufficient for maintaining our interest.

Kerry is a liar.
You are an Idiot.

Just for varieties sake:
Kerry is a prevaricator.
You are a pinhead.

Frank,
It's really quite amazing; in all your high minded lecturing about the nature of reading and writing you managed to utterly miss the point of the post. The title of it might clue you in to the fact that it was noting the lengths to which the NYTimes goes to avoid saying the savagery was the work of ISLAMIC or MUSLIM JIHADISTS--got that? Your harping on the word "terror" as if its occasional use, interspersed with terms like "rebel", "guerilla" etc., somehow excuses the distortions by the Pravda of the left-liberal establishment, is laughable. But I am delighted to learn that your tear ducts can be effectively jerked by pictures of atrocities.

I missed it too, I guess. And Bernard's comments don't mention that either. Nor Grumpy's. We may have missed your boat, Stephen, but we got on another one that was pretty large.

Aren't you acting like a thought policeman, though? If the Times doesn't say it exactly the way you want them to, you get bent out of shape.

It's as if you want all the footnotes all the time! Beware: I read a recent article there that mentioned someone getting into an "SUV." And you know what? The Times not only didn't say what SUV stood for, it also didn't question whether the travel would have anything to do with sports. So there's another post for you. :-)

That damned SUV!

Well, folks, just to be clear, Stephen's point did not, in fact, elude my notice. But I thought it was obvious and so chose to simply concentrate on what I thought was the Times' peculiar avoidance of one word (shhhh.... don't anyone dare say 'terrorists') in favor of others. I'll grant the argument that, for the purpose of retaining the interest of its readership, other words could have been used to equal effect. One might nominate for consideration words like 'killers' (or Stephen's more specific "baby killers"), 'murderous fanatics', 'homicidal maniacs', 'ruthless perpetrators', 'enemies of all mankind' or even simply 'monsters'. I dare say any of those choices would have worked just as well. But let's face it, such words are freighted with meaning, aren't they? And by using them the Times (or the WSJ) could well be accused of engaging in a kind of overt editorial license. Better to use words without any such overtones, neutral words like "rebels" or "guerrillas" or - a favorite of the Guardian's - "militants".

I get it now, Tad, Frank. Completely.

Hmmm. I see your point that you feel underserved by the Times' failure to mention the Islamic background of the terrorists. Has anyone done any research on whether or not the Times generally fails to point out the religion of terrorists or any other groups, to identify whether or not this is real? For instance, do they point out that generally the IRA are Catholics?

And is the NY Times being unfairly singled out on this? For instance, does the Washington Times consistently refer them as Islamic or Islamists?

Does the NY Times make no mention of them being suspected of being Islamic? Perhaps even in the article which got Stephen going?

"While the extent of international support may be debated, the attacks bear some trappings of Islamic militancy. Officials here in Beslan said they had found notebooks with Arabic writing, and witnesses reported hearing Arabic exhortations, though the attackers mostly spoke Russian."

Stephen, maybe you want to spend some time with the Times' search engine? just put a plus sign in front of every word you want included --- +school +islamic +russian .

I'd rather you checked for yourself, thanks.

"Bear some trappings of Islamic militancy". Bingo, Frank. That's exactly the point. Evasion, fearfulness, wishful thinking--and then disguise the truth deep in the article where it won't scare anyone. The Times doesn't dare to call it like it is: they didn't just "bear the trappings", they WERE Islamic terrorists (not militants). Oh, I guess they just happened to "bear some trappings". Like could it be that having Korans with them, demanding the rule of Sharia and shouting 'allahu akbar' while killing innocents means they are Muslim murderers--I mean 'militants', sorry, 'guerillas'? Oh no, just "trapppings". Now that's Timespeak to tell us not to think bad thoughts about Muslims or Islam. No wonder you approve of the Times: it reassures you that the only thing you have to fear is Bush.

Steohen:

1. Before you got into this discussion here, did you have standards, or have your standards been reactive to Frank's comments? If you had standards, what were they?

2. Before you read the Times article you linked to, did you have standards? Or were they developed as a reaction to the Times article?

3. Before writing your original post, did you check at any time to see if the Times had met your standards in other articles on the series?

4. Before writing your original post, did you check to see if any other newspapers met your standards?

All part of the rigor one should exert before exercising their right to free speech.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not saying you're right, but I'm sure you'd enjoy this blog more if you didn't leave yourself open to charges of sloppiness.

Now go do the hard work, and go through the Times' coverage like Frank did yesterday. And compare it to, say, the New York Post or the Washington Times. Or World Net Daily. Or something. Otherwise Frank will make you sound like some wild-eyed crank. Again.

The only kind of rigor you and Frank have displayed so far would be of the mortis variety- as in rigor mortis of the brain.

Idiots.

Whatever it is that prevents the New York Times from referring to the terrorists as "Islamic" seems to be infecting the White House.

I searched on the word "Islamic" at both the White House web site and the Bush-Cheney campaign web site. At the White House web site, the most recent document using that word is dated August 27; at the Bush-Cheney site, the most recent use is in a document dated August 6. Both, of course, are well before the siege.

What's the White House's problem?

Grumpy, are like the troll that slobbers along side the mad scientist in the bad movies, going "Master, master, master..."?

Naah, Grumpy are more like the guy that had to come along after the idiots paraded thru NYC and sweep up all their garbage.

Thankless job, but somebody has to do it.

Read the latest? They're not so much Islamic as they are nationalists.

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