Call them terrorists

Dear Editor,

I've wondered for some time who the news media insists on calling the murdering terrorists in Iraq "insurgents."

Webster defines an insurgent as one who rises in opposition to authority, or a rebel. It also says in the U.S. it is one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of a political party.

Webster also defines terrorists as one who aims to demoralize the government by violence and terror.

The American colonists, according to Webster, were insurgents when they rose up against England. The thugs in Iraq are terrorists, pure and simple. They bomb, take hostage and decapitate innocent civilians. Would anyone compare the colonists fighting for freedom from a tyrant to the blood-thirst heathens in Iraq? I don't think so. So why does the media?

Is it a matter of carrying political correctness to even more ridiculous extremes? Surely, not even the most blatant bleeding-heart liberal would argue we owe these terrorists anything, let alone try to soften the description of what they really are.

We know the stories filed from Iraq are from the big media organizations -- The Associated Press, CNN, the major TV networks -- and they aren't going to change.

But maybe the Gazette could lead the way and -- at the very least, refer to the terrorists in Iraq as "terrorists" in headlines.

Jack Rogers,

McCook