I blogged about the recent chlorine gas bombings in Iraq and how the media reports and labels the story. Even though people in Iraq are now using crude chemical weapons, the media refuses to call it terrorism or the bombers terrorists. Why are they so reluctant to use the term "terrorist" and instead use the more neutral and inpartial "insurgent" or "militant?" Maybe it would help if "domestic" were added. The media was willing to call Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh "domestic terrorists" who committed "domestic terrorism"; why the reluctance with Iraq and Afghanistan?

Why isn't it at least called "Iraqi domestic terrorism," or something similar, when Iraqis bomb their own buildings in their own country in an attempt to kill their own civilians? Surely if Rudolph is a domestic terrorist, then an Iraqi bombing an Iraqi mosque is as well. Why is that Iraqi bomber an insurgent and Rudolph or McVeigh a terrorist? Maybe it is like that riddle that asks, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it; did it make a sound? If a man commits terrorism, and no one in the media calls him a terrorist; is it terrorism? Could that be the media's point?