Lately, I've been hearing more people refer to criminals in high crime areas as terrorists. I've been hearing more people refer to drug dealers who apply fear to the neighborhoods where they do their criminal activities as terrorists. I've been hearing people say that the dealers using intimidation is nothing more than terrorism.
I am not a wordsmith and I am guilty of loose use of the American version of English, but the use of terrorism and terrorist, as I have given it, is an abuse of the language that should not be allowed to stand.
I understand the seriousness of crime in some areas. I helped board up a dwelling that was being used as a drug den. A police officer saw what we were doing, parked his car, and watched. Later, the people who wanted to get into the dwelling undid our work and continued to do what they did. The only reason why we boarded up the dwelling is because complaints to the city about the problem resulted in nothing. About 2 years later, a 70-80 something year old woman was dragged into that dwelling and raped. The woman was kind to everyone in the neighborhood. One teenage girl heard what happened and told the police that some people in that dwelling had raped her as well. The city then tore down the building.
If the authorities did their jobs, from policing, to applying correct terms to those convicted, to keeping them locked up when they have committed violent crimes, more people would be willing to speak up and help out the authorities.
We don't need to call criminals terrorists. We need to call them criminals and deal with them as such.
Here's the summarizing sentence from the article Long Term Plan Sought for Terror Suspects:
"The Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House to decide on a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions, including for hundreds of people now in military and CIA custody whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts."
In other words, concentration camps are to become ordinary and routine, a permanent part of American life.
Posted by: cnulan at January 4, 2005 09:02 AM