Andrew Hagen

Under the pseudonym “Juan Non-Volokh,” an unknown writer bravely charges out against the fashionable, Orwellian term, “homicide bomber.” (*) This anonymous person has a good point in not only that the term, popularized by Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (†), is intrinsically redundant, but also that “the only purpose of inserting the word ‘homicide’ is to make a political statement. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of the English language.” There have been other forceful criticisms of this egregious Newspeak in Squiish (‡), and from Tapped (§) and Japan Times. (**) Let’s systematically take the term apart.

• The term bomber refers equally to any soldier in a regular military unit whose task is to bomb the enemy, and to any terrorist bomber. When a bomber bombs, he is trying to kill someone. A bomber who succeeds in his mission has killed at least one person.
• The term suicide refers to an act that is inherently shameful under Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
• The term suicide bomber refers to terrorist bombers who kill themselves in the process of killing others with a bomb. It could also refer to kamikazes in regular military units, such as Japan’s kamikaze airmen in World War II. Usually, however, the term suicide bomber refers to terrorists, fighters who for political purposes primarily target civilians and are themselves not in regular military units.
• The term homicide refers to the killing of another, whether murder or self-defense. A suicide cannot be a homicide, because the suicide in itself does not result in the killing of another.
• The term homicide bomber, analogously to the term homicide, refers to the killer of another, whether he is acting in self-defense or aggression. It refers to anyone who uses a bomb to try to kill other people. Examples include a B-52 bombardier, Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, and the Bali bombers.
• Therefore, the term homicide bomber when applied to a suicide bomber, leaves out the important information that the bomber shamefully committed suicide in the act of trying to kill others.

As the critics have noted, this is a purposeful omission that is meant to advance a certain political agenda.

In fact, it does not advance that political agenda very well. As Joseph Lelyveld observes in the New York Times of 28 October 2001, the Arab media is wont to use not suicide bomber, but martyr.

In Gaza, a poll taken in June that Palestinian and Israeli analysts both respect found that 78 percent of the population approved of the attacks carried out in their name in Israel or on its frontiers — more by a long shot than presently approve of peace negotiations. In Gaza, in other words, support for bombings staged in support of the Palestinian cause has become a cultural norm.

Only, since it’s universally accepted that suicide is contrary to the teachings of the Prophet, they are hardly ever called ‘’suicide bombings.'’ That term — our term — can be translated into Arabic but seldom is. Those we call suicide bombers are called shaheed, or martyrs, which is how bin Laden has urged the entire Muslim world to view 19 hijackers who extinguished more lives in an hour and a half on a golden American morning than all those killed over the years, on both sides, in two intifadas and nearly five dozen suicide bombings launched by Palestinian groups — three times more, in fact.

(††) Surely Ari Fleischer must know this. The conclusion must be drawn that Ari Fleischer believes that those who usually hear the term suicide bomber—that is, those in the West—are not sufficiently opposed to suicide bombings, and that deception through Orwellian language is necessary to trick them into firmer opposition. It is upon this point that Fleischer’s reasoning founders.

We should condemn suicide bombings in the strongest possible terms. To rely on deceptive language such as with the term homicide bomber, only weakens our condemnation. The strongest condemnation is to hang the terrorists on the hook of their own making: their double shame of suicide and murder. If anyone’s rhetoric is in need of correction by Ari Fleischer, it is that of the Arab media as it shamefully portrays suicide bombers as heroes for the sake of boosting their own ratings and profits.

Update: 29 November 2003. Fixed Volokh URL.

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