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• 
  By jer 12/14/08 at 10:10 p.m. UTC

  And, just to make this thread even longer, I of course meant "clash" rather than "crash" in my first comment, and my first sentence in my second comment should have continued: "And that still doesn’t respond to the point that claiming that you’re
  overstating the threat is equivalent to dishonouring the dead is ridiculous and insulting".
• 
  By jer 12/14/08 at 10:08 p.m. UTC

  And that still doesn’t respond to the point that claiming that you’re overstating the threat is equivalent to dishonouring the dead. It doesn’t matter how many people participate in the violence, or how consistent and sustained the campaign of violence is, even if I misunderstand the threat, that doesn’t mean I misunderstand the tragedy. Which is what my Swedish example was actually about.
• 
  By jer 12/14/08 at 10:05 p.m. UTC

  I feel like, for two civilizations to crash, it’s not enough for it just to be a group of people, but for it to be a civilization’s-worth of people. So fine, my example of one person understates what the terrorists are about. But your idea of a clash of civilization overstates it.
• 
  By smokesteam 12/14/08 at 9:31 p.m. UTC

  jer,

  If you alone hate Swedes and act, no its not a threat to Sweden, but if a group of people show consistant hatered of Sweden and continue to act on that hatred in violent ways for decades, then your argument falls like a house of cards.

  Thanks for playing.
• 
  By jer 12/13/08 at 3:43 p.m. UTC

  If I go out tomorrow and kill someone because they’re Swedish, and because I hate the Swedes, and want to annihilate Swedish culture, it does not diminish the respect and honour accorded to my victim to acknowledge that, even though I’m a terrible person, I’m still not a threat to the Swedish nation as a whole. That does not at all interfere with memory, honour, or anything else. Similarly, I indeed agree that the terrorists think they’re clashing with "the West". I also agree that each one of those victims deserves to be honoured and remembered. I don’t see that the Times has a difficult time with that. Do you really think the Times doesn’t understand that the victims of the terrorist attack deserve respect, and to be remembered? Seriously?

  Of course the threat of nuclear terrorism is one to be worried about. But that’s a worry from ANY group of well-enough organized terrorists. I’m not poo-pooing their strength; I think we should evaluate it properly. Overestimating is just as bad as underestimating. 

  Even if you do think I’m underestimating their strength, which is a fair position as I imagine that you’re no more of a military analyst than I am, it really rubs me the wrong way when you say things like "the Times and other Center-Left media outlets have a difficult time with this". Or the original quote that you cited about how people underplaying the threat of terrorism are hindering our collective ability to fight terrorism. Even if we mis-judge the threat, it would be nice not to have it implied that we’re therefore complicit in the downfall of civilization, or that we don’t understand why it’s a tragedy for 200 people to be brutally murdered. There are, unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of tragedies every day. Not everyone ranks all of them equally in terms of likelihood, danger, and priority as to which should be dealt with first. Just because I think that (for instance) the economic crisis represents a bigger threat to our world-order than terrorism doesn’t mean I don’t care when terrorists kill people any more than the fact that you believe that terrorism is more important than bus-crashes in countries with poor road maintenance means you don’t care when a bus full of school-children plummets over a cliff. 

  I’m happy to agree to disagree about what sort of threat terrorism poses to us. As long as the people in charge of national security are on the ball, I’m content. I would, however, appreciate it if my disagreement with you were not construed as a failure to understand that the victims of terrorism are indeed victims. 
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/13/08 at 10:29 a.m. UTC

  Jer,

   Do you think the Holtzberg’s would agree with your analysis of the clash of civilizations? According to Talmud, saving one life is like saving the entire world. Same with death. The terrorists in Mumbai were clashing with Western and Jewish civilization, there’s simply no other way to look at it, because the terrorists themselves articulate this all the time. No, they weren’t about to destroy the world as we know it, but they did destroy almost 200 hundred innocent victims. I think each one of those victims deserved to be honored, and remembered who killed them and why. Unfortunately, the Times and other Center-Left media outlets have a difficult time with this.

  I don’t have to see two equally armed forces, like US vs USSR, to recognize a clash when I see one. Poo-pooing the strength of Islamic radicalism just because it’s relatively weak compared to our military will be a meaningless stance if, God forbid, a Muslim terrorists explodes a nuclear warhead in a Western metropolis.  These are very, very real threats which our security forces are constantly on the look out.

   So, in the end Jer, while I admire your articulation and even-handedness, I think you’re committing the same sin that’s made people like me run from the Left: underestimating and constantly playing down the very real threat from our enemies. 
• 
  By jer 12/12/08 at 10:54 a.m. UTC

  What, because it’s had reasonable success integrating immigrants into its society? Horror of horrors! How far from stoning adulterers can we be?
• 
  By smokesteam 12/12/08 at 3:53 a.m. UTC

  is why people talk about Canadistan
• 
  By jer 12/10/08 at 8:28 p.m. UTC

  Just because they believe in re-establishing the Caliphate does not mean that they’re anywhere close to being able to do that. I think for a clash to really occur, both of the sides have to be equally likely to win. When I picture a clash, I imagine two colossi running headlong at each other, swords held ready. This is more like one colossus, armed to the teeth, being charged at by an annoying shrimp holding a fireplace poker and a bread knife. Now, that’s not to say that I think terrorism is not dangerous, and should be ignored. But the idea that the movement to rebuild the Caliphate represents a serious threat to the Western order is, in my opinion, absurd. Insofar as you can group all of Muslim society together as one united "civilization", there is very little interest there in returing to a Caliphate system. Most Arab countries are just as opposed to the "resurrected Caliphate" folks as we are – probably for different reasons, sure – but as much as there is an "Islamic civilization", it’s not clashing with us nearly as hard as it is against the terrorists.

  I too want my enemies identified and stopped; but a proper identification of them requires, in my opinion, an honest accounting of their capabilities. And I think that claiming that these particular enemies are standing ready to overthrow our civilization is a huge overstatement of those capabilities. 

  As for Denmark and the Netherlands: 

  obviously, the murder of Theo van Gogh, and the cartoon fiasco are not good signs. But I’m from Canada, the most multicultural of multicultural countries, and we have not had problems like these. Moreover, this is not the first time huge influxes of immigrants have led to problems with assimilation. But I think claiming that those immigrants are part of a concerted attempt to destroy the civilization of the countries to which they are immigrating is not particularly helpful. Things are certainly bad in a lot of countries with high immigration from Muslim countries, but that’s not true across the board, and there are probably (I’m no immigration expert, and, as I say, my country isn’t having too many problems, so I haven’t really put much thought into this issue) ways of helping the experience of Denmark and the Netherlands become more like that of Canada. 

  I know that when you’re a leftist you have to constantly assert these things so: let me qualify this by saying that I don’t want to diminish the threat of terrorism, nor the problems associated with integrating Muslim immigrants from non-democratic societies into Western countries. Things are indeed bad. Of course. To me though, the thing to be done is not to decry Muslims, and bemoan the fact that we are now in a titanic struggle for survival against a monolithic enemy bent on our destruction; it’s to realize that just like every other wave of immigrants, they will eventually assimilate and absorb the values of their host countries. We should do what we can to speed the process along, and to curb violence while it happens, but let’s not lose perspective.

  That’s all I really want here: not to lose perspective. Twenty years ago, there were two superpowers staring at each other warily over their massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Seventy years ago, there was a war that consumed all of Europe, and most of the rest of the world. A war that introduced us to words like "genocide" and "nuclear bomb". A war that claimed more human lives than any other in history. THOSE are clashes of civilizations.When the Ottomans were at the gates of Vienna, then maybe you could say that Islam and Christianity stared each other down in an epic confrontation. The crusades too. But this? Riots over cartoons and terrorist guerillas? I don’t see it.
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/10/08 at 7:49 p.m. UTC

  Hey Jer,

   I respect our differences, and I appreciate your response, but do you honestly think we’re not experiencing a renewed clash of the civilizations? You seem well read, so I’m sure you’re aware that Islamic radicals — like the a’holes who perpetrated the attacks in Mubmai — believe in re-establshing the Caliphate, except this time they want to take over the entire world. That, my friend, is a clash. Of civilizations. Because unlike a lot of moral relativists on the Left, I will do everything in my power to identify who my enemies are (especially when they’re attacking me) and then work to stop them.

   If Santos and her editors had done their job correctly, we’d have seen the most important media entity in the English-language press accurately identify the enemy of the West. Instead we got a cowardly "unlikely" and "accidental." 

  I can’t prevent the end of civilization, but I’m sure you’re well aware of what the extremes of multiculturalism have wrought in Denmark and the Netherlands. Not pretty.

    
• 
  By jer 12/10/08 at 2:01 p.m. UTC

  That’s fine, I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, but that’s your business. I was more responding to your response to Mr. Muckle. I’m trying to explain why we on the left don’t find this critique very compelling. You’re free to make it, but we’re free not to buy it. At least until you drop all this "end of civilization" junk. Basically, we’d be more willing to back you up on possible double-standards in the media if we didn’t feel that we’d essentially be agreeing to a whole "clash of civilizations" package deal. Drop that part (and maybe offer at least a token criticism for the Kahanist before you give him your kudos for his perceptive insights?) and I’d be far more receptive to what you’re saying. 

   
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/10/08 at 9:31 a.m. UTC

  Let’s say my main cause in life is defeating racism, and let’s say I’m an ethnic minoriy living in the US. If I see a crappy article in the most important newspaper in America do a disservice to my ethnic group — or comment on us in such an ignorant and sloppy manner so that my defenders and allies can’t recognize the virulence of my enemies — then it’s my obligation to speak out.

   I’m not saving the world, but I’m thinking globally and acting locally. It’s a tired cliche, sure, but it’s also the truth. If we ignore falsehood in the public square, who’s to say we aren’t condoning it?
• 
  By jer 12/10/08 at 1:19 a.m. UTC

  I don’t know…it strikes me as pretty absurd to think that most people who don’t realize "how sick and repugnant terrorists are" by now, are probably not all that open to conversion on the matter. Do you seriously think there’s a large pool of people out there who might in principle believe that the Mumbai attacks were horrible atrocities, but because of a weasel-worded NYT article have decided to hedge their bets?

  I don’t even think you’re wrong to be correcting the article, or anything…I don’t think it’s worth your time, but hey, it’s your time. But all this talk about defending civilization is where I draw the line. How well-written the NYT op-eds are has essentially no bearing on the viability of western civ. In fact, it doesn’t even have much bearing on how our fight against terrorism is conducted, and I think it’s a pretty big jump to conflate our success in the "war on terror" with survival as a civilization. Basically, what I’m saying is, nit-pick all you like, but don’t pretend that you’re doing anything more important than nit-picking.

   
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/9/08 at 6:51 p.m. UTC

  LBJACK — I think the point here is that if we ignore the true face of terrorism then we aren’t going to be able to stop it.

  All reasonable people hate Islamic extremism. Especially Muslims, since they’re most often the victims of their co-religionists’ violent fanatacism. (See the PM’s of Pakistan’s op-ed today in the Times. Link below ’cause I’m using Chrome.) If memory serves me, the people who died during the horrible riots about the Danish cartoons were mostly other Muslim rioters or onlookers. Anyway, my point is that it doesn’t do us much good to worry about defending sloppy journalism or pointing fingers at each other. We must concentrate our energy in defeating this new menace, and, as a peace-loving law-abiding citizen of the US, my way of lending a hand towards its defeat is to uncover errors in the press, in the hopes that they won’t make the same mistakes in the future so that more people can be educated about just how sick and repugnant the terrorists are.

  The fact that the terrorists in Mumbai had been planning for over a year to attack, torture and kill defenseless Jews is a vital part of this news story because it reveals the purpose of the attacks, and the nature of the ideology that guides it. For some reason, many, many people on the Left spend a lot of energy poo-poohing the truly horrific evil that is extreme Islam. I think Santos fell victim to that bias — probably unwittingly since she seemed pretty clueless when responding to me — and it’s worth commenting on.

   http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09zardari.html?_r=1 
• 
  By jer 12/9/08 at 3:48 p.m. UTC

  You seem to think that I believe that the Mumbai bombings were justified, because they were performed by the "underdog", which is absolutely untrue. Nor can anything I said be interpreted in that way, so far as I can see.

  I agree my "missing detail" remark wasn’t particularly clear; what I meant was, since any reasonable reader would have already figured out that the attack on Chabad was very likely motivated by anti-semitism, the only interesting question is whether it was planned in advance, or whether some terrorist’s hatred of Jews overrode him in the heat of the moment, and he decided on a whim to head for Chabad. Since the article doesn’t have information to decide between the two, it tells readers what they should already know. There is no need to mention a possible anti-semitic justification for the attack since any reasonable reader would assume it. When American targets are bombed, on one specifically wonders whether anti-Americanism was a motivation; we wonder at what level of planning the targets were chosen, and how important these targets were. The article failed to answer those questions, I agree. But that doesn’t mean that they were doubting that the terrorists were motivated in part by anti-semitism.

  As for denial of anti-semitism as NYT editorial policy: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/world/middleeast/01hamas.html?_r=1">this</a> shows up on a search for the phrase "anti-semitism" on the NYT website. There are other articles that strongly imply the anti-semitism without mentioning it. They certainly don’t mention it explicitly all that often, but I imagine that has more to do with the obviousness of Islamic terrorists’ anti-semitism than with any sort of editorial policy. Anyway, the idea that a paper that has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01kristol.html">Bill Kristol</a> as a columnist has an editorial policy against mentioning that maybe some jihadis are anti-semites is pretty laughable. 

  And, while I certainly won’t shy from the label of "nihilistic pseudo-intellectual", I still don’t see how any of this contributes to the desctruction of civilization. Even if you’re absolutely right, not just about this article (where I think you at least have a case), but about the Times, and the left, and the media in general, you still haven’t explained how our cynicism, nihilism, and continual downplaying of some obvious anti-semites’ anti-semitism is going to help Osama Bin-Laden, or Hamas, or anyone else overthrow Western civilization. Two world wars, over twenty years of terrorism, a cold war, and the threat of nuclear annihilation have all failed so far at bringing down the West. But now a harried New York Times reporter who flubbed some details is going to finish what Stalin, Hitler, and Bin Laden started but could never follow through on?

  Please.
• 
  By Mr. Muckle 12/8/08 at 11:45 a.m. UTC

  Here’s an article by Mark Steyn that adds something to the discussion.

  http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzA2Y2E2MDU2YjQzOTQwZjUzNjcwZDA0OTE3YmFkYzg=

   
• 
  By lbjack 12/7/08 at 4:40 a.m. UTC

  . . . then of course it’s hopeless to expect anything other than the same old same old…either conscious mendacity or rank obtusemess.

  It’s a lie to describe The Times’ coverage as "some ambiguous reporting".  In truth, what is at issue is the persistent and pervasive practice of left-leaning media, be it The Times or the BBC or The Guardian or France 2 TV, to evade or gloss over the malignant anti-Semitism of Arab or Muslim militants, be they Palestinians, Islamist fanatics or common thugs masquarading as insurgents.  No, it is not journalistic restraint, and yes, it is the editorial policy of The Times not to characterize anti-Semitism when it becomes manifest.

  Left wing "dudes" who parse words and offer up incoherent babble, like, "as it’s not really a detail that one might notice if it were missing," are of the same ilk as those who have neither courage nor integrity nor mental acumen to report honestly.  In order to maintain their pose of righteousness, they spout pious platitudes about "the cycle of violence" and paint those who refuse to knuckle under to evil as "terrorists of another flavor."  As I say, they are part of the problem and thus useless to engage, except perhaps therapeutically.

  That Kahane was right is nothing to celebrate.  His recognizing the futility of treating with savages has been born out by events.  The left, the illiberal left, proceed from their emotional need to champion the underdog, regardless the nature of the underdog.  The media do this cynically to foment strife and thus generate news.  England did it to maintain European balance of power.  The left do it to feed their narcissism, the narcissism of all Jacobins, of all who are convinced of their own virtue.  It’s these, be they pusillanimous reporters and editors or nihilistic pseudo-intellectuals, who are abetting the destruction of civilization.
• 
  By jer 12/7/08 at 2:13 a.m. UTC

  The reason “[...] those on the left — intelligent, perceptive people –
  just can’t understand this critique, [...]” is because taking a sentence like “Terrorism may not succeed in destroying our civilization – but
  politically correct euphemisms and apologetics are already crippling
  our ability to defend it” seriously is pretty damn hard to do, and it makes it more difficult to take the rest of the argument seriously too. The idea that some ambiguous reporting makes it more difficult to combat terrorists is absurd absolutely on its face. Then when you go around offering kudos to a dude whose icon celebrates a terrorist of a different flavour, well…

  The reporter’s explanation is perfectly good; the reason the other targets had no ambiguity is because there is no OTHER explanation than their central-ness for why they were chosen. Since Chabad house was the only location where two explanations were possible, it was the only one where doubt was suggested.

  I agree that this is maybe a too-strict editorial policy, as it’s not really a detail that one might notice if it were missing, but to suggest that it’s because of a double-standard (and what is the supposed reason? to suggest Islamic terrorists aren’t anti-semitic? seriously? this is, like, editorial policy?) against Jews seems to…overreach the evidence available. 
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/7/08 at 1:19 a.m. UTC

  XYZ, if you thought the highly trained, highly coordinated terror attacks in Mumbai against Western and Jewish targets weren’t committed by Islamic terrorists — especially after news sources mentioned the "Deccan Mujahideen" — then you either have been living on another planet since, say, September 2001, or you’re so naive as to not belong in the media establishment, never mind posting to blogs.

  Almost immediately it was clear to all observers, especially savvy news journalists, that these were a new kind of attacks, committed by Muslims, most likely from Pakistan, with targets designed to sow maximum chaos in the financial and cultural capital of India. And to murder innocent Jews, among many others, because we are all perceived as "enemies" to an Islam that conveniently posits itself as being constantly under attack, instead of what it truly is: the constant aggresor.

  You seem to know a bit about Indian history — go back and read the language Muslims used around partition, about being victims of Hindus. Not to say that there weren’t horrific, inexcusable acts of violence committed against both religious groups, but if the Muslims had stayed united with India, Pakistan — a failed nuclearized terror state that produces nothing of value — would never have needed to exist.

  But let’s get back to the events at hand. Responsible journalism requires insight, guts and accurate reporting. Not cowardly stupidity.

  The Times has a lousy record of recognizing antisemitism and they continue their less-than-proud tradition. Kudos to lbjack for associating the Times’ criminal non-coverage of the Holocaust with the same kind of nonsense they’re peddling now. If this is the news they need to print, it’s time to look elsewhere.
• 
  By lbjack 12/6/08 at 9:06 p.m. UTC

  The Times was neither prudent nor naive.  There’s an axis of Jewish self-loathing which runs from Times Square to Morningside Heights.  For much of its history The Times have shown a studied scorn for the Jewish hoi polloi, always playing the eager goy wannabe.  Among many, perhaps the most notorious example is the Times’s "Holocaust…what Holocaust?" leading up to and through World War II, followed by "Refugees…eeeeew!"

  They run true to form today, with Santos and her "Jihadi Muslims?  Anti-Semitic terrorists?  Now, let’s not be too hasty."  Followed by her self-serving, disingenuous, boiler-plate, "Sorry if I offended blah, blah, blah…"

  The Times have been playing a duet with their Uptown blow-buddy bastion of Jewish self-loathing, Columbia, whose worthies canonize the likes of Edward Said, host mini-Hitlers like Ahmadinejad, then condone crackpot anti-Israel boycotts ad nauseum.

  These travesties of education and journalism are joined at the hip by the zeitgeist’s great motivator:  "Because I can."

  Santos is practicing no more than a perverted kind of insouciance disguised as journalistic restraint.  As with all of today’s journalists, regardless of subject, the story is mainly about her.
• 
  By xyz6678 12/6/08 at 5:12 p.m. UTC

  Indian novelist and diplomat Shashi Tharoor has long claimed that India is the only country on Earth with a Jewish population never to experience anti-semitism.  In this context, an attack on Chabad in Mumbai was unlikely.  India is not the Middle East.

  Furthermore, at the time of the Times article, it was not immediately clear that Islamic terrorists had, in fact, struck Mumbai.  The city has been victim to attacks by Hindu extremists in the past 20 years, and India more generally has faced terrorist violence by Tamil nationalists and Marxist Naxalites in the same period.  Neither group is known to have a beef with Jews. It would be wrong for the Times to automatically assume that Islamic terrorists were behind the violence.   

  Because at the time of the article the Times didn’t know all the facts of the attacks (the identity of the attackers, their goals, etc.), not attributing intent to the Chabad assault was simply responsible journalism.

   

   
• 
  By PaulLev 12/6/08 at 3:48 p.m. UTC

  Good analysis, Zachary.  As we discussed at that delicious Thanksgiving dinner, I tend to subscribe to the view that we shouldn’t attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.   Ms. Santos may be nice, but she clearly hasn’t a clue, especially about the use of the English language.   She may have meant just the opposite of the Chabad house being an"unlikely" target – that the terrorists deliberately sought out this house, precisely because they knew Jews were there, and this seemed "unlikely" because the rest of the attack was against much more general hotels and public places – in other words, "unlikely" to be insignificant  And this later sentence – "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene." – is just plain stupid.  I doubt that she or anyone truly thought the attack on the Chabad was "an accident".

  Her explanation to you also shows a penchant for unclear thinking and double-talk.

  It wasn’t a very good series of days for mass media reporting on this.  As I pointed out in my MSNBC Runs Canned ‘Doc Bloc’ As Mumbai Burns, one of the major 24/7 all-news cable stations didn’t even bother to cover the attack for much of the weekend.

  But that’s what we have bloggers like you, and blogs like Jewcy , for!

  my books, my blog, my TV appearances,
• 
  By Carl Frikkin Sagan 12/6/08 at 1:17 p.m. UTC

  You read they were Mossad patsies?

  Read WHERE?
• 
  By Shootingsparks 12/5/08 at 3:19 p.m. UTC

  which makes sense, as the Israeli’s are psychopathically invested in ginning up anti pakistani sentiment, as the goal is to ultimately dis-assemble it like they have with Iraq. Further, the attackers had actually been in residence at the Mumbai Chabad house prior to their killing spree…

  So, is it fair for NYT to suggest they werent anti-semites? What the fuck ever…
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/5/08 at 9:43 a.m. UTC

  Sadly I agree with you two. There really is a double standard when it comes to reporting on terrorists, and I think we’re caught up in a liberal bias that values moral relativism over the cold, hard truth — that Islamic terrorists are racist killers on par with the Nazis.

   Muckle suggested a NY Post article that discusses the euphemisms promulgated by the leftist press, and here’s a great quote from the piece which mirror my thoughts exactly:

  "The survivors and loved ones of all the innocent victims of the Mumbai massacres begin the heartbreaking task of picking up the shattered pieces of their lives. But the families of the Chabad House victims have to also live with the double standard that lets the world look the other way when Jews are targets of terror.

  At a house of fellowship and prayer, nine religious people were bound, tortured and executed because they were Jews – just as Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl had his head cut off in Pakistan because, as he told his kidnappers, "I am Jewish."

  Terrorism may not succeed in destroying our civilization – but politically correct euphemisms and apologetics are already crippling our ability to defend it."

  For some reason those on the left — intelligent, perceptive people — just can’t understand this critique, and I’ll never truly understand why.
• 
  By smokesteam 12/5/08 at 12:51 a.m. UTC

  The NYT recently ran an article on Hezbollah’s youth scout indoctrination camps. (see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/world/middleeast/21lebanon.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&bl&ei=5087&en=61c84157cf53464a&ex=1227416400) Somehow they managed to go the entire article without once noting that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization ("the militant Shiite movement") or coming out and clearly stating that this is nothing but a training ground for radicalization of the youth ("Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join
  Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern
  Lebanon") Seriously, WTF is wrong with the editors at the NYT calling Hezbollah a "guerilla army"?

  The NYT just disgusts me nowadays.
• 
  By Mr. Muckle 12/4/08 at 3:49 p.m. UTC

  Glad you noticed my reaction to this subject on my blog. I feel, however, that Ms. Santos was being disingenuous with you. Given the chaos when she wrote her story, I’d perhaps accept her explanation for "accidental hostage scene," although in my experience, hostage-taking is usually a matter of choice, or perhaps the consequence of a series of, shall we say, unfortunate choices. So how about the "subtle, yet important distinction" she was making that led her to use the word "unlikely," a subtle distinction that we rubes whose heads immediately exploded were unable to discern? Was that a product of the chaos?

  Unlikely.

  Like I wrote on my site, using the word "unlikely" reflects bias. Change her sentence to the "Chabad house became a target" – lost "unlikely" – and you have perfectly straightforward factual reportage. "Unlikely" is the writer’s opinion (or perhaps her editors’). Certainly, sitting in NYC, she had no "comfortable degree of certainty" about whether the target was likely or unlikely – so why even go there? Ms. Santos’s article also contrasts the Chabad house with the terrorists’ other targets – crowded, high-profile locations.

  Perhaps I’m overreaching, but how about this for an explanation of the "unlikely": These gunmen had a grievance and wished to make a political statement. Their grievance was, as they stated, primarily with Americans and Brits, who are engaged in a deadly (illegal) war of occupation in the Middle East, and thus any victims of the violence were in some subtle sense reaping the bitter fruit their governments have sown. These terrorists chose the most high profile locations they could – luxury hotels and railway stations. Places with the most Westerners, plus big PR value and the chance to disrupt Mumbai’s infrastructure. But to target an obscure Jewish center with a few men, women, and children – why, that’s just cold blooded murder. That’s not good PR, especially given how carefully thought out the rest of their political statement was. It’s not logical – it’s self-defeating! So maybe it was an accident, because it sure seems unlikely.

  Ms. Santos was looking for a reason she could accept why that the terrorists committed this atrocity, perhaps to explain the horror to herself, but more likely, to try and put it in an acceptable context for her readers. So, at some level, she gives the terrorist the benefit of the doubt. And this is typical NYT behavior.

  I canceled my NYT subscription in disgust over its coverage of Israel, which is a ritual for a Jew seemingly as inevitable as a bar mitzvah. The last straw for me was an article about Israel’s release of terrorist Samir Kuntar from prison in exchange for soldiers’ corpses. You may recall Kuntar, another freedom fighter who came by sea and who forced a girl of 4 to watch her father’s murder before he bashed in her skull with a rifle butt. The way that Times writer characterized Kuntar’s mission was a "kidnapping raid gone horribly wrong."

  What exactly would constitute a kidnapping raid gone right, and why was Plan B mass murder and not, I don’t know, writing a forceful letter to the NYT? This not a question that one can answer with "a comfortable degree of certainty." But do you notice how "horribly wrong" has the same flavor as Ms. Santos’s "unlikely" and "accidental"? It’s the embrace of the terrorists’ humanity, the willingness to assume that they might have desired things to end otherwise than with their making two children orphans, or with murdering a 5-months pregant woman after torturing her, or with the bludgeoning of a 4 year old.

  Zachary, you are a nice guy to write that Ms. Santos is a good person, but how about this – maybe Ms. Santos isn’t a good person. Maybe she’s just a NYT hackette who drank the moral relativism Kool Aid like it was fine Burgundy wine, and who is so besotted by it that she can’t see past her warped world view even in the face of supreme human cruelty. Maybe she lives in a liberal echo chamber where that is how everyone is obliged to talk about such events. And maybe if a person gratuitiously drops the word "unlikely" into a sentence about mass murder, maybe she’s not trying to do the right thing.

  Ms. Santos’s language is absolutely in line with the way other some other press outlets have reported the massacre.

  Check this:

  http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTJhMjA1MDZiNDkzYTE0MzI0NmI2MjdiMTNiMDBhYTg=

  Or this:

  http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/mumbai__deadly_media_euphemisms_141763.htm

  I look forward to hearing what your other readers have to say.
• 
  By Zachary Thacher 12/4/08 at 12:22 p.m. UTC

  I’ve been getting some feedback on my personal email account which I hope to put up here soon. Basically, a few close friends have said the think the journalists weren’t showing bias, or that they were just doing the best they could. 

   What do you think? 

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