How to Talk Terror

Deroy Murdock has a must-read column on the use of language in the War on Terror. Must-read for anyone who wants us to win it, that is:

Victims of terrorism do not "die," nor are they "lost." They are killed, murdered, and slaughtered.

Likewise, many say that people "died" in the Twin Towers and at the Pentagon. No, people "die" in hospitals, often surrounded by their loved ones while doctors and nurses offer them aid and comfort.

The innocent people at the World Trade Center, the Defense Department, and that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were killed in a carefully choreographed act of mass murder.

Specify the number of human beings who terrorists destroy.

— "3,000" killed on 9-11 sounds like an amorphous blob. The actual number — 2,977 — forces people to regard these individuals as men and women with faces, stories, and loved ones who miss them very much.

— The precise figures are 2,749 killed at the World Trade Center, 184 at the Pentagon, and 44 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

— Likewise, the Bali disco bombings killed 202 people, mainly Australians.

— The Madrid train bombings killed 191 men, women, and children.

Somehow, a total of 191 people killed by al Qaeda's Spanish franchisees seems more ominous and concrete than a smoothly rounded "200."

Amen.

2,977 Americans crushed and incinerated.

We shall never forget.