In our efforts to be politically correct we are unable to describe al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization or East Germany as a totalitarian regime. Thus we distort reality and drift off into a fantastic world where there is no black and white, no values and ultimately a rather poor encyclopedia that can't be trusted.
Fred
From: Viajero viajero@quilombo.nl Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 12:57:10 +0100 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] "militant": dishonest euphemism? (was: Re: The word 'terrorist')
As I've indicated in earlier discussions on this topic, I agree of course with Delirium. Alas, it appears however that there is far from concensus on the matter within the community at large. An ongoing revert war has been taking place over in the first line of the article on Bin Laden:
[...] is the leader and head of al-Qaeda, widely regarded as the most extensive terrorist organization in the world
Adam Carr, for example, insists on "terrorist" while others replaces it with "militant". Adam wrote on the Talk page:
However, I don't mind the deletion of the word from the opening paragraph, provided it is not replaced with the dishonest euphemism "militant." Adam 06:29, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)
It is a pity that Adam Carr isn't here on the list to defend this argument.