Latest SOTA ('homicide attack')

[Dave Wilton]

The White House use of "homicide bomber" does indeed go back to Ari
Fleischer. Here is the quote where he defends the term, from a 12 April 2002
press briefing:

"Q: At the same time that conservative Republicans are sharply criticizing
this President for his Mideast policy, which they describe as being too
tough on Israel, you, the President, others in this White House have adopted
a term called homicide bombings instead of suicide bombings. Is that a
coincidence, or is this an attempt to pacify his political base that's
criticizing him?

"MR. FLEISCHER: David, I don't think pacification comes from lexicon. I
think people support the President --

"Q: Then why change the term, why adopt this --

"MR. FLEISCHER: I think people support the President because of the
principles that he has so strongly stood for in the war against terrorism
and in his actions here in the Middle East.

"But the reason I started to use that term is because it's a more accurate
description. These are not suicide bombings. These are not people who just
kill themselves. These are people who deliberately go to murder others, with
no regard to the values of their own life. These are murderers. The
President has said that in the Rose Garden. And I think that is just a more
accurate description of what these people are doing. It's not suicide, it's
murder." (Although Fleischer does not actually say "homicide bomber" in this
exchange--it's uttered by a reporter--he does use the term several times in
this briefing.)

And from a day earlier, 11 April 2002:

"Here's how I put it from the President's point of view. I think what he
would say to that, David, is one, he recognizes Israel's right to defend
herself. Israel, of course, had been attacked in a series of suicide
bombings which are really homicide bombings. I think the name "suicide
bombings" is not an apt description of what Israel faced from these attacks
across the border."

Fleischer did not coin the term. I've found earlier uses by an
ultra-conservative, pro-Israeli lobbying group. Unfortunately, my notes with
the exact citation have disappeared.

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net


> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Joanne M. Despres
> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 7:08 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Latest SOTA ('homicide attack')
>
>
> I talked with a NY Daily News reporter from the Washington press
> corps a few weeks ago who mentioned that the GWB's Press
> Secretary (I thought he mentioned Ari Fleischer, but he's been
> gone too long, hasn't he?) at some past briefing asked members of
> the press to substitute a whole raft of terms favored by the
> administration for the words normally used.  One of the
> substitutions was "homicide bombing" for "suicide bombing"; I
> believe another was "enemies of the legitimate Iraqui government"
> for "insurgents."  Anyway, this reporter said that you could hear a
> lot of snickering among the press corps at the suggestion, and that
> organizations including the NYT and AP rejected "homicide
> bombing" out of hand as misleading (since, they reasoned, almost
> any type of bombing is likely to be homicidal), but he said that Fox
> was quite happy to comply with the Press Secretary's suggestion.
>
> FWIW,
>
> Joanne
>
> On 17 Jan 2006, at 15:47, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > You'll recall that it was the Prez himself who observed that
> they're not "suicide" bombings, they're "homicide" bombings.
> Since then, I've rarely heard the phrase "suicide bomber" (etc.)
> on Fox, though once in a while it slips through.
> >
> >   I'm willing to muse that an adviser to Mr. Bush may have
> opined that since many fundamentalist Muslims regard such
> bombings as "martyrdoms" (done out of hope and love - and I'm not
> making this part up) rather than "suicides" (done out of
> despair), "homicide" is less tendentious, punchier,
> and, in fact, incontrovertible.
> >
> >   But "musing" isn't "believing."
> >
> >    (BTW, Fox later reported that the explosion was carried out
> by a "homicide bomber" after all.)
> >
> >   JL "When News Breaks, We Fix It"
> >
> > Damien Hall <halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
> >   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Damien Hall
> > Subject: Latest SOTA ('homicide attack')
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------
> >
> > I forwarded the exchange about 'homicide attack'
> >
> > >>Twenty people were killed in Afghanistan today by a terrorist bomb.
> > >>Fox News Live adds the following :
> > >>
> > >> "It was a remote controlled bomb and *not* a homicide attack."
> >
> > to my girlfriend, who said that the 'homicide attack' part had
> been added by Fox
> > News because they don't use the phrase 'suicide attack'; they
> don't think it's
> > negative enough. I suppose that if you don't want to use the phrase that
> > everyone else uses for these kinds of attacks, you still have
> to have some way
> > of talking about them, and 'homicide attack' is theirs, which
> is sad when it is
> > used in this context.
> >
> > Damien Hall
> > University of Pennsylvania
> >
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