The Oh, Really Factor

The extent to which Antonia Zerbisias outfoxed Bill O'Reilly last night was neatly illustrated by the rapid and embarrassing retreat he beat when she confronted him with a rhetorical device he seems to be utterly unfamiliar with: a fact.

It was an instructive moment. Confronted with the fact that the BBC never called the IRA "terrorists," despite the their undeniable position as Britain's enemies, O'Reilly disputed whether it was true, in an effort to return the discussion to the more comfortable territory of unsupported rhetoric. When Zerbisias confirmed that she had checked it prior to coming on the program, he again attempted to dismiss it. And when - very shortly afterward - he thanked her and moved on to his next bout of ranting idiocy, he promised to do "research" of his own (which, of course, he won't) to confirm it.

So, when confronted with a fact, the trick is to question it as often as possible, thus neutralizing it.

And we wonder why our democracy is such a mess.

O'Reilly was doomed from the get-go, having opened the segment with the worst possible question he could have asked. Blinded, I suppose, by his sense of moral superiority, he asked how to define terrorism.

That's a bad question, because it directs attention to the crux of the problem: definitions. Terrorism isn't a word with a consistent definition. My definition is more restrictive than Zerbisias's, for example. I regard terrorism as violence carried out by non-state groups seeking to achieve political aims through fear.

Others, though, would say that terrorism can be carried out by states, for example, when they bomb cities from the air. Fair enough.

The US government calls the ALF and ELF terrorists; I disagree, and call them simple vandals and criminals. They may do what they do for political reasons, but they are not truly violent, and they attempt to cause financial damage rather than to instil fear. It is not just that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter; one man's terrorist is also another man's criminal.

"Bomb," though, does have a consistent definition. So when we call someone a "bomber," no one is likely to disagree or become confused.

The clearest rationale for avoiding the T-word, however, was provided this morning in London.

It is still unclear, from current reports, who was behind this morning's attacks, whether they were linked to the July 7th attacks, or why the bombs failed to explode, but at least it is clear by now that the bombs would have been much more destructive had they exploded as (presumably) planned.

But first thing this morning, with no signs of casualties from blasts that appeared not to be particularly destructive, would it have been accurate to call the bombings "terrorism?"

No. Calling them "terrorist attacks" could actually have been misleading. For all anyone knew, they could have been someone's unaccountable idea of a prank, or someone's attempt to demonstrate that not enough is being done to secure the transit system, or a copycat's attempt to make himself famous. Are those things terrorism, or crime?

A bomb is always a bomb, but it is not always a terrorist bomb.

So why not call a bomb a bomb?