Telling it like it isn't

Thanks to Bob for the link.

The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as "resistance fighters," saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.

[Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who issued the ban,] said she considered "resistance fighters" an accurate description of Iraqis battling American troops, but it also evoked World War II -- specifically the French Resistance or Jews who fought against Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.

McCoy on Wednesday said that the memo followed a discussion among top editors at the paper and was not sparked by reader complaints.

"Really, it was something that just stopped us when we saw it, and it was really about the way most Americans have come to view the words," McCoy said. McCoy said she was confident that the Times reporters who used the term had no intention of romanticizing the Iraqis who have killed more than 100 U.S. soldiers since Washington declared major combat over in May, and that the paper's Baghdad bureau had no objection to the policy change.

And the dead Iraqi civilians are "collateral damage". And thousands of them are "an acceptable casualty rate". And the enemy commanders are "high value targets". And poor little kids with their arms blown off are "non-combatant casualties". And killing an Iraqi is "servicing a target." And Iraqi bunkers getting blown apart are "being softened up". Dropping bombs is "kinetic targeting". A bombed out region is a "sanitized area". American soldiers are "boots on the ground". Body bags are "transfer tubes".

And increased attacks against Americans are signs that we're winning.

...On Tuesday, the day after McCoy issued her memo, the paper used it in an editorial, which criticized the Bush administration for a lack of humility and candor over Iraq.

Is that an oops?

I wonder what the penalty is for breaching "security review" (or what used to be called "censorship") at the L.A. Times.

Write what you're told. How you're told to write it. What do you think you are? Reporters or something?

...but hey...do what you want...you will anyway.