Mark Steyn on the M-Word

Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times column Sunday has the left-leaning media nailed on its coverage of terrorism.

This week's Voldemort Award goes to the New York Times for their account of a curious case of road rage in North Carolina:

"The man charged with nine counts of attempted murder for driving a Jeep through a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last Friday told the police that he deliberately rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle so he could 'run over things and keep going.' "

The driver in question was Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar.

Taheri-azar is admirably upfront about his actions. As he told police, he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world."

And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report.

Each time I read or write about the Left's take on the Islamofascists or the War on Terror, I'm baffled. What on earth can they be thinking? How can they keep protecting the very people who would kill them in a heartbeat? I have yet to come up with any rational or understandable reason for the Left to be so biased against America in favor of would-be (and actual) assassins of Taheri-azar's mindset. But it's obvious the Left is biased, because time and again the MSM refuses to label terrorism by its real name (that would be "terrorism").

If Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar is not a free-lance terrorist, then what is he? Who is he? What's he thinking? In the absence of any explanatory voices from the Muslim community, all we have are the bare bones of his resume: He's a 22-year old UNC psychology major who graduated in December. And what's revealing is the link between Taheri-azar's grievance and his action.

Take him at his word: He's upset about "the treatment of Muslims around the world" -- presumably at the hands of Israelis on the West Bank, of the Russians in Chechnya, the Indians in Kashmir, the Americans in the Sunni Triangle and the Danes in the funny pages. So what does he do to avenge Islam? He goes to the rental agency, takes out the biggest car on the lot, drives it to UNC and rams it into the men and women he's spent the last few years studying with and socializing with -- the one group of infidels he knows really well.

There's more than I can excerpt (there always is with Mark Steyn). I recommend reading it all. We are not safe--none of us--because people like Taheri-azar could be anywhere. Meanwhile, the New York Times and its ilk seem determined to protect those who would kill us, and to thwart those who would protect us.

Related:

Chris Malott has a great post, called "The Enemy Within," on the division within our country over the War on Terror.

When the so-called loyal opposition places politics above the war effort and national security, and when they have an excellent chance of gaining control of Congress this fall... our nation faces extraordinary danger.

Too right!