Insurging rebel militants of non-specific ideology - allegedly

Mark Steyn gives us two columns for the price of one. He's driving down I-91, listening to an NPR interview of some Russian expert concerning the Muslim terrorist attacks in Nalchik, when he vows to increase his speed by 5 mph for every minute that goes by without the mention of the religious affiliation behind the allegedly insurging rebel militants. He fails, however, due to an inability to get the car over 130 mph and the vibrations cause one of his wing mirrors to fall off.

He quotes several leading dailys' reports of the incidents and how they describe the Muslim terrorists. NYT - "insurgents"; AFP - "militants"; Scotsman - "rebel forces"; Toronto Globe and Mail - "rebels". Finally, he finds in the Toronto Star - "Islamic militants".

Ah, "Islamic militants." So that's what the rebels were insurging over. In the geopolitical Hogwart's, Islamic "militants" are the new Voldemort, the enemy whose name it's best never to utter. In fairness to the New York Times, they did use the I-word in paragraph seven. And Agence France Presse got around to mentioning Islam in paragraph 22. And NPR's "All Things Considered" had one of those bland interviews between one of its unperturbable anchorettes and some Russian geopolitical academic type in which they chitchatted through every conceivable aspect of the situation and finally got around to kinda sorta revealing the identity of the perpetrators in the very last word of the geopolitical expert's very last sentence.

Then Steyn goes on to explain why the allegedly insurging rebel militants might be rebelling. The Russians are dying out. They've got one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, 1.2 births per woman with high infant mortality rates, and 70% of pregnancies end up terminated through abortion - everywhere except in Islamic territories where it's business as usual in the maternity wards.

The Russians couldn't hold on to Eastern Europe. They couldn't hold on to Central Asia. Why would they fare any better with the present so-called Russian "Federation"?

Russian men now have a lower life expectancy than Bangladeshis -- not because Bangladesh is brimming with actuarial advantages but because, if he had four legs and hung from a tree in a rain forest, the Russian male would be on the endangered species list.

If you're an energy-rich Muslim republic, what's the point of going down the express garbage chute of history with the Russian Federation? The Islamification of significant parts of present-day Russia is going to be a critical factor in its death spiral.

I don't know why Steyn continues to belabor this refusal by the MSM to call a spade a spade. They are not concerned with truth, only with their various reporters' access as well as newspaper sales. They dare not endanger their access to the allegedly insurging rebel militants of non-specific ideology by identifying the cause behind it all and - horrors! - Muslims might stop buying the papers.

TAGS: terrorism, Islamic terrorists, Muslim terrorists