Soxblog comments on FOX's disclaimer that aired during the show "24" the other night. I had meant to comment on this myself. This is the first season I've watched the show, and it's quite good - if one allows more than a teaspoon of suspension of disbelief for entertainment's sake.

I'm sure you're aware by now, though, that groups like CAIR are up in arms because of the portrayal of one Muslim family as a fifth-column sleeper-cell. To the rescue comes actor and show-star Kiefer Sutherland with what I am sure is a well-meaning PSA. You can watch it on the CAIR site here. Here's the text:

The bold is mine and that's the part that jumped right out at me. I doubt Kiefer gets the nuance, but blog readers and other keen followers of the news will find this terminology awfully familiar. Fist, the "all forms of terrorism" is completely boilerplate non-denunciation denunciation that comes out of the Middle East all the time. "All forms" generally includes everything that the speaker considers "terrorism," and as we know, Middle Eastern countries in particular have a definition problem. "All forms" almost always includes what the speaker defines as state-sponsored terror - such as when the United States or Israel defend themselves. To them, this is also "terrorism." I am not picking a nit on this - the terminology is standard and familiar to those who follow the news closely.

This is particularly noteworthy when being trumpeted by a group like CAIR which was founded as a Hamas front and who's representatives never give unequivocal denunciations of specific groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad, instead falling back on the language of equivalency by saying things such as, "We condemn violence by all parties" without distinguishing between the aggressor and the aggressed.

So denouncing "all forms" of terrorism might sound good to the uninitiated, but it gets a wink and a nod from the in-crowd who know for a fact that "it does not mean what you think it means."

Second, of course, is that word "resistance." Terror-excusing groups and nations are notorious for the use of that word, since it justifies what you and I, but not they as we've seen, would define as terrorism. Once the "T" word has been stripped of its definition and turned on its head, "resistance" to "all forms of terrorism" means explosions. Hamas, Hizballah, PLO, Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa - they all blow up buses and school kids in the name of "resistance" of "terrorism."

Hearing Muslim groups "denouncing and resisting all forms of terrorism" and in those terms...it's no wonder that's not a comfort to those of us who have been paying attention. Perhaps next time FOX can find a different way of making the statement in a way that has a clearer meaning.

Update: Via Dhimmi Watch, Debbie Schlussel comments on the PSA.