In an overview of why oil prices are high that surveys the supply situation in various oil producing countries, we find this:
Exports of Kirkuk crude from [Iraq]‘s north are stabilizing as the system recovers from technical problems that had mostly idled the pipeline since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
emphasis added. Don’t think we’ve heard “technical problems” used as a euphemism for terrorist attacks before.
Lots of euphemisms going around lately:
Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as “jihadists” or “mujahedeen,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like “Islamo-fascism” is out, too.
Well, the memo apparently didn’t get to the jihadists themselves, who do, indeed, believe that jihad means holy war and in this video promise to “slit the throats of Americans and Jews” (watch.)
Didn’t get to this Islamist cleric either.
Nor to Al-Qaeda Leader Abu Yahya Al-Liby:
Jihad, which is the highest form of dissociation from non-Muslims, should be waged against the Jews, like it should be waged against the Christians, the Zoroastrians, the Hindus, and the apostates. [...]
We fight all the polytheists, just like they fight us all. We do not limit ourselves in this. We do not restrict ourselves to one type [of infidels] or to one region. This [Jihad] will continue until they all submit to the religion of Allah, yield to its laws, and surrender to its rule. [...]
Yes, we believe that the entire world must be ruled by Islam, and no grain of soil should be made an exception, because the Prophet Muhammad was sent to all people without exception. This does not mean, however, that we must fight all peoples of the world at once, in order to subject them to Islamic law. Islam did not command us to do so. Islam commanded us to fight the closest and then the next, from among the people who refuse to submit to the rule of Islam. We should move from the closest to the next, and widen the circle, until all people submit to the rule of Allah. We are now at the beginning of the road, when we try to regain the lands taken over by the infidels, from among the Jews, the Christians, their apostate supporters, and treacherous rulers.
What would our government, in its infinite wisdom, like us to call jihadists? “Banana”?
Something tells me bin Laden is laughing in his cave.