Questions for and about the BBC

On Thursday I posed the question - somewhat rhetorically - why the BBC was suddenly willing to use the word 'terrorists' to describe terrorists, where otherwise it is more hesitant about doing so. By Friday I had had the following response from someone within the BBC itself:

I saw your question about why the BBC switched from "militants" to "terrorists". The rule has always been officially that on World Service no one is a terrorist, while on domestic the IRA and ETA are. Seems you have to attack Brits or allies to be terrorists. 9/11 attackers were initially terrorists too, if you recall. Muslims weren't terrorists on domestic TV through some sort of liberal cringe. That may change briefly, but will switch back when the "in a real sense aren't we all to blame?" stuff creeps out of the sewer - believe me.

That was prescient.

I have a couple of further questions now. Terrorism, which involves the deliberate targeting of civilians with a view to killing and maiming them and if possible in large numbers, is a crime against humanity under international law. It is not, consequently, a partisan matter to refer to terrorists as 'terrorists'. It is simply to fall in with a moral standard already recognized as universal in human rights thinking and legislation. If the BBC regards the term as overly judgemental, why do they not have similar taboos or coynesses with regard to 'torture'? Shouldn't this, too, be spoken of more neutrally as 'pressure', 'questioning', or what have you? Even 'genocide' can be sanitized with less direct words. Here's another kind of question. Why do members of the British public have to pay a licence fee to support this obnoxious neutralization of language?