Friday, January 26, 2007
The Language of Wartime
Two things happened today that got me worrying about the Neo-Con war doctrine again. The first was the revelation by Senators Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden that when the White House first asked the Senate for war-powers to invade Iraq, their original request was to allow the use of military force across the Entire Middle East, from Lebanon to Pakistan. This was followed by Bush's decree that US troops were to kill and/or detain any Iranian found in Iraq. This worries me, one, because Iran and Iraq are treatied allies who now share resources and people, and two, it could easily cause an international instant to provoke Iran in an attempt for the Bush administration to circumvent the Congress.
I find it both frustrating and fascinating the way in which language is used, and has always been used, to frame arguments and shift facts away from truth. The largely conservative idea that the truth of something and the facts of something are largely seperate is just a jumping off point. The debate over President Bush's descision to send more troops to Iraq (which he has done several times already in the course of the war, with no success) is a great example: Democrats use the word "Escalation" to describe it, and always in the context of the war. Republicans use the term "Surge" to describe it, and always in the context of Baghdad. On CNN the other night, a Republican Rep attacked Dems who were against increasing the troop level as "Blocking Reenforcments," a charge that plays both to the conservative language game and to the false notion that the left is against the troops.
And finally, with regards to both war and my own personal language. I'd said that the Pentagon's new super weapon was laughably G.I. Joe-like, and it is, and even still it's the wrong G.I.Joe-like direction to go in. The next generation of warfare is going to be largely urban and antiinsurgent. Our Pentagon Engineers should really be concentrating on building something like the A.G.P. from Destro's Genadiers. Seriously. That or B.A.T.S.
--Patrick
I find it both frustrating and fascinating the way in which language is used, and has always been used, to frame arguments and shift facts away from truth. The largely conservative idea that the truth of something and the facts of something are largely seperate is just a jumping off point. The debate over President Bush's descision to send more troops to Iraq (which he has done several times already in the course of the war, with no success) is a great example: Democrats use the word "Escalation" to describe it, and always in the context of the war. Republicans use the term "Surge" to describe it, and always in the context of Baghdad. On CNN the other night, a Republican Rep attacked Dems who were against increasing the troop level as "Blocking Reenforcments," a charge that plays both to the conservative language game and to the false notion that the left is against the troops.
And finally, with regards to both war and my own personal language. I'd said that the Pentagon's new super weapon was laughably G.I. Joe-like, and it is, and even still it's the wrong G.I.Joe-like direction to go in. The next generation of warfare is going to be largely urban and antiinsurgent. Our Pentagon Engineers should really be concentrating on building something like the A.G.P. from Destro's Genadiers. Seriously. That or B.A.T.S.
--Patrick
# posted by Patrick : 4:04 PM
