A War By Any Other Name….
By Pat Racimora on April 16, 2009 at 6:25 PM in Afghanistan, Current Affairs, Iraq
It appears that the Obama Administration wants to fiddle with our perceptions of terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not by actually doing anything except to neutralize the associated words to come off as emotionally flat, yet pedantic enough to give the false impression that they have some deeper meaning.
The wars are now “overseas contingency operations.” That conjures up an image just a skosh riskier than planning a trip to Europe and, at the same time, as boring as reading the tax code.
Terrorism is being referred to as “man-caused disasters.” That term could also be applied to a defective Pinto or even my Uncle Jerry’s dreadful jokes.
Obama’s team is without peer when it comes to successfully selling perceptions, at least during the primaries. (How else could a junior Senator with little relevant experience be elected as the leader of the free world in a time of colossal national and international peril?)
But these two attempts to flatten out the horrors of war and terrorism go too far! Does the administration really think we are all idiots?
Apparently so. The Washington Post outlines how various officials have switched from using the term “war” to using “overseas contingency operations” instead. And Spiegel International interviewed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who, upon being asked why she did not use the term “terrorism,” stated:
I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word “terrorism,” I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
A nuance? Did she say this with a straight face?
Joe Queenan, writing for the Wall Street Journal, decided to have some edgy fun with how our adversaries’ gruesome practices could also be made more palatable using word tricks. Here are a few of them:
“Beheading” might be renamed “cephalic attrition.”
“Flayings,” a barbarously exotic style of execution, might become “unsolicited epidermal reconfigurations.”
Cutting off captives’ arms could be called instead “appendage furloughing.”
And finally, “jihad” might be more acceptable if known as “booka-bonga-bippo,” which Queenan thinks has a more “zesty, urban, youthful, and ‘now’ feel.”
It’s a little harder to apply obfuscating euphemisms to our own politics and policies because so much has already been done in that regard. What better term than “stimulus plan” as the euphemism for “raiding the taxpayers’ treasure“? Any other ideas for this outrageous practice of attempting to hide painful realities under a cloak of verbal nonsense?
by Ronald Scott
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