The Dubya war glossary
Geov Parrish
(WorkingForChange.com,
12 marzo, 2003)
As in all
military actions (can we really call this one-sided massacre a "war"?),
government and media advocacy for the planned U.S. invasion of Iraq has
introduced a number of confusing new words and phrases, or new usages of
existing ones, to the English language. Since many of these are directly
opposite of their intuitive meanings, we present here, for your helpful
reference, a guide to some of these new linguistic developments. Keep
this guide handy by your TV for the next time Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,
Franks, or any of their minions appear on your screen!
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Luis García Montero
(El País.,
5 abril, 2003)
Llevo días buscando las palabras robadas, imaginando una posible
sustitución de las quejas duras y las maldiciones. Llamar a las cosas
por su nombre es violento cuando se habla de la soga en casa del
ahorcado. Asunto difícil, lo confieso, porque no me valen los eufemismos
que van de boca en boca como monedas falsas. Los afectados deberían
poner algo de su parte. Por ejemplo, los maltratadores podrían dejar de
maltratar, los policías dejar de maltratar, los policías evitar la
represión injustificada, los asesinos olvidarse de las pistolas, los
genocidas de los genocidios y los mentirosos de las mentiras.
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Truth is strongest weapon
in war
Jimmy Breslin
(Newsday, Inc.,
June 15, 2003)
It leaps out
that the reason given to Americans for going into Iraq -- to stop them
from blowing us up with nuclear weapons -- was an outright lie. It was
told to America by President George W. Bush. And people died because of
it. What kind of a lie and why it was told is something that only a full
investigation by Congress, full and on television, can tell the public
and tell us who lied and why.
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Loyalty Oath
(Digby,
Digby's Blog,
1-5-03)
Regardless of whether they had bad intelligence or just bad
intentions, for the administration to straightforwardly say to their
supporters that the arguments they had them put forth with such
fervor prior to the war were never correct and don’t matter anyway is,
in effect, demanding a loyalty oath that says they are willing to give
up any claim to personal integrity in support of the party. You can
believe me or you can believe your lyin' eyes.
When you add this to the ongoing and systematic attacks
against any criticism of the President or his policies, you have
the makings of a new order. From this, Brownshirts are made.
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Language of war. Decoding
the jargon of war
Nicholas Watt and Rory
McCarthy
(The Guardian,
18-26/3/03)
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Words of war
Thom Shanker
(The
New York Times,
6/4/03)
A sampling of the latest wartime vocabulary.
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Metaphor and War, Again
George Lakoff
Metaphors can kill.
Professor
Lakoff (Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at
Berkeley) takes a look at the metaphorical ideas being used to
justify Gulf War II. (AlterNet,
March 18, 2003)
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Fighting war
with words: Web site looks for a better way
(Michelle Locke,
Associated Press,
)
On the "Metaphor Project",
a Web site that pushes the power of such positive phrases as "Save
America, spare Iraq," and "Peace is patriotic" as a means to oppose war.
(SFGate.com,
March 25, 2003)
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A bit about words -
Doublespeak
Julian Burnside
Outside the
realm of high art, language is intended to convey meaning. Ideally, it
should do so accurately. Some writers and speakers betray these ideals,
and use language as a sham to mask an intellectual void; or worse, as a
stalking horse for quite different ideas they dare not acknowledge.
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Honesty in Language:
Is This the Way to Achieve Power?
John H. Bushman
(University of Kansas)
Honesty in language, according to the author, is twofold: it is of
utmost importance as we hold our politicians and other leaders
accountable for what they speak and write; but, just as important, we as
a profession must be honest in the process that highlights this misuse
of language.
(English Journal,
National Council of Teachers of English, 2001)
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Kid Row
Geov Parrish
(WorkingForChange.com,
1 mayo, 2003)
Children younger than 16 are being held as "enemy
combatants" in the American detention camp at Guantanamo Bay,
the U.S. military admitted yesterday, a practice human rights
groups condemned as repugnant and illegal.
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Bush Administration
deceptions about Iraq threaten democracy
Us Rep John Convers
(Speech
in the House of Representatives,
June 10, 2003)
"I have seen the American
people apparently deceived into supporting invasion of sovereign nation,
in violation of UN charter and international law, on the basis of what
now appear to be false assurances. The power of the Congress to declare
war was usurped. The consent of the governed was obtained by
manipulation rather than candid persuasion."
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Did our leaders lie to us?
Do we even care?
(R. Steinback,
The Miami Herald,
29-4-03)
Did
Bush mislead us? Was the American public duped into supporting a war
that killed 128 Americans, 31 Britons and thousands of Iraqis, damaged
U.S. prestige around the world and may have worsened, rather than
improved, U.S. security?
We're heading for big trouble as a nation if we aren't even
concerned that our heads of state may be manipulating us by manipulating
the truth. In a nation where hypocrisy is rewarded, expect more lies.
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War Watch. Claims and
counter claims made during the war over Iraq
Annie Lawson, Lisa O'Carroll, Chris Tryhorn, Jason Deans
"Fog" is the watchword of this
war, with the lines between fact and propaganda being blurred on a daily
basis.
Here MediaGuardian.co.uk charts the contradictory claims and counter
claims made so far.
(The Guardian,
9/4/2003)
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War-Speak Worthy of
Milton and Chuck Norris
Geoffrey Nunberg
The
language of recent wars has faded very rapidly, like the memories of our
reasons for fighting them. Within a short time, "shock and awe" will be
a Trivial Pursuit item — like "mother of all battles" from the 1991
Persian Gulf war. War language does a different kind of work now. What
remains with us isn't the words, but the tunes they were meant to bring
to mind.
(The
New York Times, April 6, 2003)
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Ladrones de palabra
Julio Ruiz Ruiz
(Secretario General de Comisiones Obreras de Andalucía)
Con su palabrería, el partido del Gobierno nos hurta algunas palabras
que siguen siendo imprescindibles: Paz, ayuda humanitaria, Constitución,
etc..
(El
País, 25/3/03)
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Bush doublespeak
on Iraq and taxes insults our intelligence
Ralph Martire
(executive
director for the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability)
The author wonders when Americans will get straight talk from president
Bush about the big decisions he's making for their country, such as the
war against Iraq and his tax cut package.
(Chicago Sun-Times, 18/1/03)
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With God and the Bard on
our side
(Peter Beaumont, foreign
affairs editor)
When nations go to war, the public language of politics and the media
becomes a weapon of conflict. It is used to invoke a sense of
solidarity, shared victimhood and a shared purpose. It promotes a sense
of 'us and them' - and of right and wrong - in the coming struggle.
As the United States marked the first anniversary of 11
September and looked forward to an invasion of Iraq, much of its public
language was moving into war mode. (The
Observer,
September 15,
2002)
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