Wednesday, February 22, 2006

a war by any other name

NPR was mentioning this morning the Bush Administration's new approach to rename "The War on Terror" to something more stirring, something that harkens back to the good ol' days of The Cold War. Rumsfeld seems to have settled on the Orwellian term "The Long War" which I find to be creepy as fuck.

I've always said that there's no way you can wage war on a noun like Terrorism or Drugs. Wars are fought against people, nations, and organizations. So, at least they seem to recognize that it's not going to cut it to keep calling it something useless.

But, The Long War? Jebus cripes, that's scary. Adios, any hope for a quick resolution. And with that you are effectively plunging a generation of people into hopelessness. It's like the Administration has always done all along: keep the public in a state of fear, remove their rights, and then tell them that it's for their own good.

The thing is, I was thinking about this this morning. The only thing that let's them get away with renaming the "war" (wasn't Congress supposed to vote us into a War, King George?) is that it's coming from a unified small group of people who can all repeat the same message. There is absolutely nothing stopping the general public from getting behind the cause of renaming the conflict to something else. All it takes is a unified effort. If everyone were to start referring to it as something else, then the public holds the same power to change the name of this debacle as it's architects do.

So, anyway, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments. I suggest The Wrong War.

6 comments:

EmoRiot said...

How about "The Squozen Jello" - in reference to Scott Ritter's assessment of our war strategy: "It is exercises in futility, akin to squeezing jello. The more you try to get a grasp on the problem, the more it slips through your fingers."

Bug said...
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Bug said...

Well, good luck getting the rest of the county onboard with the word "squozen."

Then again, I should have expected something like that from you. Your naming skills don't translate well to wars.

Stick to the Fleel™.

rooni said...

I'm still waiting for the Headmock to come out. I often think about how happy I would be to own one of those. ;)

EmoRiot said...

How about the "What's so civil about war anyway War" in acknowledgement of the complete badness that has turned over there in the last 24 hours.

Bug said...

Seriously ... what the hell have we done to that poor country ...

I don't know how Bush sleeps at night.