Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

These incessant and morbid portrayals

The head of the Australian Defence Force is today referring to engagements with 'anti-coalition militia elements' in the Afghanistan deployment. The UN is describing a 'growing threat from the Taliban and other illegal armed groups' and the 'threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan posed by the Taliban, al Qaeda, [and] other extremist groups.'

A military news site refers to 'Coalition forces [attacking] a Taliban command cell'. Forbes talks of 'foreign militants' before quoting President Musharraf as not being willing to 'tolerate the presence of these terrorists in Pakistan' (but obviously willing to use the 'T' word.) Xinhua quotes an Afghani commander describing the ambush of 'Taliban militants'; while Bloomberg describes the same incident as engaging 'the Taliban militia'.

However, in Iraq, the US military talks of working 'to find and destroy terrorist caches' (with undertones of the infamous 'search and destroy' phrase from Vietnam), 'insurgents' and 'suspected terrorists', but also 'ethnic-sectarian incidents'.

USAToday pertinently quotes Michael Waller from The Institute of World Politics:

'Incessant, morbid portrayals of an individual, movement or mortal enemy might rally support for the American side, but they have a shelf-life that gets tired over time. Constant specters of unrelenting dangers risk sowing defeatism and chipping away at our own morale. Abroad, they risk making the U.S. look like a bully in some places and surrender the propaganda advantage to the other side.'

Is the language used to describe these 'specters of unrelenting dangers' being deliberately diluted to make the threats seem vague and yet more pressing at the same time, for 'propaganda advantages'? It seems the 'freedom spread experiment' (as one American columnist describes their two costly interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq) is extracting too high a price on both lives and credibility: diffusion of the language certainly makes for a smaller target for critics.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 1:25 pm ::