A War of Words

In an episode of The Simpsons, where the characters are projected many years into the future, Lisa becomes president and calls for a "temporary refund adjustment" instead of a tax-hike. "Refund!" says Moe the bartender, "I like the sound of that!"

The pen is mightier than the sword, it is said. Words have power to convince, control and temper reactions. In the seconds following the Challenger disaster in 1986, NASA announced "a major malfunction." The Berlin Wall sounds positively comforting if we would remember it as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" as it was known in the East.

In the volatile atmosphere of war, language is carefully crafted. The dead are "casualties" or "collateral damage." Fire is "friendly," bombs are "smart," and strikes are "surgical." While not rising to the level of Orwellian double-speak, the chosen words are used to distance the fact of war from the death it produces.

The strategic choice of words is particularly evident in the rhetoric surrounding Iraq. In making the case for war, the administration either "lied" or "relied on faulty intelligence." Did coalition forces "invade" or "liberate?" Is the existing fight against "terrorists" or "insurgents?" Do we have an "occupation?"

An occupation sounds imperialistic. Better to call it a "mission" in Iraq. Occupations give rise to a "resistance" but that word conjures up images of a noble France beset by Nazis - bowed but not broken. Insurgents are never referred to as "the Iraqi resistance." After all, those not part of a resistance to an occupying force have been called "collaborators," hardly the "freedom-loving Iraqis" created by a mission.

The "reconstruction" of Iraq is supposed to echo the Marshall Plan of the Second World War but not the ravaged South of the Civil War. The unfortunate victims of kidnapping are always "civilian-contractors" but never "carpetbaggers" - defined as outsiders who come to a region to gain economic advantage after a calamity.

So, words can tap into positive or negative feelings associated with past conflicts. Senator Kennedy likes to refer to Iraq as a "quagmire" thus referencing Vietnam. President Bush has compared the fight against terrorism as "morally equivalent" to the fight against communism - his "axis of evil" characterization a nod to Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" of the Cold War.

An invasion followed by an occupation gives rise to "prisoners of war" who are held in "camps." A liberation coupled with a "mission" fighting terrorism only generates "enemy combatants." POW's have the protection of the Geneva Convention. Enemy combatants exist in limbo. They are either "tortured," or, in the alternative, subject to "aggressive questioning" - especially if they are "high value prisoners" held in sinister-sounding "secret CIA prisons."

Swords are double-edged and words can come back to haunt you. The president stood under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of an aircraft carrier in May, 2003 in what has to be the most infamous example of premature exhilaration on the part of a chief executive. Ever since, there have been calls for a "withdrawal" but Marines do not "cut and run."

9-11 gave rise to the Department of "Homeland" Security and the "Patriot" Act. The words themselves set America on a war footing. Neither side can bring itself to call the other "patriotic." To support military action is to be a "war-monger" or a "hawk." Dissenters are no longer "doves" but "liberals" accused of "questionable loyalty" and of offering "care and comfort" to the enemy. The one thing both sides agree on is to "support our troops."

It used to be that governments removed by force were "overthrown". In comparison, "regime-change" sounds positively cleansing. The word "regime" was used six times by President Bush in his pre-war address on March 17, 2003. The term in vogue now is the more cumbersome "democratically-elected government in Iraq," or, in some middle-eastern minds, the "puppet-regime."

In recent days, it came to light that Iraqi media were being paid to place pro-American stories written by military personnel in the pages of their newspapers. This was not "propaganda" because that sounds rather Soviet. Rather, it was an "information operation" designed to "win hearts and minds."

The characters in this drama are lionized or vilified by the words used to describe them. Saddam Hussein - never the "former-president" but always the "former dictator" - was caught like a "rat" in a "hole in the ground." When in danger, our leaders are always taken to "secure locations." Tony Blair wants to be a Churchillian "bulldog" but instead is criticized by some as a "lap-dog." To opponents, President Bush is a "zealot," "obsessed," or "intractable." To others - "determined," "steadfast" and "steely."

A mission needs to show results. Apparently, there are no "pawns" in this game. There have been so many "high-ranking members" of Al Qaeda captured that they begin to sound like a badly run corporation with too many junior vice-presidents.

None of this should come as a surprise. After all, "french fries" were renamed "freedom-fries" in some congressional cafeterias and, no doubt, in many diners all over America.

The world is being remade around us one word at a time. Shakespeare wrote that a "rose by any other name would smell as sweet." With apologies to the bard, methinks he was mistaken.