Getting the camel through the eye of the needle is a very manageable task if we are talking about American language used during the ongoing war in Iraq. Indeed, you can get an elephant through the smallest of openings since the premise is nothing less than contempt for humanity’s intelligence.
A new set of twins was born to enter history along with the R&R of Rome:
Shock and Awe. As verbs and/or nouns, the two words do not indicate death in any sense or form. You cannot shock a corpse. If the killing is intended to shock and awe the remaining living, the term to use is terrorism. Yet, it seems the megabombs being dropped on Baghdad are not terrorizing anyone, though they manage to kill. The populace is still there.
If you are an independent journalist covering the war as objectively as possible, you will either be killed or disappear in mysterious circumstances. To avoid this, you have to be “embedded” with some unit of the invading armies. They will protect you, indoctrinate you, revise your copy, and cut your rations if you tell the truth.
The term is rather unfortunate in its use. It gives the notion of being implanted or rooted in something, which is anathema to journalism altogether. It also has a vague negative hue to it.
Psychologically, however, if you are embedded rather than attached or joining an army group, then you tend to see the shells coming from the other side as being fired against you personally or against the buddies you have been implanted amongst. And here lies the US Army’s kernel of malice. How else would you get, for example, a Walter Rogers of CNN shouting at the top of his voice with orgasmic vigor “We are watching history being made”?
What were we watching? A column of tanks crossing the desert unopposed. I wonder what happened to that history when the column got bogged down at Nassiriyah?
A US soldier was interviewed by one such journalist and said, “There are fanatics shooting at us from the other side.”
A soldier should know that the other side is manned by other soldiers like himself. They are called the enemy. They might be fanatical, a commendable and indeed desirable trait to have in the heat of battle; but they should not be personalized.
The Americans have managed to personalize everything to do with themselves. If you fight me, you are simply a fanatic. Never mind that I’m invading your country, bombing your cities to oblivion, and doing it with such vulgar bravado.
A new use of the term terrorism is entering another American phase. Any act of resistance to their presence as invading troops is now termed terrorism.
In the face of the overwhelming power the Americans are bringing into this war, the Iraqis have to be creative and non-conventional. It is called resistance. Over the ages such resistance produced people like George Washington and Charles de Gaulle. But to a general quoted on television, the matter is simpler. “Every Iraqi is a potential terrorist,” he said.
To all the lawyers who thought they knew their international law very well, the Americans bring glad tidings: Go back to school and learn it again. The Americans are furious that the Russian might be selling equipment to the Iraqis “in clear violation of UN sanctions.” Considering that they are invading a country in violation of everything that came out of the UN, such statements are daft. The Americans want their opponents to be naked, unarmed, and preferably crippled so they can bomb them from such lofty heights.
From a linguistic point of view, we now should understand that the UN means the US.
Armies have fought bitterly over strategic positions or towns. The first such location in this war was Umm Qasr. The Americans would not have us believe that they want this town because it is the only port of Iraq; rather, they want it so they can bring in “humanitarian” aid. Basically, they want to bribe the populace while they besiege Basra, a city of a million people, at the time of writing without electricity or water.
The Americans have complained about interviewing POWs on television. They are right, it should not be done. Yet, when John Walker Lindh, the American Taleban, was wounded and captured, who stuck a microphone in his face and aired it all over America? They say it was not an “interview” since it was done by an “independent” journalist.
So the new use of the term means that state television is not allowed to interview POWs, but independent journalists can. Never mind that the interviews are aired on the same television screens the world over.
