‘Shock and awe’ and other warspeak
March 31, 2003 | 12:00am
Maybe it’s the result of being too much of a fanatic to the CNN, BBC and FOX TV coverage of the Iraq conflict, but since the launch of a massive aerial assault against Iraq by the USA and its allies last March 22, my vocabulary has swelled. New words, specifically "war words," have been added to my glossary of terms and phrases that can be picked up quite easily as I engage in conversations and discussions about the war.
As we continue to witness the invasion of Iraq from our living rooms, we are being thrown in the world of warspeak, where a bomb is called a "daisy cutter" and "psy-ops," – a revived buzzword referring to operations aimed at psychologically disabling the enemy or destroying by way of bombardment – is disguised in the expression "degrading the command and control infrastructure."
The war words – either resurfaced or entirely newly-coined – are euphemisms designed to tone down the terrible effects to human beings of the harmful images associated to their real meanings. Frank Abate, principal editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary, says the military has "a hundred different ways of saying people are killed. People are ‘taken out.’ Our troops are ‘eliminating a target.’ Although they are in the killing business, they rarely come out and use the word ‘kill.’"
Here’s a list of warspeak culled from hours and hours of war-watching.
• Assets. They are air, naval, strike, or rescue personnel. They can also refer to equipment used to transport people, or a force package like a bomb or a warhead.
• BDA. Bomb or battle damage assessment that determines the effect of all air attacks on targets.
• Blue on Blue. The all-too-common tragedy of allied forces being killed by people on their own side. Just like what happened to an American patriot missile wrongly hitting and downing a British RAF Tornado. The word comes from "wargaming" exercises where the good guys (the coalition force?) are blue and – in a hangover from cold war days – the bad guys (Iraqi troops?) are red. This replaces the older term "friendly fire" which, as Murphy’s Laws of Combat eloquently note, isn’t.
• Coalition of the Willing. A group of similarly predisposed countries agreeing to topple the regime of Saddam, put a stop to the threat of nuclear arms, and give the Iraqi people a less repressive or better yet a democratic way of life. Foremost members of this coalition are, of course, the USA, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia, supportive Middle East nations, and Asian allies including the Philippines.
• Collateral Damage. A familiar word from previous conflicts that alludes to unintended civilian casualties and injuries. Daniel Ward, executive editor of Language magazine, says that "collateral damage" is "an abstract terminology, the use of which separates the public from the idea of human suffering."
• Command Control. The seat of power in a time of war, where strategies are formulated and executions are ordered.
• Decapitation. An operation designed to kill Saddam Hussein and his henchmen. A bold move that aims to speed up the battle plan hours away from the intended time of strike, because a "target of opportunity" shows its head inviting to be cut or fired at.
• Deconflicting the Airspace. Describes the complex process of ensuring that the vast array of weaponry fired into Iraq does not collide. Otherwise it will result in "Blue on Blue."
• Embedded Journalists. Reporters from various media coverage networks traveling as part of a specific military unit. John Collins, a global studies expert and language book author, opines that the word "practically begs people to ask the question of whether reporters are figuratively in bed with the military." What is most striking about the current situation, he continues, "is how the military has been so successful at creating new terms and getting the media to adopt those terms. It shows that the Pentagon has a tremendous amount of power to set the agenda through language in wartime."
The "embeddeds" have crucial access to the strategies of their respective ground units. They are tasked to provide objective, responsible and committed reportorial insights, without compromising the mission of the coalition forces.
• Eye-raq. This is how the American, and even the British forces pronounce the country they are invading to topple the Saddam Hussein regime. A spokesman for the British force, in fact, gave the new spoken form its first outing on a BBC war coverage.
• Fixing. Sealing off the perimeters of areas being invaded to neutralize any Iraqi troops still inside the towns without having to risk engaging them in potentially costly street firing, so that the main advance can continue on to the other areas.
• Geneva Convention. The international provision invoked by both US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair when they got wind that the Iraqi military forces are inhumanely handling their prisoners of war.
• Humanitarian Aid. What UN Secretary General Koffi Annan is appealing for to countries of the free world – lights and water services in refugee camps, food and medicine, shelter and overall humane treatment to of Iraqis, especially the non-combatants suffering from the evils of war. The most basic application of aid is via humanitarian daily ration (HDR), where food packets are airdropped to civilians and refugees alike.
• Manoeuverist Approach. One of the oldest military terms to describe the battle unfolding in Iraq, it describes the flexible tactics that allow commanders in the field and at the main headquarters in Qatar to adapt their plans in response to events on the ground.
• Mercenaries. Not exactly a new term, but this is how Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf called the hordes of American and British troops attacking Umm Qasr and Nassiriya, as the Iraqi "heroes" defend the towns. He told reporters, "Those mercenaries and hired guns are seeing death in front of them. We have drawn them into a quagmire, and they will never get out of it."
• Precision Targets. Bulls-eye. The power of military exactness ensures hitting the sorry recipients of patriot missiles, laser-guided GBs, and EA-6Bs.
• Rapid Dominance. This, according to the Pentagon’s current philosophy, is what follows from a successful "shock and awe" offensive designed to terrify the enemy into submission. As Guardian Unlimited reports, the term was coined by military strategist Harlan Ullman and was documented in a 1996 National Defense University book. As applied to this war, "The idea is to hit the Iraqi military and political structure at all the critical nodes and links with unbelievable intensity, force and simultaneity." The act induces paralysis, desperation, and a sense of extreme vulnerability. In essence you change the opponents’ will and they surrender."
• Shock and Awe. Evokes notions of a quick remedy, as in "short, sharp shock," or "shock therapy," and awe, which is commonly used in reference to a Higher Being, a sense of divine intervention and implying the gratification of the Iraqis.
• Yapping Like a Rabbit. Coined by Gore Vidal, the grand old man of the American literary left, it parallels the sound of noisy male rabbits yapping after mating, to the rabid support Bush and Blair are giving to the war.
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