In the carnival-mirror world of Washington bureaucracy,language is used to obscure more often than communicate the presence and role of US troops
When it comes to describing our military engagements across the world, Orwellian seems to be the language of choice for the US government. They consistently use the alchemy of bureaucratic language to transform words with clear meaning into jargon. This baffles any attempt to truly inform the public and keeps our national defense insidery and anti-democratic.
retract the phrase “boots on the ground”. The literal meaning of the words seems clear enough, or the colloquial use of the phrase – defined as “American forces deployed to a foreign country” is unambiguous. So why was there such an awkward debate over this phrase after Barack Obama’s announcement final month that special forces advisers would be deployed to Syria?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com