Iraq: The Lexical Tar-Baby

• War: Armed conflict against an organization that has the ability to stop fighting. The goal of war is to make the other organization decide to stop fighting. This means that Lyndon B. Johnson, as much as he wanted, could not have a real "War on Poverty" unless the plan was to have tanks patrolling the ghettos shooting poor people. In addition, there would have to have been some way for the entire pantheon of poor to surrender. Likewise, the 'War on Drugs", "War on Crime", and 'War on Landmines" are just political slogans, not real wars. Don't get confused.

  In a legal sense, Congress has a special power to declare a war which it hasn't used since WWII. So real, legal war is long gone and in its place in the comon vernacular we have various combinations of slogans and political posturing. No doubt the politicians are serious about these causes -- LBJ was an effective progressive president -- but he didn't have a war on poverty. We all knew it wasn't a real war, but it made the political wonks feel better to be using such strong terms. It showed how firm their resolve was. It made for great commercials. Oddly enough, LBJ had a war in Vietnam, which he called a "Police Action" because in this case the word "war" might sound too serious.

  We were in a war to remove the Iraqi government. Once that happened, the war was won. Mission Accomplished.

  From this definition not that it is also possible for non-centralized groups to be at war with us (if they are organized enough) while it could be impossible for us to be at war with them -- there's nobody on their side to give up. Let's call it asymmetrical warfare.

• Victory/Defeat: In war, victory is making your opponent stop fighting. Defeat is deciding to stop fighting yourself. We hear a lot about "winning" and "losing" in Iraq, and in the greater war on terror. As a matter of logic and common sense, no matter what the field, winning anything involves measurable objective criteria, not qualitative things like "and life is happier" or "and the Iraqis can govern themselves" or "and the lion will lay down with the lamb" -- such words, while well-meaning and good-sounding, are qualitative -- they don't mean a hill of beans. Give me something I can measure, and I can tell you whether or not your effort was successful. In Baghdad, it seems our current efforts are to reduce the violence on the civilian population there. I suppose this means that we're supposed to start measuring and graphing daily civilian deaths to see how well our project is going. You may know this type of activity from work, if your industry is big into quality improvement. This is just like that, except you get to shoot people.
• Civil War: War by organizations inside a country seeking to control that country. Iraq is not a civil war, because there are no cohesive internal organizations vying for state control by use of violence. It's just a Hobbesian state with Arabs and bombs. Kind of like an evil version of Gilligan's Island with al-Maliki playing Gilligan. Iraq opponents like to call it a civil war because that sounds much more serious than "thousands of armed idiots scrambling for power", which just doesn't have the right ring to it. An added bonus was that Vietnam was also called a civil war so for some people, it's like playing a cool oldies song from the wayback machine. If you see a commentator smile a little bit when they say "civil war", now you'll know why.
• Peacekeeping Mission: The temporary external intervention into a country for the purpose of providing armed support for that country's leadership and to limit civilian casualties due to civil chaos. What is our mission in Iraq? It's a Peacekeeping mission, that's what it is. It is as obvious as the nose on your face. The Republicans all hated Peacekeeping missions back when Clinton was president and the Democrats all loved them. Now that a Republican president has committed us to a Peacekeeping mission in Iraq, Republicans are all for Peacekeeping missions while the Democrats all hate them.

  Now it's politically impossible for Republicans to call it a Peacekeeping mission since that's the thing they all hated those back in the day, whereas Democrats don't dare call it a Peacekeeping mission because of how much they used to be in favor of them. Welcome to Washington, where if you don't like the jargon, just wait twenty years and all the same words will have new meanings.

• Armed Forces: those people and weapons in a country that are put at risk to provide for the security of the country. Originally, the USA only had an army only during a crises: a draft would be called and able-bodied men everywhere would volunteer and bring their own weapons to put their lives at risk to insure the safety of the nation. We were good at that -- large parts of Europe would be speaking German if we weren't. That was working so well we decided to get rid of the draft idea all together and let the girls play along too. So the plan now is to have people sitting around all the time ready to go kill people and blow up things if necessary. We've also gotten rid of that "bring your own weapon thing" because we really don't want empowered citizens. And to nicely complete the 180-degree turn, recently the politicians have been telling us how much they're doing to insure the safety of the troops. It's supposed to be the other way around, guys! They're supposed to be insuring our safety! Listening to some commentators, the military should be like the post office, except you get paid less and have to travel more. Following this line of reasoning, what's next? Labor unions for military workers? Perhaps tour guides for when they visit foreign countries?

  Of course, what better mission to use this concept, "armed forces", than to send them somewhere where the less people are killed and things blown up, the better job they are doing. In some universe, I'm sure this makes complete sense. Only not this one.

• Terrorism: The use of stealth and violence to purposely attack civilians in order to affect political change. It is a form of warfare. Terrorist are not "freedom fighters" to other people. If that's what you think, turn off the radio right now and go out and read some good books about radicalized Islam. I know what terrorists are, and you know too -- if you'd only think for yourself. They're the people who blow up school buses full of children, who crash civilian airliners into office buildings, who kidnap civilians and behead them on television. They're not George Washington or Paul Revere. Back in the 70s, we used to think terrorists were Arab-looking guys with funny accents. If you still think that, or worse still if you have lost any sense of lexical direction at all, study up a bit. You're falling behind. As Brer Fox might say, the tar baby done got you.
• Strategic Withdrawal/Repositioning: To decide that fighting in one spot wasn't such a good idea and to move to another spot where there isn't so much fighting going on. The French strategically withdrew from France during World War II, and the United States strategically withdrew from Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Strategically repositioning forces is not running away: if it were certainly people would not be for it. It's sort of like running away, only with different-sounding syllables and better polling numbers.
• Global War on Terror: the preposition that all nations must renounce the tactics of terrorism as a form of warfare and must actively participate in international enforcement against violators inside their borders. Is it a real war, or on of the "fake" ones? Based on the previous definitions, it all depends on whether we insist -- using force if necessary -- on nations making and keeping a public commitment to fight terrorism. I hate to say it, but you're either for it or against it. If we continue to keep it in that context then yes, it is a real war.

  On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with not taking the issue that seriously, but our language won't let us. Perhaps the Global War on Terror is more like the War on Heart Disease. The problem is that, in this case, people expect "war" that involves the military to mean killing people and blowing up things. How can you have a war against people who want to kill us that doesn't involve some kind of violence? Should we use strong language and foot stamping? It doesn't make sense.

  Adding to the tar is that is the theory that the use of "violence" in this war is causing more enemies than it is killing. Taken this way, and putting all the words together, we seem to conclude we should only have a war against people who like us! Yikes! Tar-baby done got us all.

I have no idea how bad the briar patch is, but from where I stand, we are certainly stuck in a bad way. Here's hoping the fire takes a while to get going.