Bill
09-14-2007, 05:51 PM
Fun little article on rhetoric...
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Even the White House is getting in on a little B&T. Briefing reporters, press secretary Tony Snow lectured that in the long run, failure in Iraq would “require a much greater expenditure of U.S. blood and treasure.”
Expenditure? There’s an interesting word choice (we’re sorry, but we had to expend your son’s life in Iraq), and it says a lot about why B&T has become so popular. Like all euphemisms it puts comforting distance between ourselves and the violence in Iraq by making something brutal and ugly sound lofty and poetic. Death and destruction is depressing. But expenditures, that’s just spreadsheets. B&T is all about making the war easier for us here at home.
Try this: Next time you hear someone use “blood and treasure” to make a point for or against the war, substitute the words “dead Americans and money.” It has a whole different ring to it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20773657/site/newsweek/
Needless to say, the innocent dead Iraqis aren't even worth a mention.
"Purity"
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Even the White House is getting in on a little B&T. Briefing reporters, press secretary Tony Snow lectured that in the long run, failure in Iraq would “require a much greater expenditure of U.S. blood and treasure.”
Expenditure? There’s an interesting word choice (we’re sorry, but we had to expend your son’s life in Iraq), and it says a lot about why B&T has become so popular. Like all euphemisms it puts comforting distance between ourselves and the violence in Iraq by making something brutal and ugly sound lofty and poetic. Death and destruction is depressing. But expenditures, that’s just spreadsheets. B&T is all about making the war easier for us here at home.
Try this: Next time you hear someone use “blood and treasure” to make a point for or against the war, substitute the words “dead Americans and money.” It has a whole different ring to it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20773657/site/newsweek/
Needless to say, the innocent dead Iraqis aren't even worth a mention.
"Purity"