Rhetoric of Violence.

[Sam Pawlett]

The rhetoric around the current Iraq war games is interesting. I counted
Madelaine Albright using the word "degrade" three times in the same
sentence.There seems to be a lot of Orwellian "we have to bomb it to
save it" and "we have to bomb Iraq to make the world safe for peace"
type stuff going on too.   The phrase "Our quarrel is not with the Iraqi
people" (Oh?) is being bandied about too.The irony is that the very
people doing the "degrading" are the ones being degraded and humiliated.
The coup de grace came last night when a number of pundits were
reflecting on CNN on "why the name Desert Fox". From the World Book
Encyclopedia entry on Erwin Rommel:
"He commanded the Afrika Korps until the British forces stopped him in
Egypt in 1942. His clever tactics earned him the nickname 'desert fox'."
I think the dog is just wagging its tail.

Sam Pawlett