13 November 2005

Why is it that media reports always refer to the death of human beings who happen to be soldiers as troops? They say "three troops were killed today," for example. Why not say three more human beings were killed? Using the word troops seems euphemistic to me. Why make the choice to say troops instead of people, or soldiers? It seems to me that using this term blurs the violence of war and minimizes the truth that people are killed every day in Iraq. It's a form of doublespeak. We have always been at war with eastasia--we have always been at war with eurasia. Operation Enduring Freedom? What the fuck? Operation continuing profit, more like it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The media is bullshit form of communication. Regardless of what news agencies attempt to say is their mission statement as to news gathering and reporting, they're essentially wrong from the start. Just like any business they want to make money, and they need to tailor their reports in such a way as to make money. With the disconnect that so many people in the United States have with the war, to call the "troops" "human beings" would be to personify the people in Iraq too much I think. The U.S.A doesn't care about the individual over there any more, they care about the statistics that get the "information" across. Debating the validity of the information is an entirely different and more convoluted topic. Oh well.

I just remember back to when the war began after 9/11 when the Today Show, every morning, was filled with short biographies of every soldier's death as they started to trickle in at the beginning.