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May 22, 2004
A Rainbow by Any Other Name
Israel's military incursion into the Rafah refugee camp, during which 41 Palestinians have been killed and thousands of already destitute people left homeless, is called "Operation Rainbow." The latest casualty was a three year old child.
Operation Rainbow.
To be followed by Operation Fluffy Pillows and Operation Cuddly Puppies? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens?
Here's what I think all this sweet talk means: the “Global Public” is indeed the only remaining force that can stand against any unjust military machine or any oppressive institution. Words matter this much to them because what we, as the people of the earth, think matters.
It’s a recognition of the awesome power of legitimacy.
Yes, I understand the-powers-that-be are getting away with their Orwellian twisting of language. Still, it's one arena we should be better equipped to fight back because we have truth, justice and morality on our side and they don't.
Unfortunately, they are very good at this and we need take it a lot more seriously. They had us so totally confused before the occupation that we were arguing whether or not a "pre-emptive" war should ever be carried out --when there was nothing to pre-empt and thus no pre-emptive war to evaluate. During the past two years I saw lots of references to "Bush's pre-emptive war" among anti-war critics, which I thought was not only wrong, but politically self-destructive because for most people if it's "pre-emptive" it's justified since "better them than us."
We should have emphasized this was not a pre-emptive war, by any stretch of any definition, and exposed this ideological wool over the eyes of the American public. That is not to defend pre-emptive wars; it’s just that so as far as this war was concerned, that would have been a totally inappropriate discussion.
Posted by zeynep at May 22, 2004 10:06 AM
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Comments
Heh, great minds think alike. I recently wrote in my blog, "What's next, I wonder? Operation Gaia? Operation Fluffy Bunny?"
Posted by: Robin at May 22, 2004 12:33 PM
When the US invaded Panama and called it "Operation Just Cause," a friend of mine asked, "Why not just call it 'Operation Invade Panama'?"
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at May 24, 2004 10:09 PM