[Reader-list] Selling War (from the Washington Post0

Fri Sep 21 23:39:18 IST 2001

I found this story tucked away in the Washington Post's on-line edition. An 
interesting insight into the selling of war
Ravi
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Operation War Language
How the Pentagon Mints Its Campaign Monikers
By Linton Weeks

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 21, 2001;

First the U.S. military operation to lash out at Osama bin Laden was 
officially nicknamed Infinite Reach. Then Noble Eagle. Then Infinite 
Justice. But yesterday, that last name was being rethought because some 
Muslims might find it offensive, according to Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld.

What shall we call it, then? In another time, David Letterman's Top 10 List 
writers would have had a heyday with the question.
Not now. The language of war is a serious, singular, often inscrutable and 
important art.

"People have such complex associations with words," says Deborah Tannen, 
professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. "I'm not surprised that 
some Muslims objected to 'Infinite Justice.' It shows that the associations 
are not always predictable."

And the fact that naming this campaign is like tacking mercury to a tree 
illustrates what a slippery business this war on terrorism could prove to be.

Giving nicknames to operational thrusts is a relatively new pursuit in the 
history of warfare, going back to the middle of the 20th century.
Nowadays, the choice of operation names is made using computer-suggested 
terms, says a Pentagon source.

Since 1975, the process has been aided by various software called the Code 
Word, Nickname and Exercise Term System. "Basically what happens," says the 
Pentagon source, "is that each of the theater CINCs -- the commanders in 
chief, that is the admirals and generals in charge of regional theaters -- 
is given a database of words."
He continues: "A name is randomly selected -- normally a word that is 
pertinent to that region -- like 'desert' in Desert Storm and Desert 
Shield," for operations in the 1991 Gulf War.

The commanders are then presented with a new database of words. They choose 
another word they like and pair it with the first. They are given some 
leeway, but they are instructed about which two letters to use first. In 
1983, for instance, when the United States invaded Grenada, the Atlantic 
Command was asked to come up with a name whose first two letters were U and 
R, for complex reasons of cyber-military protocol. The result: Urgent Fury.

The officers then send that two-word phrase "up the chain of command," the 
source says. Unacceptable phrases are weeded out, one after another, by 
people in charge. Ultimately the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of 
defense pick one.

Between 1975 and 1988, names were pretty meaningless, writes Gregory 
Sieminski in the August 1995 issue of Parameters, the U.S. Army War College 
quarterly. The Libyan raid in 1986 was named Eldorado Canyon and the 1988 
airstrike campaign against Iranian ships and oil platforms was dubbed 
Praying Mantis, as a guarantee against embarrassment.

In his 1991 book "The Commanders," Bob Woodward writes that when Gen. James 
Lindsay, head of the Special Operations Command, learned in 1989 that the 
United States was planning to invade Panama, he phoned Lt. Gen. Thomas 
Kelly, on the Joint Chiefs staff, to talk about the name.

Lindsay said he did not want the campaign to have a silly name. "Do you 
want your grandchildren to say you were in Blue Spoon?" he asked Kelly.

After the call, Kelly summoned his deputy for current operations, Brig. 
Gen. Joe Lopez.

"How about 'Just Action'?" Kelly said.

"How about 'Just Cause'?" Lopez suggested.

Sieminski writes: "Since 1989, major U.S. military operations have been 
dubbed with an eye toward shaping domestic and international perceptions 
about the activities they describe."

For example: Operation Provide Comfort in Turkey and Operation Uphold 
Democracy in Haiti.

For centuries, humans waged military campaigns that were more or less 
anonymous, leaving the naming to historians. The practice of soldiers 
naming martial operations apparently began in Germany near the end of World 
War I. In America, the War Department used color names for operations just 
prior to World War II.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill harbored strong convictions on the 
subject, according to Christopher Chant's 1985 Encyclopedia of Code Names 
of World War II.
"Operations," Churchill said, "ought not to be described by code-words 
which imply a boastful and over-confident sentiment." And names "ought not 
to be names of frivolous character. They should not be ordinary words." And 
"Names of living people should be avoided."

Perhaps this is what made Rumsfeld reconsider "Infinite Justice." "The U.S. 
doesn't want to do or say things that create an impression on the part of 
the listener" that the campaign is against the Muslim religion, he said at 
a news conference yesterday.
But in the mid-1940s, the U.S. Army began to use nicknames to inspire the 
troops and the populace. And many of Churchill's rules applied. W.H.P. 
Blandy, a vice admiral and commander of the joint task force on atom bomb 
testing on Bikini Atoll in 1946, called the endeavor Operation Crossroads. 
He chose the name carefully, he told a Senate committee, because "sea 
power, air power, and perhaps humanity itself . . . were at the crossroads."

In Korea, operations received tough names: Roundup, Courageous and Killer. 
During the Vietnam War, bellicose names were softened by shifting public 
sentiment. Operation Masher became Operation White Wing.

As the Gulf War neared, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf chose the name Peninsula 
Shield from a list of possibilities for the U.S. defensive mission, 
Sieminski writes. The name was rejected by the Joint Chiefs because it did 
not properly portray the region's terrain. Operation Desert Shield was 
born. Schwarzkopf also hand-picked Operation Desert Storm for the offensive 
stage of the war.

At the end of his article, Sieminski offers four guidelines for naming 
operations in the future.
1. Make it meaningful.
2. Identify and target the critical audience.
3. Be cautious of fashions.
4. Make it memorable.