by Paul Craig Roberts, Foreign Policy Journal, March 14, 2011
If we were to be blessed with a 21st century George Orwell, he would coin a new “speak” to apply to “support the troops.” Would he call this “Deceptive Speak”? Or would he be more clever?
The words certainly deserve an Orwellian name. The catch-phrase was rolled out the minute the war started, which makes one wonder about its public relations origin. Who can oppose supporting the troops, at least before we learned from WikiLeaks and Abu Ghraib of the intentional killing of civilians and torturing of whoever happened to be rounded up in the various sweeps? All for the fun and games of it.
“Support the troops” originated in the public relations department of the military/security complex. What “support the troops” really means is to support the profits of the armaments industry and the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony.
“Support the troops” is a clever PR slogan that causes Americans to turn a blind eye to the brutal exploitation of our soldiers and military families for profit and for an evil ideology.
Peace and Justice Post 
March 15, 2011 at 12:02 pm |
Dr Roberts always hits the nail on its head and shows how American imperialism operates and deceives its own people and the rest of the world. In this article he again shows how the grand deception of ‘support the troops’ has been played out by the vested interests who want to perpetuate wars for their profit under the cover of patriotic slogans.
The brutal and inhuman way American authorities are treating the U.S. soldier Bradley Manning is another crime and a disgraceful act of vendetta. Obviously, Obama’s reply to a questioner about Manning shows the degree of contempt for human rights and indifference to the lot of those who dare to tell the truth and don’t follow the official diktat. In contrast to the president’s position is the case of P.J. Crowley who was the spokesman for the State Department. He chose the honourable course of objecting to the cruel treatment of Manning and resigned from his office.
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