Euphemisms Glossary
"Politically-honed" words and phrases used in the Iraq War...
Select the first letter of the word from the list
below to jump to the corresponding section of the glossary.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
Abuse
Torture
"I'm not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been
charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different
from torture. … I don't know if it is correct to say what
you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's
been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to
address the torture word."
—Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Department
Operational Update Briefing, May 4, 2004 - in response to the
documented and photograpahed torture at Abu Ghraib
Air Campaign
Bombing
Assertive disarmament
War (ironic)
Assets
Weapons
Asymmetric warfare
Describes the imbalance between U.S. bombs and missiles and Iraqi
soldiers who hide among civilians, wear suicide bombs, and shoot
P.O.W.'s.
B
Blue on blue
An expression used to describe the accidental killing
of allied forces by their own side. Another well-established term
for the same concept is friendly fire.
Bomb damage assessments
Official U.S. investigations that follow air strikes, few details
of which have surfaced so far.
C
Cakewalk
Popular term introduced by U.S. hawk Kenneth Adelman to predict
overnight success in Iraq. Adelman now says the phrase was "too
glib."
Clean bombing
Bombing with pinpoint accuracy
Cleansed
Cleared (of enemy troops)
Coercive interrogation
Torture
Coercive potential
Military power
Coalition of the willing
President Bush's term for countries that support the war, some
of which don't want to be named and most of which have little
to offer. Besides the U.S. and Britain, only two other nations
are contributing military support, and those troops account for
less than 1 percent of "coalition" forces in Iraq.
Collateral damage
When we accidentally kill the wrong people—civilians killed
during wartime; civilian casualties and damage incidental to
the bombing of military targets; any incidental, undesirable
consequence (as with most war euphemisms, it disguises
the horror of the reality it refers to—death and injury to
innocent non-combatant)
Critical Incident Stress Management Unit
Official name for mental health workers who treat staff at the
Delaware morgue where dead soldiers began arriving last week.
D
Dead checking
U.S. military colloquial term for killing all wounded men
in any suspected insurgent house they enter.
Decapitating the regime
Overthrowing the government or assassinating the head of the government
(i.e., killing Saddam Hussein).
Decapitation strike
Bombs aimed at Hussein in the first hours of war, in a failed attempt
to kill him.
Discriminate deterrence
Pinpoint bombing
E
Embedded media
Journalists who are escorted to the battlefield by U.S. troops,
after agreeing to accept myriad censorship rules. The Pentagon
views the recruits as "embedded for life," meaning
that if they leave a unit, they probably cannot come back. Embeds
deserve credit for risking their lives. But the label "in
the field," which some editors attach to reports from the
front line, has some cynics calling embeds "in the tank"—inevitably
biased by their fear of losing precious access.
Enemy combatant
What’s in a name?. If you call it an “enemy combatant,” however,
it has no legal rights as a criminal or rights under the Geneva
Convention afforded to enemy soldiers.
Enhanced interrogation
Torture is illegal unless you call it “enhanced
interrogation.”
Escalating sectarian violence
Bloody civil war
Expectant
Military term for "expected to die," applied
to an Iraqi who was shot in the head and lived, though most of
his skull had come apart.
Extraordinary rendition
Sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for
interrogation
A U.S. "extra-judicial" process by which untried suspects
are exported to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation.
Individuals suspected of criminal activity, terrorism or association
with terrorist groups can be subjected to extraordinary rendition
One CIA agent explained to a reporter how it worked in the
1990s. "We'd arrest them and send them to Jordan or
Egypt, and they'd disappear," he said. They were
not charged in the US, he said, because the evidence would
not hold up in court.
Extreme prejudice
To kill without mercy
F
Fedayeen
Irregular Iraqi troops with previous experience killing dissidents
and prostitutes. Literally "one who sacrifices himself for
a cause," but Donald Rumsfeld calls the name "a lie" and
has banned his troops from using it. The Pentagon prefers "death
squads" or "thugs."
Forward Operating Base Shell
Headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division in central Iraq. Soldiers
nicknamed this and another army outpost "Camp Shell" and "Camp
Exxon," supposedly because the fuel stations remind them
of filling stations at home.
Forward Resuscitative Surgical Suites, a/k/a
Devil Docs
Navy doctors who treat all wounded on the battlefield, including
Iraqi soldiers and civilians. The docs say they give priority to
people with the worst injuries, regardless of which side they're
on.
Friendly Fire
Death caused to one's own troops
G
Ghost prisoners (also ghost detainees)
Suspected terrorists held by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
as unregistered prisoners in secret detention centers at an unrecorded
host. Their detention denied, hidden from the Red Cross, legal
or family access barred, their fate in the hands of unaccountable
and unnamed U.S. personnel.
Greenbacking
Hiring mercenaries
H
Human exploitation team
Marines who oversee "low-priority detainees" in Iraq.
Hunter-killer team or "Special
Mission Unit"
Esentially (as its name implies) a military assassination squad
let loose on the world, sent "to kick down the doors";
that is, to hunt down terrorists and assumedly other enemies without
regard to national boundaries, declarations of war, or, evidently,
legalities "niceties" of any sort.
I
IED - Improvised explosive device
(More details in the Acronymn Interactive)
Indemnity
A legal guarantee that the U.S. government seeks from all embedded
reporters and contractors in Iraq, stating that the government
is blameless and cannot be sued for property damage or personal
injury or loss of life.
Information Operations
The new name for the Pentagon's propaganda unit. The old terms "psychological
warfare" and "psy-ops" have been retired by America's
top information official because he considers them "too mind-bending."
Incestuous amplification
A wartime condition that occurs when policy makers listen only
to people who share their set beliefs, increasing the risk for
miscalculation. See "cakewalk."
J
K
Kill box
A zone in which pilots are free to search for and attack targets
at will.
L
Liberation
Ooccupation
Tme is rapidly running out for the Iraqi regime
to disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction, as required
by the United Nations Security Council. And if war comes, President
Bush has made clear that it will be a war of liberation, not
occupation.
--Speech by Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley
Council on Foreign Relations February 12, 2003
M
Military-age male
Marine term for Iraqi males between boyhood and old age—all
of whom are considered suspects and thus eligible for detention.
N
Negative health consequences
Term used to describe illnesses linked to the smallpox vaccine,
which now include three fatal heart attacks.
Neutralize
Kill
O
Operational pause
Describes troops that have stopped advancing. When reporters
described the troops as getting "bogged down," it
led a top British military official to complain, "This 'bogged
down' is a tendentious phrase."
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Official name for the war on Iraq. Bush says his goal is to free
Iraqis, not to occupy their country and seize their oil resources.
P
Pockets
Term used to shrink bad news. For example, swarming Fedayeen are
termed "pockets of resistance." Hordes of hungry people
are "pockets of need."
Protective Custody
Imprisonment without charge or trial (due process of law)
Q
R
Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion, a/k/a
RSDL
A Canadian product approved by the FDA, for troops to apply after
a chemical attack.
Reconstruction
New term for nation building. The U.S. plans to award $1.9 billion
in reconstruction contracts, which will go exclusively to U.S.
companies.
Regime change
A polite term for the overthrow of a government or sanctified assassination
Red line, a/k/a red zone
A ring around Baghdad at which U.S. troops expected to encounter
the Republican Guard and their first exposure to alleged chemical
weapons.
Runaway denial device:
Bomb that scatters clusters of cratering bombs over a wide area
to destroy air base runaways
S
Shock and awe
American equivalent to the blitzkrieg, the strategy of reducing
an enemy's will to fight through displays of overwhelming force
Soften up, soften
Bomb in preparation for a ground engagement
Surge
Escalation
Surgical strike
Military jargon that makes a precision bombing sound like a beneficial
medical procedure.
T
Thieves of Iraq
Term used by some Arabs to describe Bush, Tony Blair, and Condoleezza
Rice, in a spoof on the Egyptian movie Thieves of Thailand.
U
Unlawful combatant
A U.S. alternative for the term prisoner of war, used to describe
suspected militants held at
Guantanamo Bay.
V
W
Waterboarding
Simulated drowning -- actual drowning that is interrupted
X
Y
Z
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