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.
Our soldiers and military families are paying for the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars with lives, limbs, post-traumatic stress, suicides, broken marriages, children without fathers, wives without husbands, and parents without sons and daughters.
