Reading the Washington Post story about America’s attacks on Iraqi and Syrian targets — a response to the deaths of three American soldiers in Jordan — when I came across this paragraph:
I hate this paragraph so much.
What it means — in plain English — is that the United States killed and maimed a lot of innocent people during the 2014 air campaign.
The question is: Why doesn’t this paragraph say so in plain English?
I don’t particularly know in this instance. But it’s fair to say that folks in the media can sometimes twist and torture the language a bit when it comes to violence done on our behalf.
You’ve almost certainly read the phrase “officer-involved shooting” which — on its plain surface — could mean that a police officer was shot in an incident. But it always, always means that the officer shot somebody. But it’s very difficult for police departments to say so plainly — and very difficult, in many cases, for news organizations to depart from that fuzzy language.
The same thing happens when our military is involved, clearly.
Listen: Everybody understands what that Washington Post paragraph means. Just like everybody understands what “officer-involved shooting” means. The truth isn’t being obscured here, is it? The news is being reported, right?
But it’s also being gilded a bit. Made a bit fuzzy. Less direct about the horror.
“The U.S. military incurred a large number of civilian casualties” sounds like somebody ran up a debt that’s going to be paid off sooner or later. The literal dictionary definition of “incurred” is “become subject to (something unwelcome or unpleasant) as a result of one's own behavior or actions.”
The actions come last. It happened to us.
Only it didn’t. Our military hurt those people. We should say so plainly. Even in a throwaway paragraph meant to highlight America’s good intentions.
What I’m watching
As it happens, last night I showed my teen son perhaps my favorite movie of all time: “Paths of Glory.” It’s an early Stanley Kubrick film about war, about the career-minded men who send less-powerful men to be slaughtered, and who extract a punishment from the survivors for failing their mission. It’s absurd and infuriating and treats the business of war as the ugly, shitty monstrosity that it is.
"Incurred" also make its sound like it cost the US something, like a debt or obligation, or that those deaths are a burden or problematic to the US, e.g. The US now needs to feel bad about killing civilians...
Thank you for the Paths of Glory recommendation, it has been decades since I have watched it and I am going to watch it tonight.
Reminds me of Politics and the English Language - so much terminology is meant to obscure, not enlighten.