I find myself yelling at the TV when Bush talks about "the front" in "the war."
It's not a war and there is no front.
It's much worse. In a war with a front the troops who are not on the front lines are under much less pressure than the ones at the front. In most wars the front-line troops die in great numbers. They rotate troops in and out so that only a very small number are at such high risk at any time.
In Iraq, which is an occupation, not a war, all our troops are at equally high risk any time they are off-base.
This is a very subtle way our leaders lie. They use the logic of war. Most Americans probably aren't aware that it's a lie. That's why I edit my pieces so where ever I would say "war" I say "occupation." You should do it too.
Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:14 PM
~About the Author~
Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.
"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.
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