Josh Marshall and Glenn Greenwald call our attention to a clear and dangerous shift in the coverage of the war in Iraq. It appears that those whom we are fighting throughout Iraq - whom reporters formerly referred to as "insurgents" - are now commonly referred to as "Al Qaeda."
This seems to be right of out of the Luntz-Orwell handbook. For details, see below the fold.
Here is the link to Josh's post...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
On Friday I published an email by TPM Reader SM which noted how the most major media outlets now appear to be referring to nearly everyone fighting US troops in Iraq as 'al Qaeda'. I want to point your attention to a follow-up to that post by Glenn Greenwald....
It's an interesting passage in that it essentially confirms the point made above -- that the only change here is one of labels, that the 'Sunni insurgents' and 'Baathist dead-enders' are now 'al Qaeda' merely by dint of blowing things up.
Here is Glenn's:
http://www.salon.com/...
There is more nuance to it, which Josh and Glenn assess, but in as much as our role here is to shed light on the new political correctness of the facilitators of empire... we should push back against this 0ut-of-the-Frank-Luntz-playbook effort to once again link 9-11 and the Bush Iraq debacle. In reminding us of what the Luntz-Orwell game is, I attach this passage from the Frank Luntz Wikipedia entry...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Berkeley linguist George Lakoff has written at length and given speeches regarding the Republican use of language to sway the debate, and numerous liberal bloggers have used Lakoff's studies as a jumping-off point to compare Luntz's work to the Newspeak found in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. This comparison was brought out in an especially humorous manner in an interview by Samantha Bee of the Daily Show. Soon after commenting in voiceover that "Luntz has made a brilliant career spraying perfume on dog turds," she offers him a chance to tweak various words and phrases. "Drilling For Oil" becomes "Responsible Exploration For Energy." "Logging" becomes "Healthy Forests." "Manipulation" becomes "Explanation and Education." (Bill Maher offered a few facetious additions of his own to his guest, including "Concentration Camps" becoming "Faith-Based Detention Centers.")
Get your game on, folks, there is a new battle in the war of words that will decide whether Iraq is The Long War.