{"id":6727,"date":"2014-10-09T15:16:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T15:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6727"},"modified":"2014-10-09T15:16:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T15:16:19","slug":"names-the-same-its-called-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6727","title":{"rendered":"Name's the same: It's called 'war'"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The “fair and balanced” network that keeps\u00a0proclaiming its journalistic integrity\u00a0is at it again.<\/p>\n

The Fox News Channel is trotting out a military expert to gripe that the war against the Islamic State doesn’t have a name, as in Operation Destroy ISIL or Operation Kill the Bad Guys.<\/p>\n

The expert, whose name escapes me at the moment, was complaining that the Obama administration’s campaign to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State needs a catchy name to rally the nation, to give the mission a sense of purpose, to send a message to the Middle East terrorist monsters that, by God, we mean business.<\/p>\n

Then he went on to suggest that absent a name\u00a0President Obama\u00a0is engaging in some form of denial about the severity of the heinous organization with which we’re dealing in Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n

Sigh …<\/p>\n

Someone has to tell me in language I understand precisely why we need to call this campaign something catchy.<\/p>\n

I heard the Fox expert prattle on about national purpose and unity. However, if memory serves, Operation Iraqi Freedom — which is what the Bush administration called its March 2003 invasion of Iraq — didn’t exactly gin up a whole lot of national unity simply because we hung a label on it.<\/p>\n

The only thing that produces such unity is battlefield success. Yes, the United States succeeded on the battlefield. Our forces defeated Saddam Hussein’s overhyped army with ease — just as we did in 1991 when we liberated Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm.<\/p>\n

However, we weren’t greeted as “liberators,” as then-Vice President Cheney predicted would happen. Then that unity thing kind of fell apart as public opinion began to sour on our continued occupation of Iraq.<\/p>\n

Did the name chosen produce the sense of mission and national esprit de corps<\/em> envisioned at the time?<\/p>\n

Hardly.<\/p>\n

Let’s get back to debating the merits of the air campaign against ISIL. I hasten to note, incidentally, that more nations are taking part. We aren’t alone in this fight.<\/p>\n

Thus, it would be helpful if critics here at home — such as the Fox News “experts” — would cease carping on these side issues.<\/p>\n

They serve only as a distraction from the bigger fight.<\/p>\n\n

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The “fair and balanced” network that keeps\u00a0proclaiming its journalistic integrity\u00a0is at it again. The Fox News Channel is trotting out a military expert to gripe that the war against the Islamic State doesn’t have a name, as in Operation Destroy ISIL or Operation Kill the Bad Guys. The expert, whose name escapes me at the … Continue reading Name's the same: It's called 'war'<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,13,14],"tags":[540,1380,2330,2347,3430,3431,4069],"class_list":["post-6727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-military-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-dick-cheney","tag-iraq","tag-isil","tag-operation-desert-storm","tag-operation-iraq-freedom","tag-saddam-hussein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}