Originally published at: "Lethal aid", a euphemism for U.S. arms shipments, slowly loses its quotes | Boing Boing
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I don’t know, there’s something refreshingly honest about the “lethal” part. If they’re insisting on using the term instead of just calling them arms shipments, I’d suggest the style guide require the scare quotes as in the following example:
The Biden administration today announced that it sending additional lethal “aid” to the UAE.
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“Bag of Rocks” wink, wink.
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There is no free lunch.
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I am confused how “lethal aid” and lethal aid are perceived differently. We are talking about weapons and/or ammo.
If I were to perceive something in quotes differently, when I see something in quotes like that, I tend to think some people are claiming those words to be true, but not everyone agrees.
So “lethal aid” in my mind sounds more like it was said they were sending them arms, but it was sling shots and blow darts, whose lethality is dubious at best.
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I don’t know, I feel like it’s that George Carlin skit. I mean what’s wrong with just weapons. Do we really need to preface it with “deadly”?
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The older term for it was military aid. Lethal aid is less euphemistic.
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If “lethal” is a euphemism, what the dickens is it a euphemism FOR? “Baby splasher”?
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The main thing that bothers me from a wording context is that sending a specific weight of aid sounds really strange.
I read “90 tons of lethal aid” as some sort of large vat of poisoned Koolaid.
My brain would be much less confused by something like “Lethal aid in the form of 90 tons of weapons”. Honest and specific…
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This is the same conflict in which someone threatened " retaliatory military-technical" measures.
Obviously, this is a step beyond, but since the difference is defined by US law, and not by the particularities of this standoff, it may not be a significant escalation.
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90 tons is about one and a half tanks. Putin must be quaking.
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Light anti-armour defensive weapons systems,
I mean really? When a T90 tank crew rolls proudly up the streets of a rebelious city in order to supress banditry and restore the rule of law, the last thing these brave souls need is to fear that some hothead will decide to commit vandalism against a very expensive T14-Armata This will end up endangering lives…
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It’s like those “detainees” at Guantanamo. Sure, you could call them prisoners, but that’s so judgmental. One thing you can’t call them: convicts.
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He’s so good…sets it up very carefully and then delivers the “punch line” with lethal effect.
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Or a 700 or so special forces?
“Lethal aid” in quotes suggests the writer knows the term is a BS way of softening “military equipment” or “more tanks and guns and bombs and shit.” Of course the word “lethal” means “deadly,” but it’s used less often than words like “deadly” or “murderous” and carries with it a whiff of the scholarly. The public doesn’t automatically hear “sending them lethal aid” as “sending them lotsa weapons for their upcoming war.” For now, anyway. After a while “lethal aid” will come to mean what it already means and another weasel phrase will take its place.
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Without a style guide, we can’t know, but I suspect lethal aid is because the equipment isn’t purchased as part of a arms deal but is instead a donation paid by other funds. Whereas an arms shipment is weapons sent as part of a negotiated purchase.
George Carlin was a good comedian, but he would have been an awful psychiatrist. Many people with PTSD (like myself) have never been near a war. The joke falls apart for me when he gets to that point.
Oh, who am I trying to kid? My PTSD has been ignored by the NHS for 15 years (because of underfunding and institutional transphobia), Dr Carlin would be about average for the psychiatric care I have had.
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I guess the problem is people associate “aid” with first aid, Live Aid, etc. and with helping people to live, rather than killing people. But this is helping people to live (Ukrainians). Invading Russian soldiers have to die, so that Ukrainian citizens can live.
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If we’re looking at the history of military-related euphemisms it’s certainly more direct than a term like “lend-lease program,” which sounds like some kind of car-related transaction that a dealer would try to talk you into with the promise of lower monthly payments.
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