It’s quite interesting how such “interventions” are justified in terms of national myths for the moral uplift of ordinary citizens of the Imperial power. In the case of Russia, they were “helping” the hapless Afghans in an way analogous to how the Red Army helped East Europeans when it freed them from the clutches of the Germans. In the case of a country like Canada, it’s always the squeaky clean “peacekeeper” for the good folks back home, even when their army is mired in a dirty war for the sake of power politics on the geopolitical scale.

This post blends with the one on Jean Bricmont’s book Humanitarian Imperialism, posted Steven Sherman. The Save Darfur outcry epitomizes a new form of interventionism. At bottom its purpose is the same as in the past – to win the hearts and minds of the American public so as to support (or at least look the other way) interventionism but it the theme is carefully developed and exported to peace movements – a Trojan horse of humanitarian intervention, first some talking, then the escalation of sanctions, then the military intevention. As the march goes on in the name of righteousness, seeping into the language is a condemnation of the people we’re “helping”, a vicious demonization and mis-characterization of a people, a history, a culture we never took the time, in our “goodness”, to learn, to understand.

What is to be done about genocide? I agree, the signs of impending genocide are clear. We know them, and there are ways (ways we know) of working through these horrific conflicts before they begin. The problem is some of these are being perpetrated by the unitary super-power. Thus it is incombant upon those in the “belly of the beast” to struggle against this kind of interventionism.

And so we have the good and noble cause or the just war. These “noble” causes are soon lost in the quagmire’s they create. The pain of a failed war policy seems to have a built in amnisia, even while in the midst of one quagmire, the cry is to enter yet another! And this is coming from some called “liberals”.

The ballyhooed linguistic turn so prominent in philosophy, humanities, and lit-crit is now being marketed as a mandatory addition to science studies. Of course, it is now *framed* as helping scientists “communicate effectively.” Remember this always – Spin is manipulative, but framing is pure – and lucrative.

What did Bernays, Wiittgenstein, and Rorty not know and when did they not know it? If language creates reality, who selects the language? And for what?

Here are some questions– on “the politcs of naming”– you won’t find anybody asking in mainstream North American media.