A military operation so vital to US interests they forgot to name it: What would Hobbes say?

Easily the funniest thing I’ve read all week. A military operation so vital to the interests of the United States, they forgot to name it. On “the late naming of Operation of Inherent Resolve“:

Unlike their coalition partners, and unlike previous American combat operations, no name was initially given to the 2014 intervention against ISIL by the U.S. government. The decision to keep the conflict nameless drew considerable media criticism. U.S. Service members remain ineligible for Campaign Medals and other service decorations due to the continuing ambiguous nature of the continuing U.S. involvement in Iraq. On 15 October 2014, the United States Central Command announced that the U.S.-led air campaign against ISIL in Iraq and Syria was henceforth designated as Operation Inherent Resolve.

What would Hobbes say?

But the most noble and profitable invention of all other was that of ‘speech’ consisting of ‘names’ or ‘appellations,’ and their connection; whereby men register their thoughts, recall them when they are past, and also declare them one to another for mutual utility and conversation; without which there had been amongst men neither commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves.

 

4 Comments

  1. The Gospel of Barney April 23, 2015 at 6:05 pm | #

    Operation unresolvable given current administration efforts!

    • Ron Ross April 23, 2015 at 8:06 pm | #

      At that point, the US had probably been in the morass so long – covertly aiding and abetting ISIS on the one hand, their enemies on the other – that “official” commencement of its “intervention” and its rinky-dink maneuvers that mostly destroy civilian infrastructures (when it’s not civilians themselves) just seemed like yet another cynical procedure on the fringe of comprehension.

      A friend tells me that technology – killer drones, mass surveillance – has likely outstripped their human users’ capacity to understand their own actions.

      On the other hand, I vaguely remember a passage from the introduction of Fulgentius’s Mythologiae, late classical, already nearly medieval compendium of mythological figures. Wandering around his property at the waning end of the empire, Fulgentius comes across footprints, likely soldiers’, but he can’t tell whose: Romans? Outsiders? Rogue elements of one or the other, serving the other?

      Fleeing an autocratic regime’s bombs, the reckless violence of “freedom fighters,” the savage atrocity of amphetamine-stoked mercenary “religious” fanatics, the endless “collateral” damage of coalition strikes, refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya die in the sea. The response from the West: more and more rhetoric about terrorism, more funds and arms to stoke more of it, more deadly barriers and fences.
      The barbarity of this confusion is truly Hobbesian, i.e., brutish and bestial, and on a scale none could have imagined.

      • The Gospel of Barney April 23, 2015 at 11:42 pm | #

        Don,t get me started I was stationed withe the MFO in Egypt for 6 months in 1989 and fought in the first Gulf War 1990-91¡

  2. Mushin April 23, 2015 at 11:58 pm | #

    Ross’s comment of brutish and bestial behaviors that only a few years ago none of us could have imagined is so true. In addition it is like watching a cascading decent of a rocketing bullet train committing suicide. Thanks Ross. Our concern is there no escape.

    The Morass is permanent loss state of reality in institutional global discourses living in constant “Analysis Paralysis” of bean counter politicians and militant autocratic business structures. Social dignity is a sin against humanity and compassion will get beheaded. This is like watching a flock of stupid turkeys about to get hit by a 16 wheel semi truck. So, we can no longer rationally give a name for what is happening. Well. maybe a new beginning.

    To contrast the hard wicked reality.

    I am totally amazed whenever I attempt to have a civil triadic appreciative inquiry and dialog with American citizenry. On one side religious patriotic zealots claiming Global Warming does not exist and is a movement of socialists regulations in government and Obama should be hung. The other side is the rainbow chickens tent policing activities of autocratic power and wanting the $$$ as a swarm of NGO’s in dysfunctional fragmentation pricking a policy here or revolting event there in the 24 hour short terminism news cycle hysteria. Everyone asking for $ on the fast lane of contributions. You get involved as an authentic accidental activist and before long you get run over by the 16 wheel semi yourself as your email box becomes a full time job in the fast lane at $5 a pop and every group in the world looking for a contribution to lobby your interest.

    In fact Global Warming is the negative unintended consequences of short terminism and immediate gratification of power by both lanes in the informational highway of victims and victors in a game coming to a no-name end called death. What do we name the mystery this time? Scientific explanations are distrusted until you have a large loss storm hitting your home and ripping tress out of the front yard. I ask people if they believe in 120Volts 60Watts electrification, wall sockets you plug all these refrigerators and Internet of things into? Its like their insulted. Mention the fact that it is 189% inefficient in reality and they react like you pulled a pacifier out of a baby’s mouth, and they have a nervous breakdown screaming in your face and going for their gun.

    The reality is there is no escape from Global Warming and fleeing from autocratic regime’s bombs. We are on a tipping point that is about to take on a whole new category of militarism beyond our current imaginations. This is like chapter one in the world becoming Zombies and can you imagine naming chapter 2 or 3 or 4.

    Yesterday my father (93) and I visited Senator Tim Kaine’s office where I have filed a “Citizen Arrest” calling for Grand Jury on three issues exercising my/our/we/us biological conservation in becoming human beings. Its was like two aliens walked into the Capital snake infested conversations. We weren’t interested in the art work. The last resort in my own humanness is to complain and say no more. Give me liberty or give me death. I have been told I have an inherent equality in natural rights inside this autocratic regulatory capture. Exert it is the first assumption in creating reality in oneself.

    I wonder if I had 12 citizens of all colors with no attorneys from the Bar Association representing me and I was able to put forth my complaints of regulatory capture rent control? I surmise there would not be one person that would disagree and I could have the first unanimous conversation for action in my entire life. People are not idiots, stupid or mean. The anti-social culture of patriarchy power of exclusion and appropriation is causing the illness not people. Regulatory capture is the entry and exit wounds operating the autocratic loss stable institutional states in discourses. Discourse is generational. People want to be freed and what we lack sorely is leadership interested first in freedom versus control in power, and then stewarding leaders partnership in generational unity building the earth in a child centric manner, not eternal war. Sounds crazy and I am not alone in “We the People.”

    I actually like Thomas Jefferson’s notion of “We the People” and unfortunately that has completely disappeared and is meaningless in America’s uncivilized institutional loss state. I intend to occupy earth as if it means something. I live here, and in context to this insanity confront regulatory capture factually with proven assertions in my own lived world experience. Not some statistical ontological argument in the rat trap of philosophy or metaphysics.

    Stay tuned, as my father said leaving the Capital “amazing we weren’t arrested.” Celebration causes blindness and this is like riding a bull in rodeo. The one fact I have learned and it took a very long time is my expectations are never fulfilled. Therein is the freedom to act without arresting your behaviors and saying no can be a declaration as a law unto oneself.

    What name do you call that Cory?

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