While Orwell comparisons have at times been overused, the accepted names for entities within the American imperial apparatus really do line up with the motto of the fictional nation of Oceania: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” In the United States, the benign language we use for our institutions of conquest and war are reflective of a larger belief of American exceptionalism and innocence. Shattering this ethos is of paramount importance in working toward ending American empire. To that end, we can begin by changing the language that describes the imperial institutions of the most powerful and destructive empire in human history to better reflect reality.
Political Correctness in the Empire
This is an era where the term “politically correct“ has been hijacked by the right wing. They use it to describe those generally associated with the left wing who have evolved their language in accordance with extending empathy to the marginalized in our society. The right’s refusal to adapt their language, especially language that reinforces historical oppression, is an incredibly silly hill to die on. This is magnified by the fact that right wingers have a far much greater propensity to stifle speech. If you don’t believe that last point, try speaking negatively about the troops or police, hang a flag upside down or even burn one! The United States is a fundamentally right wing country, and so the everyday PC culture that we live under goes unnoticed. Meanwhile, expecting the use of respectful pronouns for a trans person is somehow a deviation from our first amendment. While the “political” piece of that term conveys a sense that one’s language changes given the political attitudes in an evolving society, the “correct” aspect is less malleable. I would pose that we focus on the “correct” aspect when we label our right wing, imperial institutions. Accordingly, we should adapt our language so as to not give the impression that the most harmful institutions on the planet are merely benign.
The Department of Defense
Renamed: The Department of War
I am not wistful for the “good ol’ days” of the America that existed prior to the Second World War. I have no desire to go back to the era of legal apartheid, slavery, women’s disenfranchisement, or indigenous genocide. With regards to language, however, in that era, it could be argued that it was more honest. That is to say, compared to the present day, prior to 1945, this nation often had terminology for our imperial institutions more accurately reflected their true nature. Far away lands who inhabitants were subjugated by the United States were actually called “colonies” (at least for some time) rather than “territories” or “partners.” The white supremacy of the leaders was not veiled in language about spreading democracy or protecting human rights, but honest in its desire to subjugate foreign peoples in the service of forwarding US interests. There were even suggested changes to the name of the United States that included “Imperial America.” This would, of course, be a far more accurate description for our behemoth empire which has always occupied and controlled territories well beyond the borders of its “states.” Most importantly, the apparatus for which the United States conducts its imperial violence was accurately called the “Department of War” rather than the Orwellian named “Department of Defense.” Since the military apparatus of the US empire changed its name in 1947, it has conducted aggressive military actions at a near constant rate. This has included major invasions of the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Iraq for a short list. It has included the lesser known wars on the people of Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Libya. Not a single one of these operations can be said to have been defensive in nature. All were blatant wars of aggression, and if the United States were to be held to the standards of the UN charter, illegal.
The costs of these offensive wars has been the deaths of roughly 12 million people across four continents. That cost is seen in the total destruction of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure in the 1991 Gulf War along with the subsequent sanctions, that reduced it from a technologically advanced society to a barely developing nation. It can be seen in the aerial bombing of the DPRK that killed 3 million Koreans, along with destroying nearly 80% of the buildings during the 1950-1953 Korean war. Ahh yes, the Pentagon, an allegedly, purely defensive entity is the cause of not only 3 million Vietnamese deaths during its war of choice in Southeast Asia, but some 40,000 deaths since the war from unexploded ordinances. The latter often detonate in the hands of small children born decades after the Vietnam War who apparently pose a threat to US interests. That same generational damage is likewise present in Laos and Cambodia where children are also killed and maimed from bombs dropped by the US 50 years ago. Oh, and the citizens of Fallujah, Iraq who suffer elevated cancer rates due to the US use of depleted uranium munitions; the attack on the city in 2004 surely recognize that their sickness is a result of actions by the US military apparatus that were purely defensive in nature. The children of Pakistan who fear sunny days because of the perception that it’s only then when the drones come, should be made to understand that those hellfire missiles that vaporized their grandmother or crippled their uncle were meant to DEFEND the innocent people of the United States. Oh, and maybe what those who are skeptical about the “defensive” nature of the Pentagon need to understand, is that the wedding parties turned massacres by drone fired missiles in Yemen and Afghanistan were actually involved in a secret plot to invade… New Jersey?
The sarcasm here has a purpose. It is meant to underscore the level of delusion it takes to believe that the magnitude of violence inflicted by the US military around the world is defensive in any way. This sarcasm is meant to demonstrate that it is no less absurd for Americans to believe their government is killing civilians in Yemen in the interests of protecting America than it would be for Yemeni militants to kill civilians in New York City and claim that such an attack could be construed as self-defense.
Combined with these wars of the last 75 years, 100% of which have been offensive in nature, there are the other not so defensive actions of the Department of War. Construction and maintenance of 800 military bases outside of American borders (95% of the world’s bases) are constant reminders of American belligerence. These bases accomplish much in the way of displacing communities, degrading the environment and excluding American soldiers for prosecution for crimes committed against civilians. On a grander scale, the bases serve to garrison the borders of alleged US enemies, creating a perpetual state of fear and perception of a need for readiness in case of a US invasion. Indeed, the governments of the DPRK, China, Russia, and Iran would never classify the American bases that surround their nations as anything but potential sites from which violence against their citizens could originate if/when hostilities break out. As if the presence of the US military on their borders was not sufficient, the constant shows of force through naval and aerial exercises and drills that originate from these bases likely don’t assuage any of the fear that these governments may have about US bellicosity.
The convoluted logic it takes to rationalize any US military action of the past 70 years as defensive is instrumental to how citizens of the US view their nation as benevolent, while international polls continually show that the US is viewed as the greatest threat to world peace. Is it that the rest of the world just does not understand that the Department of War is simply protecting Americans? Is it possible that it is the Chagossian people, who were forcibly removed and even had their dogs gassed and killed so that the US could have a military base on the Island of Diego Garcia, that are misguided here? Is it unreasonable for the government of North Korea to build up its military and its nuclear arsenal while 30,000 American troops are based on its southern border, constantly rehearsing an invasion of the DPRK (the action that killed some 3 million Koreans 70 years ago)? Are the citizens of Okinawa, the culturally distinct Japanese island, simply confused about the nature of the US presence when they protest the US military occupation of 30 percent of their territory? Are they misguided in their opposition to the destruction of Okinawa’s environment, the crimes Americans commit against its citizens including rape, and the exemption of Americans from prosecution by local courts part of the grander strategy to defend the United States? Most of the world correctly views this notion that the Pentagon as defensive in any way as asinine. The portrayal of the most violent institution on the planet as defensive is symptomatic of the delusion that has been deliberately spread to the American populace.
Other Acceptable New Names for the “Department of Defense”:
Global Mass Murder Apparatus
Department of Aggressive War
Defense Industry
Renamed: Merchants of Death
Far be it from me to give two compliments to the apartheid state that was the USA prior to WWII, but once again, I have to report another case wherein American jargon was less detached from reality than it is today. After the First World War, there was a public shaming of the arms industry. Those that had invested in and benefited from the mass slaughter that was that war were publicly shamed and referred to as “merchants of death.” How quaint a time that was after the First World War when there was actually a bit of public shaming for being a company or individual whose fortune increased as a direct result of the great act of mass slaughter in history (to date). Yes, there was a time when those who financially benefited from the death of millions were correctly accused of selling murder. Those same types today are referred to as “defense contractors.” The 21st century analogues to the 20th century “merchants of death” include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. The list also includes government contractors like Halliburton who received 7 billion dollar payment to rebuild Iraq (the nation that had been destroyed by the 2003 US invasion). That is the same Halliburton whose former CEO Dick Cheney was instrumental in creating the war from which the corporation benefited so much from. The list would also have to include the bankers and investors from companies like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup whose businesses are directly tied to consulting with the aforementioned weapons manufacturers. Of course our modern merchants of death would have to include the lobbyists deployed by the murder industry to influence politicians in Congress to push a militarized foreign policy. Similarly profiting from war are the think tanks that are funded by blood money of the arms industry. In return, these think tanks like the Center for New American Security and the Atlantic Council serve essentially as lobbyists through their influence on politicians. This is accomplished through not so disinterested research that inflates the imagined threats of US adversaries, advocates for more militarism, pushes… shockingly… for more weapons sales! There may be some diversity within the spectrum of imperialism, but rest assured, none of these think tanks advocate for a global position that would result in less arms being sold, less need for war, and as a result, less shrapnel ripping through the flesh of Yemeni children.
Other Acceptable New Names for the “Defense Industry”: Blood Money Beneficiaries
War Profiteers
The Central Intelligence Agency
Renamed: The World’s Most Prolific Terrorist Organization
In 2019, the Trump administration designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp, the elite division of the Iranian military, a terrorist group. President Trump stated that this justification for such a designation was that, “The IRGC actively participates in finances and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.” If pushed further on this claim, most of those US officials supporting the measure would make a claim regarding the IRGC’s support for groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, or the Houthis in Yemen. The designation of both groups as terror organizations is also extremely myopic especially given that they have both been in long campaigns AGAINST other US designated terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS in both Syria and Yemen, respectively. Additionally, while both groups have engaged in violence in the past, both have evolved in the legitimate political forces in their respective countries, providing social services to their constituents. (Side note: This phenomenon of violent groups eventually “settling down” and becoming political entities is not uncommon, see the IRA in Ireland or even the Sons of Liberty in the United States.)
Demonstrating the inherently political nature of terror designations, in response Trump’s designation, Iran designated US Central Command as a terror organization. Hard to argue with the logic given that it has been the Central Command conducting nation-destroying military interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia for two decades. Those campaigns have included decimating civilian cities with intense bombing, firing missiles into weddings, funerals, and hospitals, and fueling civil wars in several nations. However, while Iran’s designation of Central Command as a terrorist organization is unquestionably correct, it is another US entity that warrants the title even more than Central Command.
Like Central Command, the Central Intelligence Agency has an equally benign sounding name. The title connotes an institution similar to a library or department store help desk. Hiding behind innocuous language is an institution that is responsible for the extermination, torture, and deprivation of tens of millions of people globally. The CIA was formed in 1947 as part of the National Security Act. From its beginnings, it has been an institution that’s primary purpose and accomplishment have been in the commission of mass scale violence with no discernable “protective” effects for the American people. In fact, since inception, the term “terrorist organization” would very accurately describe the CIA and it’s activities. According to the United States’ federal government, terrorism is “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Given the CIA’s behavior through the Cold War and War on Terror to the present, terrorism has been its modus operandi.
In every decade of its existence, the CIA has been committing acts that undoubtedly fall into the category of terrorism. This would be more identifiable to Americans were the acts to be committed by another foreign agency (especially one with an Arabic sounding name). Here are some of the highlights: in 1953 and 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected governments of Iran and Guatemala. What exactly were the crimes of these governments that warranted such violations of the very principles of self-determination that had been articulated in both the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations charter several years earlier? In both cases, the leaders, Mohammad Mossadegh and Jacobo Arbenz had made modest attempts at curtailing the power of western corporations. Mossadegh has nationalized Iran’s oil industry while Arbenz had demanded that the US company, United Fruit, pay for their land in Guatemala. After both were deposed by the CIA, the agency did not sit on its laurels but proceeded to assist each of the US installed governments in the commotion of state terror. In the case of Iran, this meant assisting the Shah (yes, that means “king”) Reza Pahlavi crush dissent through arming and training his secret police force, the Savak. With CIA assistance, the Savak murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and disappeared thousands. Closer to home, the CIA provided lists of alleged leftist political activists to be executed without any semblance of due process by the newly installed rightist government. Uncle Sam’s preferred Guatemalans performed their assigned tasks dutifully and proceeded to initiate a three decade war in which 200 thousand were killed (almost entirely victims of US supported government forces).
From this inaugural dipping of the toe into the waters of mass murder, the CIA moved on to topple many more governments, almost always then assisting the subsequently US installed government with violent purges of suspected leftists. I suppose if one wanted to get technical, they were actually often providing intelligence, true to the name of the organization. However, this “intelligence” came in the form of lists of suspected communists, then turned over to governments propped up by the United States, followed by mass executions. This occurred in Iraq when the Ba’ath party (Saddam Hussein’s party) rose to power. That party’s actions would eventually become the excuse for the United States to launch a catastrophic war on Mesopotamia in 1991 and 2003. However, prior to the 1990’s, the party of Saddam enjoyed a much friendlier relationship with the US. The CIA was instrumental in its rise to power on what was termed by party officials, “a CIA train.” With the indispensable assistance of the CIA and its lists of suspected leftists, the Ba’athists murdered thousands of doctors, educators, lawyers, and others who had alleged ties to leftist politics.
In Indonesia, the CIA’s hand was even heavier. After the military coup that deposed the left leaning Sukarno, General Suharto initiated a campaign of extermination that killed up to one million people. He did so with the full assistance of the United States, especially with the resources of the CIA. Indeed, as Suharto’s forces carried out one of the largest campaigns of mass murder of the second half of the 20th century, they did so with the assistance of communications technology and secret intelligence provided to them directly by the CIA. Similarly to the situation in Iraq, Suharto’s forces were provided lists of suspected leftists by the CIA. The intelligence agency also assisted Suharto in spreading disinformation about the events that triggered the mass killings, exaggerated claims about communist plot to murder several generals in the Indonesian Army. Suharto’s forces with the dutiful patronage of the Central Intelligence Agency proceeded to murder 500 thousand to a million people. In other words, in 1965 in Indonesia, the CIA was complicit in 160 times more murders than Al Qaeda was on 9/11.
After the CIA assisted Suharto to ensure that the most populated nation in South Asia would not turn leftist, the agency continued its practice of terorrism to Vietnam. After the French were defeated by a successful Vietnamese armed resistance,the US assumed the role of imperial occupier of Vietnam. The CIA of course was heavily involved in the imperial thrust into South Asia. In addition to training the South Vietnamese in torture, the CIA role from that war is mostly known for the Phoenix Program. This endeavor is best described as an assassination enterprise. The CIA and its South Vietnamese assets carried out executions of roughly 20,000 suspected communists in South Vietnam. To put that more clearly, 10,000 miles from the homeland, the United States, carried out 20,000 murders of people suspected of being involved in a political party that US officials had deemed unacceptable. To explain in even more blunt terms, imagine that the scary Russians invaded the United States upon a perceived unfriendly political entity taking power. Imagine from there, Russia proceeded to utilize their intelligence service to murder tens of thousands of American civilians for the crime of being SUSPECTED of having ties to that allegedly anti-Russian party. The term “terrorism” should start to ring true here. Of course that situation would never occur, and the analogue is flawed because the US has mostly limited in its genocidal interference to developing countries inhabited by non-whites of the formerly colonized world.
The aforementioned are just a small selection of a much larger, 70 year campaign of terror that has included the overthrow of dozens of governments, the arming and training of torturers, and the complicity in assassinations of leaders in the Dominican Republic, the Congo and South Vietnam. There has also been the CIA’s coordination of, and support for death squads in Nicaragua, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There is the CIA’s global kidnap and torture program that were colloquially referred to as “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation.” And lastly, this non-exhaustive tally of CIA crimes would be incomplete without documenting the organization’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in the commission of massacres of civilians. What term would likely be used to describe if Hezbollah, the Houthis, or any other group were flying robots armed with hellfire missiles inside the US and regularly killing US civilians?
Defenders of the CIA’s decades long campaign of terrorism, mass murder, and torture will state that the danger posed by alleged US enemies warranted such extreme actions. If they point to the communist threat that apparently justified a number of genocides during the Cold War, it would be useful to remind them that the Nazi crimes were often justified by the alleged communist threat.
If such an apologist for CIA terror justifies it by pointing to the terrorist threat, and that “we need to fight terror with terror,” they should be reminded that “terrorism” is an extremely subjective term. Many countries that have been subjected to terror of the CIA and other US entities would be likely to follow Iran’s example in designating the US and its proxies as terrorists. In the aforementioned case of Nicaragua in the 1980’s, wherein the CIA supported the Contra death squads, destabilizing the nation with atrocities against civilians Nicaragua correctly accused the United States of supporting terrorism. The case was brought to the International Court of Justice. The court ruled in the favor of the Central American nation, but the United States elected to ignore the ruling (an apparent option for the superpower). Fortunately for US officials and civilians, Nicaragua had neither the ability nor desire to react to terrorism inflicted on their nation. Contrast this to the way in which the US reacted to the 9/11 terror attacks; with decades long wars and murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians who had nothing to do with the original attacks.
It is also worth reminding them that the US’s practice of designating terrorist groups is fickle. This is evidenced by the regular shifting of particular organizations in and out of the “terror group” designation (see MEK and East Turkestan Islamic Movement). The US government also regularly removes countries from the “state sponsor of terror list” (see Iraq 1983). These changes in position of the US are not reflective in a change of behavior of the subject group or nation, but rather a reflection of the group/nation becoming useful in forwarding geopolitical interests.
Furthermore, in terms of Islamic extremism (the bogeyman of the early 2000’s), be sure to remind the CIA apologist that the agency’s most expensive operations in last 40 years were in service of supporting Islamist extremism. I am referring to Operation Cyclone of the 1980’s, when the CIA provided arms and funding to Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan in the interests of hurting the USSR. In a similar vein, the US has had no issue with supporting jihadists in Syria once that civil war broke out in 2011. The CIA budgeted a billion dollars a year in arms and funding that was in support of Salafi extremists, most of whom had some allegiance to the very same Al Qaeda network that brought down the Twin Towers in 2001. The CIA proxies that were sold as “moderate rebels” to the American public have (with CIA support) killed or wounded some 100,000 members of the Syrian military. Let’s put this in context. As always, the appropriate move is to reverse the roles here: What would the appropriate terminology be if Syria was supporting extremist militias who were killing tens of thousands of US soldiers in the United States or an adjacent country? That hypothetical scenario is precisely the analogue for the actions that the United States, through the CIA, has done in Syria. The arming and funding of extremist (often bent on sectarian mass murder) elements within any nation by a foreign power can be classified as terrorism. These brutal tactics have all been conducted in the service of a goal that had been articulated by US officials long before the Syrian civil war broke out; removing the disobedient Iran allied government of Bashar Al Assad. The unrest that broke out in Syria in 2011 enabled the United States and the CIA to opportunistically sow chaos in a country they had been meaning to destabilize for years.
Finally, if CIA apologists point to the dubious claim that they are fighting terror, they should also be reminded that torture, drone strikes, and the otherwise complicity in the destruction of Arab lives have served as a recruiting tool for terrorist organizations. The orange jumpsuits in ISIS videos are not coincidentally similar to the jumpsuits worn by prisoners tortured at Guantanamo Bay Prison. Perpetrators of nearly every successful and unsuccessful attack on Americans from the Boston Marathon bombing, to the Pulse nightclub shooting, to the would-be Times Square bomber have all cited American violence toward civilians in the Middle East and Central Asia as their motivating factors. The Central Intelligence Agency is an intricate part of the exact kind of violence that motivated these individuals. Furthermore, when totaling the deaths caused by various terror organizations, the CIA dwarfs all competitors. Ex-CIA agent John Stockwell estimates that the CIA has killed millions of residents of the formerly colonized world. He named this war that has been conducted by CIA on globe’s poorest citizens as the “Third World War.” He further described the decades long violence of the CIA as likely the third deadliest war in human history (behind only WWI and WWII). When Noam Chomsky commented on how the US could stop terrorism he noted, “Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: ‘Stop participating in it.'” If this advice were to be taken seriously by the US government, it would require abolishing the organization that has been most culpable of actions that nearly any unbiased voice would define as “terrorism.”
Other Acceptable New Names for The “Central Intelligence Agency:”
Democracy Destabilization Agency
Self-Determination Extermination Agency
The Cost of Maintaining Our Status Quo Nomenclature
The “political” aspect of “politically correct” has been the operative part of the phrase. If the “Department of Defense” and “Defense Contractors” were to be referred to more accurately as the “Department of War” and “Merchants of Death” respectively, it would be terribly inconvenient for some. It would indeed be a bit more difficult for those who wish to portray those institutions of mass murder as essential for protection of American citizens. It would be harder to justify the near trillion dollar budget of the Pentagon while millions of Americans find themself in economic insecurity and lack healthcare. It would likely result in scrutiny in the exorbitant salaries of the CEOs of companies like Raytheon or Lockheed Martin, who profit from the continued sales of their products to be used by Saudi Arabia to vaporize Yemeni children. Politicians from both major parties would have to explain away the blood money that funds their campaigns along with the think tanks who often write up their policy proposals. To admit that the CIA is a terrorist organization would render many Democrats as sympathizers of terror, as many have spent the last four years praising the spy agency for its apparent integrity in its (occasional) opposition to Trump. It would also have us question the legacies of names in which Americans associate with positively such as Allan Dulles and George H.W. Bush. Both were former directors of the agency as it was conducting murderous policies in Iran, Guatemala, and in the case of Bush, South America. Above all, this renaming project would be detrimental to the bipartisan consensus that agrees on American empire. Historian Stephen Kinzer has characterized this agreement, “Americans consider their nation as the first empire to marry power with virtue.” That is to say, Americans seriously believe that in the history of the world, the United States is uniquely benevolent and thus not bound by the expectations we have for other nations. This assumption asserts that the United States has the right to rule the world, the right to intervene in any nation it chooses to, that the US should be the arbiter of human rights, and above all that, the imperial project is good and necessary. It is embraced across the political spectrum, with the proof residing in the fact that Democrats and Republicans have both engaged in imperial wars of aggression in recent years.
A shift to a more realistic nomenclature may not bring an immediate end to US imperialism, especially given that the imperial entities have so much influence over entertainment and other cultural institutions. Consider how the immense Pentagon and CIA funding for films ,video games, and television shows influences how those institutions are perceived by the public. Think about how the constant bombardment with demands for praise of the military at venues such as football and baseball games affects public opinion. The scale of the imperial propaganda only underscores the necessity of furnishing the counter narrative. We can at least start by referring to these imperial institutions for what they are. This will make it far easier to engage in our anti-imperialist cause without the fog of propagandistic bullshit running interference for the enemies of peace.