|
The language of war
|
Map
12 posts
 author
|
 posted 4/15/2003 3:36:19 AM
 reply
Washington post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A342-2001Sep20¬Found=true):
"For centuries, humans waged military campaigns that were more or less anonymous, leaving the naming to historians. The practice of soldiers naming martial operations apparently began in Germany near the end of World War I. In America, the War Department used color names for operations just prior to World War II.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill harbored strong convictions on the subject, according to Christopher Chant's 1985 Encyclopedia of Code Names of World War II.
"Operations," Churchill said, "ought not to be described by code-words which imply a boastful and over-confident sentiment." And names "ought not to be names of frivolous character. They should not be ordinary words." And "Names of living people should be avoided."
<...>
Nowadays, the choice of operation names is made using computer-suggested terms, says a Pentagon source.
Since 1975, the process has been aided by various software called the Code Word, Nickname and Exercise Term System. "Basically what happens," says the Pentagon source, "is that each of the theater CINCs -- the commanders in chief, that is the admirals and generals in charge of regional theaters -- is given a database of words."
He continues: "A name is randomly selected -- normally a word that is pertinent to that region -- like 'desert' in Desert Storm and Desert Shield," for operations in the 1991 Gulf War.
<...>
Between 1975 and 1988, names were pretty meaningless, writes Gregory Sieminski in the August 1995 issue of Parameters, the U.S. Army War College quarterly. The Libyan raid in 1986 was named Eldorado Canyon and the 1988 airstrike campaign against Iranian ships and oil platforms was dubbed Praying Mantis, as a guarantee against embarrassment. "
|
|
|
New Topic
