Rhetorical PloyIn-Terr-Ven-Shun
Turd-polishing linguistic quibble, designed to emphasise the good intentions motivating certain foreign policy disasters.
A term first coined by Alcoholics Anonymous, an intervention begins when several hundred thousand heavily-armed friends drop by, before relieving ones psychotic ruler of his non-existent nuclear weapons programs and settling down to sell ones natural resources to their friends at super-bonanza knock-down prices.
Used explicitly to disambiguate an intervention - a righteous moral crusade for freedom, truth and justice - from a deliberate war of aggression. The difference is vital in law, since one is awarded Nobel prizes for the first, and hung like a common cutthroat for the second.
"Professor Taylor's inability to distinguish an "invasion of Iraq" - as if a state's legitimate sovereignty had been violated by the removal of a bestial and kleptocratic regime - from an intervention in Iraq is merely the least of the many components in the evidence of his stupidity." - Oliver Kamm
See also Failures In The Reconstruction Process, Confronting Fascism, Kamm's Gimlet
1 comment:
"Professor Taylor's inability to distinguish an "invasion of Iraq" - as if a state's legitimate sovereignty had been violated by the removal of a bestial and kleptocratic regime - from an intervention in Iraq is merely the least of the many components in the evidence of his stupidity."
I would say that a foreign power invading a country in order to depose its leader is a textbook definition of a violation of sovereignty.
However, as one of those brie-eating liberals—or more accurately a working-class anarchist—my vision is clearly warped by a desire to Blame Bush for All Ills.
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