Doublespeak in Paper on Doublespeak

This type of paper really pisses me off. The CATO institute PDF wants to discuss the governments use of language relative to doublespeak.

Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Such language is often associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions and its deliberate use by these is what distinguishes it from other euphemisms. Doublespeak may be in the form of bald euphemisms ("downsizing" for "firing of many employees") or deliberately ambiguous phrases ("wet work" for "assassination").

It didn't take long into the article before I ran into the writer's first use of Doublespeak to distort the facts of a situation. Here's the quote:

During the 2004 presidential election debate, President Bush told a nationwide television audience to "forget about all this talk about a draft. We're not going to have a draft so long as I am the president."8 In order to evaluate the accuracy of that statement, one must pay careful attention to the word "draft"-for, as the economist Thomas Sowell once observed, "All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms."9

Shortly after 9/11 President Bush declared a "national emergency" and simultaneously authorized Pentagon officials to issue "stoploss" orders. A stop-loss order means that members of the military may not leave the service - even if they have fulfilled the terms of their enlistment contract. Once a stop-loss order is issued, an individual"s duty status changes from voluntary service to involuntary service. Although the legality of the stop-loss orders has been upheld by the judiciary, those orders have clearly changed the nature of military service for many soldiers.10 In military circles, the orders have been dubbed the "backdoor draft."11

The National Guard has tried to attract recruits with a program called "Try One." A website advertisement tells veterans who are leaving the service that they are eligible for a special program in the Guard or the Reserves. The Try One contract allows veterans to try the Guard or the Reserves for a year - and then decide if they wish to commit to a full enlistment. The Pentagon has ordered persons in that program to Iraq - even though they have already served a year and wish to return to civilian life. According to the fine print, recruits could end up serving many years in the military, not one. When a reporter confronted Army personnel director, Brigadier General Sean Byrne, about the misleading nature of the Try One program, the general said, "I am not the marketer, but maybe it'll have to be re-looked."12 Eighteen months after that interview, the government continues to mislead young men and women into what it keeps calling its "Try One" program.

No doubt that the "Try One" program was a distortion, but I'm going to guess that the specifics that the author is pointing out are actually laid out in their contracts. Then there is the contention that the Stop-Loss activity is a draft. That first article appears quite conclusively to me to be stating that Bush lied on the draft by using tricky language. But let's look at the Selective Service System (Draft Board) and what it does.

The Selective Service System is an independent federal agency operating with permanent authorization under the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 451 et seq.). It is not part of the Department of Defense; however, it exists to serve the emergency manpower needs of the Military by conscripting untrained manpower, or personnel with professional health care skills, if directed by Congress and the President in a national crisis. Its statutory missions also include being ready to administer an alternative service program, in lieu of military service for men classified as conscientious objectors.

Hmm. These are the guys that run the draft when required by law. They don't in fact run the stop loss program. The reason that the stop loss program is allowed by the judiciary is because it is part of the law and is written into the contracts of most of the military.

Now, Is that distortion? Could one call it doublespeak?

I think their analysis of National Security Letters is not far off, but then they decide to take on Asymmetrical warfare, and completely fail to do any research.

The American prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been a frequent target of criticism because of Bush administration policies concerning the detention and treatment of prisoners. Whatever one may think about those detention and treatment policies, it is clear that the U.S. military has employed doublespeak to describe events at Guantanamo. "Self-injurious behavior incidents" is the Pentagon's phrase for suicide attempts by prisoners, for example.22 And when three men hanged themselves in their cells, the camp commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, went so far as to say that the suicides were "an act of asymmetrical warfare" against the American military.23 Warfare? A terrorist engages in asymmetrical warfare when he straps explosives to his body and then detonates the bomb when he gets close to his human targets. But if "warfare" is stretched so far as to include an enemy's taking his own life, it is difficult to identify what actions a prisoner might engage in that would not constitute warfare.

So let's see, Asymmetrical warfare includes methods that will alter public view of how a conflict is being conducted. This strategy was evident in Lebanon with how Hezbollah used the press to distort the reality of the warfare being conducted by controlling where the press could go and by providing staged events for the press to report. Now, in GITMO these Jihadists have been sequestered away from the active battle and they use the US press to get their plight reported. Remember the Koran desecrations that never actually occurred? Why is it that this author seems to believe that committing suicide in prison wouldn't gain sympathy for the Jihadi's cause in the US by vilifying the military and the administration that holds them? And the reports would also work well as propaganda against the US in the middle east by portraying the US as monsters illegitimately holding innocent Moslems?

The usage of the press in 4GW is a subtle weapon. Lessons from Vietnam show how effectively it can be used. Yet the author Timothy Lynch, would like to dissuade the reader from understanding that this is a tool in 4GW that the Jihadis effectively use, and the MSM effectively ignore their complicity. Lynch's understanding of 4GW strikes me as strangely simplistic for someone that wishes to make this loud of a statement with regards to Assymetric warfare.

So again, would you say that Lynch is describing the realities of the topic, or is he using his own doublespeak to distort the realities?

Of course, he fell completely off the map when he starts ranting about Military Tribunals. He's on the Constitutional Protections side of the tribunals. Meaning that these terrorists or illegal military combatants deserve all the protections that a citizen of the US has.

My point is that one man views these things as doublespeak, but when they themselves distort reality in their writing they are not convincing to those who wish to take a second and understand the topic of which they are speaking.

I'd also be much more convinced that this wasn't just a partisan attack if Lynch were taking aims at doublespeak being used by individuals or groups other than the Bush Administration. The present political environment provides more than enough examples of political doublespeak, none of which Lynch quotes anywhere in his paper.