Dictionary of War, Novi Sad Edition

by C Murray Mon Feb 04, 2008 09:49

All the encoding, decoding and distribution of the films has been done on open source
software , so that it can be widely accessed and understood.

some of the titles mentioned in the above links are available @

http://v2v.cc

The link explaining the material and tech is @

http://dictionaryofwar.org/en-dict/videohowto

by C Murray Mon Feb 04, 2008 09:55

http://v2v.cc/node/21

by Sceptic Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:57

I don’t find this very convincing. The term “shock and awe” accurately reflects a psychological technique of demonstrating superiority to affect the morale of the opposing regime and its military. It is a not a new concept, merely a new term and is not a distortion of language. The idea is fully apparent in accounts of wars from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. “Coalition of the willing” is merely another way of describing a voluntary alliance such as that between the US, UK, Spain, Italy, Qatar and Kuwait which overthrew the Baathist regime in Iraq.

Arguably the 1960s Pentagon speak did give rise to sanitised new terms in the Vietnam era such as “friendly fire” and “collateral damage” and “war of attrition” but again the concepts were not new and if you take any field of study such as management you would find a host of new terms coined since 1945. More than a quarter of all US causalities in the first three days of the battle of Okinawa were caused by friendly fire though the term was not invented then. Also terms like “hawks and doves” and “hearts and minds” were coined in the 1960s.

Closer to home in terms of sanitising language SF/IRA were more impressive masters than the Pentagon. Hence a rather dirty guerrilla type terrorist campaign became “the armed struggle”. People like prison officers and those working for building contractors became “legitimate targets” and so on. The USSR had their own terms such as describing any opponent of the regime as an “anti revolutionary” which meant “liquidation” in short order. Their surrogates and imitators throughout the soviet block including Cuba followed suit as did communist China and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.

by C Murray Mon Feb 04, 2008 12:00

http://www.v2v.cc/node/21

has the info regarding the fileshare and free-open software.

as to Skeptic's 'unconvincing polemic', well, anyone who has read a bit wd know that polemicism
is a style-it deliberately provokes engagement with issues. i had thought Skeptic's endless
insubstantial trolling and lack of article writing was also a 'style' but it seems more an attempt to
de-rail threads and utilise language to obfuscate issues. the documentaries are available through
a free open software system, much like the ones being used here and devloped in Europe.

http://www.dictionaryofwar.org/en-dict/videohowto