Right Out of Orwell

by Liberty and Power

The new Iraqi interim government scheduled to take control on July 1 will have only"limited sovereignty" over the country and no authority over U.S. and coalition military forces already there, senior State and Defense officials told Congress this week.

And Iraqi women will experience only limited pregnancy.

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Daniel B. Larison - 4/23/2004

As I'm sure someone else has pointed out before, "limited sovereignty" isn't the only sort of Newspeak being used during the occupation. During the initial days of the fighting around Fallujah in early April, Centcom at least briefly referred to the forces in Fallujah as "anti-Iraqi forces," and a local commander was quoted using the same phrase in news reports. Foreigners' using Iraqi nationalist rhetoric used by Hussein in the past is as impressive a display of Newspeak as I've seen in some time.

The phrase has not shown up again since early April, perhaps because even the bureaucrats realised that this was an idiotic way to describe the hostile forces. I believe that a more common description now is the quasi-Stalinist designation of "anti-democratic."