Collateral damage: A phrase designed to mask bloody reality of war

IN his defence of the recent Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Professor Michael Wald is keen to make a distinction between murder and what he refers to as “collateral damage”, something, he assures us, that “regrettably happens in any war” (Irish Examiner letters, August 29).

‘Collateral damage’ is, of course, a Pentagon euphemism coined during the Vietnam war to justify the trail of death left in the wake of B52 bombers. This dangerous euphemism saw service again during the two US-led invasions of Iraq and is now proffered as justification for the carnage inflicted from the air on the people of Lebanon.

A literal examination of this phrase is instructive. ‘Collateral’ means ‘of a secondary nature’ or ‘subordinate’.

Yet there is every reason to believe the primary objective of the Israeli bombing campaign was to terrorise the civilian population.

‘Damage’ is a word you would apply to wrecked property, but not normally to the human body.

Who, after all, would say of a child whose limbs have been torn away by high explosives that he or she has been ‘damaged’?

To refer to the civilian casualties in Lebanon — and Israel — as ‘collateral damage’ is to degrade and dehumanise not just those who have suffered in this conflict, but all of humanity.

It is sad, but telling, that defenders of Israeli aggression seem essentially untroubled by the human cost of the bombardment and invasion, and seem to seek comfort in the rhetoric of war so as to wish away its reality.

Dominic Carroll

Anti-War Ireland

Ardfield

Clonakilty

Co Cork.