In its 19 December 2013 issue, “The USA Today”^(TM) reported that 2013 marks the ten year anniversary of the Improvised Explosive Device or “IED” (“How the IED Changed the US Military,” by Gregg Zoroya, front page). The article traces the historical trajectory of the IED from 2003 and attempts to demonstrate how this phenomenon has caused an evolution in gear and tactics for the U.S. military.

Likely, one of the most surprised people to learn of the short ten-year lifespan of the IED was the guy who tossed one into the motorcade of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the area of the former Yugoslavia. His use of an Improvised Explosive Device set off what we now call World War I. Others who never got the memo declaring that all of human history had been compacted into the period from 2003 to the present were equally surprised.

Improvised Explosive Devices were thrown into a crowd of cops in Chicago during the Haymarket Riot. By all accounts, rebel colonists used IEDs during the Boston Tea Party, burning British ships into the sea. And nobody in their right mind would argue that the molotov cocktail, that most-ubiquitous of Improvised Explosive Devices, was first concocted in the twenty-first century.

So what the fuck is The USA Today^(TM) talking about?

It appears that this bastion of balanced journalism (that’s sarcasm) has employed an IED of its own. I’m not talking about an Improvised Explosive Device, but an “Inaccurate Euphemistic Deception.” See, language is a tool. And tools can be used as weapons. Here, language is being used as a weapon. Continue reading →