535 José Miguel Alía Plana Rules of engagement and governance of agramante’s camp with a placebo effect, conceptual simplification and anaesthetic words,76 we are creating a new reality. We could add the abuse of acronyms and of “officialese”, technical-administrative jargon bursting with acronyms and English expressions pronounced according to Spanish phonetic patterns and invented by writers who write lectures and declarations for rulers, politicians and bureaucrats.77 Thus we find expressions that make one believe in the existence of things (“intelligent weaponry”) installed by propaganda and its influence, captured in the minds of audiences; because words create reality. If we extract collateral damage from the technical-military context, we shall see that not only is it an error, or the fruit of a poor calculation that brings about death and damages, a statistical figure or a percentage, a deviation on a diagram; it is something more than that. It is one of the keys for the “creation of acceptability”- audiences accept a fact when it is repeated by the media. As regards the value of the “anaesthetic expressions”, let us list the names of recent military operations: the invasion of Panama (1989) called “Causa Justa”; the operation in Somalia (1992), “Restoring Hope”; Haiti (1994), “Operation Uphold Democracy” and, last but not least, operation “Lasting Freedom” following 9/11. No collateral damage perpetrated on a mission with such a name could be more than an acceptable error. We think of labels like “Desert Shield”, “Enduring Freedom”, “Valiant Guardians”, Sea Angel”. These names embodied the justice of the cause: how could those who acted as “angels” be guilty? What could one say about “Valiant Guardians” to prosecute them? The name is part of a discourse which provides a narrative to the action and replaces it. Here it includes the “binomial machine” ROE/collateral damage. In the United States, a relationship has been shown to exist between the dissemination of news of such damages by the media in relation to campaigns in Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan, and an increase of anti-war demonstrations (against government policy) which are, after all, symptoms of a decline in their support and legitimation.78 Words are preferred, as “generally speaking, taking action is frowned upon: it would correspond to a brutal uprising of inhibition, and therefore a psychotic process”.79 The psychosis is the loss of contact with reality; with the narrative that power produces over what is real. This cannot be condoned, because individuals would have to face communities, establishment versus the people. It would amount to the abdication of policy for the 76 COLLINS, John, and GLOVER, Ross. Lenguaje colateral. Claves para justificar una guerra. Madrid: Páginas de Espuma, 2003. 77 BIOY CASARES, Adolfo. Breve diccionario del argentino exquisito, in Obras Completas. Buenos Aires, Grupo Editorial Norma, 1999, p. 176. 78 LARSON, Eric V.; and SAVYCH, Bogdan, op. cit., p. 20. 79 BAUDRILLARD, Jean, op. cit., p. 16. http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee
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