Military action is framed with sanitized labels to ease public acceptance

Evidence

The Iraqi army did not seem to have any allegiance to the Shiite-dominated regime, fleeing and leaving military equipment behind when faced with advancing ISIS forces. Once again the United States became entangled in an Iraqi civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that grew in scope and brutality. The interminable bloodshed in Iraq came with sanitized labels—names such as Operation Desert Storm, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The new war was called Operation Inherent Resolve. In his address to the nation, President Obama essentially declared war against ISIS via air strikes but reassured the public that this war would not include “boots on the ground.” In addition, a cadre of military special forces would be dispatched to Iraq to advise the Iraqi military and coordinate air strikes from the ground. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2455

Categorization

• XREF: Directly exemplifies the book’s moral disengagement machinery (euphemistic labeling) applied to contemporary warfare.