The Iraq War's Go-To Cliché

If C-Span had sponsored a "Blood and Treasure" drinking game, everyone in the hearing room would have been drunk before noon.

It wasn't just the senators who couldn't get enough B&T. The star of the hearing, Gen. David Petraeus, solemnly testified that even though he believes we can still win in Iraq, "there clearly are limits to the blood and treasure that we can expend." Not to be outdone, his sidekick, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, lamented, "Our country has given a great deal in blood and treasure to stabilize the situation in Iraq.…" (Crocker's performance was memorable for another show-stopping war euphemism, when he referred to bombed-out Iraqi towns as "post-kinetic environments.")

As a rhetorical tool, B&T is admirably versatile. Either side can use it with equal effectiveness. The trick is to wait for just the right moment to unleash the phrase, usually when you and your sparring partner are good and angry and you've already run through the familiar arsenal of Iraq clichés that must be hauled out in any conversation about the war. (On the one side: "We've got to fight them over there …" On the other: "The whole war is based on lies …") That's when you—and you've got to act quick, because you know the other guy is reaching for the same holster—affect a slightly condescending tone of sad, world-weary resignation, and fire: "No one among us can deny that this noble/futile conflict has cost us much in blood and treasure." So true. So smart. Duel over.

Even the White House is getting in on a little B&T. Briefing reporters, press secretary Tony Snow lectured that in the long run, failure in Iraq would "require a much greater expenditure of U.S. blood and treasure."

Expenditure? There's an interesting word choice (we're sorry, but we had to expend your son's life in Iraq), and it says a lot about why B&T has become so popular. Like all euphemisms it puts comforting distance between ourselves and the violence in Iraq by making something brutal and ugly sound lofty and poetic. Death and destruction is depressing. But expenditures, that's just spreadsheets. B&T is all about making the war easier for us here at home.

Try this: Next time you hear someone use "blood and treasure" to make a point for or against the war, substitute the words "dead Americans and money." It has a whole different ring to it.

© 2007