{"id":10525,"date":"2017-07-25T08:39:27","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=10525"},"modified":"2017-07-25T08:39:27","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T13:39:27","slug":"word-of-the-day-184","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/07\/25\/word-of-the-day-184\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Viceroy<\/i>:<\/p>\n

a person appointed to rule a country or province as the deputy of the sovereign … [Dictionary.<\/b><\/i>com<\/strong><\/em><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heard on\u00a0MPR\u00a0<\/b><\/i>this morning in reference to the continuing US presence in Afghanistan. Given the definition and the tendencies of our current President, I should consider this word choice a trifle dangerous. Back in June, Common Dreams<\/strong><\/em> commented<\/a> on the suggestion:<\/p>\n

Displaying what one commentator\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0“sheer 19th century bloodlust and thirst for empire,” Erik Prince, founder of the private mercenary firm Blackwater,\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0this week that the United States should deploy an “East India Company approach” in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The country, he wrote, should be run by “an American viceroy who would lead all U.S. government and coalition efforts\u2014including command, budget, policy, promotion, and contracting\u2014and report directly to the president.”<\/p>\n

Prince continued:<\/p>\n

In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prince insists that these are “cheaper private solutions,” but such privatization would also be a boon for military contractors.<\/p>\n

As one critic\u00a0noted<\/a>, it is hardly surprising that a “war profiteer sees profit opportunity in war.” Blackwater, the private military company Prince founded in 1997\u2014which now operates under the name\u00a0Academi<\/a>\u2014made a fortune off the invasion of Iraq. In 2007, a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>editorial\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0that Blackwater had “received more than $1 billion” in no-bid contracts from the Bush administration; that same year, Blackwater contractors shot and killed more than a dozen civilians in what came to be known as the\u00a0Nisour Square massacre<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given the obvious misalignment of objectives between the private and public sectors, as we’ve discussed before, the larger proposal sounds like a non-starter to me – if, of course, this article hasn’t mis-represented it. In the radio proposal, the speaker (was it Mr. Prince?) suggested that the viceroy approach would require a person with several years commitment to the job, thus ensuring continuity in methods and goals.<\/p>\n

Of course, ensuring is a strong word; it does, however, increase the probability of achieving that continuity. But, honestly, viceroy<\/em> is a colonialist’s word, as the article also notes, and I would be highly dubious of not only the word, but the motivations behind someone who would use it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viceroy: a person appointed to rule a country or province as the deputy of the sovereign … [Dictionary.com] Heard on\u00a0MPR\u00a0this morning in reference to the continuing US presence in Afghanistan. Given the definition and the tendencies of our current President, I should consider this word choice a trifle dangerous. Back \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10525"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10531,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10525\/revisions\/10531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}