Saturday, January 13, 2007
Pentagon memo predicts 10,000 or more American soldiers could die in Iraq by 2008
January 12, 2007 6:27 AM
Pentagon planners this week warned President George W. Bush that his "troop surge" plan could double U.S. casualties in Iraq in the coming year and result in 10,000 or more American deaths by the end of 2008.
The Pentagon report admitted battle weary soldiers are more prone to mistakes that lead to casualties and noted that military personnel sent to Iraq for third and possibly fourth tours increase the odds that those soldiers will become casualties of war.
The memo concluded that American military deaths could top 6,000 by the end of 2007 and exceed 10,000 or more in 2008 with more than 100,000 wounded and/or maimed for life.
In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services committee Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to provide an estimate of U.S. casualties, saying such estimates are not possible but the Pentagon assessment had been delivered to the White House on Tuesday, two days before her testimony.
Military planners, as a matter of course, prepare casualty estimates as part of any action.
Senators from both sides of the aisle told Rice they did not believe her testimony, saying too many Bush administration officials have lied to Congress too many times.
The casualty assessment comes as the Pentagon abandons its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.
The day after President Bush announced his plan for a deeper U.S. military commitment in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the change in reserve policy would have been made anyway because active-duty troops already were getting too little time between their combat tours.
The Pentagon also announced it is proposing to Congress that the size of the Army be increased by 65,000, to 547,000 and that the Marine Corps, the smallest of the services, grow by 27,000, to 202,000, over the next five years. No cost estimate was provided, but officials said it would be at least several billion dollars.
Until now, the Pentagon's policy on the Guard or Reserve was that members' cumulative time on active duty for the Iraq or Afghan wars could not exceed 24 months. That cumulative limit is now lifted; the remaining limit is on the length of any single mobilization, which may not exceed 24 consecutive months, Pace said.
In other words, a citizen-soldier could be mobilized for a 24-month stretch in Iraq or Afghanistan, then demobilized and allowed to return to civilian life, only to be mobilized a second time for as much as an additional 24 months. In practice, Pace said, the Pentagon intends to limit all future mobilizations to 12 months.
Members of the Guard combat brigades that have served in Iraq in recent years spent 18 months on active duty — about six months in pre-deployment training in the United States, followed by about 12 months in Iraq. Under the old policy, they could not be sent back to Iraq because their cumulative time on active duty would exceed 24 months. Now that cumulative limit has been lifted, giving the Pentagon more flexibility.
A senior U.S. military official who briefed reporters Thursday on Iraq-related developments said that by next January, the Pentagon "probably will be calling again" on National Guard combat brigades that previously served yearlong tours in Iraq. Under Pentagon ground rules, the official could not be further identified.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing with Pace, announced several other changes in Guard and Reserve policy:
- Although the Pentagon's goal is to mobilize Guard and Reserve units no more frequently than one year out of six, the demands of wartime will require calling up some units more often than that. They provided no details on how many units would be remobilized at the faster pace or when that would begin to happen. Army officials had been saying for some time that more frequent mobilizations were necessary because the active-duty force is being stretched too thin. Gates' announcement is the first confirmation of the change.
- To allow for more cohesion among Guard and Reserve units sent into combat, they will be deployed as whole units, rather than as partial units or as individuals plugged into a unit they do not normally train with.
- Extra pay will be provided for Guard and Reserve troops who are required to mobilize more than once in six years; active-duty troops who get less than two years between overseas deployments also will get extra pay. Details were not provided.
- Military commanders will review their administration of a hardship waiver program "to ensure that they have properly taken into account exceptional circumstances facing military families of deployed service members."
As part of Bush's plan for boosting U.S. troop strength in Iraq, a brigade of National Guard soldiers from Minnesota will have its yearlong tour in Iraq extended by 125 days, to the end of July, and a Patriot missile battalion will be sent to the Persian Gulf next month, the Army said Thursday.
Maj. Randy Taylor, a spokesman for the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, at Fort Bliss, Texas, said the Patriot unit was aware of the announced deployment. He said no formal order had been received Thursday.
The dispatching of a Patriot missile battery, capable of defending against shorter-range ballistic missile attacks, appeared linked to Bush's announcement Wednesday that he ordered an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, which would be in easy reach of Iran, whose nuclear program is a U.S. concern.
Navy officials said the carrier heading to the Gulf region is the USS John C. Stennis, which previously had been in line to deploy to the Pacific. It was not clear Thursday how the Pentagon intended to compensate in the Pacific for the absence of the Stennis in that region, where a chief worry is North Korea.
The Marines announced that two infantry units — the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment — will stay in Iraq 60 to 90 days longer than scheduled. That will enable the Marines to have a total of eight infantry battalions in western Anbar province, instead of the current six, by February. Once the 60- to 90-day extension is over, an additional two battalions will be sent in early from their U.S. bases.
Also, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which combines infantry with a helicopter squadron and a logistics battalion, totaling about 2,200 Marines, will stay in Anbar for 45 more days.
Those extensions conform with Bush's announcement that he was ordering 4,000 more Marines to Anbar.
(This article includes information from The Associated Press)
© Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill Blue
Of Geese,Ganders and Loons
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Dave Lindorff
Over a quarter of a century ago, a group of students, with the backing of the religious government of Iran, invaded and took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, holding Americans there hostage for months. It was an action so violative of international law (embassies and consulates are considered to be the terrority of the nation that occupies them) that the U.S. has never forgiven Iran, and never restored relations.How ironic then, to learn that our president, the loony George W. Bush, personally ordered our troops in "sovereign" Iraq to attack and overrun the Iranian consulate in Irbil, arrest and take as hostages six Iranians there, and confiscate consular equipment such as computers, as well as documents.
How predictable that days later, the U.S. embassy in Greece was hit with a rocket-fired grenade--an action which was immediately denounced by the U.S. as an "act of terror," though thankfully no one was hurt.
We don't know who fired the RPG at the U.S. embassy, but if it was the Iranians, or if it was a Greek leftist acting on behalf of the Iranians, they'd be well within their rights, under the internation rules of war, which include the doctrine of reciprocity. It would be, not terrorism, but an act of war.
In authorizing the attack on Iran's consulate in Irbil, President Bush was okaying an act of war--an attack on the sovereign territory of Iran. What did he expect to happen? What's war for the goose is war for the gander.
Now with all the preparations the administration has under way for war with Iran--a second carrier battle group ordered to the region, a Naval carrier commander placed in charge of the "Iraq War," and air force general put in charge of the "Afghan War," and forces inside Iraq already selecting hundreds of targets--it is likely that the attack on the Irbil consulate was a deliberate provocation, intended to push Iran into a retaliatory action that would allow Bush to unleash the bombers. But even if the president has such a hidden agenda, the American people need to know what's going on here.
If the U.S. goes to war against Iran--a mad scheme if there ever was one at a time when the Army and Marines are stretched to the limit and are already losing in Iraq--Iran will fight back in ways that will be hard to defend against. The U.S. embassy in Greece is a clue about what will happen. If we attack Iran, no target in the U.S. will be safe. No American or American facility in the world will be safe.
This is not what the American people want.
These are the actions of a madman.
It's time for Congress to stop dithering. Impeach this loon an put him in an asylum. And bring the troops home where they belong.
The Best We Can Hope For - A Must Read
The Best We Can Hope For
WASHINGTON
NOBODY will quibble with President Bush’s line Wednesday night that in Iraq, “Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved; there will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.”
Of course, that calls to mind his victory landing on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California in May 2003, which he followed with a speech declaring that, “in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
But let’s not digress. Mr. Bush has now scaled back his strategy for victory to a strategy for the best-we-can-hope-for. So, it must be asked, what exactly is the best we can hope for?
“In the best-case scenario, we’ll be in Iraq for 15 or 20 years,” said Stephen Biddle, author of “Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle.” He offers the example of the Balkans, where everyone seems to have forgotten about the United States troops who have been there for years, helping keep a peace brokered in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.
Under the best result Mr. Biddle said he could imagine, the United States would cajole or force warring Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to agree to the standard-cookbook negotiated ending to a civil war. There would be some kind of power-sharing deal among the key combatants, yielding an uneasy cease-fire that would have to be policed for a long time by outside peacekeepers, since no warring side would trust another.
Sounds like paradise, doesn’t it? Except, Mr. Biddle said, “If I had to bet my house mortgage on a scenario, it wouldn’t be on that one.”
Gunboat Diplomacy: The Watch on the Gulf
THE United States Central Command stretches across some of the world’s most volatile real estate from Kenya in the southwest through all of the Middle East to Kazakhstan in the northeast. It encompasses two active combat theaters: Afghanistan, which is landlocked, and Iraq, with a tiny uncontested shoreline.
In both, the main fighting is counterinsurgency, largely the task of light infantry like the Marines and the Army’s 10th Mountain or 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. CentCom, as it is known, has always been run by a four-star general from the Army or Marines.
So why name a sailor — Adm. William J. Fallon — as CentCom’s new commander, as President Bush did earlier this month?
One word: Iran.
By JOHN KIFNER
Iran: The Pale Horse Approaches
RJ Eskow
01.13.2007
Sometime in the next several months an announcer will interrupt regularly scheduled programming to introduce the President who, blinking rapidly, will announce a series of air strikes against Iran. That announcement will probably use religious rhetoric that makes a tragic situation even worse.
Iran, Iraq, a wreck. That's how you conjugate war in the Middle East, and Iran is the future tense.What's worse, the government continues to employ heated theological language that plays well to its base but hurts our efforts to reduce terrorism.
There will be little or no loss of American life as a result of airstrikes against Iran ... right away. That will happen further down the road, when generations of Muslims that might have been our allies turn against us. (Remember: Hundreds of thousands of Iranians gathered in the streets of Teheran in solidarity with Americans after 9/11.)
As the Administration continues to escalate militarily the danger increases. The Pale Horse and its rider draw closer to Iran - and to us. And the continued use of inflammatory religious rhetoric only compounds the problem.
Take "Islamofascism." Fascism is a government function, and there is no evidence that any state participated in 9/11. In fact, the only Islamic government known to have sponsored terror attacks against Americans is Libya, yet the U.S. and Britain chose negotiation there. (Britain accepted a longstanding offer from Qadafi after the invasion of Iraq, so they could claim their war brought him to the bargaining table.)
Why does Bush celebrate diplomacy with Qadafi - the architect of Flight 700's tragedy - while refusing to speak with Iran or Syria as the Iraq Study Group recommended? Iran is ten years away from being a nuclear danger, and has signaled its interest in negotiation since at least 2003.
Why would we be afraid to talk now, especially when Iran can be helpful in resolving the catastrophe in Iraq? (And the fact is we've brought a pro-Iranian government into power there.) Instead, we're slamming the door on urgently-needed discussions by labeling our adversaries in theological terms.
What other countries might be described as "Islamofascist," besides Libya, Syria, and Iran? Only nations that are currently allies, nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Pakistan. Leaders like Musharraf in Pakistan are endangered and given less latitude to support our anti-terrorism efforts when we inflame their countrymen with religionist rhetoric.
And if we are to encourage democratic reform in the Arab world, we can't do it by using terms that imply we believe all Muslim nations are inherently fascist or evil.
Then there's "Divine Strake." Tests of this massive "bunker-busting" bomb remain on schedule in Nevada, despite protests from local residents.
Why is it called Divine Strake? A "strake" is a tool used to level sand. A reasonable interpretation of this name in the Islamic world would therefore be "a tool for flattening you into the sand ... in God's name." That will play like a declaration of holy war in the Islamic world.
The U.S. fundamentalist/conservative coalition benefits politically from framing the anti-terror effort as a battle against "Islamofascism." It allows them to claim we're in a new Cold War, with all the political opportunities that creates.
Maybe that's why Christian conservative Gary Bauer, in my debate with him on Sean Hannity's show, said that "The struggle against Islamofascism is the defining issue of our time."
Really? Other issues pale in importance? Ten times as many Americans have died from lack of health insurance as from terrorism in the 21st Century. Six times as many Americans have died from improperly tested pharmaceuticals.
Yes, fighting terrorism is vitally important - but it's not a fight against "Islamofascism." It's a fight against stateless criminals, and a fight to prevent them from taking over countries like Pakistan. So why do we conduct unnecessary military attacks that increase their popular support in these countries? And why do we use language that makes their case for them by implying a battle against all Islam?
Nevertheless, the President will make that announcement some evening soon, unless Senators and members of Congress show more political courage than they've done so far. Iranians who recently rejected Ahmadinejad at the polls will rally around him in the face of a common threat. The Islamic world will be more polarized against us, and our ability to combat terrorism and encourage democracy will be even weaker. Worse, we will have caused more needless and unprovoked loss of life, which is unethical under any definition of "just war."
Politicians from John Edwards to Sam Brownback are opposing the "surge." It's time for level-headed leaders of both parties to show some political courage and take a similar stand against a counterproductive attack on Iran. The Powers that Be are intent on writing a message in the sand there, and there's not much time to stop them.
_____________________
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
- Revelation 6:8
READ MORE: Iran, Iraq, Britain, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, United States, Middle East
RJ Eskow is a writer, business person, and songwriter/musician. He has worked as a consultant in public policy, technology, and finance, domestically and in over 20 foreign countries. He also held senior-level positions at several major insurance carriers and has served as CEO of two companies. He is experienced in finance, strategic planning, marketing, data analysis, and IT. He specializes in health and medical issues, and has also worked in film and music.
Eskow currently provides consulting services and is developing a start-up company. As a performer, he has been signed to RCEG Records (www.rcegonline.com) and his new album will be released in early 2007. He's grateful he has rock music to fall back on if this business thing doesn't work out.
Besides writing for The Huffington Post, he maintains his own blogs (A Night Light for politics & music, and The Sentinel Effect for healthcare-related issues). He can be reached at "rjeskow@gmail.com."
In the military sex-speak of the Pentagon, Iraq would endure a 'spike' of violence
Robert Fisk: This jargon disease is choking language
Published: 13 January 2007
I once received an invitation to lecture at "The University of Excellence". I forget where this particular academy was located - Jordan, I think - but I recall very clearly that the suggested subject of my talk was as incomprehensible to me as it would, no doubt, have been to any audience. Invitation rejected. Only this week I received another request, this time to join "ethics practitioners" to "share evidence-based practices on dealing with current ethical practices" around the world. What on earth does this mean? Why do people write like this?
The word "excellence", of course, has long ago been devalued by the corporate world - its favourite expression has long been "Quality and Excellence", invariably accompanied by a "mission statement", that claim to self-importance dreamed up by Robin Cook when foreign secretary - swiftly ditched when he decided to go on selling jets to Indonesia - and thereafter by every export company and amateur newspaper in the world.
There is something repulsive about this vocabulary, an aggressive language of superiority in which "key players" can "interact" with each other, can "impact" society, "outsource" their business - or "downsize" the number of their employees. They need "feedback" and "input". They think "outside the box" or "push the envelope". They have a "work space", not a desk. They need "personal space" - they need to be left alone - and sometimes they need "time and space", a commodity much in demand when marriages are failing.
These lies and obfuscations are infuriating. "Downsizing" employees means firing them; "outsourcing" means hiring someone else to do your dirty work. "Feedback" means "reaction", "input" means "advice". Thinking "outside the box" means, does it not, to be "imaginative"?
Being a "key player" is a form of self-aggrandisement - which is why I never agree to be a "key speaker", especially if this means participation in a "workshop". To me a workshop means what it says. When I was at school, the workshop was a carpentry shop wherein generations of teachers vainly tried to teach Fisk how to make a wooden chair or table that did not collapse the moment it was completed. But today, a "workshop" - though we mustn't say so - is a group of tiresome academics yakking in the secret language of anthropology or talking about "cultural sensitivity" or "core issues" or "tropes".
Presumably these are same folk who invented the UN's own humanitarian-speak. Of the latter, my favourite is the label awarded to any desperate refugee who is prepared (for a pittance) to persuade their fellow victims to abide by the UN's wishes - to abandon their tents and return to their dangerous, war-ravaged homes. These luckless advisers are referred to by the UN as "social animators".
It is a disease, this language, caught by one of our own New Labour ministers on the BBC last week when he talked about "environmental externalities". Presumably, this meant "the weather". Similarly, an architect I know warned his client of the effect of the "aggressive saline environment" on a house built near the sea. If this advice seems obscure, we might be "conflicted" about it - who, I ask myself, invented the false reflexive verb? - or, worse still, "stressed". In northern Iraq in 1991, I was once ordered by a humanitarian worker from the "International Rescue Committee" to leave the only room I could find in the wrecked town of Zakho because it had been booked for her fellow workers - who were very "stressed". Pour souls, I thought. They were stressed, "stressed out", trying - no doubt - to "come to terms" with their predicament, attempting to "cope".
This is the language of therapy, in which frauds, liars and cheats are always trying to escape. Thus President Clinton's spokesman claimed after his admission of his affair with Monica Lewinsky that he was "seeking closure". Like so many mendacious politicians, Clinton felt - as Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara will no doubt feel about his bloodbath in Iraq once he leaves No 10 - the need to "move on".
In the same way, our psycho-babble masters and mistresses - yes, there is a semantic problem there , too, isn't there? - announce after wars that it is a time for "healing", the same prescription doled out to families which are "dysfunctional", who live in a "dystopian" world. Yes, dystopian is a perfectly good word - it is the opposite of utopian - but like "perceive" and "perception" (words once much loved by Jonathan Dimbleby) - they have become fashionable because they appear enigmatic.
Some newly popular phrases, such as "tipping point" - used about Middle East conflicts when the bad guys are about to lose - or "big picture" - when moralists have to be reminded of the greater good - are merely fashionable. Others are simply odd. I always mixed up "bonding" with "bondage" and "quality time" with a popular assortment of toffees. I used to think that "increase" was a perfectly acceptable word until I discovered that in the military sex-speak of the Pentagon, Iraq would endure a "spike" of violence until a "surge" of extra troops arrived in Baghdad.
All this is different, of course, from the non-sexual "no-brainers" with which we now have to "cope" - "author" for "authoress", for example, "actor" for "actress" - or the fearful linguistic lengths we must go to in order to avoid offence to Londoners who speak Cockney: as well all know - though only those of us, of course, who come from the Home Counties - these people speak "Estuary" English. It's like those poor Americans in Detroit who, in fear and trepidation, avoided wishing me a happy Christmas. "Happy Holiday!" they chorused until I roared "Happy Christmas" back. In Beirut, by the way, we all wish each other "Happy Christmas" and "Happy Eid", whether our friends are Muslim or Christian. Is this really of "majorly importance", as an Irish television producer once asked a colleague of a news event?
I fear it is. For we are not using words any more. We are utilising them, speaking for effect rather than meaning, for escape. We are becoming - as The New Yorker now describes children who don't care if they watch films on the cinema screen or on their mobile phones - "platform agnostic". What, Polonius asked his lord, was he reading? "Words, words, words," Hamlet replied. If only...
Published: 13 January 2007
I once received an invitation to lecture at "The University of Excellence". I forget where this particular academy was located - Jordan, I think - but I recall very clearly that the suggested subject of my talk was as incomprehensible to me as it would, no doubt, have been to any audience. Invitation rejected. Only this week I received another request, this time to join "ethics practitioners" to "share evidence-based practices on dealing with current ethical practices" around the world. What on earth does this mean? Why do people write like this?
The word "excellence", of course, has long ago been devalued by the corporate world - its favourite expression has long been "Quality and Excellence", invariably accompanied by a "mission statement", that claim to self-importance dreamed up by Robin Cook when foreign secretary - swiftly ditched when he decided to go on selling jets to Indonesia - and thereafter by every export company and amateur newspaper in the world.
There is something repulsive about this vocabulary, an aggressive language of superiority in which "key players" can "interact" with each other, can "impact" society, "outsource" their business - or "downsize" the number of their employees. They need "feedback" and "input". They think "outside the box" or "push the envelope". They have a "work space", not a desk. They need "personal space" - they need to be left alone - and sometimes they need "time and space", a commodity much in demand when marriages are failing.
These lies and obfuscations are infuriating. "Downsizing" employees means firing them; "outsourcing" means hiring someone else to do your dirty work. "Feedback" means "reaction", "input" means "advice". Thinking "outside the box" means, does it not, to be "imaginative"?
Being a "key player" is a form of self-aggrandisement - which is why I never agree to be a "key speaker", especially if this means participation in a "workshop". To me a workshop means what it says. When I was at school, the workshop was a carpentry shop wherein generations of teachers vainly tried to teach Fisk how to make a wooden chair or table that did not collapse the moment it was completed. But today, a "workshop" - though we mustn't say so - is a group of tiresome academics yakking in the secret language of anthropology or talking about "cultural sensitivity" or "core issues" or "tropes".
Presumably these are same folk who invented the UN's own humanitarian-speak. Of the latter, my favourite is the label awarded to any desperate refugee who is prepared (for a pittance) to persuade their fellow victims to abide by the UN's wishes - to abandon their tents and return to their dangerous, war-ravaged homes. These luckless advisers are referred to by the UN as "social animators".
It is a disease, this language, caught by one of our own New Labour ministers on the BBC last week when he talked about "environmental externalities". Presumably, this meant "the weather". Similarly, an architect I know warned his client of the effect of the "aggressive saline environment" on a house built near the sea. If this advice seems obscure, we might be "conflicted" about it - who, I ask myself, invented the false reflexive verb? - or, worse still, "stressed". In northern Iraq in 1991, I was once ordered by a humanitarian worker from the "International Rescue Committee" to leave the only room I could find in the wrecked town of Zakho because it had been booked for her fellow workers - who were very "stressed". Pour souls, I thought. They were stressed, "stressed out", trying - no doubt - to "come to terms" with their predicament, attempting to "cope".
This is the language of therapy, in which frauds, liars and cheats are always trying to escape. Thus President Clinton's spokesman claimed after his admission of his affair with Monica Lewinsky that he was "seeking closure". Like so many mendacious politicians, Clinton felt - as Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara will no doubt feel about his bloodbath in Iraq once he leaves No 10 - the need to "move on".
In the same way, our psycho-babble masters and mistresses - yes, there is a semantic problem there , too, isn't there? - announce after wars that it is a time for "healing", the same prescription doled out to families which are "dysfunctional", who live in a "dystopian" world. Yes, dystopian is a perfectly good word - it is the opposite of utopian - but like "perceive" and "perception" (words once much loved by Jonathan Dimbleby) - they have become fashionable because they appear enigmatic.
Some newly popular phrases, such as "tipping point" - used about Middle East conflicts when the bad guys are about to lose - or "big picture" - when moralists have to be reminded of the greater good - are merely fashionable. Others are simply odd. I always mixed up "bonding" with "bondage" and "quality time" with a popular assortment of toffees. I used to think that "increase" was a perfectly acceptable word until I discovered that in the military sex-speak of the Pentagon, Iraq would endure a "spike" of violence until a "surge" of extra troops arrived in Baghdad.
All this is different, of course, from the non-sexual "no-brainers" with which we now have to "cope" - "author" for "authoress", for example, "actor" for "actress" - or the fearful linguistic lengths we must go to in order to avoid offence to Londoners who speak Cockney: as well all know - though only those of us, of course, who come from the Home Counties - these people speak "Estuary" English. It's like those poor Americans in Detroit who, in fear and trepidation, avoided wishing me a happy Christmas. "Happy Holiday!" they chorused until I roared "Happy Christmas" back. In Beirut, by the way, we all wish each other "Happy Christmas" and "Happy Eid", whether our friends are Muslim or Christian. Is this really of "majorly importance", as an Irish television producer once asked a colleague of a news event?
I fear it is. For we are not using words any more. We are utilising them, speaking for effect rather than meaning, for escape. We are becoming - as The New Yorker now describes children who don't care if they watch films on the cinema screen or on their mobile phones - "platform agnostic". What, Polonius asked his lord, was he reading? "Words, words, words," Hamlet replied. If only...
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