France’s declaration of war Orwellian

Re An ’Act of War,’ Nov. 15 French President François Hollande says the attacks in Paris were “an act of war” and that “the country must take appropriate action.” Those words are from the president of a country that has already been dropping bombs on Muslims for the better part of a decade.

Language is a powerful thing. When people hear “act of war” they immediately think something has just started. That one side has just started a conflict against an enemy in peacetime.

Hollande is purposely using this language to wipe away the memory of military interventions in Afghanistan, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Chad, Libya, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. Interventions that, not coincidentally, helped give rise to ISIS.

He is attempting to create a fresh start, a morally clean slate, where we all naively believe we’ve been attacked “out of the blue” — that “we” didn’t start this, “they” did. That France is, only now, “faced with war.”

The state’s Orwellian strategies work very well: Just look at all the French flag-coloured Facebook profile pictures. Look at all the articles only now — over a decade after the West first started its endless “War on Terror” — announcing that “France declares war” in response to last week’s atrocities in Paris.

We need to stop allowing our leaders and media to convince us we should be surprised each time people actually die on “our” side of a war that’s been raging for years. Or are we so sure of our own righteousness that we cannot imagine why we can’t kill thousands with impunity, or bomb without consequence, or why leaving behind a long trail of broken states and ruined lives would come back to haunt us? Jeff Robson, Toronto

Returning to her first love

Re Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board quits, Nov. 19 So Ottawa Citizen editorial board member Kate Heartfield has resigned after writing editorials endorsing the Conservatives in the last election and has announced she will spend time writing fiction. How appropriate. Tom Morris, Whitby