Abstract
The Iraqi regime has used weapons of mass destruction. They not only had weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction. They used weapons of mass destruction in other countries, they have used weapons of mass destruction on their own people. That's why I say Iraq is a threat, a real threat. - George W. Bush, Address at Ford Hood, Texas, Jan 3, 2003
Highlights
The transformation of the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) from its destructive characteristics to multiple, surprising variations in its socio-legal and political sense has been dramatic
In 1873, Friedrich Nietzsche suggested that figures of speech, “after long use, seem firm, canonical and obligatory to a people”
To use the terms of Zadeh, mutually exclusive. Whether it is the “mobile army” of various lexical forms suggested by Nietzsche, or a matter of “fuzzy truths” and “connectives” inherent in a system of reasoning, the WMD fixation has taken states to war, resulted in absurd domestic adjustments to laws, notably those in the United States, and seen a satirising of the term
Summary
The Iraqi regime has used weapons of mass destruction. They had weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction. The transformation of the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) from its destructive characteristics to multiple, surprising variations in its socio-legal and political sense has been dramatic. This essay examines the absurd play of language inherent in the use of the term WMD, discussing the way weapons of apocalyptic terror became weapons of domestic innocuousness. From its appearance in the 1930s as a term of use, to its dissimulative abuse by the Bush administration leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, WMD became a matter of fantasy, nightmare, comic relief and military justification. Its absurd finale has come in the form of the ultimate mockery – the use of a Rocket Propelled Grenade or pressure cookers filled with nails
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