OCO - Overseas Contingency Operation

from The National Review
March 25, 2009
by Gregory S. McNeal

The newly named Overseas Contingency Operation

Uncle Jimbo at BlackFive wrote a humorous post about the end of the "Global War on Terrorism" and the beginning of the new "Overseas Contingency Operation." Stated differently, the war our brave men and women are fighting is now better described as a thing we do because of a disagreement. (One has to wonder, will we need to rename the "War On Terrorism Expeditionary Medal"? Perhaps Battle Stars will now be renamed Unpleasant Experience Stars . . .)

For those of you who may be wondering just what the heck a contingency is, Mike Goldfarb points out that a contingency in philosophy is "the status of propositions that are not necessarily true or necessarily false." I suppose some Ivy League guy in the White House thought this was an appropriate term.

Which begs the next question: Now that the term "enemy combatants" is no longer en vogue, what will we call our enemies in this Overseas Contingency Operation? Alien unlawful enemy combatants is so passé; what other possibilities are there? Perhaps "not-so-nice contingent operators" or "misunderstood persons wrongly swept up in an overseas contingency." So many semantic options, so little time.

I'm hoping some Republican will eventually man-up and tell the White House that if all these people are innocent folks, wrongfully imprisoned by that evil Bush administration (in President Obama's words, "folks that we just swept up"), then why not move them into the Lincoln Bedroom as a national apology? In fact, he could even give them "jobs that Americans won't do," tending to the new White House vegetable garden.

Mr. President put your money where your mouth is, relocate these wayward souls, and let the global healing begin!
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