Invasion or Liberation - Writers Forum

antistar · 11-15-2006, 07:09 PM

I know this is a political question, but it's not intended to troll or cause a fight. It's a genuine question regarding the meaning of words as understood in their proper context.

Would you describe the 1990 Gulf War as an invasion or Kuwait, or a liberation of Kuwait?

Please explain your answers.

imrhati · 11-15-2006, 08:02 PM

Well if you're from Kuwait it would be an invasion, if you're American it would be a Liberation. I personally feel do not know enough about it to decide. As far as history goes, the winner will decide what to call it.

safari invasion · 11-15-2006, 08:29 PM

I would say we invaded for the purpose of liberating. Of course it's a matter of rhetoric, but that's how I would put it.

bob rulz · 11-16-2006, 01:49 AM

I see a liberation as reversing a previous invasion. Like Iraq invaded Kuwait, so we invaded Kuwait to liberate it. And the Kuwaitis would not see it as an invasion; Kuwait loves the U.S., because they feared Saddam Hussein after he invaded them.

Anyway, so I don't make it political, I'll get it over with. I see a "liberation" as a reversion of a takeover so that it can re-establish their own self-government.

Mike C · 11-16-2006, 02:29 AM

Whilst invasion/liberation is largely a matter of viewpoint, in the first Gulf war the invaders were Iraq. Their removal was Liberation.

As for the second Gulf war, that was invasion, as there was no occupying force to liberate Iraq from.

aspiring · 11-16-2006, 03:04 AM

Agree with Mike

mammamaia · 11-16-2006, 10:26 AM

ditto the ditto

Mike C · 11-16-2006, 11:42 AM

Also remember that history is written by winners. In 100 years time when referring to the second gulf war the words "bloody fiasco" will be replaced by "glorious victory".

wmd · 11-16-2006, 02:02 PM

Why is this topic in Writing > Tips and Advice when it should be in the Debate or at least Off Topic Forum?

safari invasion · 11-16-2006, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike C

Also remember that history is written by winners. In 100 years time when referring to the second gulf war the words "bloody fiasco" will be replaced by "glorious victory".

I have to strongly disagree. I hate to make this comparison because everyone seems to be doing it without putting any thought into it, but look at Vietnam. People are pretty honest about what happened, about the failures, about the reality. Granted, it isn't 100 years later, but it wasn't yesterday either.

The winners get to write history, but they usually don't just make shit up. And I hate to say this, but how much of the world looks at the United States as winners in this war to begin with?

antistar · 11-16-2006, 06:42 PM

Thanks for the feedback.

The reason for the question was that I recently wrote about the Yom Kippur war, and described how the Egyptians "launched a military operation to reclaim the land taken from it in the previous war". Someone thought that I was being biased against the Israelis for describing it in such neutral terms, and that I should have described it as an invasion.

The point was that I had deliberately avoided using the word "invade" because I felt that it didn't apply when describing a country retaking its own or its ally's land, and I gave the liberation of Kuwait as an example, because nobody calls that an invasion. He pointed out that the Normandy landings are typically described as an "invasion" and so therefore I was totally wrong.

But by claiming I was biased in the first place for not using the term "invasion" shows that he implicitly agrees with me that the word is not politically neutral, and the fact that nobody uses the term to describe the military conflict in Kuwait in 1990 suggests that the meaning of the word has changed a little since 1945.

I was interested in what some serious writers would think about the meaning of the word, and it seems that the general consensus is in agreement with me. Alas you won't find such a granular definition in the dictionary, only a very broad one.

bob rulz · 11-17-2006, 04:23 AM

I hear D-Day more often referred to as a liberation than an invasion. I think it's just the fact that it was on such a grand scale and had such serious implications that it's considered an invasion by some. Some people just don't worry about the differences between the two; in a manner of speaking, a liberation is an invasion. It all depends on your point of view.

Anarkos · 11-17-2006, 05:14 AM

Liberation is a nonsensical word to apply in any of these contexts. It's a political spin word.

You sure liberated those Iraqis good. Liberated them right to death. Woo.

Oh, and the reason why Vietnam is not remembered as a glorious victory is that the US kinda...lost (even if some neo-cons are trying to rewrite history there).

woodcut.evolution · 11-18-2006, 07:43 PM

Like many such terms Invasion and Liberation do not have mutually exclusive definitions. There is overlap, as has been discussed.

Like many such similar instances, I like to compare this to something people can physically see; squares and rectangles. Just like all squares are rectangles, but not all reqtangles are squares. We can say that all (okay not all) liberations are invations, but not all invasions are liberations. However, invasion has a negative conitation in our society, even if it only means "entering by force".