"Shock and Awe"

[Beverly Flanigan]

Or, in the Midland, "it was a real shock and all."

At 11:29 PM 3/22/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>And here I had interpreted "Shock 'n' Awe" as Central Texas for shekinah.
>
>Herb
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
>Of Imran Ghory
>Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 9:43 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: "Shock and Awe"
>
>
>On Sat, 22 Mar 2003, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>
> > "Shock and awe" seems likely to be the ADS "Most Outrageous" term for this
> > year.  Barry Popik said it was used in the first Gulf War, but searches on
> > Nexis, ProQuest/Westlaw, Google Groups and JSTOR turn up nothing before
> > Harlan K. Ullman & James P. Wade's 1996 book, Shock and Awe - Achieving
> > Rapid Dominance.  Does anyone have evidence of any pre-1996 usage?
>
>According to http://www.dodccrp.org/shockIndex.html the book was
>published in December 1996.
>
>The following was said by Lord Kennet on 30th Oct 1996,
>
>'British governments--this one or the next--will have to decide whether we
>really want to go ahead with these post-cold war visions of US global
>hegemony. One is the three year-old counter-proliferation programme which
>could provide all the sensors and all the practical gear for disposing of
>all the US-defined "rogue states". Now there is a new doctrine called
>"Shock and Awe", or "Rapid Dominance", which is being elaborated in the US
>National Defence University. These are doctrines which, with consequent
>policies and consequent expenditures, leave no room for the United Nations
>or for any international rule of law, or indeed for democratic or civilian
>control of the military. They will also be extremely expensive, and the
>world has better things to devote its resources to than ever greater
>militarisation.'
>
>
>Imran Ghory
>--
>http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran