"dirty war"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The Second Indochina War (as we historians call it) was often characterized by its opponents as a "dirty war."  OED doesn't notice this now frequent collocation. This ex. is from Google Books; it's only a snippet and may or may not refer to Indochina.

  1971 Mieczys³aw Maneli _War of the Vanquished_ (N.Y.: Harper) 98: They had been drawn into a dirty war.

  Robert B. Asprey notes that Communists referred to French operations in the First Indochina War as "la sale guerre" (_War in the Shadows_ [Garden City: Doubleday, 1975], I, 98).

  Though not literally a "war," Argentina experienced a period of extreme internal political repression between 1976 and 1983 which was termed "the Dirty War" in the news.

  This nuance of "dirty" may belong with OED 2b "that stains the honour of the persons engaged; dishonourably sordid, mean, base, or corrupt; despicable,"  though I might fix it to say "dishonourably or outrageously..."

  JL




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