"death and violence" quote

[Garson O'Toole]

The book "Bush at War" by Bob Woodward can be examined via
Amazon-Look-Inside. The page images indicate that the Amazon
searchable text is from the Simon & Schuster, copyright 2002 edition.
Amazon says the book displayed is the hardcover released in 2002.
There is also a copy of the work in the Google Books database that is
in preview mode.

Searching for "export death" with Amazon-Look-Inside yields only one
match in the text. It occurs in the Epilogue at the very end of the
book.

Begin excerpt

ON FEBRUARY 5, 2002, about 25 men representing three different Special
Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams gathered outside Gardez,
Afghanistan, in the east, about 40 miles from the Pakistani border. It
was very cold, and they were bundled in camping or outdoor clothing.
No one was in uniform. Many had beards. The men stood or kneeled on
this desolate site in front of a helicopter. An American flag was
standing in the background. There was a pile of rocks arranged as a
tombstone over a buried piece of the demolished World Trade Center.
Someone snapped a picture of them.

One of the men read a prayer. Then he said, "We consecrate this spot
as an everlasting memorial to the brave Americans who died on
September 11, so that all who would seek to do her harm will know that
America will not stand by and watch terror prevail.

"We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in
defense of our great nation."

End excerpt

Woodward does not identify the speaker. He also does not say how he
learned about this event. Presumably he was not present. Who told him
what was said? The speaker may be in a Special Forces unit or may be
in the CIA. But Woodward does not directly say that every person
present was in a Special Forces unit or the CIA. Most readers are led
to this assumption I suspect.

Woodward does give a precise date. So the itinerary of candidates for
attribution can be examined on that date. Also, someone could ask
Woodward what he thinks about the widespread attribution of the quote
to Bush.


On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 8:30 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "death and violence" quote
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Everybody relax.
>
> James Schamus in the NYT,  5/11/03, p. MT29 (ProQuest), quotes Woodward and
> attributes the remark to "a C.I.A. officer."
>
> But this may also be inaccurate. Woodward does not say whether the speaker
> represented the CIA or the Army.
>
> One might *assume* that the CIA would take precedence in this sort of
> ceremony, but to me, at least, that is not certain.   OTOH, Woodward's
> failure to mention the man's name might suggest he was indeed a CIA
> operative.
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:33 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "death and violence" quote
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> There is a possible flaw in the above. Though I checked _Bush at War_ in
>> both GB abd Amazon previews, it is conceivable that an attribution to Bush
>> appears on some unacknowledged, undisplayable page.
>>
>> If so, I apologize for my clumsiness.
>>
>> "Bush's" remark already appears as the number-two quotation in the
>> ultra-quickie _Quotable War or Peace_, ed. by Geoff Savage (Toronto: Sound
>> and Vision, 2003).
>>
>> Garson?
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 10:03 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      "death and violence" quote
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > Hundreds of websites quote Pres. G. W. Bush in the days after
>> > Nine-Eleven, some approvingly, many in outrage:
>> > "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in
>> > defense of this great nation.=94
>> > The only source offered is Carl Woodward's _Bush at War_ (N.Y.: Simon &
>> > Schuster, 2002).
>> >
>> > The catch, of course, is that Woodward attributes the words instead to an
>> > unnamed American among a group of Special Forces officers and CIA
>> > operatives (all "more hungry for action than is generally known") as they
>> > symbolically buried a piece of debris from the World Trade Center near
>> > Gardez, Afghanistan, in 2002.
>> >
>> > The book ends on that Pattonesque note (p. 352).
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
>> > --=20
>> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>  "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org