Euphemism Watch: "Post-Kinetic Development"

Listening in a desultory fashion to today's Congressional testimony of senior Iraq commander General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, I caught this phrase, uttered by Crocker in  his prepared remarks in apparent reference to stuff that's rising from the rubble:

"post-kinetic development"

Best of Both Worlds caught it, too.

Here's the full quote, from the Wake Up America blog:

As Iraq is now earning the financial resources it needs for bricks and mortar construction through oil production and export, our primary focus has shifted to capacity development and an emphasis on local and post-kinetic development through our network of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and ministerial advisors.

It's not the first time Crocker has demonstrated a predilection for "post-kinetic." Last September,  Newsweek.com writer Weston Kosova caught Crocker referring to bombed-out Iraqi towns as "post-kinetic environments." That "show-stopping war euphemism" (Kosova's words) has been enshrined in Double-Tongued Dictionary.

Kinetic means "of, pertaining to, or relating to motion" or "active, dyanmic, full of energy." In its new (post-modern?) context, post-kinetic has a clinical ring that makes the Iraq fiasco sound like particle physics. Or, alternately, like an experimental dance troupe: "Choreographer Paxton Glissade dispenses with the conventions of movement, preferring instead to place his artists in positions of post-kinetic ennui."

Well, you know what they say. Kinesis is hell.

More on military lingo here and here.

Comments

[Nick Tata]

"Post-kinetic developements" What a contradiction! After movement there are more movements! Sounds like what happened after I ate those rotten avocados.
Nick

[Gorilla Bananas]

The man is illiterate! Fry his balls with onions!