It may not accomplish anything but at least our elected representatives will get to visit the Taj and the Great Wall. That’s about the most bang for our buck that we seem to be getting for our tax dollars these days.

Yes, military “foreign” terminology forms an interesting and little known subject.

As you said, “KAFFIR” was used by the British forces in South Africa. It comes, of course, from the Arabic “kaafir” meaning “disbeliever”, that is, one who does not believe in Islam. (I doubt it is used at all in the British Army these days, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan…… although it would be hilarious if it were used).

Other interesting “Britishism” include the term “SHUFTI” meaning a look-see as in “Take a quick shufti and see if there’s anyone in that building”. This also comes from the Arabic (colloquial, in this case) SHUUF, meaning “to look, to see, to perceive” etc.

Finally, you might have heard of the Britishism TIFFIN meaning “tea time” or “break time”. This word is from an Indian sub-continent language, tho I’m not sure which one (probably Hindi or Tamil).

Whether any of the above terms are in current use, I don’t know. Probably not…..like the British “Empire”, their time has now passed and are most likely now considered quaint if understood at all, although I can’t be sure since I’m not British.

Military people have an entire subset of slang corrupted from foreign sources. And it’s not just the US military, of course – my understanding of the manner in which “kaffir” became a taboo word for black in South Africa was that it had been picked up by British Army troopers from campaigns in the Sudan and Egypt, then carried down south. They were mocking their enemies by appropriating their insult, much as the US Marines call themselves Devil Dogs.

Easy.

Just declare a “national security crisis” and nationalize all Arab wealth in the USA. After all, something like 95% of Arab and OPEC dollars actually reside within US banks.

(Where else would they put them? Zimbabwe or Bolivian banks? How ’bout Egyptian banks?]

OPEC and all may have us by the balls.
But we have them by the throat…and they know it. Some of us know it too, but aren’t saying much….just yet.

Saudi Aramco (the biggest oil company in the world) may now have a Saudi President and so on, but the critical and crucial strings are still being pulled from Houston……and they know that too.
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PS: Linguistic Lesson specially for vb above:

The term: “same old, same old”
I’ve been seeing this term used more and more in blogs and so forth. You might be interested to know it’s origin – and that it’s being used incorrectly.

It’s actually “SAME-O, SAME-O”. This was a term used (and still used) by GI’s in Korea and Japan mimicking, I believe, a Korean language linguistic feature in which a word is said twice and ends in an -O, as kind of “baby talk”. The word is English “SAME” with the added “Oriental” – O to give it a colloquial twist to mean “it’s the same no matter what you do”. A professional linguist could explain it better than that, I’m sure, but my point is it’s not “same old, same old” (altho usage ultimately trumps grammar so “same old same old” may become widespread enough so that it becomes the standard.)

After all, the Democratic Party claims descent from Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson gladly crippled the fledgling US economy to demonstrate his disapproval of England and France and that icky war thingy they were having to determine whether Europe would live under Napoleonic domination. Since the current Republican Party is determined to avoid any suggestion that they are at all different in any way from the Dems I expect massive bipartisan consensus.

Isn’t this the perfect “progressive” solution to the problem of higher oil prices?

1. Provides work for trial lawyers.
2. Congresscritters can say they are “doing something” about gas prices.
3. Establishes moral authority (Us versus OPEC).
4. Accomplishes nothing.

And, apparently, these followers of the faith have some holy text that informs them that the prohibition of drilling on domestic soil makes them better stewards of the planet.