On Monday, the United States House of Representatives approved via a voice vote the BRAVE Burma Act (HR 3190). The legislation would facilitate continuing sanctions against Myanmar, as well as pursuing other adversarial action against the country in Asia. It is yet another step in the US government’s effort to pursue a vast amount of intervention across the world.

As if to make sure there is no missing that the bill is about the US bossing people around, the longer version of the bill’s title reads “Bringing Real Accountability Via Enforcement in Burma Act.”

Not content with just seeking to impose harm to Myanmar and interfere with Myanmar, the US government has also insisted on keeping calling the nation Burma despite its name having changed in 1989 from Burma to Myanmar. There is “Burma” instead on “Myanmar” in the new legislation’s title and through the text as well.

It brings to mind John O’Hurley as J. Peterman in a Seinfeld episode declaring, “You most likely know it as Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me.” There, the line was for comedy. What is the US government’s excuse?

The US government’s insistence on referring to Myanmar as Burma is part of an effort to present the government of the country as illegitimate. The linguistic game provides support for the US taking actions against Myanmar.

Last month, we saw the US government use similar linguistic games to support sending the military into Venezuela to abduct the president of that country. Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, it was repeatedly claimed, was a drug kingpin overseeing “narco-terrorism” and not, in fact, the president of Venezuela. These two claims regarding Maduro helped paint the abduction as a legitimate effort to bring a criminal to justice. The claims were hooey, but they were repeated often.

In contrast, there is Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky who has stayed on, sans any election, as president of Ukraine’s astoundingly corrupt government despite his presidential term having ended years ago. To Ukraine the US sends year after year huge amounts of money, weapons, and intelligence to pursue war against Russia, while bragging contrary to the evidence before everyone’s eyes that doing so advances freedom and democracy.

The manipulation of language is a fast companion of US foreign intervention.

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.