The Pentagon Clutching Their Pearls Over Weaponized Love

It is no secret that the great ‘ol US of A has recently been losing its olive branch...but is that really such a recent occurrence? For as long as The United States has been “United,” there’s never really been a moment of sentinel silence bestowed upon The Land of the Free.


The Revolution, 1812, two world wars, a chilly one, and multiple invasions, only to be followed by Ukraine vs Russia and Palestine vs Israel in our lifetime, the fact that a 250-year-old baby in a world of ancient wars has had this many should be surprising. It’s not. By wielding exaggeration and reification to develop an absurdly serious tone, The Onion’s “Pentagon Warns China Developing Love, the Greatest Weapon of All” sheds light on a dark mark in the United States history with war, unveiling its own absurdity of spending money just to keep their authority.  

When a statement is released from the White House itself, it would be unnatural to think they have anything but the country’s health at heart. This parody of a decree, stating “the Pentagon warned Friday that China was actively developing... the greatest weapon of all.” This warning to the people injects fear, yet would anyone guess that this fabled weapon was love? Sounding straight out of My Little Pony, the U.S.’ long-time economic ally has become a geopolitical enemy for wielding love. Love. This wildly overstated description of an emotion, an intangible object, is first reificated, before exaggerated as an extremely harmful weapon. Seeing how the world has experienced Tsar bombs, ‘Love” being the deadliest parodies the overstating commonly seen from the White House. Just as love is physically harmless, this piece mocks the US for weaponizing events that started out as seemingly harmless, turning a “friend” (which after covid, I'm not sure the US even considers China a friend) into a foe. The serious tone surrounding this official decree adds to this, with the institution "Pentagon" providing credibility as the defense of the country, and "warned," implying the magnification of the event if the government is warning the country of it, showing how the government takes incredibly unserious things, seriously, in lieu of actually helping the country grow and develop.  

The Onion is known for satire and parody, but there is always truth in these ironic works, where here, the blessed, “United” states is burning their white flags exposing global politics as blown out of proportion, simply to have a ‘leg up’ on possible rivals.  

Why be friends when you can be enemies, right?  

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 2, 2025 at 3:19 PM

    Your style is always so fun to read— it’s both academic and informal, and it really feels like I’m hearing you talk. Also, your final 2 sentences (one of which is three lines long) are super impactful! You’re so cool, 十万

    ReplyDelete
  2. MadhaviMarch 2, 2025 at 4:45 PM

    The amount of voice you inject into your writing amazes me. What really stood out to me, though, was how you utilized varying sentence lengths to achieve that voice (such as when you had the one-word sentence “Love.” that emphasized the sheer absurdity of the U.S.’s priorities.
    -Madhavi

    ReplyDelete
  3. LanaMarch 2, 2025 at 8:25 PM

    I love how you chose an article about relevant political issues today! Really liked the rhetorical question you posed at the end of your blog to poke fun at the current state of international affairs and transactions. Great job!!

    ReplyDelete

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