Tension-Relieving-Ship

How many meanings can the dispatch of a battleship to the shores of a country in crisis have?
The U.S. affirms that the battleship is sent for the purpose of relieving tension in Lebanon. Of course the fact that the tension is rising by the mere idea of the battleship (and the very technical description of its arsenal and destruction capacities that emerged rapidly in the Lebanese and International news) only justifies the need to relieve it.

The French spokesperson clearly confirmed this American initiative and added that her country encourages any move that brings stability and relieves tension in Lebanon.

On the shore, however, people are tense, and tension keeps on rising. In fact, an idea lurking out-of-visible-range somewhere in the sea beset them with memories of long ago when another battleship had come to their rescue. Only they do not call it rescue.

Battleships are fierce machines of destruction. They are designed to be battle ships, to instill immense amounts of destruction. Their very name designates their function. Battleships were never designed to relieve tension, if anything, tension is what they are precisely designed to instigate. It is a symbolic act of violence to send a war machine into a terrain of tension. In fact if there is a simple form of symbolic violence it is the mere presence of a war machine, battleships included.

That being said, it is surprising, and to a certain extent curious, that a statement such as the one attributing the relief of tension to the dispatch of the battleship can be uttered without causing a scandal. On the contrary it seemed like a perfectly normal reasoning for the French government.

In some time, when the battleship will exercise its natural function, and achieve the purpose of its dispatch, people will be shocked but not surprised by the sight of destruction it leaves behind and the tension that it annihilates.

I never thought that preparations for war could be so invisible, or so ridiculously camouflaged.

The official Website of the USS Cole, 'The Determined Warrior':
http://www.cole.navy.mil/

Of course it is needless to comment about the role of the battleship in safeguarding Lebanese independence, sovereignty, and democracy. In fact, such a move is a clear demonstration that the U.S. refuses any interference in the Lebanese internal affairs and is actively participating in the preserving the region's stability.