Bush: It's Escalation, Stupid.

By George Lakoff, AlterNet. Posted February 15, 2007.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday began debating a non-binding resolution opposing President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq. Democrats pushing the measure deserve support and thanks. The House action raises important questions about the ideas behind the debate and the ways those ideas have been framed.

Bush announced his policy of sending over 20,000 more troops to Iraq in early 2007 when most of the country was calling for a withdrawal of troops. The administration called the buildup of troops in the proposal a "surge."

It is interesting to note that in today's coverage of the debate, the Washington Post uses the word "surge" only once -- and that in a paraphrase of Republican John Boehner's defense of Bush's order. The term used in this case was "troop-surge."

In its coverage, The New York Times does not use Bush's term at all. The term "surge" is missing from its coverage of the House action. The link provided by the Times to the resolution itself is titled, "The Concurrent Resolution on the President's Escalation Plan." Escalation is a more accurate description of Bush's plan. But its use -- and the diminished use of surge -- did not happen without a disciplined and focused effort by progressives.

This represents an important victory for those who oppose Bush's deployment of more troops to Iraq. And it illustrates nicely why ideas matter -- and how frames affect contests of ideas.

The word "surge" indicates a relatively small short-term increase in force that has an effect and naturally goes back to its previous level. In military parlance, a "surge force" is the opposite of a "base force": troops come in to do a job that can be done quickly, and then leave. They are not "based."

That was not the Bush plan. Only one major combat unit was to be sent that was not scheduled to go. Other units were to go earlier and leave later -- indefinitely later, since there was no end date or condition. Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a theorist of the "surge" and retired Army General Jack Keane wrote in the Washington Post that the "surge" must be large and lasting -- at least 18 months and 30,000 troops. The new commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, upon taking up his post, said the troop increase would have to last years to be effective in counterinsurgency.

Then Bryan Bender, writing in the Boston Globe on February 2, 2007, reported that the 21,000 combat troops Bush was asking for would need an extra 28,000 support troops to keep them in the field. The total then became almost 50,000 additional troops to be kept there for years.

Words have meanings; they express ideas and ideas are important. The word "surge" came with the idea of a relatively small short-term increase in force that would be effective. Such previous troop increases had been ineffective and the joint chiefs saw no reason that this one would be effective either. The actual proposal called a "surge" was the opposite of what the word meant. In short, the very use of the word "surge" was a lie.

People all over the country noticed the "surge" framing immediately, and quickly -- and accurately -- reframed the President's proposal as an "escalation." Escalation is a strategy employed by an apparently superior power that is losing when it was expected to win. It is the strategy of raising the level of force and, hence, of violence, bringing in more troops, deepening one's commitment to a strategy already in place, raising the bar for what is to count as "success" and for the removal of troops.

As Nobel-prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman observed, this is the same strategy as that used by a gambler who has been losing and hopes to beat the house by continually raising the stakes. In escalation, when the prospect of losing is "unacceptable," de-escalation is unlikely. The deeper the commitment of troops, the harder it is to get those troops out.

The word "escalation" is, of course, charged. It has echoes of Vietnam, where sending more and more troops led to a greater and greater disaster. Those who used the word about Iraq did so for good reason. First, they knew that previous "surges" had no noticeable effect. Second, they knew that most of the troops would be employed in Baghdad, interposing them between the Sunnis there and the Shiites that were in the process of driving out all Sunnis as part of a civil war. The American presence could well raise, not lower, the level of civil war violence and result in the killing of more of our troops. Third, sending more troops would make it hard to remove our troops before the 2008 election. The Democrats, who took over Congress on the pledge to extricate our troops, would then look ineffectual. Having the power of the purse over continued spending on the Iraq occupation, the Democrats in Congress would have taken on the responsibility for the continued use of troops. Fourth, "escalation" suggests by the allusion to Vietnam that sending more troops won't work and will only lead to more coffins coming home. And fifth, escalation is a policy matter: the militarization of foreign policy, namely, use force and keep using more force. It is a continuation of neoconservative policy and a direct challenge to the Democratic mandate to get our troops out. "Escalation" is the word that tells the truth about the policy, the politics, and the inevitable negative effect of the policy.

See more stories tagged with: surge, escalation, framing

George Lakoff is the author of Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate' (Chelsea Green). He is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »