{"id":4069,"date":"2007-05-03T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-04T00:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/?p=4069"},"modified":"2021-03-05T16:35:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T21:35:53","slug":"yoinked-from-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/?p=4069","title":{"rendered":"Yoinked from "},"content":{"rendered":"

Occupation: The Inconvenient Truth About Iraq
\nby George Lakoff<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve begun with global warming. Now the U.S. and its military allies need to face another inconvenient truth, this one about Iraq: This is an occupation, not a war.<\/p>\n

The war was over when Bush said “Mission Accomplished.” A war has one army fighting another army over territory.U.S. fighting men and women defeated Saddam\u2019s military machine three years ago. Then the occupation began. Our troops were trained to fight a war, not to occupy a country where they don’t know the language and culture; where they lack enough troops, where they face an anti-occupation insurgency by the Iraqis themselves; where most of the population wants them out; where they are being shot at and killed by the very Iraqis they are training; and where the U.S. has given up on reconstruction and can’t do much positive good there.<\/p>\n

The Occupation Frame fits a politically inconvenient truth. Most people don\u2019t want to think of our army as an occupation force, but it is. An occupying army can\u2019t win anything. The occupation only helps Al Qaeda,which Iraqis don\u2019t want in their country since Al Qaeda attracts foreigners who have been killing Iraqis.<\/p>\n

Our nation has been held trapped in a fallacious War Frame that serves the interests of the Bush administration and the Republican Party. The term \u201ccut and run,\u201dused to vilify Democrats, is defined relative to the following frame:<\/p>\n

There is a war against evil that must be fought. Fighting requires courage and bravery. Those fully committed to the cause are brave.Those who “cut and run” are motivated by self-interest; they are only interested in saving their own skins, not in the moral cause. They are cowards. And since those fighting for the cause need all the support they can get, anyone who decides to \u201ccut and run\u201d endangers both the moral cause and the lives of those brave people who are fighting for it. Those who have courage and conviction should stand and fight.<\/p>\n

Once the false frame is set, it is hard to use any pure self-interest frame that ignores the just cause of fighting evil. That is the trap the Democrats have fallen into. Their proposed slogans evoke self-interest frames: John Murtha\u2019s \u201cstay and pay and \u201dJohn Kerry\u2019s \u201clie and die\u201dhave an X-and-Y structure that evokes, and thus reinforces, \u201ccut and run.\u201d<\/p>\n

These, as well as Senator Jack Reed\u2019s \u201cThe Republican Plan to Be in Iraq Forever,\u201d are self-interest frames that accepts the \u201ccut and run\u201d frame and says it is in our interest to leave. We \u201cpay,\u201d we\u201cdie,\u201d we are stuck there forever. As long as Democrats accept the war-against-evil frame, any self-interest framing will be treated as immoral — acting as a coward, letting evil win out, and endangering our troops.<\/p>\n

The Cut-and-Run Frame put forth as a reason why we cannot withdraw from Iraq fits a gallant war. It does not fit a failed occupation. When you have become the villain and target to the people you are trying to help, it\u2019s time to do the right thing \u2014 admit the truth that this is an occupation and think and act accordingly. All occupations end with withdrawal. The issue is not bravery versus cowardice in a good cause. The Cut-and-Run Frame does not apply.<\/p>\n

In an occupation, there are pragmatic issues: Are we welcome? Are we doing the Iraqis more harm than good? How badly are we being hurt? The question is not whether to withdraw, but when and how? What to say? You might prefer \u201cEnd the occupation now\u201d or \u201cEnd the occupation by the end of the year\u201d or \u201cEnd the occupation within a year, \u201c but certainly Congress and most Americans should be able to agree on \u201cEnd the occupation soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an occupation, not a war, should the president still have war powers? How, if at all, is the Supreme Court decision on military tribunals at Guantanamo affected if we are in an occupation, not a war? What high-handed actions by the President, if any, are ruled out if we are no longer at war?<\/p>\n

Telling an inconvenient truth takes some political courage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occupation: The Inconvenient Truth About Iraq by George Lakoff We\u2019ve begun with global warming. Now the U.S. and its military allies need to face another inconvenient truth, this one about Iraq: This is an occupation, not a war. The war … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[34,42],"class_list":["post-4069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-livejournal","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paQnES-13D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7218,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4069\/revisions\/7218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcrampton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}