Every Democratic legislator should be, if necessary, electro-shock trained to never use the term "war" to describe the disaster in Iraq. It's an occupation, a horror story, a testimony to vast incompetence and failed leadership.
When Harry Reid says it is time we get out, he should be saying it is time to end the occupation, to phase out the occupation. We need to get the press to start talking about occupation. We need to challenge the press to stop mislabeling their coverage as war coverage. We need to contact the networks that "brand" the "war" with coverage graphics, music and special names that include the word "war."
And let's dump the "war on terrorism" language too. This language, invented by right wing language gurus, is misleading and only causes us to pursue useless efforts.
You can fight terrorism. You can fight drug abuse. You can put together resources to fight cancer. But when it comes to groups spread across the the planet, in many countries, you can't declare war. You might have skirmishes. But you need to think of different kinds of strategies, more like the ones used to take on organized crime-- the Mafia, Columbian drug smugglers.
The stupid, politically motivated mislabelling of the problem as a war has caused us to waste thousands of US lives tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Bush and his rubber-stamp republican liars and fools (one, the other or both) have idiotically taken us down a path that has no hope of resolving the problem of terrorism.
Democrats who gullibly continue to use the languaging that the Republican spinmeisters crafted to frame things to meet their political needs are being duped and helping the Republicans. The Democrats must take control of the language "war." They must refuse to respond to journalist questions that use that framing.
It will probably take some training sessions for them to get the hang of it. Thom Hartmann could do a great job. The Democratic party should have Hartmann do a training session for the Democrats in the house and senate. (Sorry, but Lakoff is too much of an ivory tower academic. The members of congress need and deserve a language expert who is also a brilliant speaker and historian.)
Let the media attend. Let them learn and understand how the right wing language experts have been using them, so they can tell the difference between being real reporters and media dupes of the right wing. Some media people will continue to use the right wing "language" since they're part of the right wing echo chamber team. Some will see what's really going on and start functioning as real, independent journalists. It will be interesting to see which "journalists" actually "get it."
