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  2. NPR ON THE USE OF 'SURGE' TO DESCRIBE TROOP LEVELS: CNN's Jack Cafferty Labels Term as Code for Escalation

NPR ON THE USE OF 'SURGE' TO DESCRIBE TROOP LEVELS: CNN's Jack Cafferty Labels Term as Code for Escalation

By nisbetmc on January 8, 2007.

As a follow up to a previous post, NPR runs this story on the use of "surge" to describe the Administration's plan for more of the same in Iraq, featuring an interview with linguist Deborah Tannen.

Earlier this week, CNN's Jack Cafferty called the Administration's bluff, describing the use of "surge" as masking their intentions to escalate the war in Iraq. See the clip above.

Here's my question: If journalists are well aware of the strategic and misleading nature of the term, why do they continue to use it in all their reports? Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder.

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Not only is there no way forward, there is no 'forward'.

There is only retreat in defeat.

This is the second Iraq war we've lost, mind you. The first one left the victor, Saddam Hussein, firmly in power and safe from foreign aggression (read 'invasion by Iran').

I can fully and easily understand why someone would think that the Bush administration is making a blunder in Iraq, but where is this idea that the administration is misleading us about its intent coming from? How is "a surge" code for "a surge"?