Frameshop: 3 Ways To Gut 'Cut and Run' (Part 3)

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Step #3:  Leaner and Smarter

The accusation from Republicans that Democrats want to 'run' from national security is a lie.  Democrats in Congress see that the key to maintaining a strong and effective national security is to never cede the high ground. 

The Republican policy in Iraq has lost the high ground.  The problem? 

First, President Bush stopped fighting against Al Qaeda when it decided to occcupy Iraq.

Second, the weapon the U.S. is forced to fight as an occupying force is an improvised bomb impossible to detect.

Third, rather than learning from this mistake, Republicans leave their Iraq policy in place, wasting more and more lives and more and more resources.

The high ground has been lost.  To take it back, we need a leaner and smarter national security.

Reframing 'Cut and Run'
Republican attack: "The Democrats just want to cut and run from the war in Iraq!"

Democratic Response:<blockquote>
Al Qaeda is the real threat to America.
After four years of President Bush's policy in Iraq, Al Qaeda is stronger than ever. 

The Bush policy in Iraq has not made American safer, but has built a better terrorist.

We need to get back to work on national security.

We need to retake the high ground in the fight against Al Qaeda.

It is time for a leaner, smarter national security.</blockquote>

That is what a reframe looks like.  Notice how the response does not defend the Democrats but pushes right away to a strong statement of (1) the dangers we face, (2) the problems with the current policy, and (3) a general statement about the solution.

Al Qaeda.

Retake the high ground.

Leaner and smarter.

What should actually happen as U.S. national security retakes the high ground?   That is a more complicated answer.  Troops should not be left in Iraq to be wasted as target practice for increasingly sophisticated insurgents with clandestine bombs.  Resources should not be wasted in a political situation where corruption runs rampant.

To retake the high ground, U.S. national security needs to decrease the size of the target the Bush policy has given to Al Qaeda and the insurgents.  We must stop offering our soldiers as training opportunities for people who--as a result of the occupation of Iraq--now want to join the fight against the United States.

We must become leaner, smarter and less visible. 

Stay On National Security
The great sleight of hand in the 'cut and run' campaign is that Republicans want us all to believe that they are confident in their record on National Security. 

That could not be further from the truth.

The Republicans are scared to death that President Bush has squandered their last remaining political stronghold:  national security.

Military families are exhausted and fed up with the Iraq policy. Soldiers are dedicated, idealistic, but tired of being used in the Iraq occupation.  A vast majority of Americans believes that Iraq was mishandled, misdirected, and under-estimated. Most Americans see the Iraq policy as the epitome of a ruling party that refuses to speak plainly to the public.

The more Democrats speak with force on National Security, the more they show leadership in America.

There is a message unfolding from the Democrats which talks about 'letting the Iraqis take care of themselves.'  While this is a good idea, this should probably not be the final word the Democrats offer.

Leadership is fundamentally about action, and while the notion of Iraqis doing for themselves is sound and moral, it leaves open the question of dealing with the forces brought to light on September 11, 2001.  Democrats must claim that terrain--they must take back the higher ground.

© 2006 Jeffrey Feldman

Comments

[John]

It is time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their own destiny.

[KEVIN SCHMIDT, STERLING VA]

Nice try, but you come up a little short. There is another part of the strategy that needs to enter the public debate, but is being overlooked.

Ask yourself why Al Qaeda hates America and exists as a terrorist-political organization in the first place. You know it's not what the GOP says, "they hate our freedom." You know it's because we assist and prop up brutal Middle Eastern regimes so we have access to their cheap oil. We also know that is exactly why Bush/Cheney lied to start their imperialistic war OF terror in Iraq.

What we all need to do is go see Al Gore's new movie or buy and read his new book.

Then we need to make our homes as energy efficient as possible, including putting solar panels and windmills on our roofs.

How many home owners are aware that we can get a $2000 tax deduction if we spend $20,000 on making our homes more energy efficient? It is a 10% tax deduction that comes straight off the top of our taxes. Next year the maximum amount will fall, so do it this year.

This is a savings that can yield immediate results. Buildings account for almost 50% of energy usage in America. If all home owners were to make an effort to make their homes more energy efficient, we could see a drop in energy usage of 10 - 20% by this time next year!

As our dependency on dangerous polluting fossil fuels and nuclear power decreases, so will our involvement in the Middle East. Al Qaeda will eventually overthrow their royal family oppressors and become a legitimate political organization.

But until then, we need to actively engage them in talks and negotiations, just like we do with the Palestinians.

Finally, we need to take the lead again and push for nuclear disarmament. It is Bush/Cheney that has reactivated the nuclear arms race and MAD. It will be up to the Democrats to reverse this deadly course.

[Marty B. O'Malley]

Tom Harman, radio personality, did a great job of framing the issue:

END THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

That phrase puts the emphasis on what is really happening now in Iraq-- an occupation.

The Iraq War ended with the fall of Baghdad and disarming of the Iraqi army and the capture of Saddam.

The OCCUPATION OF IRAQ has been going on for three years and enough is enough.

[JF]

It's a good phrase. My reservation with this approach comes from my experience with the Israeli-Palestinian debate. For years, people have been trying to use the word 'occupation' to describe Israel's policy in the West Bank. And it has not really changed the debate. So, by all means...'occupation' instead of 'war.' But we also need to set a broad frame for what we are going to do about national security.

[megadave]

I think you gotta add "if we could only win wars with catchy slogans or sloganeering" Other than that it is great, a little long for general consumption but it is a complicated issue.

[Marty Lyons]

"Cut and run" has a powerful connotation, essentially that Democrats are cowards.

The Republicans will repeat this phrase thousands of times before the midterm elections.

The Democrats need a similar mantra, a word or words that can be repeated time and again. I vote for "incompetent leadership."

The first sign of support lawmakers can show our troops is to protect them against incompetent leadership. And there are any number of examples of the Bush administration's incompetence.

For every Republican's "cut and run," Democrats should respond with "incompetent leadership."

[Edward Banks]

Or reflect "cut&run" back to accusers.
-Ted Kennedy did so in context of Saudi Arabia
-Feingold did it w/Afghanistan.

Republicans "cut & ran" from both countries where our real enemies reside.

[j]

I think we should adopt cut 'n run and use it against Bush.

He cut 'n ran from Al Qaeda and Bin Laden in Afghanistan to begin a war in Iraq on Curveball and Chalibi's trumped up self-serving intell.

Now Al Qaeda is stronger than ever before and both countries are out of control.

[Norma Pavlu]

Bush as a businessman usually cut a deal or had family or company cut a check to allow him to run off with a large profit of ill-gotten gain. That was for money. We need to cut the losses he has inflicted on the American people..losses of any peace-loving, non-combative, decent reputation we had in the world.
We need to cut the loss of the lives of all those who fight on in Iraq long after S.H. is out of power.
We need to cut exhorbatant profits to large corporate controllers and benefactors in Iraq & elsewhere, as well as right here in America from those who boss and bargain away our ports and U.S. property, and put us in debt to such as China to pass on the cost of this war to future generations, and rob current generation of hope for any decent retirement and healthcare.

We need to cut short this administration by proceeding with impeachment proceedings, as well as voting out all those who would bow to any president's will to proceed to command a preemptive war against another nation.

We, as Americans, need to cut off the depletion of our Constitutional rights, and demand a republic with representatives who realize that their bosses are not in the White House or Pentagon, but in homes and on streets throughout America.

And that's just for starters. The only running we need to do, is to run for office and run out the crooks and cowards who will vote themselves raises, but will not vote for a decent minimum wage..one that will not give any less to the immigrant seeking citizenship, one that will restart that "illegal" means illegal, against the law, when it comes to hiring and paying below a decent minimum wage to all honest workers.

We need to cut out the core of information robbers and raise the protection to internet users, home-owners, etc. to guarantee swift procecution of identity theft and theft of our property rights by municipal and corporate entities...who should be run out of business.

[mesquite]

It looks like Howard Dean has been influenced by FrameShop.

I heard these quotes from Dean on Randi Rhodes' show (20 June 06 - 00:18:31 [30 seconds], and montage with Cheney and Darth Vader at ~02:04:00 hours) and I haven't been able to find out where he said them (the context shows he said this on the weekend following Bush's last visit to Iraq, the montage suggests that it was an interview with a female reporter who played clips to him.) But :

"...You simply can't trust the Republicans to defend America anymore. It's not that they're not willing to be tough, it's just that they're not smart. Uh, they've gotten us into a situation in Iraq, we've had one week of good news, now two of our brave soldiers are kidnapped. Uh you cannot trust people who won't pay attention to the military and will send troops abroad without proper equipment. You can't trust those people to defend America. I submit to you, that the Republicans are weak on defense because they don't know what they're doing."

(emphasis added)

Maybe some progressive staffers at the DNC are frequent readers of FrameShop. Well done!

[GodlessKinser]

As a soldier currently in Iraq, I would like to offer a new phrase to counter the 'cut & run' idiocy. When I was an Infantryman way back when, we would often get training missions in which we were tasked with holding off an opposing force until our headquarters element could evacuate. Invariably we were significantly outclassed and/or outnumbered in these scenarios. The purpose, as near as we could tell, for these 'Defend In Place' missions was to judge our abilities to adapt and improvise, maintain command, control and communication while being devastated, and to judge our 'fighting-spirit'. We had our own term for 'Defend In Place', though. We called it 'Die In Place', or a 'DIP' Mission and those who gave such orders were referred to as 'DIP'sh*ts. I know the latter is not something that can be used in a practical sense, but perhaps something can be made of 'Die In Place'. Just my 1 cent (crap economy reduces the value of everything).

[JF]

Hey, Kinser. Watch out for yourself and your buddies over there.

Very interesting to learn about this DIP="Die In Place." From an outsider perspective, I guess I can see the point of that kind of training. I have friends, for example, who were in the Israeli tank brigades and who told me about this exercise involving three soldiers, a stretcher, and a can of corn (as in: that's all they had). The purpose was to get across a stretch of desert on foot with barely enough food and water to stay alive. After about 12 hours, everyone was out of their heads with exhaustion, so the real purpose was to create a scenario for judging individual ability to 'adapt and improvise,' as you say. They had a similar phrase for this, too (which I can't remember).

Stateside, the media has stopped repeating 'cut and run' because the whole campaign was followed by releaseo a plan for troop reductions. Which was this crazy PR whiplash--first, accuse all the Democrats of 'cut and run'--second, release your plan for troop reductions.

Has the consensus in Iraq been that the 'cut and run' PR campaign was cynical?

[Kirk Muse]

The Right's hero is Rush Limbaugh. We need to ask every fan of Rush Limbaugh:

Why would Rush Limbaugh, a man who can afford to travel to any country
in the world without having to think about the cost, choose to vacation in the Dominican Republic?

Why would someone who lives on the oceanfront in Palm Beach, FL travel to
the Dominican Republic, a third world, poverty stricken nation?

Perhaps a Google search of: "Dominican Republic and gay tourist" or
"Dominican Republic and sex tourist" might provide the answer.

[Kirk Muse]

If Mohammed Ali had attempted to fight with the style of either Joe Fraser or Mike Tyson, I doubt that he would have won a single
professional fight. On the other hand, if either Joe Fraser or Mike Tyson had attempted to fight like Mohammed Ali, they probably would never have won any fights either.

We cannot win the occupation of Iraq because
the insurgents won't fight out fight.