Only a week after the US president announced that many thousands more American military were destined for Iraq, an amazing thing happened. The war ended.
Even as he said, “Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved. There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship,” a winner was already rising out of the skirmishes.
The combatants were three words. Welcome to the world of Washington English where the field of combat covers a bloodless maze of power in and around the nation’s capitol.
As soldiers gathered their kits and prepared for their trip into the deserts of Mesopotamia, leaders of the world’s strongest power were busy fighting inside the beltway - fighting fiercely over three simple terms: surge, escalate and augment. Even someone who doubts the importance of choosing words can see how these American politicos - congresspersons, presidential spokespersons, and the secretary of state - all struggled to gain ground with just the right word.
Maybe they were thinking of Mark Twain’s caution, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter - it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
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