Analysis: Military Shows Gains in Iraq Despite political setbacks, American commanders are clinging to a hope that stability might be built from the bottom up—with local groups joining or aiding U.S. efforts to root out extremists—rather than from the top down, where national leaders have failed to act.

Commanders are encouraged by signs that more Iraqis are growing fed up with violence. They are also counting on improvements in the Iraqi army and police, which are burdened by religious rivalries and are not ready to take over national defense duties from U.S. troops this year.

Three phrases stand out in this excerpt: 1. “local groups joining or aiding U.S. efforts to root out extremists”, 2. “signs that more Iraqis are growing fed up with violence” and 3. “[Iraqi army and policy] are not ready to take over national defense duties”.

ad 1. This phrase relies on two key frames in the discourse of democratism. A: local government: the very act of invoking a local group gives the effort additional legitimacy in an abstract sense but also provides imagery derived from the Western vision of ‘local groups’ as chambers of commerce and Rotary clubs. As such it is highly euphemistic because, of course, the imagery on the ground is quite different. Also, local groups are used to evoke the notion of local wisdom and common sense in opposition to political bickering. B: extremism: here, again, extremism is set in opposition to the imagery of A, whereas the ‘local’s’ imagery and its oppositions may be quite different.

ad 2. On reflection, this is a rather bizarre phrase. It seems to presuppose an initial welcoming of violence by the Iraqi people who are now growing weary of it. Particularly some of the underlying schematic dynamicity of the verb ‘grow’ seems oddly incongruous with what must be a rather different state on the ground. Nevertheless, this kind of description buttresses the notion of change necessary for the success of the whole argument that the ‘surge is working’. What is interesting about it, is that the choice of phrases like these is probably in equal measure a function of the genre (which limits the inventory of available constructions) and the conceptual pattern underlying the text.

ad 3. Again the level of schematicity of this phrase is extremely high. “National defense duties” really means almost nothing and its greatest impact is imagistic. First, it introduces the notion of an external enemy (the alternative to ‘national defense’ would have been ‘public order’), and second, it positions the US troops in the role of protector and mentor. Use of schematic devices such as these allows for brevity of expression and conceptual unity of texts. Now, the real question is to what extent can the casual reader (not an ‘average’ reader!!!) benefit from a closer look at any text full of schematized euphemistic framing. Surely, any text is full of framings with the exact same cognitive properties. The temptation to introduce a critical (CDA) element is great. Should we require (politically) that different standard is applied to ‘high stakes’ discourse?  Or do we simply observe the way the schematicity and other ‘covert’ features of discourse are brought to the fore through frame negotiation? If the former, we become participants in the debate. If the latter, we run the risk of self-deluding objectivity. Clearly, the role of the “meta” perspective needs itself to be negotiated.