Short-term plus-up

Pentagon website headline: “Gates Wants to Build on Success in Afghanistan.” And if he had ham, he could have ham and eggs, if he had eggs. In order to “sustain” all of our success in Afghanistan, and not at all because insurgent attacks are up 300%, he’d like to send more troops. Now, I know you’re all wondering what they would call such an increase in troop levels. Not a surge. Not an escalation. Not an augmentation. A “short-term plus-up.” My theory is that even at the Pentagon they don’t really speak this way: at this point they’re introducing silly Orwellian euphemisms just so they can giggle when Fox News anchors slavishly repeat them on-air. The deployment of troops in Baghdad will be called Operation Desert Boogers.