I now get the plan for victory in Iraq. It's simply to lower expectations. While surfing the web, I came across this on MSNBC.com:
The U.S. military said Tuesday that a Marine was killed in fighting west of the capital, bringing the American death toll for July to at least 73 — still the lowest in eight months.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
I never thought I would see the day when the deaths of close to 75 of our troops would be good news, but there you have it. I seem to recall the GOP and the media making a bigger deal out of a far smaller number of fatalities in Somalia under Clinton. It fits right in with the new media push to declare the war a success. Leading this charge are Brigadier General Michael O'Hanlon and Kennth Pollock http://www.nytimes.com/...
And its been picked up by one of Bush's prime water carriers, Michael Barone in US News and World Report.http://www.usnews.com/...
What none of these articles seem to be pointing out is that this this month is worse than all but one of the war's first year and follows three really bad ones. And is this a trend or an aberration? Still, they surge is working they tell us. Just give it two more Freidman units.
Is the surge working, I don't know. I suspect not, but it's pretty silly to make this determination on one or even a couple of months. In February 2004, for example, there were "only" twenty U.S. fatalities, and at the time this was heralded by some as proof that we were winning and it was just about over. Two months later, one of the worst months followed.