‘Just a simple question: Are we winning?’

it has suddenly dawned on tony snow that there is no definition of “winning” in iraq? why doesn’t he ask his shallow little boss?

meanwhile, what “progress” are we making? how does snow define that, one wonders….

***continue to lead with clarity and in a resolute way***

One should note that, as a prerequisite to continuing a thing, one must first begin a thing….

Who wants to be the last 5000 to die for a useless war?

It was interesting to read Andrew Sullivan try to justify his on again off again support of Bush in Salon today. He says Bush tricked him.

Actually Bush was right about the war in one way. The war to take Baghdad was something of a cakewalk. It happened fast and with relatively low casualties, at least for us. The Iraqis took a hit or two. It was the after the war that Bush’s witlessness led to disaster.

Funny how a good idea can be so bad. Yes, the world would be better off without Saddam but not at the price the Iraqis and the US is paying. More and more I’m thinking that if your foreign policy is based on violence then it should assassination violence not bombing. You don’t destroy a whole country to get rid of a few guys.

DK at TPM was on a roll yesterday. He pointed out that the US is STILL widely using bombing to fight the insurgency. I guess if your only tool is a 5000 pound bunker buster then the whole world looks like a bunker.

Air Assault indeed.

I would venture to say, we are either winning or losing, depending on what the meaning of the word “WE” is.

Does “WE” mean Halliburton, KBR, Lockheed etc, the flagships of today’s military-industrial complex?

Does “WE” mean the mullahs of Iran?

Does “WE” mean the average Iraqi trying to survive, make a living and send their kids to school?

Does “WE” mean the 30,000 dead or wounded American soldiers who lost life and limb for an immoral war that actually made the threat of terrorism worse?

Then I would answer Yes, Yes, No and No.

I don’t know. How do you define winning?

I wish Snow had stopped there, leaving a reporter to follow up: “So, you don’t know if we’re winning because you don’t know of the definition of the word ‘winning’. Would you care to elaborate in other terms that you do understand?”

Simply stunning. Despita perfect opportunity to catapault the propaganda with a simple retort, Snow admits the White House has no idea what “winning” the Iraq conflict means. How can anyone set a course, much less stay the course, when they have no idea of the destination.

The perfect follow-up would have been, could we have already won and shouldn’t we then get out?

“And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them.”

I suppose it’s reassuring that we haven’t yet reached a ratio of 1 terrorist to 1 non-terrorist. However the fact that he feels compelled to point that out…um…not so reassuring.

Bush is an alchemist. He believes you can turn losing into winning.

He did it in 2000…

I guess once you turn a coke snorting, draft dodging, brain dead, innarticulate waste of skin into a president anything seems possible.

Tony…. you are doing a heckuva job…

I like to have the *full* background… : ^) From Think Progress:

“QUESTION: Just a simple question: Are we winning?

SNOW: We’re making progress. I don’t know. How do you define winning?

The fact is, in taking on the war on terror — no, let me put it this way: The president’s made it obvious we’re going to win. And that means ultimately providing an Iraq that is safe, secure and an ally in the war on terror. And at any given time, as you’ve seen in previous wars, there are going to be spikes in violence.”

Forgive me the long and circuitous story, but it’s *not* OT…

Back when I was still in Poland and studying (English) at Warsaw U, we had a prof of “Political philosophy and sociology” (a compulsory subject, irrespective of one’s major) who was a bone-headed, iron-clad commie-proponent and who’d written a book on the subject. The book never made it into the exalted circles of academia (even as a supplementary textbook, for example), but, in time, the wily students learnt how proud of it the prof was.

So… A list began to circulate, allowing us to pass the exams (oral), without too much work. The list included some 10 “talking points” — bits of “wisdom” stated and expanded on in the book. As applied to exam-passing, the tactics went like this:
1)You memorised as many of the talking points as you could.
2) You quoted them back to the prof with a “as you, yourself, had said in…” Which pleased his ego so much, he never realised the answer had little to do with the question. The “trick” was in *transition* — from his question, to your answer…

Snowjob’s (full) answer reminds me of my own exam : ^)
I got a question which I had no clue how to answer. So I threw out some stalling fluff (We’re making progress. I don’t know. How do you define winning), while trying to figure out which of the 10 talking points I could apply most effectively, and how to tie the best one to the question. Once I decided, I filled my (pill-enhanced) chest with hot air (it was late June, which, even in Poland, tended to be warm. Especially since we had no AC), and spewed forward. And watched the prof’s countenance brighten, and brighten… Got an B+ on the exam, without ever answering the original question…

I don’t understand why people get so “exercised” about Snowjob; his like were a dime a dozen in commie Poland of my youth :-^)

not really on topic but i was wondering if TCB had seen the rersponse to the lancet study by Iraq Body Count.com?
They don’t seem to think much of the methodology.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/press/pr14.php

Reality checks: some responses to the latest Lancet estimates
Hamit Dardagan, John Sloboda, and Josh Dougherty
Summary

A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;
2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;
3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;
4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;
5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive “Shock and Awe” invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began;
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy.

There is not much to add to the insanity that is the Bush administration. I do however have a prediction:

“In two years after the true horror, gross incompetence and outright fraud of this administration are uncovered it will be impossible to find a single person in the country that will admit to the fact that they supported George Bush, it will be referred to as the immaculate election”

Are we winning? Jesus, you’re not even coming second