Nonsense.
This war is three years old and you use words like "long time"
That is ridiculous.
Moreover, this war has been a huge success by any empirical standard. The media imposed a total blockade on positive interpretations of Iraq. Bush's comments were ample but always deprived of a context of supporters.
Republicans and conservatives have always been happy to collaborate with traitors at the slightest sense of offense (immigration).
Its too bad this McWar didn't meet your high standards.
Given the massive disparity in forces, three years is a pretty long time to be at war, chief. Iraq took three weeks to win. It's three years later, and the place is still a disaster. As much as FR loves the WWII comparisons, this ain't it. Iraq is a backwards country of just over 20 million people. The insurgency ain't the Wehrmacht.
Moreover, this war has been a huge success by any empirical standard.
Your first sentence illustrates exactly why we're not achieving victory. Everyone wants to compare body counts, win-to-lose ratios of small arms engagements, and land mass controlled. All important for defeating a conventional enemy. All useless for winning the real centers of gravity in Iraq; the support of the people.
The media imposed a total blockade on positive interpretations of Iraq. Bush's comments were ample but always deprived of a context of supporters.
That's simply not the case. For one thing, President Bush's comments were neither ample nor accurate. Media bias and ineptitude increased the damage from those comments, but even a perfectly even handed media coverage would have reported more bad news than good from Iraq.
My first time in Iraq, I hated the media with a fierce passion. They weren't lying, exactly, but they'd hover like flies on insurgent made-for-tv propaganda attacks. Newsmen want to see blood, and the insurgents showed them were to look. A win-win scenario for those two. We should have done like we did in post war Germany, and imposed a total media blackout on resistance activities. Why? Because allowing that coverage, non stop, 24/7, is what turned the spark of insurgency into a bonfire.
But, like so many other facets of Iraqi reconstruction and postwar planning, the administration handled the media as well as a deer handled a speeding 18 wheeler.
Its too bad this McWar didn't meet your high standards.
I don't know what you mean by McWar, but I can assure you we'll look back and wish we had done it right.