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It's all about expectation management.

It's not even been a whole three years after Saddam is ousted. Today people just think that overnight everything will be milk and honey. Even in the Balkans it took a long time and troops are STILL there. The only difference is that since the Germans/French were part of the operation (In fact the Germans were one of the major political forces behind it) you don't get the foreign politician/media riding the issue as hard. Reference Iraq the French, German or Belgian will quickly bad mouth.

Since most have no concept of history they will hardily know that Germany took (7) seven YEARS before they had a viable Army and even just a currency! We still had guerrillas who we were hanging in 1948!

The overwhelming problem with Iraq is that the American populace has no measure of success. The MSM is always on the look for a new big seller which they can package to the audience like Dan Rather did repeatedly. Most never served in the armed forces. Most have no comprehension of history and can’t place any significance or value in certain events. They don’t even know what “right” looks like.

Example: In history the invasion of Poland is considered a marvel of modern warfare. Fast and with low casualties this invasion in 1939 is considered by many historians as an example of an overwhelming victory for the Germans. It is even taught that way in US schools. In 2003 while the US was attacking our media reported of us being “bogged down”, “bloody battles’ and and and.

Lets put this in perspective We attacked a nation on the other side of the PLANET. Our logistical trains reached around the world. The war was being Commanded from yet another place via satellite communications and links. Germany took 4 weeks, we took 3. Germany lost 20,000 we lost less than 300. Warsaw is small compared to Baghdad. 122F temperatures are what the US armed forces had to contend with in the shade! The enemy knew we were coming and from where. No surprise like with Poland. We were executing this war in a coalition where many cultures, religions and languages are part of. Vast open terrain, few places to truly hide armored columns etc made detection easy…….. the list goes on. Yet while the war was going on, not even after 1 WEEK, already there was news of “quagmires” and “failure” etc.

The American public does not even comprehend the degree of unprecedented, overwhelming success we had. In fact, never before in all of mankind's history has a war ever been fought on such a large scale so quickly with such large cities involved and such massive logistical requirements that needed to be met. Iraq 2003 already belongs for this reason alone in the history book as a unprecedented success.

How do we define success and failure?

When the insurgency began quickly did the MSM state that such a fight had never been won. Factually wrong since we had won two of them and we are pretty much the only ones who ever have. But the point is that the MSM quickly created it’s own news, if you so want to call it. Define success? Our casualties in Iraq are dropping and are at near all time lows where they have stayed for some time now. Iraqis are policing themselves more today. They have a currency, Army, Police and other vital services and institutions already in place. It’s only been THREE years! Of course for the opportunistic anti war pundit nothing will be good enough nor fast enough. They will misrepresent the facts, take things out of context, look at Iraq in a vacuum where there is no greater Islamist threat and the threat from Saddam must completely be ignored. Comparing Iraq with a factual comparisons with what is defined as a military success in history may it be the invasion of Koenl or Poland sheds a light onto the story that is a bit different than the ever new scandal seeking MSM where everything negative equates to a good selling story.

The main issue we face today is that the public simply does not know what success and failure is. If Dan Rather says its a failure and he's wearing a good suite, speaks with his slow and deep voice off a teleprompter good sounding wordsmithed little speeches, the public will accept this as the ground truth. Bush's word has no more weight than that of some flunky Michael Moore who actually largely shaped the perception of what is going on there with his film Fahrenheit 9-11. The people don't know who to believe and have no measure of success!

I agree it's all about context.I spent a year in Iraq as a machine gunner for a combat engineering unit and I found the people there pretty much pacified.Sure we hit allot of IED"S,but fire fights were very rare.The problem is that the press doesn't have the security infrastructure to tell the full story even if they wanted to.There's no reporters roaming the streets of Bayji,ramagen, tikrit,al-synia,there are no ABC news beuraus in Sammara,they all huddle down in the green zone and regurgitate lopsided casualty figures back to the states and call it news.You always see "soldier killed" as a banner headline for instance,but when have you ever seen "insurgent" killed make it to the top story? The fact is Iraq is a COUNTRY more than just the city of Baghdad.How would we like to be defined as a country just by the crime in New york or Los Angeles?

Very nice post.

The problem with the "we should have sent a larger force crowd" is that the larger force really didn't exist, and certainly not in theater. And if we'd waited to send more divisions, the attack would have occured during the heat of summer rather than early spring. That's a huge difference when you're talking about operating in high level MOPP conditions.

One thing that likely made things worse than they needed to be was the spiteful intrasigence of our European "allies", France and Germany. Because we lacked U.N. support, it was much easier for insurgents to portray us as "invaders", without a legal right to intervene. And it gave them hope that because we stood more or less alone, we might be forced out by an insurgency.

Once the French and Germans knew we were going in, they should have voted authorization. Maybe said that they didn't agree, but that our actions were lawful. Because even an idiot knew that the aftermath of an invasion blessed by the U.N. would be less bloody than the aftermath of an invasion that wasn't. They did everything possible to isolate us, and that cost lives.

I'll never forgive those b*stards for that.