The biggest failure in all of this is the inability to recognize that warfare has changed. Videocameras, blogs, and spin are the weapons of the 21st century. From a PR standpoint, we send our our fantastic military like WWI generals sending horse cavalry into the mouths of enemy machine guns.
We have GOT to wrap our heads around the concept of media centric warfare, and abandon obsolete warfighting strategies. Otherwise, our enemies will stick to bleeding our willpower dry, and defeating billion dollar war efforts with thousand dollar insurgencies.
By this stage of the game this Admin. is not going to change the way they deal with this subject, I'm hoping for better from the next.
A couple of examples
Send people out who have just returned from Iraq, Afghanistan to talk about what's really happening, I'm not talking about Generals, but lower ranks.
Get someone who understands the Arab/Islamic world to start flooding their media with the who, what where and why we are doing what we're doing.
while I'm at it they could do a much better job of explaining this to the American people. (given what kind of comments I see here on Islam and the GWOT, it's really needed).