The long fight demands flexibility in definitions--especially from the commander-in-chief

Here's the piece from the WP:

In Four Speeches, Two Answers on War's End
As Bush Tries to Recast Debate, Definitions of Victory and Iraqi Security Diverge

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 15, 2005; A01

As President Bush wrapped up a series of speeches on the war yesterday, he once again gave a clear answer to when U.S. troops would come home from Iraq: "We will not leave until victory has been achieved."

And he also gave this clear answer to when U.S. troops would come home from Iraq: "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

What he did not do was reconcile those two ideas. Will U.S. soldiers withdraw from Iraq only after the insurgency has been vanquished? Or will they withdraw when Iraqi security forces become adequately trained to take over the battle themselves? Or somewhere in between?

For Bush, the four speeches delivered over the past two weeks represented a determined effort to reshape the angry debate at home over the war, presenting a more sober picture of the situation while highlighting the progress he sees exemplified in today's election of a new, full-fledged Iraqi parliament. At the same time, according to analysts, he carefully calibrated his rhetoric to give him maximum flexibility in determining ultimately just what will constitute victory.

The vow to "settle for nothing less than complete victory" satisfies Bush's desire to project Churchillian resolve, a strategy in keeping with White House theory that public support for a war depends on whether Americans believe they will win. The "stand up, stand down" formulation, by contrast, is intended to signal that the United States will not remain forever enmeshed in a bloody overseas conflict fueled by sectarian enmity.

The twin messages stem from a conclusion by White House advisers that they needed to counter the growing calls to begin pulling out of Iraq, or at least set a timetable for doing so. As Bush has noted, war against an amorphous enemy does not end in a surrender "on the deck of the USS Missouri," as with Japan in 1945. And so deciding the terms of victory becomes as much a political equation as a military one...

The full piece is found at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402417_pf.html

The press always wants a quick and easy answer to the question: Who wins and when does it happen? Either the U.S. is winning or the enemy is winning, and it has to be done by Tuesday. If Bush speaks to the long fight and says we'll always pursue victory even as it takes years and decades to unfold, then he must be speaking illogically. The Second World War should have been over by 1943. The Cold War should have ended in 1953. If the GWOT isn't done by 2005, then we've lost and we must retreat from the world.

We lost over 20k in Iwo Jima and we won. If we lose 2k-plus in almost three years in Iraq, then we must be losing.

Where are the wise men? Hell, where are the journalists with any sense of history?