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Sergeant T
11-15-2006, 04:12 AM
A very worthwhile read.

Is This Victory? (http://www.nationalinterest.org/PrinterFriendly.aspx?id=12988)

"In Iraq, has too much emphasis been placed on achievement of secondary objectives or preferences as the benchmark for victory? After all, the primary objective—the removal of a hostile regime—has been achieved.

I think a lot has to do with the public perception, which in any great period of consternation will be determined in a large part by the media. Now, one can just go about bashing the media, and I think the American people believe from time to time that the media is responsible for the difficulty. However, in my mind, this is not so, and we should not allow ourselves to believe it. But when we have run into a particularly difficult time, and Iraq at this point represents a particularly difficult time, then we as Americans sit back and watch to see, “Well, how are we doing?” And if, for whatever reason, the media happens to pick up on a secondary objective as the cause célèbre and as the overall objective, and begins to simply report and fill American households with a lack of progress in achieving that objective, then pretty soon that becomes the measurement of success."

Read the whole thing.