Stepping Up to the Victory Podium Again

TBogg nails the recurrent theme embodied by today's "how to win" speech on Iraq:

Tomorrow (now today):

Bush to lay out Iraq victory strategy

November 14, 2005

Bush takes on critics of Iraq war

October 6, 2005

Bush plans 'major speech' on Iraq, terrorism

June 29, 2005

Bush: Iraq 'vital' to U.S. security

May 24, 2004

Bush to Outline Iraq Plans

And so on. Clearly the response to changing conditions on the ground is to give a speech. And most of these speeches have roughly the same language in them. And the media breathlessly covers them as if they reveal new information. I stopped watching sometime in mid-2003.

Actually, the additional info in this one is that, miraculously, after years of horrible reports from the commanders on the ground about the training of Iraqi forces (one batallion was ready as of just a couple menths ago), we learn that they've fully readied themselves overnight! Pardon me if i believe James Fallows over this band of happy-talkers. Rumsfeld has been saying we have more Iraqi troops in place for years now, but every time, there's a reassessment, and he's found to have been playing with the numbers. The fact that we're even still talking about how many Iraqi troops are trained nearly three years after the invasion is damning enough.

The actual victory strategy document is little more than a combination of sloganeering and statements like "our mission is to win the war." Long on why, short on how. Which is what this effort has always been. My main man Russ Feingold says that the errors in this document start with the title. We shouldn't be drafting a strategy to win in Iraq, we should be drafting a strategy to win over Al Qaeda. That's been the problem from the beginning.

He explained clearly that the American presence in Iraq--our military occupation of Iraq--was the single largest factor fueling the terrorists in the world, today. He said that the President was mistaken or confused in his understanding, and that key generals and Iraqis themselves had said that the most important factor that his helping Al Qaeda is the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.

[...] He used a chessboard metaphor to explain that the fight against Al Qaeda is taking place in dozens of countries around the world. Therefore, what the President is advocating, according to Feingold, is that we fight only in "one square" and not on the whole board. It was a very clear way to frame this discussion. And one that has legs, I believe.

So, again, the Cheerleader-in-Chief gives a rah-rah, isn't-everything-terrific speech without any specifics, and when it's coupled with the inevitable, politically timed troop withdrawals next year, it'll be hailed as proof that the strategy worked.

To which I dare say, WHAT STRATEGY???