We're not winning! We're not winning! We're not winning!

Number 23,492 on my list of Things I Hate About the Media popped up today. During his confirmation hearings today, Secretary of Defense nominee Rober+ Ga+es was asked if the U.S. was winning in Iraq. He gave a simple two-word answer: no, sir.

Now, it seems to me that the answer to such a loaded question would be just a titch more complex than that. But ok.

Naturally, the media proceeded to breathlessly plaster the misleading headline, literally, all over the world. And of course, in an attempt to appear prophetic, nay-sayers everywhere started a chorus of "See? I told you so." (Personally, if you've been saying we weren't the war since it started, I don't believe your opinion counts. Yeah, I can say it's going to rain every day for two weeks. If it happens to rain on day 14, it doesn't make me brilliant.)

But more to the point: what constitutes "winning" and, if we haven't yet attained it, how do we get there?

Since the beginning of the war, I've had disdain for those who expected this venture to be quick and easy. There was a noticeable amount of squawking recently when it came to be that we have been in Iraq longer than we were involved in WWII.

This in and of itself is misleading. We fought WWII until we'd forced the surrender of the Axis powers. At the time, this took about four years and cost about 300,000 American lives. Bear in mind that this is only major combat operations. In terms of how long we were actually in theater, that number is running about, oh, 65 years, because we're still there.

For some perspective, we toppled the Hussein government in right around three weeks with less than 200 combat deaths. Granted, over the last four years there have been about 2,900 American deaths (about 2,400 from actual combat). But that's still more than 100 times less than the sacrifice during WWII. In fact, more American servicemen died in a botched training exercise than have died in the entire Iraq campaign.

Granted, military success can't solely be measured in casualty numbers. But it can hardly be argued that we aren't militarily winning in Iraq. (For what it's worth, Rober+ Ga+es made a similar clarification during his testimony.)

All that said, the political progress in Iraq has certainly left something to be desired. Are we winning? Maybe not. But nor are we losing. Yet. We're simply not trying. We're not doing what needs to be done in order to win. We're trying to fight a war without upsetting anyone, and all that does is upset more people.

The enemy is using our political correctness against us. They use mosques as sniping posts. They use women and children as human shields. They intentionally target civilians in order to insert an air of chaos into their society.

We cannot overcome this if we continue our current modus operandi. As I said, it doesn't mean we're losing. It means we need to change the game plan to one that will speed victory, as opposed to forfeiting.

It's probably a good thing that the Defense-Secretary-to-be recognizes that the current game plan isn't working. But now it becomes a question of what the game plan should be. Do we do what needs to be done to win, or do we pack up and go home?

Many of those who take Ga+es' opinion as a validation of their peace-at-any-cost worldview likely hope that we take the latter option.

If that's the path we take, however, you can be sure that there will be bloodshed on a scale that we have not yet seen in Iraq. And that blood will be on the hands of those who lead our retreat.