Win Loss Record

The President says, "We're not winning, we're not losing" in Iraq. Jon Stewart asks if we're covering the spread.

But Jim Rutenberg in the New York Times points out that in generally accepted rules of combat, insurgents (that's them) win when counterinsurgents (that's us) are not winning:

“The basic theory of counterinsurgency warfare is that the defenders must demonstrate momentum towards victory or success,” said Loren B. Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a military policy organization in Virginia. “If you can’t prove you are making progress then by definition you are losing.”