John Glenn quote (warning, some content may incite anger)

[BleedBurgundy]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Well evidence shows we didn't have much of a plan whether you think we did or not. We had no inkling of what it would take to manage the peace and WE KNOW THAT NOW since we have the benefit of history as proof. If you want to quibble about semantics and the meaning or "we didn't have aplan" then go for it. What I meant and I think any reasonable person knows this is that whatever our plan was it was poorly constructed and appears to have been nothing but an afterthought. All in all it appears our "plan" wasn't much of a plan at all more than a vague naive notion of cheering crowds happy to see us liberate them. And as other s can atest to I am anything but "diametrically" opposed to this administration. I call it being honest and not being idealogical or partisan.



Think what you want but Rumsfeld's drive for power WAS a big motivating factor behind the entire Iraq theatre.



Or maybe someone who doesn't has their head in the sand.

I don't think it's having my head in the sand to say "right or wrong, we're already over there so we need to finish this before we lose focus among all of the investigation and woulda, coulda, shoulda." It's realistic, simply a matter of focusing on the task at hand. There will be all eternity for the hindsight crowd.

There are a ton of lessons to be learned from mistakes that were made in this conflict. I don't think that's anything new...

I think it's very presumptious to say that the administration's idea was that we would be welcomed by adoring crowds. I think that was clearly the public's perception, but I know that we in the military were never given that impression. Our commanders were telling us that this was going to be a real difficult situation from the start. I think if the average american had realistic, non-idealized expectations of war then you wouldn't see so much hand-wringing now.