“But I’m still reeling from the snotty incompetence with which the Bush administration acted. Above all, I’m ashamed that I trusted President Bush and his circle to have a plan for the day after Baghdad fell.”
Oh, they had a plan, just not the right one. However, anyone who knows ANYTHING of military history knows that almost NO PLAN survives contact with reality in a military conflict. THERE IS NO PERFECT PLAN. Only armchair generals think that there might be.
No war and occupation of this scale has EVER been run for as long with as much success and as few losses compared to former conflicts. The problem is that nothing less than perfection would have been acceptable to the armchair generals and the anti-American left.
Has the left used these failings for their benefit, to the detriment of America, Iraq, the troops, and the civilians caught in the middle? You bet. But that’s what the treasonous left does. See, e.g., Vietnam.
Were there mistakes? Yes, BUT THAT IS THE NATURE OF WAR.
I’m not minimizing the price our brave servicemembers have paid. Each loss is awful. But unfortunately, as I said, this is the nature of war. Could it have been done better? ABSOLUTELY. Could it have been done worse? Well, just about every military conflict before this one (except Gulf War I) WAS DONE WORSE. Draw your own conclusions. But this whining about Bush and his failings serves NO REAL PURPOSE.
“Were there mistakes? Yes, BUT THAT IS THE NATURE OF WAR.”
Agreed.
It is not an excuse, simply fact.