smooth

I think you're raising some valid points in regard to the evidence of a plan. But keep in mind that what the responses are claiming is that doesn't rise to the level of a Plan...even if there were a series of little p plans.

Let's go back to the hunter analogy for how this might play out:
So you are arguing that a hunter will make a plan to shoot a deer.
Maybe he tells his wife, honey, I'm going to go hunt a deer and put it on the porch of our next door neighbor because they don't have any food to eat.

She says great. That's a plan.

He tells his hunter friends, hey, I'm going to hunt a deer and put it on the porch next door. I'm doing this Tuesday, I'm going to build a perch, I'm going to use a particular firearm, I'm going to get my tags, etc. A much more detailed plan.

Yet, it's still the same plan...still a plan of battle. Although more elaborated.

So he shoots a deer and puts in the next door neighbor's porch.
After a few hours, it starts to stink.

The hunter talks to a couple buddies...why is no one dressing the deer?
Maybe they don't know how.
The hunter sends someone over to clean up the deer.
And someone else comes over and butchers and packages the deer.

But the pieces of meat are still sitting on the porch.
And the family is still going hungry.
Are they stupid? There is meat right on the porch.

Everyone agrees, it was a good plan to find some meat, clean the meat, and package the meat. But someone finally gets a word in, hey, maybe they don't have a fridge to put the meat in. Maybe they don't have a stove to cook it.

A fridge is provided, a stove is built, but still the family starves.
Why?

Finally, the hunter's uncle steps out into the conversation.
Three months ago, I told you that the family was vegetarian.
I explained that I thought they wouldn't eat meat, no matter how hungry they became, because of the reasons underlying their vegetarianism.

So in the end, you had a plan, but no Plan. You had a plan to secure meat, but no Plan to secure the family would eat.

So for want of the context, the family starved.
Although you had a number of plans, all of them good even.


So when you make the claim that lots of people securing military objectives speaks to a plan, and on many levels a successful one...well, you are right.
But that doesn't mean there was a Plan. A plan of how to make this whole thing work more than at the military level.

And even the fact that they created a plan to make a functional government apparatus does not rise to the level of a complete plan of how to win the "hearts and minds of the people." Because they didn't really listen to the experts on what the hearts and minds of the people wanted or needed.

OR more accurately, that there were different segments of the population that had widely divergent notions of what they want.

So hopefully that will help you see the argument of a lack of a plan...that the statement allows for a military plan, and even a government plan, but most of those two big plans rise to the level of an occupation plan. whereas we need an assistance plan...which never was made.

Bush himself can not be a bush hater, and given the fact that he himself claimed that this war was not about nation building it seems that we ought to take that at face value.

Because the sad fact of the matter is that the anti war group, and a few war propenents, knew from the beginning that the only thing that had a chance of working out would be a nation-building plan. And we didn't want to fund that, we didn't want to support that. And war supporters and detractors can discuss among themselves the ethical/moral implications of their position.

It's legit to argue, hey I wanted to rebuild a nation.
And it's also legit to argue, hey, I don't want to be responsible for that.

But the fact remains that Bush said he wasn't interested in that, whereas it's becoming clear he was or at the very least should have been. And the argument is that his administration knew the public wouldn't go for that. Wasn't interested in being in position for a decade. So they didn't tell the public. And they tried to make secret plans, but left large agencies out of the loop to do so, with dire consequences--they didn't have the expertise of such large agencies.

And you might be fine with all this going on. But the cracks undermining our success are at least in part because everyone wasn't included in the planning loop. So that leaves us with the problem of: include everyone and get good planning but risk people resisting the idea of rebuilding a nation and derailing the whole process....or making up the best plan we can in secret and arguing we aren't going to rebuild a nation after all, and then go ahead and do it when the time demands it.

I prefer the first one: open, honest communication with the risk that opposing ideas might prevail.
Others prefer the second: secretive planning that demands insular communication risking the overall success in the larger picture because you don't get all the best minds on the same page.

And what you're seeing here is disagreement over which course of action is legitimate in a functional democracy.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman