Decisions, Decisions

“Give ‘Em Hell” Harry Truman knew that a President has to make a decision and move forward. He made one of the most monumental decisions ever made by anyone—dropping nuclear weapons on Japan. He felt that the “shock and awe” of that much power released on two cities in a short period of time would devastate the seemingly implacable will of the Japanese to continue the World War even as their allies fell around them. He felt that those bombs would actually save many more lives, both Japanese and American, which would otherwise be lost in a needless invasion of the Japanese homeland. He was certain that the Japanese, a proud people, would fight the Americans on every street corner and even women and children would die to protect their leader.

He had many times when he questioned that decision later in life. It is a devastating thing to issue an order to kill thousands of people in two nuclear fireballs. Being a human being, and a very rational and intelligent man, I am certain that, if any other option presented itself to him that would achieve the same decisive end with less loss of life, he would have taken it. But Americans insisted on a clear victory and Japan, it was felt at the time, needed to be broken entirely so that they would not become like Germany before them—ripe for another war once they recovered from the first. So the bombs dropped and the World War ended.

After September 11, Americans needed someone to attack. We needed retribution for the 3,000 lives lost. Evidence pointed to a group most Americans had not heard of, al Queda, and we knew they were holed up in Afghanistan. So we formed a strategy, went to Afghanistan, and began to route the al Queda we found there. We liberated towns and seemed well on our way to freeing that nation from what appeared to be despotic control and unrest.

And then a funny thing happened. Suddenly there was tentative information pointing toward Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s name came up. His former atrocities were then brought into the conversations. “WMDs” were rumored. So we split our focus, did not finish the job in Afghanistan, and went after Saddam. I am sure our President had some doubts. He knew fighting rebels in Afghanistan was very different from fighting the actual military and insurgents in Iraq. But, a little like Truman before him, he made a decision and moved forward. We went to war in Iraq.

Now we are finding monumental evidence that the reasons we used to go to war with Iraq were, at best, misinformed and, at worst, fabricated or overblown. When our President had what appeared to be clear evidence to go to war, we went. The evidence was so good that most politicians, the media, and the people were firmly behind that decision. Now that we have even stronger, more compelling evidence that this war is unjustified, people are questioning the action. The media and the people want to change our course based on this new evidence.

It is important that our President act in an equally decisive a manner based on this new evidence. I am not saying we should pull out entirely, as we have created a mess that will be hard to clean up for those left behind. But we should start working on it, training the Iraqis to fend for themselves, create strong diplomatic and economic ties with the country to help them prosper after the devastation of war, and we should start to get our people out of harm’s way. We need our President to present the people with a decisive withdrawal plan.

Or, to put it another way, we each try to make decisions based on the evidence we are given in our own lives. Although we rarely have to make decisions that involve such weighty matters as the deaths of thousands, the decisions do profoundly affect our lives and how we live them. When the evidence upon which we based our decision proves false or the conclusions we drew from that evidence do not work as expected, we form a new plan, change directions to accommodate, and put that into action. Our President is not doing that. He is acting as though he is incapable of acknowledging that things have changed, that the initial plan needs revision, and that we need to go in new directions.

I truly believe that most people know and understand that plans change with new evidence, new opportunities, with failures, and with unexpected successes. People want a plan to follow and to know where they are headed, but they also want to see leadership smart enough to roll with changes, the failures and the successes, and make new plans accordingly. The people are still working toward the goal; they are just changing how they get there.

I do not judge the decision to go to war with al Queda. I do not judge the decision to go to war in Iraq. History will decide if it was right or wrong. I do question our “staying the course” when all signs point to danger on that course. I want my leadership to be intelligent and determined to do the best thing possible for our nation, even if that means acknowledging that a previous decision was wrong and changing our plans accordingly.

President Bush agonizes over the 2,000 lives lost in Iraq. I am certain of it. Having the deaths of so many resting on his decisions must be painful. But those types of decisions come with the position he sought. Unlike “Give ‘Em Hell” Harry, Bush appears to have many options and other courses available to him to keep from losing more American lives. He needs to start considering them. Or, if he truly believes we should “stay the course” as he and his cabinet have often said, then he needs to provide us with a rationale that contradicts or puts into proper perspective all the evidence that suggests ending the war is the better course now.