What To Do

Talk about your mixed messages. President Bush takes a stand to oust Saddam Hussein, in part on sketchy intelligence and in part on removing a homicidal madman before he kills more innocents. Six months before the president decides to rid Iraq of Hussein, he follows the wishes of Congress and gets a vote to authorize regime change, which was really a re-authorization from a 1998 vote giving President Clinton the authority to do the same. Congress caught a whiff of public sentiment in late 2002 – just before the election, very cruel – and voted overwhelmingly to pass the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution.”

One would guess President Bush took Congress seriously back then, if for no other reason than the resolution passed 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate. From that point on, the debate has raged on a number of issues such as the quality of the intelligence, the number of troops that were used and the presence of a real plan for occupation following Saddam’s removal. This debate has become pointless and stale unless you’re running for higher office. However, the debate is instructional for what a future president should do when faced with the changing whim of the public and the predictable change in mood from politicians seeking their votes.

Case in point is the situation in Darfur. To get a good feel for this, look at this website imploring President Bush to stop the killing. It essentially asks him to do what we did in Iraq in 1992, including the not-so-well hidden request for armed troops. This is rich. To many, President Bush in particular and America in general represents much of what is evil in the world. This because we are occupiers, bullies and are intent on policing the world; or, put another way, just what the do-gooders are requesting we do to save those in need in Darfur.

Boiled down, what is happening in Darfur is what is occurring in Iraq: sectarian violence between different religious groups. Unless I am confused, the current attitude is that we are all against interfering or causing an increase in sectarian violence and putting our men and women in harms way to attempt to put an end to it.

We tried to help out in Somalia based in large part by a series of CNN news reports about petty warlords stealing food from starving refugees caught up in sectarian violence. The humanitarian crisis was in our living rooms so much that President Bush (41) decided to send troops to help distribute the food. Shortly thereafter, something quite different was broadcast into our living rooms by CNN; that of dead American troops being carried through the streets of Mogadishu. Public opinion was high to save the starving but reached rock bottom when the public learned there was a price to pay for our doing so. President Clinton, always driven by polls on major decisions, removed the troops, which also removed the last doubt by Osama bin Laden that the U.S. was nothing more than a Paper Tiger.

And now Darfur. What should President Bush do? What should a future president do since it is unlikely the warring factions will have gone through all 2.5 million people of Darfur by 2008? Inquiring minds and arm-chair quarterbacks are waiting.