PELLEY: Do you look back on the Afghan campaign with any doubts? Certainly we've overthrown the Taliban government. Certainly al-Qaida has been scattered. But some of the Taliban leaders appear to have gotten away and there've been many civilian casualties there, as well.
Pres. BUSH: Mm-hmm. Well, I worry--I--you know, I am sad that civilians lost their life. But I understand war. We did everything we can to--everything we could to protect people. When civilians did die, there was--it was because of a mistake, certainly not because of intention. We liberated a country, for which I'm extremely proud. No, I don't--I don't second-guess things. I--you know, it's--things never go perfect in a time of war.
Pres. Obama has a much more realistic approach to decision making:
There are two aspects of this job that I think are relevant to this discussion. One is that if the problem has a clear solution, then it doesn't land on my desk. Somebody else has solved it. So the only things I'm deciding on are things that are tough. And the second and related point is that because these are tough questions, you are always dealing to some degree with probabilities. You're never 100 percent certain that the course of action you're choosing is going to work. What you can have confidence in is that the probability of it working is higher than the other options available to you. But that still leaves some uncertainty, which I think can be stressful, and that's part of the reason why it's so important to be willing to constantly re-evaluate decisions based on new information.
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2 comments:
Can't agree with you on paying the Taliban though on your other post, but you could have also made the point Bush paid the Sunni Awakeniings and it worked, but only temporarily. My suggestion is Ron Paul's. Just cut off aid to all including Israel and leave-all the Mideast-- and fortify the then less needed defense at home.
I still think we should give some aid to Pakistan so it can fight the extremists on its soil.
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