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October 19, 2004

Andrew Sullivan Can Contribute Something

Alas, his role in the contribution is to simply cut and paste a letter from his reader, who deserves all the credit:

...
It is an old military maxim that blunders can be forgiven, but a lack of boldness cannot. There will always be blunders. The simple becomes difficult in war. Take for example the following question: what is 2+2 equal too? An easy question right? Now imagine I gave you 15 such questions and you had 2 seconds to answer them. Most likely you would answer some and leave the rest. Looking at those questions you missed in isolation I might say, "What kind of blathering idiot are you? You can't even answer simple questions like 2+2=4". That is why Armchair Generals are so annoying. They look at one thing in isolation with all the time in the world to think about it and say confidently "the answers obvious". But when you are out in the fight everything looks different. Nothing is ever seen in isolation. You never have enough time. You never know more than 1/10 what you need to know. There will always be blunders.

But the job has to get done anyway. And to get this kind of job done boldness is essential. A leader who never blunders, but who doesn't take the fight to the enemy is worthless. A leader who sets about to win - win ugly if needs be - is priceless.

One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we've experienced so far in Iraq).

There is a scene in the movie "We were Soldiers" that says it better than I can. In the scene a young soldier on the ground is giving directions on enemy positions to aircraft flying overhead. The aircraft then dropped Napalm on the enemy. At one point the soldier gets the directions wrong and stares horrified as the Napalm is dropped on his own unit. The soldier is shaken beyond belief. He sat there doing nothing - paralyzed by his mistake. Then his Commanding Officer gave him the confidence to carry on. The CO told him to "forget about that last one" and "you're keeping us alive here". And so the soldier swallowed his guilt and kept doing his job and thereby saved the unit. That is what a 70% solution looks like in real life. And those are the 70% solutions that win wars.

Most people and events are beyond your control. Most questions you don't have time to answer. Most facts you will never know. But you have to press the attack anyway. No matter how ugly it gets, you keep going until you win.

Kerry doesn't understand that. Everything he did during the Cold War and everything he says about this one states as much. He represents those who would never blunder, but who would not take the fight to the enemy. He would just sit there - like the soldier in the movie - paralyzed by America's mistakes."

posted by Ace at 08:40 PM

Comments

I think people are too hard on Andrew Sullivan. At least he posts great stuff like that. And he saw the humor in the song "Everyone Has AIDS". I got his back. Oh shut up, you know what I meant by that....

Posted by: Knievel on October 19, 2004 08:49 PM

John Kerry: Monday Morning Quarterback

Posted by: Terry Notus on October 19, 2004 08:56 PM

Terry.... no, it's more like Thursday afternoon quarterbacking... you have to give him time to flip-flop several times before the next game.

Posted by: Gary Lewis on October 19, 2004 10:00 PM

That was a good letter, although Sullivan is a douche-bag.

Everytime someone mentions problems in Iraq, I remind them that we lost over 9,000 American fighting men at Normandy on D-Day and 29,000 within the next 3 months. You can find countless examples of blunders associated with Operation Overlord such as mistaken bombings resulting in the deaths of 600 Americans including LtGen Leslie McNair.

In fact, a good parallel is Operation Market Garder as it relates to what is now referred to as "catastrophic success" on D-Day (http://www.marketgarden.com/new/page1a.html).

Oh yeah, it wasn't Hitler that attacked us, Japan did. And some of FDR's detractors thought he was a war-mongering dictator, and he was diverting resources from Japan to fight in Europe.

Some things never change.

Posted by: Dear Johns on October 19, 2004 10:12 PM

It's not just Kerry -- the Left in general, the Democrats, the MSM, the UN, academia, all suffer from a common malady:

The Perfect is the enemy of the Good.

It's why they hate GWB -- he's a man of action, while their currency is talk, lots of talk.

BTW, that is a terrific letter -- good on Andy. I take back half the awful things I've said about him.

Posted by: capitano on October 19, 2004 10:19 PM

Exactly. And "I have a plan" simply doesn't cut it when action (not summit meetings and negotiations)is needed.

Posted by: RKA on October 19, 2004 10:24 PM

Kerry isn't a Monday (or even Thursday) Morning Quarterback. MMQ's watch the game. Considering operational security generally, and how much time Kerry's spent campaigning this year specifically, he doesn't have 1/10th the information he needs to have the slightest second-guessing authority.

MMQ's that watch the game. MMQ's that barely catch the ESPN high-lights are 10 times worse.

And that letter kicked ass; like a Viking.

Posted by: Brock on October 19, 2004 10:40 PM

One of the worst mistakes in US military history was committed by one of America's greatest generals--MacArthur in the winter of 1950. But it didn't bother the 1st Marines, they "advanced" in a different direction. Lucky for the South Korean's that leftist defeatists didn't have much influence in those days.

Posted by: Ricard L. on October 19, 2004 11:24 PM

Maybe Sullivan will pull his own October surprise (not the one that Knievel might like) (them's jus jokes, K), say "forget gay marriage," and go back to GWB for the election.

BOOOP, BOOOP, BOOOOP zzzz... Whazzat?

Oh, sorry, just dreaming again.

Posted by: hobgoblin on October 19, 2004 11:49 PM

Hell, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Good letter, though.

Posted by: Sean M. on October 20, 2004 12:12 AM

Sully has always been generous and fair with the dissenting email he gets. In the true spirit of the blogosphere, he knows that good writing brings readers back, no matter if the writer is tearing into him.

Posted by: The Sanity Inspector on October 20, 2004 12:27 AM

Capitano wrote:
It's not just Kerry -- the Left in general, the Democrats, the MSM, the UN, academia, all suffer from a common malady:
The Perfect is the enemy of the Good.

No! No! No! A thousand times NO! The problem with all those groups is they believe perfect is possible. And, they believe they know what it is. They're not comfortable knowing the world is an imperfect place so they've created a religion devoted solely to themselves. They call themselves secular but are religious zealots of the first order. And nothing has killed more people in human history than some form of religion or another.**

Their vision of what they want to be true endangers all of us in literally thousands of small ways every day. Theirs is tyranny by a thousand pin pricks instead of the guillotine but no less deadly.

They are busybodies who make life more dangerous by imposing FDA regulations that drive drug manufacturers from the vaccine market.

/rant

**No offense intended to religious-minded individuals. It's just an historical fact.

Posted by: Birkel on October 20, 2004 01:24 AM

Kerry 2004 = McClellan 1864. The General who wouldn't fight. They called Lincoln a monkey, too.

Posted by: Johnny Walker Red on October 20, 2004 03:29 AM

Could someone "take one for the team" and drill Andrew in the ass real hard?

He is in gay "high dungeon" ever since Bush didn't come out supporting Gay Marriage.

Posted by: Cedarford on October 20, 2004 10:05 PM