War and Life

What the Naysayers Seem to Be Missing

E. L. Core

“It’s a Bad Plan Leading to Disaster!” One can sense a disconnect among the crowd that spouts that line of thinking about the War Against Saddam Hussein. A singular disconnect, that is, from life among human beings. They have given new meaning to the old phrase “fog of war”; caught up in the day-to-day details, they lose sight of the overall picture. Whether they be reporters in the Middle East, or pundits in jazzy TV studios in the USA, or columnists ensconced at their desks anywhere, they all seem to have something in common: they seem to be clueless about how people work together towards a goal.

Knowledge of military strategy, logistics, and tactics is quite unnecessary here. Merely think about how a family brings a holiday meal to the table, or how a contractor constructs a house for the new family on the block, or how a football team marches through four quarters to victory.

Thanksgiving dinner with the whole family at Grandmother’s house can be quite an affair. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, noodles, salad, corn, green beans, cranberry sauce, and drinks and desserts of many kinds: they don’t get on the table by magic. Preliminary planning may begin weeks ahead of time. Who is going to be having dinner at Grandma’s? And what time do we want to eat? Will there be enough room for everybody? Can someone bring an extra table with chairs so we can have some of the children eat in the living room?

As the holiday approaches, the focus shifts. Can we get a big enough turkey? Who has turkeys on sale now? Do we really like that brand? Can we get the kind of cranberries that Uncle Randy likes? Is Aunt Linda going to bring her specialty dessert? Do we like the frozen corn better than the canned? Or the canned green beans better than the frozen? Who is going to bring the beverages?

When the day arrives, the focus shifts again. How early does Grandma have to get up to put the turkey in the oven? Is there going to be enough room in the refrigerator for everything? Can we get all the vegetables done at the same time? Can we cook a few things at Aunt Susan’s next door?

No matter the fuss and the hitches, the meal comes off as well as it has every other year. So you couldn’t get Uncle Randy’s favorite cranberry sauce: he discovered he likes this one just as well. So the circuit to the kitchen’s wiring kept tripping: the meal was delayed 15 minutes, but the kids were having fun playing in the meantime. So the green beans got cold while the corn was cooking: 90 seconds in the microwave, and nobody knew the difference. So everything didn’t happen quite as planned: everybody had a wonderful time anyway.

If bringing off the holiday meal can sometimes seem like a miracle, think about what is involved in building a house. The contractor employs sub-contractors who, in turn, must depend on their suppliers. Certain steps must be completed before others can be started: the foundation, for instance, must be laid first, then the framework for walls, before the roof can even be attempted. Once a certain stage of completion has been reached, many different kinds of work can go on more-or-less at once — with the added complication of getting in one another’s way. Problems will most certainly arise. If one supplier comes up short, another can be engaged; if one brand product goes up too much in price, another can be substituted; if one color clashes too much with the overall decor, the alternative color scheme can be rendered. In the end, the house is still a dream-come-true for its new owners.

True, the construction of a house, like the production of a holiday meal, involves no enemy — somebody else, that is, who has a plan of their own to frustrate your plan. For that, consider a high-school football game on a lovely autumn Friday evening. The home team, 6-0 for the season, has beaten the visitors in five of their last six match-ups, and the visiting team is 1-5. Still, the home team’s coach takes nothing for granted, and his team prepares for this game as it would for any other. At the last minute, though, he realizes he’ll have to start the second-string quarterback. And the visitors run a play or two that nobody has seen before. They get a lucky break, two or three times, and rack up 13 points in the first half, surprising even their die-hard fans. Still the lopsided outcome, 42-13, was never really in doubt, and never at all in jeopardy.

In all these cases — and a million million others, every day, everywhere — nothing goes quite exactly as planned. In fact, nobody with any sense expects them to do so. There are no perfect plans because there are no perfect people. And most people know that.

Most people know, too, that if Grandma sits down for 10 minutes, the meal is still on its way. That if a laborer falls and breaks his arm, the house is still going to get finished. That a sick first-string quarterback, and a few lucky breaks for the underdog, doesn’t mean the game is lost.

So, how can some of the most successful warfare in history amount to a poor plan, poorly executed? In two weeks, Coalition forces have driven nearly to the gates of Baghdad, gained effective control of much of Iraq, and achieved air dominance almost instantaneously. Sure, we couldn’t send infantry through the north because Turkey balked; the wind whipped up one of the fiercest sandstorms in decades; our troops are being harried by the guerrilla-style tactics of thugs; and we are suffering KIAs, MIAs, and POWs. But fewer, by thousands, than the enemy is suffering; and they have not been able to stop our forward progress by sheer force of arms or strategy; even now, the Fourth Infantry Division is soon to come into play, and two Iraqi divisions are being pulverized. May all plans be drawn up so poorly and be so badly executed!

Why the prophets of doom? Why the magnification of minor problems while downplaying the overall success? Why the refusal to admit that the war effort is making measurable progress nearly every day, despite minor setbacks, and has actually been going pretty darned well from the start?

Maybe the naysayers never wanted the war and simply don’t want to admit it’s going well. Or maybe they have a prejudice against the military, or the White House, or the United States of America.

But maybe the naysayers just have too little experience of real life.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 04/02/03 03:46:12 PM
Categorized as Most Notable & War.