A standard, and oft-recited, refrain from political leaders during times of war is that we need to listen to the commanders in the field. It’s a common line, and it sounds good at first blush: after all, the people who are fighting the war must logically know the most about it, and therefore we ought to listen to them. The latest incarnation of the line is being used by Republicans to justify further hawkishness in Iraq in the face of the complete lack of political progress and continuing unpopularity of the conflict. For instance, in Huckabee’s Foreign Affairs policy article, he promises that he “will not withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq any faster than General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander there, recommends.” Sounds logical and reasonable; Petraeus surely knows more about Iraq than Huckabee. Except that turning those decisions over to the military is one of the worst things that any president can ever do.
I remember a football game that Baylor University played a few years ago. They were in the middle of an awful season–Baylor not being known for its football, but for once it looked like they were about to win a game. They were winning by a slim margin (I can’t remember the opponent), there were only a few seconds left on the clock, and they controlled the ball. All they had to do was kill the clock and they would have won. The problem was that they were also on their opponent’s one yard line. The players were psyched about the victory, and wanted to score one more touchdown to lift their spirits just a little further. They convinced their coach to go for the touchdown, so the coach called a run up the middle. The running back fumbled the ball, the opposing team picked it up and ran the distance of the field for a touchdown. The coach listened to his players on the field, instead of keeping his mind on the big picture, and as a result they lost the game.
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