all of this more or less comprehensively vindicates Crozier. https://twitter.com/bungdan/status/1247332392718577664

almost all of the arguments about what he should have done presume that there was some structure in place that would have been capable of resolving his issues if he had used the proper procedures.

Within the last 24 hours we have learned the following:

* Modly was virtually alone within the Department of Navy in pushing for harsh action

* Modly prioritized the President's mercurial moods over other considerations

* Modly flew halfway around the world in a harebrained attempt to berate Crozier's sailors on a public PA system

We now learn that Modly is backpedaling rapidly, not even confident of the decision he made, because he realizes that in doing so he might have accidentally incurred the outcome -- Trump becoming involved -- he sought to avoid

This is a small fraction of the clusterfuck that has erupted and I do not intend to go on much further about the details.

So the counterfactual argument is that Crozier should have had faith in Modly's assurances that support was being provided and would be provided further, and that there was nothing further that could be done to expedite the process.

Some of this undoubtedly is materially verifiable and a Navy investigation will undoubtedly reveal the material realities and provide some estimate of what either man could have reasonably known under the circumstances about them.

But there is a very subjective element that is not objectively decidable by material facts. It is whether Crozier should have trusted Modly's assurances, which Modly claimed he had explicitly given to Crozier in communications.

Given what you now know about Modly, would you have trusted said assurances if you were in Crozier's position? https://twitter.com/Aelkus/status/1247335458553630722

The federal government, in general, has a systematically dysfunctional response to the pandemic. The military is, sadly, a part of this. And when top-level guidance is absent, decision-making responsibility is inevitably pushed down to lower ranks.

Unfortunately, this often forces people in such a position to weigh two conflicting objectives:

* fulfill their duties their superiors nominally obligate them to perform

* obey their superiors and respect proper lines of authority

This is not a choice you should ever force people to make.

because if you do, some may judge that that they will be damned regardless of what they choose but defying weak superiors may offer them marginally better chances than the alternatives.