Indeed. Sometimes it is easier to present reasons for saying 'no' than finding ways of saying 'yes'.
I'll go back a few years when I was presented with a particular task where we needed to paint a nice Red Cross on the side of one of the RAF's finest support helicopters. The helicopter det EngO decided to ring Hels back in the UK to get approval; the answer was no. A quiet, 'offline' chat with EngO resulted in a nice pair of red crosses, a completed task and no dead puppies (or even pilots).