{"id":29611,"date":"2012-04-21T19:09:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-21T23:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=29611"},"modified":"2012-04-21T19:15:08","modified_gmt":"2012-04-21T23:15:08","slug":"bacevich-military-leaders-need-to-take-responsibility-for-troops-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=29611","title":{"rendered":"Bacevich: Military leaders need to take responsibility for troops’ actions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today’s Washington Post<\/a>, Andrew J. Bacevich writes that the problem in Afghanistan these days is that the commanders aren’t taking enough responsibility for their troops’ malfeasance;<\/p>\n

For too long now, command accountability for our troops\u2019 misconduct in wartime has been more theoretical than real. The latest scandal to erupt in Afghanistan \u2014 photographs of American soldiers amusing themselves with dismembered Taliban corpses \u2014 suggests that it\u2019s past time to confront this problem.<\/p>\n

On the question of accountability, the military\u2019s ethic is clear: With authority comes responsibility. More specifically, commanders bear responsibility for everything that happens within their jurisdiction. This decree supposedly applies to high-ranking generals as much as lowly lieutenants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He concludes;<\/p>\n

Leaders shape institutions. But no leader is irreplaceable \u2014 sometimes nothing beats replacing a few near the top to focus the attention of the rest. For an American military well into a second exhausting decade of continuous war, this is one of those times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You might be surprised to read that I agree with Bacevich, but not in the way he’d like me to agree. Leaders do indeed shape institutions. And the military’s top leader hasn’t taken responsibility for one thing he’s done since he assumed that mantle. How else should his subordinates act?<\/p>\n

Yes, I know, Bacevich wants Obama to fire Gen. John Allen from his post as commander of our forces in Afghanistan, but I think it would do more good for our intentions in Afghanistan to be secured if we fired Allen’s bosses. <\/p>\n

We have Leon Panetta raping military retirees while he takes $32,000 trips home every weekend. And Panetta’s boss, the President, sitting on his hands while the economy falls to pieces. Neither take responsibility for their own malfeasance, more interested in blaming nebulous banks, oil speculators and the previous administration for their woes and inability to effectively act on what they are paid to do.<\/p>\n

Now, I don’t expect Bacevich to be intellectually honest and extrapolate his theory so that it affects directly the mission in Afghanistan and the effectiveness of our troops there. That would cost him job at the Post. But as you read his piece, you can see that there is no other solution to the problems in Afghanistan than removing the leadership in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s Washington Post, Andrew J. Bacevich writes that the problem in Afghanistan these days is … Bacevich: Military leaders need to take responsibility for troops’ actions<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}