There you see the perverse product of the West Point Honor Code. By explicitly forbidding lying, cheating and stealing and promoting intolerance of those who do, the Code trains those under it to do exactly that, but in subtle, conniving and even more corrosive ways. In other words, they build better liars, cheats and thieves. That’s the first lesson the Code acutally teaches.

Actual honesty, accountability and non-thievery are for wimps. Intolerance of those who do, is ratting out someone and cause for ostracism. That’s the second lesson the Code teaches: if you want to survive in this profession, learn to lie without lying and cover for your buddies. To get to four stars, you have to be the apotheosis of that skill-set.

And, Jim, while you put “leadership” in scare quotes, in reality that was exactly what McChrystal was doing. He was leading his men into a bar and debauchery. It’s like the old saw that whatever you do in the military is training, but the question is whether you train correctly (i.e., to the published standards) or not (to do things like hang out and drink coffee rather than doing appropriate soldiering things). He was leading and training and operating with his men – right into a bar. Similarly, he was managing to the objectives he had – both in-theater and out. His objective in Paris was to blow off steam and get hammered, and he achieved it. His objectibe in theater was to fulfill the bureaucrat’s prime directive: “always act in such a way as to guarantee the continued existence (and, if possible, expansion) of your job (and pay, rank, staff size, and prestige)”. “Winning” the war, whatever that means, never was on the radar screen.

So, viewed that way, he was performing perfectly. If you think he wasn’t, that’s just because you don’t understand the requirements and objectives he was working under.

yes, mcchrystal is quite representative of what i have come to expect from my fellow americans in foreign countries… my first boss in kabul was a major but functional alcoholic and i’ve worked with many fellow americans in afghanistan who seem to have no qualms about showing the absolute worst to afghans who we are supposedly trying to set a good example for… all night parties, shit-faced drunken orgies, openly referring to afghans as lying dirtballs, all seems to be ok in these peoples’ world…

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

Glad you’re reading the book, Jim, so I don’t have to. The portion you discuss gives me all the detail I need to know.

@Frank33:

Frank, let’s not forget Jeremy Scahill, Dahr Jamail,or the inimitable Seymour Hersh. Exceptional journalists … all.

As for the state of National Security reporting in traditional media in the US see Michael Hasting quoting Julian Assange in Rolling Stone Issue 1149:

The Times ran in the face of fire; it abandoned us once the heat started from the U.S. Administration. In doing so, it also abandoned itself, and it abandoned all jouralists working on national-security related journalism in the United States.

What the Times was concerned about is being being swept up in the government’s investigation. If Bradley Manning or anther U.S. government employee had collaborated with us to provide us with classified information, and we, in turn, collaborated with the Times to provide it to the world, then the argument would run that the Times had been involved in a conspiracy with us to commit espionage. This is something the Times was deeply concerned about. It said to us that we should never refer to the Times as a partner-that was their legal advice.

Assange is referring to the New York Times.

@scribe:

Actual honesty, accountability and non-thievery are for wimps

Regarding McChrystal’s leadership — I want to leave a comment here about McChrystal and the chain of command and events associated with him. Lot of dots to connect:

McChrystal and Pat Tillman: (from Hastings’ book p.57)

Pat Tillman had been killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004. McChrystal knew about it almost immediately, but he still went ahead and signed off on a falsified recommendation for Tillman’s Silver Star that suggested he was killed by the enemy. A week after Tillman’s death, McChrystal sent a memo up the chain of command, specifically warning that President Bush should avoid mentioning the cause of Tillman’s death. “If the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death become public,” he wrote, it could cause “public embarrassment” for the president.

Coming from the secretive Special Forces world, he’d been able to avoid most quesions on his role. There was an Army review, and McChrystal escaped any reprimand, despite his leadership position. His name was blacked out when the Army report became public. He’s refused to answer questions from the Tillman family.

I left a nested thread of comments on Daily Kos in 2010 following the trail of Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who served under McChrystal as Pat Tillman’s Executive Officer. My thread started with then-latest first, Kauzlarich in Basra making things nice for oil companies, preceded by Collateral Murder in July 2007 (Kauzlarich was Ethan McCord’s Ranger battalion commander, Ethan McCord saved the kids in the van), preceded by Kauzlarich’s 360-degree rotational fire order in June 2007, (kill everybody around, including unarmed civilians), preceded by Kauzlarich diverting his battalion from training into surge combat so he could make general, preceded by Kauzlarich as Pat Tillman’s ExO: on ESPN calling Pat Tillman “worm dirt” because Tillman was an atheist, and in 2004 apparently deep-sixing and re-doing original investigation into Tillman’s death.

McChrystal – Tillman’s Battalion Commander Jeff Bailey – Spc. Bryan O’Neal: Soldier: Army ordered me not to tell truth about Tillman

The last soldier to see Army Ranger Pat Tillman alive, Spc. Bryan O’Neal, told lawmakers that he was warned by superiors not to divulge — especially to the Tillman family — that a fellow soldier killed Tillman.

From 360 Degrees of Rotational Fire by Ethan McCord:

It was in June that our Battalion Commander [Kauzlarich] came to our COP (combat out post) where my platoon was. He walked past us into the office where the 1st Sgt. and company commander were. After about 20 minutes the Battalion commander walked into the weight room where 3rd platoon was at, yelled out “Listen up, new battalion SOP (standard operating procedure) from now on: Anytime your convoy gets hit by an IED, I want 360 degree rotational fire. You kill every motherfucker in the street!” Some of the soldiers were happy to hear this, they were tired of having their hands tied behind their backs. Others like myself couldn’t believe what we had just been told to do. The words I heard were kill them all, fuck em, they don’t deserve to live! I knew that there was no way I could kill women and children or even unarmed men.

This policy was placed into effect immediately….As far as the policy went, and soldiers following them, we weren’t trained to know an unlawful order. We watched other units carrying the same thing out, so to us the word was that of law. Nobody in a leadership position was stepping up to say, ‘hey, this is wrong, we shouldn’t do this.’

And doesn’t the 360-degree rotational fire order sound a lot like Haditha?

AMY GOODMAN: Tim McGirk, that possibility of other people being charged, going up the chain of command, is there any possibility?

TIM McGIRK: I think there is absolutely zero possibility of that happening. I mean, as far as the Marines and the Pentagon go, this is—this is a case that’s been shut after six years. And I think that’s the end of that, you know, as far as they’re concerned. There’s certainly no chance that anyone further up the chain of command is ever going to be brought to any kind of court over this thing.

Dots dots dots . . .

@Jim White: One more thought, about McChrystal and leadership a la @14. There’s this, from Alex Gibney’s documentary Taxi to the Dark Side:

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN HUTSON (RETIRED): The spine of the United States armed forces is the chain of command. What starts at the top of the chain of command drops like a rock down the chain of command. And that’s why Lynndie England knew what Donald Rumsfeld was thinking without actually talking to Donald Rumsfeld.

Because McChrystal wasn’t the top of the chain of command.

And this, from the commentary track of Errol Morris’s documentary Standard Operating Procedure, about Abu Ghraib and the “bad apples”:

1:26:34 ERROL MORRIS: Here is an important detail that hardly anybody knows about, that there were actually secret groups among the operatives at Abu Ghraib responsible directly to Rumsfeld and the Defense Department.

I bolded that, because I was astounded when I heard that. When you think of Abu Ghraib, do you think bad apples or do you think Rumsfeld? Maybe I should rephrase that: If you’re the media, do you report bad apples or do you report Rumsfeld?

Scene 24

JANIS KARPINSKI: I came back from a meeting. It was very late at night.

ERROL MORRIS: This is, of course, the culmination of the story. Photographs have been leaked to the Criminal Investigation Division of the Army. But what does the Army do? The Army tries to cover it up.

JANIS KARPINSKI: I sent an e-mail back to him and I said, “I don’t know what to say. First I’ve heard of it.” I was preparing in my mind to hold a mini press conference to tell the truth and to tell it early. To say, “This is what we’ve uncovered. We’re looking into it because we discipline ourselves. We’re Americans, and we know right from wrong.” General Sanchez said, “No, absolutely not. You’re not to discuss this with anyone.” The fear of the truth silenced people.

LYNNDIE ENGLAND: Everybody knew.

ERROL MORRIS: Now this is one of the extraordinary parts of this story. Many, many, many people at Abu Ghraib were aware of these photographs. They were used as screensavers, they were passed from soldier to soldier, they were available on CDs in one form or another. When the photographs came out, the Army, of course, was interested in trying to contain what they realized could be a public-relations disaster. I remember reading in the New York Times about the destruction of two tapes of a CIA interrogation of al-Zubaida. We’re not talking about two tapes here, we’re talking about the massive destruction of evidence. There’s a signed order by Colonel Thomas Pappas, who essentially ran the prison, ordering an amnesty period, an amnesty period which meant, essentially, destroy everything and we will pin the blame on these few soldiers.

Rumsfeld, McChrystal, Sanchez, Pappas, Miller — covered up and redacted. Lie, scapegoat, can’t remember. And that’s what goes for leadership.