All Alone in the Night

I am pleased to see that a DoD investigation of Pat Tillman's death is calling for nine officers to be held accountable for their roles in the aftermath of Tillman's death. Far too often in this war, senior officers have been able to get away scot free while junior officers and enlisted personnel pay the price. This is precisely opposite what we should be seeing. Senior officers are paid to take responsibility, not to shirk it, and when their unit does something wrong, they should be the first to pay the price, not the last.

I am not suggesting that the entire chain of command should be relieved every time a unit does something wrong. But I am suggesting that should be a possibility. When something goes wrong, whether it be the abuse of prisoners or detainees, criminal activities by soldiers, or tactical errors that result in the death of soldiers, part of the investigation should focus on the chain of command and what they did or did not do to prevent such actions. Sometimes the investigation will show that the command took reasonable precautions, even though they failed to prevent the activity. Sometimes the investigation may conclude that the incident was unlikely to be anticipated, although this would be rare. And occasionally the investigation would find that the chain of command failed to put measures in place to prevent a predictable problem, resulting in the breakdown. And when that occurs, the chain of command ought to suffer serious consequences. At Abu Ghraib, the chain of command either knew what was going on or was so wholly inept the abuse could occur behind their backs. In either case, the command bore supervisory responsibility for the abuse and should have been punished accordingly. The same is true of many less well-known incidents as well.

Until now, however, most senior personnel have gotten no more than a slap on the wrist. A few have been relieved of command, which is a good first step, but I'm aware of no serious consequences or prosecutions of any officers above the rank of Captain, a fairly junior pay grade. If the recommendations of this report are accepted and the DoD follows through, it will be a very small step towards reawakening the sense of responsibility and accountability that ought to be a prerequisite for reaching high ranks in the U.S. military.