Your humble narrator wrote:

You never heard anything like this in the Air Force?

snip

you always carry the
ultimate responsibility for all that your unit does or leaves undone."

BUFDRVR wrote:


Absolutely. The Wing Commander is ultimately responsible for the *general*
conduct of every squadron in the wing...however he is not personally
responsible for for the actions of every individual in the wing...which is
exactly what you are arguing.

Yes, definitely yes. He is -ultimately- responsible, good or bad, whole or
incomplete for -everything-.

Does that mean he should be charged under the UCMJ if a Hummer driver deosn't
maintain the proper tire inflation on his vehicle and it leads to an accident
or unreasonable damage to the vehicle? No, of course not. He should hold
responsible
whichever person (probably a sergeant) is directly supervising that driver. Is
he ultimately responsible? -- yes he is.


You apparently support the president. That is coloring your judgment.

Unlike you, my preference for who sits in the White House has nothing to do
with my views on this issue. You are arguing the President is responsible for
the individual actions of over 1 million U.S. service members serving on all
7
continents, this is ridiculous.

The president is absolutely responsible for what the military does or does not
do. We may be talking past each other here. But the president -is-
repsonsible to the American people. Could he have prevented or been aware
directly that a female national guardsman had an naked iraqi man on a leash?
No. Does he need to take the appropriate action to ensure that the most
culpable are held responsible, yes.

Did the blatant disregard for the rule of law by the Bush administration add to
the climate that led to the abuses at Al Ghraib? Probably. But no US service
person should have engaged in such conduct. They knew better, and to digress
slightly, they knew they didn't have to obey unlawful orders.

Of course with a fuzzy understanding of command and responsibility -- like you
have-- it's not as surprising as it might otherwise be.

Again, we may be talking past each other here, but the president is ultimately
responsible -- he --absolutely is-- as commander in chief of the armed forces
for what these guards did. Now the American people will have to decide if he
takes proportional action to correct these heinous crimes.

More later.

Walt