Command Responsibility and Bush Failures

Now, can the president ensure that every government employee, or
serviceman/woman is doing their full duty 100% of the time? No.

But he's in charge, and he is responsible.

You can't be held responsible for things outside your ability to control.
Your
two statements above are contradictory.


BUFDRVR


You never heard anything like this in the Air Force?

"When you pass along some of your duties down the chain of command to more
junior non-commissioned leaders, you hold the latter responsible for producing.
At the same time, you delegate to each subordinate the authority he needs to
carry out his duty. In this way, each level of the chain of command, from
division or air wing down to fire team, receives authority equal to its
responsibilities; and each level carries out its missions under directiion and
supervision of the next higher level.

Although you can delegate authority to your subordinates, you always carry the
ultimate responsibility for all that your unit does or leaves undone."

--"Handbook For Marine NCO's; Second Edition" p. 301 by Col. Robert Debs Heinl,
Jr.

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

In any case, the Bush administration screwed up enough --big ticket-- items
that were, or should have been, directly under the president's eye to warrant
his ass being kicked all the way back to Crawford.

These include:

Not involving the UN in the war. Basically, as events have shown, without UN
involvement (i.e. more troops), we can't subdue the country.

Misreading (unless he just lied) the intelligence on Iraqi complicity/duplicity
in Al Quaida's attacks on the US.

Ditto on weapons of mass destruction supposedly held by Saddam.

Dismissing the Iraqi army. We could have paid them $200,000,000 for three
months (vice 5,000,000,000,000 a month that we are spending now) and not had
hundreds of thousands of military trained men hanging around unemployed.

Dismissing Ba'ath party officials. It's now suggested that at least some
Ba'athists be brought back.

Ignoring the estimate of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Feb, 2003. Gen.
Shinseki said "several hundred thousand" US troops would be needed. The
Bushies just ignored that -- it didn't fit the plan.

Focusing on Iraq when Al Quaida is in Afghanistan. Afghan countryside is now
run by the warlords.

Bush has screwed up on -every- important decision point. He's in charge and
he's responsible and if the "American People" are worthy of that name, his
sorry ass is done.

And, yes. He still is ultimately responsible for the mistreatment of those
Iraqi POWs.

Walt

It was good to hear General Kimmet say on the Today Show this morning that
officers were responsible for what their soldiers did or failed to do. Of
course the president is ultimately responsible -- to the American people.

Walt

WalterM140 wrote:
It was good to hear General Kimmet say on the Today Show this morning that
officers were responsible for what their soldiers did or failed to do. Of
course the president is ultimately responsible -- to the American people.

Walt

Which by extension makes the citizens responsible- bringing us back
to those who are accused of the actual acts.

Personally, I'd say that the guards involved are candidates for
criminal liability if it can be proved that they actually carried
out the acts they are accused of- I haven't seen all the photos,
but I'd not want to be on the defense team at this point. Of the
officers at the camp, unless standard procedure there is for the
commanders at the camp to be absent, or they show that the incidents
were carried out by a very few with no knowledge outside the group,
then I'd say at least a command failure took place- whether it
is criminal or not is a question that I can't answer. Outside of
the camp, unless the officials knew of and condoned the treatment,
you're probably too far removed for effective liability- in fact,
I believe that an investigation began immediately after someone
passed some of the photos to the local criminal investigation folks.

Just my personal opinion.

Mike

WalterM140 wrote:
It was good to hear General Kimmet say on the Today Show this morning that
officers were responsible for what their soldiers did or failed to do. Of
course the president is ultimately responsible -- to the American people.


Walt

Which by extension makes the citizens responsible- bringing us back
to those who are accused of the actual acts.

Of course. We put an administration in office that is not much better than the
Nazis.

We can vote them out. Count on the Bush crew trying to steal this election
also.

Walt

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."

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.

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.

In any case, the Bush administration screwed up enough --big ticket-- items
that were, or should have been, directly under the president's eye to warrant
his ass being kicked all the way back to Crawford.

What was that about bias?

Not involving the UN in the war. Basically, as events have shown, without UN
involvement (i.e. more troops), we can't subdue the country.


You're a genius. You do realize you can't draft the U.N. right? That they have
to be willing? Guess what, they were *never* going to be willing. Because of
several issues, including the systematic pillaging of the oil for food program,
many UN member nations were never going to vote in favor of going to war and
removing Hussain.

Misreading (unless he just lied) the intelligence on Iraqi
complicity/duplicity
in Al Quaida's attacks on the US.


Are you suggesting a President should discount what he's being told by
intelligence officials?

Ditto on weapons of mass destruction supposedly held by Saddam.

When the head of the CIA says its a "slam dunk" case, who should argue with
him?

Dismissing the Iraqi army. We could have paid them $200,000,000 for three
months (vice 5,000,000,000,000 a month that we are spending now) and not had
hundreds of thousands of military trained men hanging around unemployed.

Hind sight is a beautiful thing huh?

Dismissing Ba'ath party officials. It's now suggested that at least some
Ba'athists be brought back.

See above..

Ignoring the estimate of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Feb, 2003. Gen.
Shinseki said "several hundred thousand" US troops would be needed. The
Bushies just ignored that -- it didn't fit the plan.

Yeah, the Bush administration was the first ever adminstration to ignore advice
from the military. This was a mistake, but hardly unique. Clinton ignored the
advice of the military in Somalia in 1993 and got dozens of Americans killed in
the process. I'm willing to bet you were silent on that one.

Focusing on Iraq when Al Quaida is in Afghanistan.

The number of A-Q in Afghanistan is very small, and even if you include
Pakistan, the numbers are much smaller than their existance in other countries.
The focus on A-Q must be global, not just in one country. This is what
President Bush is doing.

Afghan countryside is now
run by the warlords.

The problem is not nearly as bad as you would expect and this was always going
to be a problem. Blaming Bush for warlords controlling the "country side" is
like blaming the allies for flood of Jewish refugees after they opened the
concentration camps ater WWII. If you wanted the Taliban Govt. removed, A-Q
kicked out and the warlords subdued, you would have needed 2 million men and
the atmosphere in Afghanistan would make Iraq look like Disney World.

Bush has screwed up on -every- important decision point.

In your not so humble, biased opinion.

He's in charge and he's responsible

The first correct line you've typed in a week.

and if the "American People" are worthy of that name, his
sorry ass is done.

And if he's not will you please leave?

And, yes. He still is ultimately responsible for the mistreatment of those
Iraqi POWs.

No matter how you stretch command responsibility, no matter how bad you twist
it, Bush is not responsible for the mistreatment of the PWs.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...

snip

Ignoring the estimate of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in Feb, 2003.
Gen.
Shinseki said "several hundred thousand" US troops would be needed. The
Bushies just ignored that -- it didn't fit the plan.

Yeah, the Bush administration was the first ever adminstration to ignore
advice
from the military. This was a mistake, but hardly unique. Clinton ignored
the
advice of the military in Somalia in 1993 and got dozens of Americans
killed in
the process. I'm willing to bet you were silent on that one.

Actually, the original poster's (Bufdrvr, you really need to stop snipping
the poster ID info from the top of all of your posts--gets a bit hard to
figure who said what) premise is screwed up a bit from the get-go. First,
Shinseki was not the CJCS when he made that comment--he was the
former/retired CS of the Army (and one with an axe to grind regarding his
former superiors, given his quick "don't let the door hit you in the ass on
the way out" departure). Second, it is interesting that even now we are not
considering "several hundred thousand" US troops be deployed into Iraq, but
instead are merely delaying the previously planned reduction in the number
of deployed troops (the total is still in the 130K range for the US Army,
IIRC, despite our having to take on the additional load of the former
Spanish contingent after Spain's rapid capitulation to terrorists; total
troops deployed in the entire CENTCOM region, from all forces, is about 225K
max, with a chunk of them operating in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa,
and including those still operating in Kuwait, Qatar, etc.). Shinseki's
flawed vision of the vast number of US troops required never has received a
great deal of support from *any* quarter other than that of John McCain
(another fellow with a bit of an anti-Bush axe to grind).

Brooks

snip

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

Brooks wrote:

First,
Shinseki was not the CJCS when he made that comment--he was the
former/retired CS of the Army (and one with an axe to grind regarding his
former superiors

Bull****.

"On February 25, Shinseki testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Senator Levin asked him to "give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army's
force requirement for an occupation of Iraq…" Any general officer —
especially one as political as Shinseki — would have corrected the question
before answering it, because the very premise of an extended "occupation" is
antithetical to President Bush's policy of liberation. (It also plays right
into the hands of opponents in Europe and the Middle East who claim that our
real objective is only to occupy Iraq and seize its oil.) Instead of correcting
Levin, Shinseki answered that "something on the order of several hundred
thousand soldiers" would be required. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were both angered
by the response, and the next day Wolfowitz issued a pointed statement noting
that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark." According to one report,
Wolfowitz went out of his way to repudiate Shinseki, adding that "Shinseki's
prediction came at a delicate time when the Bush administration is trying to
piece together a broad-based coalition to support an invasion of Iraq to topple
Saddam Hussein." And still Shinseki remains."


http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...bbin030603.asp

Walt

On Thu, 6 May 2004 21:23:50 +0200, "Emmanuel Gustin" wrote:

"Mike Williamson" wrote in message
...

Of the
officers at the camp, unless standard procedure there is for the
commanders at the camp to be absent, or they show that the incidents
were carried out by a very few with no knowledge outside the group,
then I'd say at least a command failure took place- whether it
is criminal or not is a question that I can't answer.

Yes. Legal liability aside, the comforting "a few bad apples"
theory misses the fact, from psychological study (the famous
Milgram experiment) and historical precedent, that the soldiers
who did this are probably quite normal, unexceptional people.
In situations like this, the conditions (position of power, opportunity,
confidence in the support of higher authority, feeling of immunity
from punishment) make the criminals --- out of people you wouldn't
expect to act like that all.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the perpetrators would not be
guilty; they still have a choice (although a surprisingly large
number of people would make the wrong choice). It does mean
that blame doesn't end here. The big question is how far the
rot has spread.

Well, it has obviously spread to you. Rendering your "judgement"
before the investigation is closed makes your hatred of all things
relating to the US even more obvious.

Al Minyard

Nothing whatsoever in what you responded to as "Bull****" in any way
challenged what was said.

Were you just trying to change the subject?

Or what?

Steve Swartz

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
Brooks wrote:

First,
Shinseki was not the CJCS when he made that comment--he was the
former/retired CS of the Army (and one with an axe to grind regarding his
former superiors

Bull****.

"On February 25, Shinseki testified before the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
Senator Levin asked him to "give us some idea as to the magnitude of the
Army's
force requirement for an occupation of Iraq." Any general officer -
especially one as political as Shinseki - would have corrected the
question
before answering it, because the very premise of an extended "occupation"
is
antithetical to President Bush's policy of liberation. (It also plays
right
into the hands of opponents in Europe and the Middle East who claim that
our
real objective is only to occupy Iraq and seize its oil.) Instead of
correcting
Levin, Shinseki answered that "something on the order of several hundred
thousand soldiers" would be required. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were both
angered
by the response, and the next day Wolfowitz issued a pointed statement
noting
that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark." According to one
report,
Wolfowitz went out of his way to repudiate Shinseki, adding that
"Shinseki's
prediction came at a delicate time when the Bush administration is trying
to
piece together a broad-based coalition to support an invasion of Iraq to
topple
Saddam Hussein." And still Shinseki remains."


http://www.nationalreview.com/commen...bbin030603.asp

Walt