One has to appreciate the hubris in the opening statement of this article...
"An Army officer is fed up with “rosy official statements” that paint Afghanistan as a picture of progress, and he is demanding military leaders come clean about the “absence of success on virtually every level.”
An observer that spends a relatively short period of time (regardless of the "miles spent traveling") in an evolving counterinsurgent mission may be a questionable source. I would be interested in the metrics he considered outside of conversational opinions he gathered during his walkabout.
Additionally, this reminds me of so many other "whistleblowers" in Afghanistan. They receive a lot of attention early, but not when it comes out that before they published they were already on their way out for incompetence. The two that come to mind is the LTC who said we did not have a strategy and sent out a mass email to journalists making fun of the incompetence of the command and the amount of time spent on power point. The other was the reserve IO LTC who portrayed himself as a PSYOP officer who was told by the CG to PSYOP a CONDEL in contravention of federal law. The actual story was he was not a trained PSYOP Officer, he had already been counseled that he was rapidly approaching the point he would receive a relief for cause, and he was only told to put together talking points for the CG. We seem to have a cornucopia of LTCs who have an inflated since of their own intelligence and self worth.
I understand that sometimes there is a reason why people exercise their option of "whistle-blowing" and not inform the chain of command before doing so. At times, it might just be the only option available to them. Maybe LTC Davis' information would have been dismissed if not brought to the attention of someone outside military channels.
However, I question LTC Davis' decision to go to Congress and the press before sending the information to the IG and then finally, telling his chain of command. It doesn't appear that the chain of command was involved in some devious scheme to ensure LTC Davis didn't tell his story so why not give the chain of command the courtesy of knowing first? Or even the IG? Did LTC Davis believe that he'd be given a direct order to not release the information to Congress or the press? I think showing moral courage is, whenever possible, telling your chain of command first. To give this story the outside attention he believes it would need to address the situation, he probably had to tell Congress or the press. But why not involve the chain of command or IG first?
One has to appreciate the hubris in the opening statement of this article...
ReplyDelete"An Army officer is fed up with “rosy official statements” that paint Afghanistan as a picture of progress, and he is demanding military leaders come clean about the “absence of success on virtually every level.”
An observer that spends a relatively short period of time (regardless of the "miles spent traveling") in an evolving counterinsurgent mission may be a questionable source. I would be interested in the metrics he considered outside of conversational opinions he gathered during his walkabout.
Additionally, this reminds me of so many other "whistleblowers" in Afghanistan. They receive a lot of attention early, but not when it comes out that before they published they were already on their way out for incompetence. The two that come to mind is the LTC who said we did not have a strategy and sent out a mass email to journalists making fun of the incompetence of the command and the amount of time spent on power point. The other was the reserve IO LTC who portrayed himself as a PSYOP officer who was told by the CG to PSYOP a CONDEL in contravention of federal law. The actual story was he was not a trained PSYOP Officer, he had already been counseled that he was rapidly approaching the point he would receive a relief for cause, and he was only told to put together talking points for the CG. We seem to have a cornucopia of LTCs who have an inflated since of their own intelligence and self worth.
ReplyDeleteI understand that sometimes there is a reason why people exercise their option of "whistle-blowing" and not inform the chain of command before doing so. At times, it might just be the only option available to them. Maybe LTC Davis' information would have been dismissed if not brought to the attention of someone outside military channels.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I question LTC Davis' decision to go to Congress and the press before sending the information to the IG and then finally, telling his chain of command. It doesn't appear that the chain of command was involved in some devious scheme to ensure LTC Davis didn't tell his story so why not give the chain of command the courtesy of knowing first? Or even the IG? Did LTC Davis believe that he'd be given a direct order to not release the information to Congress or the press? I think showing moral courage is, whenever possible, telling your chain of command first. To give this story the outside attention he believes it would need to address the situation, he probably had to tell Congress or the press. But why not involve the chain of command or IG first?