Crass Top Brass
The U.S. Secretary of Defense has ordered an investigation of the moral debacle among military top brass, based on not just the Petraeus and Allen affair but also on some other recent ones. Since Panetta doesn't seem to have a clue as to why the "best and the brightest" behave like the worst and the dumbest, let me give him a couple of hints.
First, graduating from Annapolis or West Point doesn't change human nature; those people are still human beings subject to the failings and passions of everybody else. Once, you start believing that "officer and a gentleman" propaganda you're in trouble because you lose the proper perspective and miss the signs that are usually there, as well as you tend to make allowances for things that, ultimately, get out of hand.
Second, people who put on a uniform feel special and entitled, and all that admiration and adulation; all that hero worship, sooner or later, affects their moral compass. Needless to say, these are people who are trained to kill on command or who command to kill, sometimes hundreds or thousands of other human beings without questioning their orders.
Is it any wonder that these people have ethical or moral problems in their professional or personal lives?
First, graduating from Annapolis or West Point doesn't change human nature; those people are still human beings subject to the failings and passions of everybody else. Once, you start believing that "officer and a gentleman" propaganda you're in trouble because you lose the proper perspective and miss the signs that are usually there, as well as you tend to make allowances for things that, ultimately, get out of hand.
Second, people who put on a uniform feel special and entitled, and all that admiration and adulation; all that hero worship, sooner or later, affects their moral compass. Needless to say, these are people who are trained to kill on command or who command to kill, sometimes hundreds or thousands of other human beings without questioning their orders.
Is it any wonder that these people have ethical or moral problems in their professional or personal lives?
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