Once again, Abu Ghraib is pushed to the front of the news line. Got to send Kerry’s problems back somehow, I guess.
The latest report to come out works its magic to try and blame everyone in the chain of command, up to and including Rumsfeld. I think what bothers me most is that many of our journalists and politicians are so out of touch with reality, having never held a corporate job, that they can’t grasp the simple reality of an organizational structure. And they certainly don’t understand military organizational structure.
Just look at any company and its workforce. How many people who work for Daimler-Chrysler even know who the CEO of their company is? Do they feel like they are guided in their day-to-day activities by this person? Are they?
Contrast that to the military, where just about every soldier knows who Rumsfeld is. But they may not know who their Division Commander works for. The highest level that would be expected to have any knowledge about the goings-on in Abu Ghraib would be General Janet Karpinski (I have to wash my mouth out with soap after linking that rank to her name). But even in her case, I don’t know that she would have been up on all the nocturnal doings at the prison. She certainly wouldn’t have told anyone above her unless there were problems she couldn’t handle. And if she couldn’t handle them, why was she wearing a star? The same can be said for the colonels, majors, and captains working for her.
Even at lower levels, much goes on that the boss knows nothing about. I was deployed with several of my younger mechanics once and heard stories about one of them involving a beautiful woman and Oreos (I’ll leave it at that) that I would have never known about except in the context a close-quarters deployment. I was a captain.
Any person who feels Rumsfeld should resign over this needs to take a look at the place they work, and put it all in perspective.