It's no surprise.

It's an observation that anyone who has served in the military will acknowledge as true, but in the midst of the 'Support The Troops' frenzy, which is in no small part inspired by guilt over the failure to support my generation of troops, the remarks of Elliot Cohen in today's Washington Post are somewhat controversial. In a piece worth the special attention of anyone who hasn't served - a number which includes much of our Congress and a distressingly high percentage of our civilian defense establishment today - Cohen points directly to the crazy aunt in the basement.

Unless subjected to thorough training, relentless discipline and solid leadership, normal products of our society -- individualistic, hedonistic, often unreflective and rarely far-sighted -- will act badly. For that reason, Abu Ghraib reflects not merely the actions of a few sadists who somehow slipped through the net but a broader failure of military leadership.

That's a notion reinforced by the words of Robert Bateman, an active duty Infantry officer writing to Eric Alterman at Center for American Progress.

...the fact is that as an officer my job is really about the control of state sanctioned violence. I give the potential violence a specific purpose and guide its direction in order to achieve ends. I also ensure that the violence is used only within the confines of the Geneva Conventions and our own code of laws. That's what being an infantry officer is really about. Hell, that's what being any combat arms or combat support officer is about.

****

Violence, in a military context, is like a genie in a bottle. So easy to uncork, but you need good officers, moral officers, hard and smart officers who know their profession to stuff that genie back in to the bottle. At least down at the tactical level.

We send our soldiers, sailors and Marines to hellish locations to perform acts which, in the context of our hometown lives, are inhuman. Limiting that inhumanity, and creating a context for the resumption of normality when the engagement is over, is the ultimate responsibility of every member of the chain of command, from the Basic Training drill instructor to the Commander In Chief.

Levels of culpability for specific acts, such as the tortures at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, vary, but some level of culpability has to attach to higher levels of command, and in a way that exacts a greater price than an admission of 'responsibility' that carries no sanction. I have resolutely refused to excuse the enlisted men and women that have been charges. They should pay an appropriate price for their share of the blame, and they have a share. They should have known better. But they should have been better trained and better supervised, and the blame that attaches to those failures in training and supervision has been so far overlooked in exacting a price.

The continuing effort, reiterated in Bush's speech at the Army War College last night, to paint the atrocities at Abu Ghraib as abberations, the claim that such behavior among US troops is shocking and unexpected, reveals a shocking failure of command. Inhuman behavior in the context of a war is easily predicted. In a war conducted by an armed forces heavily dependent on undertrained, over extended reservists, that prediction becomes even more sure. It's time to see the charges against some Lieutenants, Majors, Colonels and Generals.

And it's time for their appointed boss to go. The CinC can be removed by appropriate political action at the appropriate time.

Rumsfeld must resign now.

Sign the petition.