Richard
01-31-2014, 00:09
One "Who's Who" you don't want to make.
And so it goes...
Richard
The Military Has Catalogued Its Ethical Failures, And They're Kind Of Awesome
FP, 30 Jan 2014
Did you hear the one about the first lieutenant who had to pay $120,000 in fines for accepting bribes from contractors he'd awarded with lucrative Defense Department deals? Or the Navy civilian who asked a defense contractor for a $5,000 payment so the contractor could be "recommended" for a $153,000 contract? What about the four senior officials, including two Air Force generals, a Marine general, and a Navy admiral, who extended their stay in Tokyo to play golf at an illegal cost of $3,000 to the government?
The thing is, those aren't jokes. They're true stories. And they point to a growing problem within the military: a pattern of misconduct, misbehavior, and outright thievery by senior generals, top Pentagon civilian officials and, of course, the rank-and-file.
The laundry list of wrongdoing in the Defense Department and in various other government agencies, is contained in a surprisingly readable -- but unknown -- document compiled by the Defense Department's equally unknown General Counsel's Standards of Conduct Office.
The name of the July 2012 report says it all: The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure, a 164-page who's who of bureaucratic ne'er-do-wells that details all of those government personnel who have tried to fleece the government, line their pockets with public money, use government property for their own use or demand loans from subordinates.
There is a section on credit card abuse, another on political endorsements. There's one on financial aid disclosures, and others on fraud, gambling, and gift violations. The Defense Department likes to say that most of its personnel are law-abiding, upstanding citizens, and that's true. But the numerous cases listed in the document beg the question: Who does this kind of thing?
(Cont'd) http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/30/the_military_has_catalogued_its_ethical_failures_a nd_theyre_kind_of_awesome
And so it goes...
Richard
The Military Has Catalogued Its Ethical Failures, And They're Kind Of Awesome
FP, 30 Jan 2014
Did you hear the one about the first lieutenant who had to pay $120,000 in fines for accepting bribes from contractors he'd awarded with lucrative Defense Department deals? Or the Navy civilian who asked a defense contractor for a $5,000 payment so the contractor could be "recommended" for a $153,000 contract? What about the four senior officials, including two Air Force generals, a Marine general, and a Navy admiral, who extended their stay in Tokyo to play golf at an illegal cost of $3,000 to the government?
The thing is, those aren't jokes. They're true stories. And they point to a growing problem within the military: a pattern of misconduct, misbehavior, and outright thievery by senior generals, top Pentagon civilian officials and, of course, the rank-and-file.
The laundry list of wrongdoing in the Defense Department and in various other government agencies, is contained in a surprisingly readable -- but unknown -- document compiled by the Defense Department's equally unknown General Counsel's Standards of Conduct Office.
The name of the July 2012 report says it all: The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure, a 164-page who's who of bureaucratic ne'er-do-wells that details all of those government personnel who have tried to fleece the government, line their pockets with public money, use government property for their own use or demand loans from subordinates.
There is a section on credit card abuse, another on political endorsements. There's one on financial aid disclosures, and others on fraud, gambling, and gift violations. The Defense Department likes to say that most of its personnel are law-abiding, upstanding citizens, and that's true. But the numerous cases listed in the document beg the question: Who does this kind of thing?
(Cont'd) http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/01/30/the_military_has_catalogued_its_ethical_failures_a nd_theyre_kind_of_awesome