Army: If They Screw up, Promote ’em?

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There is so much that is depressing, and so much that feels like you already kind of knew it but have never seen it laid out in such horrific detail, about Fiasco, the new book by the Washington Post’s Thomas Ricks, now being serialized in the paper. One of those things is the pattern whereby grunts do bad things–always have, always will; that’s a given if you’re going to send hundreds of thousands of people into a creepy, scary, unknown environment–but it’s the command structure that signals whether those things are to be tolerated, winked-and-nodded, or avoided at all costs. That is why it’s a problem when, as Emily Bazelon documented in Mother Jones, torture was exported from Bagram to Abu Ghraib; or when you have an Army batallion commander who, even after he’s been outed for helping his guys cover up a straight-out murder, can get away with saying that

“If I were to do it all over again, I would do the exact same thing, and I’ve thought about this long and hard. I was taught in the Army to win, and I was trying to win all the way.”

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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