Is US Military Spinning Out of Control?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Is-US-Military-Spinning-Ou-by-Consortium-News-Accountability_Military_Military-Failure_Military-Madness-140203-915.html

Is US Military Spinning Out of Control?
OpEdNews Op Eds 2/3/2014 at 22:44:36
By Consortium News
By * Paul R. Pillar

Lately it seems that we have been reading many stories of misconduct among U.S. military officers. The most recent collective infraction concerned cheating on a proficiency test and involved a substantial proportion of the Air Force officers who control nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.

We continue to hear about the alleged bribery of Navy officers who awarded logistical support contracts to the payer of the bribes. Other ethical lapses among officers of all the military services are enough to fill a catalog that the Department of Defense itself compiled.

Senior Marine Corps commanders are alleged to have covered up misconduct by lower-ranking members of their service in Afghanistan. General officers in more than one service are described as being abusive leaders who have created poisonous atmospheres in units they have led. Other generals and colonels are identified with seedy behavior ranging from sexual abuse and alcohol abuse to making lecherous comments about members of Congress.

Before we jump to conclusions about what all this says about any broad patterns of bad conduct or bad character in the officer corps, we should note that a concatenation of such stories in the news does not by itself prove the existence of broad, ingrained problems in a service. Perhaps we are seeing part of random fluctuations in the press' output on this or any other subject, or partly the efforts of some particularly enterprising and energetic journalists who cover the military.