This is kind of shocking.

First a chunk of the AP story, so you can make your own assessment, then my take:

An American lieutenant colonel pleaded guilty to beating an Iraqi detainee and threatening to kill him during an interrogation, but will be fined and allowed to retire rather than face a court-martial, the military said Saturday. . . .

West is the most senior officer of the 4th Infantry Division to face disciplinary proceedings in Iraq. His punishment was reduced because of his good record and the difficult environment, the military said.

At a military pretrial hearing Friday, Gen. Raymond Odierno, who commands 4th Infantry Division based in Tikrit, fined West $5,000, relieved him from his post and forwarded his request for retirement next spring for approval. "He will return to 4th Infantry Division's headquarters in Fort Hood, Texas, until his retirement," the division said in the statement. . . .

West pleaded guilty to punching and firing a pistol near the prisoner, Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi, on Aug. 20 while interrogating him in al-Taji, just north of Baghdad. West also threatened to kill the detainee if he did not talk, according to the statement.

The division said West "disobeyed laws, ignored orders ... and mortgaged future discipline in his unit by compromising his credibility."

"While his crimes merit a court martial, mitigating factors ... were considered including the stressful environment ... and Lt. Col. West's record as an officer and commander," the military said.

It's not shocking that an officer did all that, even though he crossed the line to torture when he threatened to kill a guy and backed it up with those actions. That's unsettling, but you expect a green lieutenant here or there to run amuck and do something extraordinarily stupid.

But this was a Lt. Colonel. That's a highly, ranking officer. It's shocking that a senior officer would do something like that, and much more shocking that the commanding general would let him off so lightly. (And retirement this spring? He's going to be sitting around in a unit? And collecting pay?) That sends a bad, bad signal for something so incredibily serious.

At first I was thinking of the signal it sends our own troops, but the rest of the world and the Iraqis are going to take it all the worse. Great way to build back those bridges.

I sure hope a more senior officer steps in and rejects this arrangement.

This is new. Fifteen active gay military men and women have formed a group to fight the ridiculous Don't Ask Don't Tell ban. They call themselves Gay & Lesbian Service Members for Equality: GLMSE.

Finally, a group to fight the ban from within. They have to keep their identities secret, but they're open to reporters to tell their stories. Interesting stuff at their website.

I'm not sure what to make of Slate's chief political correspondent, William Saletan. Sometimes he's right on the mark in his analysis, sometimes right out of left field. Today he manages both in the space of one piece:

The virtues and shortcomings of Wes Clark's earnestness.

Great job capturing the essence of Clark's persona:

I've seen a few Clark speeches and a town hall meeting, but this event clarified where he fits into the Democratic field: He's the earnest guy.

Two weeks ago, at the only debate he's attended so far, Clark was full of canned answers. His performance was good but not distinctive from the career politicians onstage. Maybe debates aren't his strong suit, or maybe he should just can the canned stuff. Either way, in a town hall format, he's much more appealing. The reason is that he doesn't have to put on a show. He can just be what he is: bland and sincere. . . .

It's hard to convey the artlessness of his responses. You don't see his eyes, jaws, or hands working over the question, probing for threats and opportunities, the way John Kerry or John Edwards does. One hand grips the mike; the other hangs in his pocket. He stares at the questioner, unblinking. His eyebrows never rise. Neither does his voice.

But he's at his best when he cites a long Clark passage and then explains how it differs from his competitors:

[Clark speaking here:] They do things backward. They have some preconceived solutions, and then they look for circumstances that they can use to excuse putting those solutions in place. They had a tax cut plan. Well, first it was, "The government had too much of our money," so they were gonna give our money back. And then it was, "We were in a recession." But it wasn't exactly like the tax cut was designed to pull us out of the recession. Most of the cuts were way out in the future. … It was a solution looking for a problem. Same thing happened with Iraq. These guys were talking about going into Iraq back before the election. … They used 9/11 as the pretext to take us into that war, I think under false pretenses.

[Saletan analyzing here:] This critique lacks the moral edge of Dean's attack on Bush's divisiveness or Edwards' attack on Bush's elitism. But it has greater truth and, I suspect, broader resonance with public opinion. It doesn't demand that you think Bush is a bad guy or the Republican Party is evil. It only demands that you to look at the facts and put them together to form a relatively charitable, though fatal, conclusion: Bush lacks the temperament to adapt and solve problems as a president must. Gephardt calls Bush a failure and posits that the failure would continue in a second term, but he doesn't explain why. Clark explains why.

Stunning passage from Clark. Just that one paragraph and I remember why I'm in love with the guy. And Saletan pretty much reads it right out of my mind.

Great job so far Mr. Saletan. And then he sails right off a cliff:

But the real peril of earnestness isn't that it's boring as a campaign theme. The real peril is that it's insufficient as a governing philosophy.

What? He provides one dopey example and I guess that's supposed to illustrate a point maybe he thinks we agree with intuitively. Or something. (And in my mind, the example illustrates the opposite, but journos can usually be counted on as short-term thinkers.)

I think he's a little out of his mind. I have been praying for an earnest president, a wise man like Clark with (generally) the courage of his convictions, who governs according to true convictions instead of polling data and and long-range thinking instead of short-term political expediency.

I could use a little more excitement out of the guy, but he makes up for it with admiration. That is, every time I see him, I'm not so much electrified as mesmerized: finally, the real deal. A wise, honest and candid man, not (yet) beholden to a bunch of special interests.

Aside from the excitement, everything Saletan has described here--especially the passage directly from Clark--makes me believe he would be an incredible president.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell is celebrating its ten year anniversary, and Bill Clinton has chosen the occasion to bash the policy.

News release from the SLDN site:

In his strongest denunciation of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to date, former President Bill Clinton says that “Simply put, there is no evidence to support a ban on gays in the military.” The written statement was made to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) in conjunction with the organization’s End the Witch Hunts national dinner on Saturday. . . .

Well that's great to get his support, but a little hard not to gag on his words.

I am willing to cut Clinton some slack, but he really screwed both gays and the military (in the long run) on this one. Hard to hear him take the strong stand against Don't Ask, Don't Tell now, coming from the very guy who FORCED IT ON US!

Prior to Clinton, any president could have overturned the gay ban with just a swipe of his pen (executive order). But Clinton got this monstrosity enacted into law, and now it will take an act of congress to overturn it.

Thanks Buddy.

I wait too long to get back in the field sometimes.

In this case, it wasn't about researching a story, but . . . hmmmm, I hate to use this word but (promoting?) one.

As I mentioned in the last post, I spent the afternoon yesterday talking to three classes at the Air Force Academy about Columbine. I had been toying with the idea that the public seemed overripe for a book finally addressing what that tragedy was really about, and nothing could have convinced me more.

The professor warned me in advance that like any other college students, they could be both apathetic class material and shy about speaking in class. They were positively riveted. Right out of the gate, they were jumping in with questions, and we could have gone on for hours. And I was surprised, too, by the extent of their knowledge, and the depth of their probing. They were really fascinated by the whole topic.

If this is any indication of the interest level out there among young adults--and I have no doubt that it is--there is a considerable market out there for the book I've been messing with for years.

So, I'm going to take the advice many of you have given me here, get off my ass and get that book proposal together. (And start pitching it to magazines as well.)

There are several new movies surfacing on the subject--I'm going to see Gus Van Sant's Elephant at the Denver Film Festival next week--the five-year anniversary is coming up next April, and I have so much more to tell on this topic. (Particularly about what drove Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to do it.)

I'll let you know how it goes.

I spent about six hours inside the Academy again yesterday--in some rather unusual situations--and it's always refreshing when I do.

They have a very real problem with the rape situation there, and also an enduring problem with the climate toward women, but that really is not the whole story about the place.

I don't want to come off as a member of the booster squad, but I think it's important to put things in perspective. And I think much of the country just sees that place as some sort of horrifying den of evil, where young robots are lobotomized and marched around to the beat of somebody else's brain, where the only original thought a cadet ever has is "Who can I rape tonight?"

Hardly. I have been developing some contacts there for awhile, and yesterday I was the guest speaker for three classes on Columbine (more on that in a separate post in a minute), and also sat in to observe three lengthy sessions where some of the brightest cadets were grilled by a small faculty panel (I'd rather not go into details.)

Wow. Actually sitting down and talking to--or listening to--cadets down there will turn your head around in a hurry. The classes were in a discussion format, where I mostly responded to questions from both the professor and students, and they were one of the best audiences I've spoken to in years. Bright, thoughtful, highly engaged. You can learn a lot about how people think just by listening to their questions, and these were three really dynamic and impressive groups.

And if you think military cadets must be some mindless automatons, you just need to let go of that stereotype. They laughed, they smiled, they furrowed their brows--one big tough guy in the front row teared up when I responded to a question about Principal Frank DeAngelis, and described how he handled the crisis.

I'm tempted to say that they're just like the students on any other campus, but that's not entirely true. They tend to be more conservative than most college populations, more Christian, more rigid in their thinking unfortunately, and way, way, way more polite. But I have to dredge up the old cliche here, that their similarities to other students are far greater than their differences.

I wish everybody could sit down and have a disucssion with groups of them for an afternoon. Not discussing their own situation, because they can get defensive and sometimes denialistic about that, and they are going to parrot back the party line much of the time. Don't talk about that, just talk to them. At heart, they're just normal 20-year olds struggling with all the same problems as any other 20-year old. Plus the whole military regimine added on top.

And as for the kids facing the panels, of course they were among the top students selected for the opportunity, but two of the three cadets I saw were just stunningly impressive. Sharp, witty, funny, open-minded and wise beyond their years. The cadets are not all like these two, but if this kind of cadet can rise to the top of the Air Force, I feel very secure about the direction the service will take.

Of course they'll hate me for calling it a "rape scandal," but they'll get over it.

If you haven't checked out edodo.org, it's a very interesting place. It's the underground gathering spot for former (and occasionally current) Academy cadets. The current are less common because the Academy bans it and won't allow it to transmit over their lines, so only the most tech-savvy cadets can get to it during the school year (I'm told).

The gist is, they are none too happy with the Fowler report, though most of the people posting tend to focus on details, not so much on the bigger picture. And to most of them it's about blame rather than looking forward. Still, it's an eye-opener. Civilians tend to be highly ignorant of what the military is all about, and that's a bad thing. This will give you a glimpse. It will be an extremely angry glimpse, so you might take it with a grain of salt, but it's worth recognizing how angry some members of the military are, and sometimes for good reason. It's a start.

Just be careful about posting. Most vicious message board I've ever encountered, including the rabid political boards. You might learn something, but you will come out feeling like you've been to war. You have been warned.

Two days ago, a panel empowered by Congress to investigate the rape scandal at the Air Force Academy issued a scathing report.  It charged the Pentagon charged with knowing about the problem for ten years and doing very little, and then accused it of a coverup on this issue this summer. It also issued 21 new recommendations. Yesterday, the Academy announced that its top general would hold a press conference today to respond. And the general said . . .

He agrees. Enthusiastically. He is totally behind the new report, and in already ramping up measure to implement its recommendations.

Which could be utter bullshit or PR, but I don't think so.

I have met this guy three times now since he arrived in July (and commented very briefly each time), and he has earned more and more of my respect each time.

He is candid, honest, straightforward . . . and frankly, thoughtful and wise. His answers aren't typical canned bullshit responses, they're frequently illuminating and insightful.

I've talked to other reporters who have been covering the story (every major news org in the country had people there today--look for the story tonight and tomorrow), and that seems to be the consensus. And cadets I have spoken to have also been impressed. I hope I'm not proved wrong on this, but so far, I really think they found the right guy for this mission.

(Dare I say he reminds me a lot of General Wesley Clark? I swear, he does. Every time I listen to him, that's who I think of. And that's high praise.

They have a whole lot to do there to bring about lasting cultural change, and that will take awhile, but they're definitely moving in the right direction, and moving at warp speed for a glacial institution like theirs.

There is one area that I think he's all wet on, though, and it's a whopper, which is victim confidentiality. I'm scrambling to try to sell an op-ed-type piece for a magazine or major paper on that though, so I won't say more about it yet.

Stay tuned. This story is not dying any time soon.

Lt General Rosa--top man at the Air Force Academy--is holding a press conference today at 1 mountain time to respond to the blistering report on its rape crisis, which was released this week by the independent panel installed by Congress.

I'll be there, and report back later today.

Where to start with the report released Monday afternoon on the Air Force Academy rape scandal? This one comes from the panel ordered by angry Congressmen this spring, tired of the BS they were getting from the Air Force. (The prime movers were Colorado Senator Wayne Allard, and Senator John McCain. You can read the entire 141-page report in PDF, or the NYT story, or the better Denver Post story (yes, the Denver Post did a much better job than the NYT on this one.)) 

The first thing to say is that it really is a breakthrough. It is the first independent review from outside the military, and it shows. (It was hand-picked by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, but composed of outsiders who obviously felt no obligation to cover his butt. It was led by former Florida congresswoman Tillie Fowler.)

It gives credit where credit is due--praising much of the pentagon's spring solution, the Agenda For Change--but slamming the hell out of not just Academy leadership, but Pentagon leadership, who were repeatedly made aware of a severe problem for at least a decade and ignored it. And then it accuses the Pentagon of a coverup.

It also delivers a thorough assessment of the Agenda being implemented to improve the culture, identifying key holes in the plan. Rape advocates will be overjoyed that they have finally been heard. I spoke to both local and national rape advocates this spring in my Salon story analyzing the Agenda, and they were thrilled with some provisions of the Agenda, but dismayed that seemed doomed to failure because it did nothing to get women to come forward to report their rapes. In fact, it made reporting less likely, by eliminating the only confidential options. Today's report discloses that a 1997 Inspector General report acknowledged that as few as one in ten rapes were being reported, a figure validated again late last month, by another IG report. If much of your solution addresses fails to address 90 percent of the problem, that's a gaping hole. This report finally addresses the insanity of that approach (using much milder language, of course, but highlighting it in the exec summary).

Now about that coverup:

Late this spring, the Air Force dispatched its own "Working Group," to investigate the problem, and in June, the Air Force general counsel released its report clearing itself of "systematic acceptance of the problem." This group flatly rejected that finding and stated, "This Panel believes that the Air Force General Counsel attempted to shield Air Force Headquarters from public criticism by focusing exclusively on events at the Academy."

The new report dedicates more than a quarter of its executive summary to details of the coverup. It then concludes that the Pentagon is responsible and "Those responsible should be held accountable." It laments that many of the culprits are retired and out of reach, and again states "there must be further accounting."

It's hard to know exactly how to read that, but they could be calling for the head of Air Force Secretary Jame Roche, who President Bush has attempted to promote to Secretary of the Army, pending Senate approval.

The Denver Post say, "The report makes 21 specific recommendations for change at the school," though I have not read all of them yet. It praises the Agenda For Change several times, while noting some key flaws, which is exactly what my analysis showed last spring. Which has to make me wonder--couldn't the initial Air Force team involved more outsiders and avoided some of its inherent myopia in the first place?

All I did was talk to an assortment of nationally-recognized military scholars, rape advocates, faculty and cadets. They spoke to a lot of the same people, but it was exclusively Air Force officers conducting the interviews and making the decisions (along with AF Secretary Roche). If they could have accepted the existence of their own blinders and included some outsiders in the decision-making, they could have arrived at the current, more enlightened report months earlier.

There's a nice summary of the Agenda in the new report, which goes to the heart of what still needs to change:

The Agenda for Change is evidence that the Air Force, under Secretary Roche's leadership, is serious about taking long-overdue steps to correct the problems at the Academy, but in certain respects it does not go far enough to institutionalize permanent change. The most important of these shortcomings are:

• Culture and Climate of the Academy. The Agenda for Change recognizes that the sexual assault problems at the Academyare related to the culture of the institution, yet it does not go far enough to institute enduring changes in the culture and gender climate at the Academy.
• Command Supervision. The Agenda for Change does not address the need for permanent, consistent oversight by Air Force Headquarters leadership. [Because Academy leaders roll over every two years, so there is no consistency for a long-term solution.]
• External Oversight. The Agenda for Change does not address the need to improve the external oversight provided by the Academy's Board of Visitors.
• Confidentiality Policy. The Agenda for Change effectively eliminates the Academy's confidential reporting policy for sexual misconduct. In doin go, however, it reomves critical options for sexual assault victims to receive confidential counseling and treatment, and may result in the unitended consequences of reducing sexual assault reporting.

They're dead-on with all of those, particularly the last one.

Here are the other passages I found most illuminating:

The Panel examined and reviewed the culture and environment at the Academy. It found an atmosphere that helped foster a breakdown in values which led to the pervasiveness of sexual assaults and is perhaps the most difficult element of the problem to solve. . . .

The Panel has found deficiencies in the Honor Code System and in the Academy's character development programs that helped contribute to this intolerable environment. . . .

The situation demands institutional changes, including cultural changes. these changes are incremental and cannot be made overnight.

Lot of wisdom coming from this panel. I'm really impressed. They demand aggressive change now, while facing the reality that true cultural change takes a long time--and that actually effecting it is a delicate art form.

Nice work independent panel. Very nice work.

The panel appointed by Congress to investigate the rape scandal at the Air Force Academy released its report this afternoon.

I'm reading it now, hope to have first impressions within the hour.

If you think General Clark has no experience on domestic issues, then you've never served in the military. That's not an attack on your patriotism, just an explanation of how you got duped.

The biggest surprise most people discover when they first sign up with the army, is that hardly anyone inside it fights. Roughly ten percent of the army is a fighting force. The other 90 percent exists to create an entire subculture/subeconomy, to provide for nearly every facet of human life: food, housing, education, health care, even religious services.

Interested in healthcare reform? Guess who runs one of the largest single-payor systems in the world? The army builds its own network of hospitals, hires its own doctors, nurses and administrators, provides much of their training and runs the entire operation.

Public housing? They've got hundreds of thousands of men women and children under their roof, a system rivaling all of HUD.

Concerned about crime? They've got an entire court system of their own: judges, juries, prosecutors, defenders and an entire military police force. I'm pretty sure General Clark will be the only candidate in the field to have served as a judge.

General Clark is best known for foreign policy, but his biggest single concern actually appears to be education. He has very strong positions and very deep experience on education because that's one of the biggest businesses the army is in. He's had far more experience with it than shrub ever did as Governor of Texas. The army runs an undergraduate university at West Point, a graduate "War College," an airborne school, ranger school, infantry school, dozens of other major schools developing tens of thousands of cadre of instructors for basic training, dozens of advanced training schools in nearly every major area of human endevour, and constant continuing education programs for close to a million soldiers. They also build, maintain and run elementary and secondary schools on most of the large posts for children of servicemen. It is quite likely the most expansive and diverse educational system in the world. Of course Clark did not preside over the whole thing, but it is a top priority for the institution, and a central concern of every commander, which Clark began facing as platoon leader and company commander decades ago. As a four-star general, he has been emeshed in the system and responsible for portions of it for decades.

(More soon. He's speaking now.)