[rclayton]

IMHO this article is nonsense. Even the Gallagher example contradicts the premise. The SEALs that reported him basically risked their careers in doing so.

The military may have laws/rules to report misconduct, but structurally, units are incentivized to hide misconduct (e.g. “handle internally”) because they don’t want the embarrassment. More importantly, failures by subordinates are often seen as leadership problems (you can make an argument that in many cases this is true) which mean officers and SNCOs are likely to sweep them under the rug if they can.

I saw many, many cases of this in the USMC. DUIs turned into “wet and reckless” because it involved a SNCO (an NCO or lower would have lost rank). NCOs (rightfully) pressing charges against subordinates for misconduct, only to be pressured by company/battalion leadership to accept “alternative punishment” (which often amounted to nothing). A let’s not even talk about all the case where there was sexual or physical abuse that went unreported despite everyone knowing it was happening.

The only time the military is motivated to act on misconduct is when it can’t hide it.

[narag]

The military may have laws/rules to report misconduct, but structurally, units are incentivized to hide misconduct

The key word seems to be structurally. The US have this much copied feature of decentralization. Every town elects his sheriff, judges, a lot of the administration is local, then statal. Federal bodies are a far away, mistruted entities. Police is local.

It made sense for a huge country developed at the rhythm of railroad. Law and order must exist near the place where the crime is. I'm not so sure that it's still the case with current connected world. Maybe the US still needs a level more decentralization than most other countries. But if you look at other countries where police is less corrupt and citizens trust them, it's usually an entity dependent on central government, not the city council.

Making the investigative entity as far as possible from the investigated is much better for imparciality. Also involving judges, not in the same branch. Local police here has limited competences. Any serious crime goes to national corps. Police needs to go to national academy and get certified for the whole country.

In my country I would trust police much more than the military.

[rclayton]

That’s a fascinating idea, but in practice I think we Americans have completely messed it up. Some U.S. states like Georgia centralize investigative responsibilities (often when municipalities are too small to budget these services). This strategy hasn’t lead to great results. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is notorious for falsely indicting and imprisoning minorities. I suspect the same is probably true in other states.

We do still have the FBI and federal Dept of Justice that is supposed to provide some semblance of oversight. However, as we have seen over the last 4 years, they are equally susceptible to political influence as local law enforcement agencies.

[narag]

There is an interesting fact that's seldom overlooked over here. We have comunidades autónomas, that might be similar to states, only smaller. They're relatively new, less than 50 y.o. and accumulates a disproportionate number of corruption cases. Why is that?

Central government was developed around the statute of the public officer. In the 1800s there was an unending flow of public officers in and out (the "cesantías") caused by political parties putting their people in public jobs and firing the others' people when every elections turnover. At a certain moment a system of merit access was imposed to provide stability. If you were under the line that divides technical from political, you're safe from firing. Still it's possible that you want to cooperate for promotions but, at a certain level, you just don't care.

Comunidades were developed from scratch, with a hight proportion of "external" workers (that don't have the protections of the public officer statute), with "merit points" distorting the exams (being the merit having been working for years without exams because you're friends with someone) and with very little judicial oversight.

TL;DR: to avoid local corruption, make the police come from as far above as possible. To avoid central corruption, make technical lead not political and involve judges not elected by politicians. Everything elected by politicians gets corrupted.

[jki275]

It's trained from early in bootcamp that misconduct must be reported and dealt with.

The Gallagher debacle did not go like you're claiming. Some of the SEALs who reported him went on to choice assignments that I know of personally, and I believe at least one of them has made Chief since (for the non-Navy that's the biggest promotion an enlisted Sailor can get). There's always some measure of risk I suppose, but NSW handled that case by the book. The lawyers fucked it up, and then his lawyer managed to get the case into the public eye and by extension a CINC with no military experience or understanding who interfered in the case over and over.

The military isn't perfect in this area by any means, but in my experience if they're going to err, they're going to err on the side of a full investigation and throwing the military member under the bus whether deserved or not.

[rclayton]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/us/navy-seals-edward-gall...

I’m sorry but that’s not how the Gallagher case went down. To specifically reinforce the point:

“ It is an unspoken rule among their teams that SEALs should not report other SEALs for misconduct. An internal investigation could close off choice assignments or end careers for the accusers as well as the accused. And anyone who reported concerns outside the tight-knit SEAL community risked being branded a traitor.”

“ The platoon members told investigators that they tried repeatedly to report what they saw, but that the chain of command above them was friendly toward Chief Gallagher and took no action. Finally, in April 2018, they went outside the SEALs to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Chief Gallagher was arrested a few months later.”

[jki275]

NYT hasn't met a story they can't spice up with some made up details.

Gallagher was tried in a Navy court, not federal court. When they claim they "tried repeatedly to report what they saw", they may have talked to somebody, but they sure didn't report it to any of the people in their chain of command they could have. Probably they talked to their buddies and wondered why nobody did anything. NCIS handed the case to a Navy Admiral who signed the charge sheet, not a federal court.

There are a ton of things in that story that simply aren't so.

20+ year career on active duty, multiple deployments with NSW, and lots of experience with NCIS (clowns with badges) as well.

Yes, NSW is generally tight lipped about things. The claim that the SEALs involved in this were punished for it didn't happen.