High-ranking U.S. military officer goes on trial for sex charges

[unhappycamper]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-sinclair-court-martial-20140304,0,4855579.story

High-ranking U.S. military officer goes on trial for sex charges
4:41 p.m. CST, March 4, 2014
FORT BRAGG, N.C.—

(Reuters) - Army Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair's court-martial on a sexual assault charge that could send him to prison for life got under way on Tuesday, one of the few such proceedings against a top U.S. military officer in recent decades.

Sinclair, a 51-year-old married father of two, is accused of twice forcing oral sex during a three-year affair he admitted to having with a junior female officer, including during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The allegations saw him removed from his command in Afghanistan in 2012 and sent home to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where the closely watched trial is being held.

The court-martial takes place as the Department of Defense has struggled to deal with a spate of high-profile cases of sexual assault, including some involving personnel charged with combating the crime.



unhappycamper comment: After this putz is tried, we should start next on cheating Admirals and sexist/incompetent Generals.

[MADem]

1. This guy has been kicking the can down the road for a couple of years, now.

This idiot is a shining example of the lowered standards for leadership that became rampant under Bush. It will take a long time for the Services to come back up to par.

Step one, though, is to downsize--let's start with this clown!

[jollyreaper2112]

2. Hmm

Can you squarely lay the blame on any one administration? I would imagine the problem is far more endemic than that. We are talking about an institution used to outlasting political masters. When the pentagon wants to drag feet, they drag.

[MADem]

3. Yes. If you remember, the Cheney drawdown (from back when Big Dick was SECDEF) culled

the Forces down to the Best of the Best. Being good, or even Very Good, wasn't good enough. Force shaping was cutting deep because the cuts were Congressionally mandated and just had to happen, no excuses, and a lot of tools (TERA, early outs, more stringent PT or advancement testing standards, e.g.) were being used to SHOVE people out the door.

That was a brutal drawdown that pushed out a lot of decent personnel in rather precipitous fashion--of course, it set Dick up nicely to fill readiness gaps with his buds from Halliburton.

Fast forward to nahn wun wun. Nahn wun wun "changed ever-thang" including standards for enlistment. They cut so damn deep they not only didn't have enough warfighters, they didn't have enough front line support personnel, never mind the "in the rear with the gear" types, and they couldn't contract all of that (though they made a bold effort and Halliburton et. al. made a bold fortune).

Drug waivers, criminal (up to felony) waivers, intelligence waivers, educational waivers, even medical waivers--which were rarely entertained under the very tight standards that were in play during the Clinton years--became commonplace. Many, many people who were accessed just would not have been regarded as anywhere near qualified, because they needed the numbers and they needed them in a hurry.

History: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101000131.html

About 17 percent of the first-time recruits, or about 13,600, were accepted under waivers for various medical, moral or criminal problems, including misdemeanor arrests or drunk driving. That is a slight increase from last year, the Army said.

Of those accepted under waivers, more than half were for "moral" reasons, mostly misdemeanor arrests. Thirty-eight percent were for medical reasons and 7 percent were drug and alcohol problems, including those who may have failed a drug test or acknowledged they had used drugs.

The Pentagon, by and large, is a reactive entity, particularly when it comes to Congress. They aren't going to cut their ranks unless they're told, nor are they going to cut their budgets unless they're forced to so do.