A damning official report claims dishonesty within the U.S. military is so endemic that everyone assumes they are being lied to at all times.
The shock report calls on officials to ‘urgently confront the corrupting influence of dishonesty’ within the army, warning officers have become ‘ethically numb’.
The situation has become so bad, the executive summary concludes it has ‘allowed leaders to espouse lofty professional values while slogging through the mire of dishonesty and deceit’.
The report’s executive summary also claims ‘much of the deception and dishonesty… is actually encouraged and sanctioned by the military institution’.
Report authors Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras say it is often justified one of three ways: ‘mission accomplishment’, ‘supporting the troops’ or that the task or reporting requirement is unreasonable or ‘dumb’.
They go onto note lying and ‘adjusting the truth’ is so common, military personnel who order a report do not trust its content.