"Pour encourager les autres"

WSJ

Not your typical mug shots

Last week, two admirals were denied access to classified information and placed on temporary leave as the Navy investigates allegations of corrupt business practices and bribes. Three Navy officials and the chief executive of a Singapore-based military contractor have been criminally charged, and another officer has been stripped of his command.

"We do believe there will be more Naval officers and perhaps Navy civilians implicated in this growing scandal," said Adm. John Kirby, the Navy's chief spokesman. "I don't think anyone can predict where this is going to take us; we just don't know."

The matter involves Glenn Defense Marine, a company that provides what is called "husbanding" service to Navy ships, including fuel, provisions, tugboat services and even some port security. Federal prosecutors have charged that the Singapore company's CEO, Leonard Glenn Francis, provided Naval officers with money, prostitutes, plane fare and concert tickets in an effort to learn information about ship deployments and to steer vessels to ports where the firm was in position to service the vessels at above-market rates.

 

So what do you think is going to happen to the admirals? My guess is retirement and a full pension. But I'm a GenXer and we are all really cynical.

 

One might hope for an outcome something more like this:

 

 

 

Admiral Byng "failed to do his utmost" and paid the price

 

 

"Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres."

 

-- Voltaire, Candide

 

"In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others."