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As I was doing my morning news surfing, I came across this article from the Austin American Statesman from Sunday. It seems that retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, a member of the Massey Energy Board of Directors, sees no reason for firing Don Blankenship from his position as the Chairman and CEO of Massey. From the article:
Inman, 79, who teaches national security issues at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, where he has served as dean, has rejected calls for the dismissal of the CEO.
"Of course not at this point," Inman said Friday. He has huddled, sometimes by phone, with board members daily since the mine explosion, he said. "We’re in the middle of a crisis. Everything depends on the cause of the explosion."
Uh, Admiral? Maybe you spent too much time hanging around the folks in the so-called "Intelligence Community" instead of actual line officers in the Navy to remember this but there’s a thing called Dereliction of Duty (Article 92 of the UCMJ). In this case
(c) Derelict. A person is derelict in the performance of duties when that person willfully or negligently fails to perform that person’s duties or when that person performs them in a culpably inefficient manner. “Willfully” means intentionally. I t refers to the doing of an act knowingly and purposely, specifically intending the natural and probable consequences of the act. “Negligently” means an act or omission of a person who is under a duty to use due care which exhibits a lack of that degree of care which a reasonably prudent person would have exercised under the same or similar circumstances. “Culpable inefficiency” is inefficiency for which there is no reasonable or just excuse.
Now, as we all know, I am not a lawyer but it sure seems to me that having a mine disaster such as the Upper Big Branch explosion occur on his watch sure would be a cause for concern. Then you add in the reports of Blankenship proclaiming that safety regulators are "as silly as global warming" and the reports of Massey contesting two-thirds of the fines imposed for safety violations sure seems to be evidence of a pattern of willful neglect and dereliction. And I would wager that your former military comrades would agree. After all, a quick check of der Google finds:
And that was just a cursory look. I can recall situations from my own active duty days where commanders at various levels were removed for this reason. Admittedly, a couple of times, the commander in question was given a face saving transfer and allowed to retire but the removal for cause was just as prevalent as the face saving gesture.
Admiral, the bottomline is, you would not have tolerated these actions from any of your subordinates so why do you tolerate it now? Using the excuse that it is a crisis is just not acceptable when the person who helped precipitate the crisis is the person you are protecting. In fact, if an admiral commanding the fleet allowed a commander to stay at his/her post after a similar situation, the admiral himself (or herself) would be open to the same charges of dereliction of duty.
In the interest of full disclosure, when I worked at Papa Booz, the partner I worked for was a retired navy captain and former aide to Admiral Inman.
And because I can:
30 Comments
Thank you for this, Dakine!
Excellent Dakine ! Excellent.
And I think you nailed it, Admiral Inman has spent way too much time away from line leadership, his skills were honed crafting responses and disinformation. He is unaware of normal operating modes and responsibility.
Fire Him Admiral
(and nice job on the full disclosure)
I thought we were all generally opposed to using military standards of justice on matters that ought to be subject to civillian law (eg. military tribunals for enemy combatants/detainees)?
I was not stating that we should use the UCMJ for civilian purposes, just as an example for Admiral Inman of why firing Don Blankenship would be worthwhile
Well, then fire him for malfeasance. Same thing, not discharging his responsibilities in a proper manner but in a derelict manner. (UCMJ and US Federal Law, State of VA Law, it’s is all rooted in the same Old English Common Law)
It’s a public corporation. He’s the Chief Executive Officer
Fire Him Admiral
good points in the post.
Let’s hope that
Inman means only that the investigation should be completed before the next step gets taken.
The ex-admiral has been captured, like everybody else in business, by the no-accountability theory of business. It doesn’t occur to him or any other board member that the CEO is the obvious person to boot.
And dakine, don’t forget, Blankenship was in charge during the Sago disaster as well, the huge number of violations racked up in the Bush years, yadda, yadda, yadda.
He has lots more fire-able reasons than just the most recent, biggest disaster.
But nothing will happen, any more than most of the banksters were fired, or deprived of their golden parachutes.
I knew that but was just too lazy to go looking for his earlier mis-deeds
obviously it has occurred to him or he wouldn’t be saying not yet.
I agree that he should go, but also agree that he has to stay to answer the findings of the investigation.
Unfair to spare him that task and probably unfair for the next person in the job to have to stand and answer.
Fire him? That’s not as important to me as prosecuting him. But as a retired Admiral, I’m sure Inman is more than passingly acquainted with the old Navy tradition of covering up peoples’ mistakes and malfeasance when those people are among the favored. The Iowa turret explosion comes to mind right away. Scapegoating is a part of that tradition too. It won’t be long before one of them floats the idea of blaming one of the victims. Maybe it’ll be somebody who had to have a cigarette due to his unrequited homosexual crush or maybe something more sinister as somebody who changed the direction of the exhaust fans due to his homosexual advances being spurned. Either way, I’m certain that it’ll turn out to be a victim’s fault and most likely that victim will be accused of being gay. That is if Navy tradition has any influence on the investigation.
Actually I saw that more in the AF, in the ‘face saving’ department where one time fair haired/fast track officers screwed up and were quietly replaced in a transfer then allowed to retire.
Although not quite the same thing, when I was stationed in MI, I knew a buck Sgt that told a Bird to go f*ck himself. It was during an alert and JOhnny had been on the flightline for 16 hours without relief. The Bird, who was Deputy Wing Commander for Maintenance came by, asked him what he was working on (Johnny was Avionics Maintenance). Johnny explained but it didn’t make sense to the Bird who asked him to explain it again which Johnny did. When the Bird still couldn’t get it and asked the third time was when Johnny ‘spoke up.’
Nothing happened to Johnny but the Bird was transferred to Deputy for Resource Management (i.e., away from the flightline) and retired within six months
I was in the United States navy at the time of the Iowa explosion, though I was in the aviation community. That whole thing reeked of cover-up and there is nobody I know who believed for one fraction of a second the abominable Hartwig story they tried to push off on the public. The people who were ultimately found responsible got letters of admonition, which don’t go into their permanent records yet their negligence and reckless behavior KILLED 47 people.
That is a contrast with the treatment of the Captain and XO of the George Washington that I linked to above
Sweet deal being on the board of a large corporation getting paid for your time and lack of effort. Bobby ain’t gonna bite that hand that is feeding him.
Wesley Clark said one time that a board of inquiry convened to investigate a ship run aground would really only have two questions for the Captain: “Captain, were you in command?”, and, “Captain, did the ship run aground?” The rest was secondary…and this is why, Admiral, you should fire Blankenship: “Mr. Blankenship, were you in charge?”, and: “Mr. Blankenship, did the mine blow up?”
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. There may be some other folks who fall along with the Captain but in the end the Captain is ALWAYS the responsible party
I will second that!
Not in the case of the Iowa. Captain Moosally was recommended for another command, being called “superbly fit” and retired as a Captain in 1990. All of this despite being clearly negligent in his leadership by first allowing illegal gunnery experimentation and second allowing victims to be scapegoated.
I think your key here is “retired as Captain.”
Even in the nuclear age, a captain commanding a battleship I think was usually considered a strong candidate for flag officer. This sounds more like the “allowed to retire gracefully” deal to me.
Still, he got to retire with his benefits intact….not a bad deal for a man whose negligence killed almost fifty people. Me, I lost all of my benefits for having the bad judgment of joining before don’t ask, don’t tell became policy. Now, who got the sh***y end of that stick?
Yeah, I knew a few folks who got caught in that wringer. Most served without any problems even if they were quietly out.
But every now and again, someone would run up against one of the religionists of the day or into a supervisor who didn’t like them, and here came the discharge papers.
I had zero problems under two C.O.s. The last one was a bigoted asshole and my ex room mate and “friend” needed something to distract from getting DUI number two. I was a distraction scapegoat for a crime committed by somebody else and not even peripherally involved in the intoxication or the driving. And it worked. Terry was later promoted to a first class petty officer while I lost two pay grades, though we had started off with the same rank.
Margaret, thank you for reminding me about the Iowa.
Would it be appropriate to keelhaul him, just a little? (Or better yet, give him a small ship and send him to Somalia to fight pirates.)
Aunt Toby is upstairs!
Late Night: This Is News?
Here’s what Blankenship said in a memo:
Don’t spend (waste) time building (safety devices). Run Coal. That’s why we got to have this memo. Workers don’t unnerstand that coal pays the bills.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see, Admiral Stockton.
Before this is over, the shift forman and /or the mine superintendent will get shit canned.
Blankenship holds a position more comparable to the Secratary of the Navy than to the captain of an individual ship.
I think what you are missing here is that Inman, although a board member, is more of a subordinate to Blankenship than he is a superior officer.
In all likelihood, Blankenship chose Inman to be an outside director. Thus Inman is in debt to Blankenship for the nice pay and perks, which requires no real work on Inman’s part.
Indeed, Inman is just as guilty of dereliction of duty as Blankenship.
why do any of you think that bobby ray is a straight guy[morally, not sexually, although in the navy there were questions about booby]?
let’s xamine booby’s career. though ostensibly navy, he was always nsa.
booby was, still is, a spook. a chekist. a stalinist.
never forget that. he sits on that board for a reason. he relishes its policies. applauds them. he was a gangster for most of his career.
also never forget the he was responsible for the original secret spying on u s citizens, echelon.
There does not even need to be any dereliction involved. Under the Naval Command system far more officers are relieved for “Loss of Confidence in the Ability to Command”. The navy has been booting an awful lot of CO’s over the last few years under this catch all. If that doesn’t fit Blankenship, Bobby must have forgotten his training and education. Or maybe he is confident that Blankenship will provide profits.