Good grief, that's axiomatic. (I agree with much of what you've observed regarding the responsibility for these events. Clearly, the six grunts are fall-guys for the command structure, up to and including the CinC. That does not absolve them of all responsibility for their own acts, for to do so would be to excessively legitimize the very authoritarian mindset that's at issue here.)
Perhaps you don't fully appreciate what an authoritarian is and are (like the majority of people) confusing it with 'autocrat' or 'totalitarian'?
Here's a little bit of reading to put more flesh on the bones of your understanding ...
Authoritarian Personality
Elements in Terrorism
Harry RosenbergIf there is a cause for war in our genes, the authoritarian personality is its manifestation. The authoritarian personality is particularly vulnerable to radicalization. This personality type is expressed by rigidity of views, a strong desire to be told what to do, an equally strong desire to tell lessor mortals what to do, and to see all things in a black and white context. Most terrorists fit this mold exactly.
Most authoritarians are basically good people and lead productive lives in pursuits where their particular rigid styles are appropriate in professions such as accounting, the military, and medicine. As leaders, their narrow uncompromising views not only miss the better solutions, but they alienate their peers as well as those of different persuasions. With enough charisma and deceit, they can sway voters into giving them power even in the most advanced democracies. This happens because most voters themselves have a streak of authoritarianism in their personalities.
Adorno's discovery of a connection between racism/fascism and the authoritarian parenting style led him to propose a personality framework that may be described as follows:
While finding comfort in the identification of submissive behavior towards authority, the authoritarian person directs his/her aggression towards other groups, often racial minorities. This is an attempt to relieve the feeling of personal weakness with a search for absolute answers and strengths in the outside world.
According to Adorno, authoritarian personality is expressed essentially by:
- Excessive conformity
- Intolerance
- Insecurity
- Rigid, stereotyped thought patterns
- Submissiveness to authority
- Superstition
Bin Laden, the Fundamentalist Mullahs, and other terrorist leaders are submissive, if only to Allah. In this sense, they are authentic authoritarian personalities.
Authoritarian personalities result from an upbringing of rigid discipline and conditional affection. Adorno identified the authoritarian personality type as having the following characteristics:
"The authoritarian personality does not want to give orders; their personality type wants to take orders. People with this type of personality seek conformity, security, stability. They become anxious and insecure when events or circumstances upset their previously existing world view. They are very intolerant of any divergence from what they consider to be the normal (which is usually conceptualized in terms of their religion, race, history, nationality, culture, language, etc.) They tend to be very superstitious and lend credence to folk tales or interpretations of history that fit their preexisting definitions of reality (thus the Founding Fathers of the US are conceptualized as supporters of white nationalism.) They think in extremely stereotyped ways about minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. They are thus very dualistic; the world is conceived in terms of absolute right (their way) Vs. absolute wrong (the "other" way whether African American, liberal, intellectual, feminist, etc.)"
Further study of this personality type has since shown that Authoritarians not only like to take orders but they love to give them and to have people they can look down upon. This, of course, can amount to bigotry, racism, sexism, and the like.
Two distinctive behavior patterns are
submissiveness and
aggressiveness. On the surface, these two patterns seem to be at odds, but in fact they usually coexist in the same individual. The Authoritarian Personality wants to fit into a chain of command and to be told what to do (submissive to a superior), and by the same token, will countenance no flak when giving orders to those in the hierarchy below. At the same time s/he is aggressive toward others, especially those considered to be lesser in some way, of a different faith or ethnicity, or a different species. The Hitler Youth were prime examples. Authoritarians like to be herded like sheep even as they enjoy command like Himmler.
That mind set exists across all political, economic, and religious spectra. And it can afflict both genders.<snip>
The Bush Administration exhibits earmarks of authoritarianism, most obviously in its black-and-white thinking, tolerance for bigotry, and support for religious fundamentalism in its public pronouncements and actions. It was Mr. Bush himself who proclaimed to the world: "You are either with us or against us." He is not the first US president to exhibit authoritarian tendencies.
Islam, through the Qu'ran, Hadith, and Shari'ah, in fact requires:
- Conventionalism
- Submission
- Aggression
These are hallmarks of authoritarian personalities. We should not then be surprised that Islam produces more than its share of terrorists and suicide bombers. Islam does not encourage independent thinking; it values submission to Allah and obedience to all in the "chain of command."
<snip>
The American experiences in the My Lai Massacre and the Kent State upheaval motivated Stanley Milgram to formally study the phenomenon by which people blindly follow orders. What he found is as astonishing as it is arresting. Milgram's subjects were led to think they were experimenters in a teaching method that used pain via electrical shock to punish wrong answers. Milgram's subjects dialed the voltage the subjects were to receive, escalating the voltage with each wrong answer.
Quoting from Milgram:
"'No amount of screams and pleading brought this process of visiting violence upon another to a stop.' Milgram found, surprisingly, that 65% of his subjects, ordinary residents of New Haven, were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks--up to 450 volts--to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific authority commanded them to, and in spite of the fact that the victim did not do anything to deserve such punishment."
The authoritarian personality is part of most of us.<snip>
http://www.roadtopeace.org/opinions/perspectives/extremism/authoritarian_personality.htm
No single article can inform one of the common and complex personality habits that pervade a corporation, a bureaucracy, and a military, but we're well advised that humanity is again going to get a "crash course" on the threats posed by an authoritarian world power ... but this time it's one unmatched in the rest of the world.
It's us, Pogo.
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