How the Tehran 15 showed us up

[...] The Tehran 15 showed a lack of faith, an egocentric assumption that their personal desires took precedence over their obligations. That attitude certainly raises questions about their training, as some commentators observed. But the matter has implications beyond this single situation.

A nation's military is a microcosm of the surrounding society. If that society is morally deficient, then so too will be the military. Anyone who's visited London in recent years will have noticed the increasing vulgarity of British society -- from the omnipresent security cameras to the crudity of the Soho crowds. Why? British psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple sums it up: "The underlying problem is a lack of purpose, a lack of feeling of belonging to anything larger than one's own little life. This gives rise to quite a large amount of social pathology." Read more