The blame game

I was doing some thinking this morning about the 9/11 report (no, I haven't read it), specifically with regard to the question of assigning blame. The general conclusion of the report was that there were multiple failures up and down the line in both the Clinton and Bush administrations, but that no one should specifically be held to blame for those failures.

Now, there are few ways to think about this:

1. The 9/11 commission punted on the issue of assigning blame because they couldn't agree on who to blame and therefore they went with the bi-partisan approach of blaming "the system".

2. By not blaming anyone they essentially let everyone off the hook. But will anything really change if no one is held accountable?

3. However, if the 9/11 commission had started pointing fingers the result would have been a lot of yelling and screaming and little action on the actual recommendations in the report, which wouldn't be good in the long run.

It is my opinion that the commission decided to go the route of "don't blame anyone" because they were more concerned with getting their proposals enacted(*). They don't want the blame game to get in the way of real change.

Which is all fine and good. Until you consider that the people who have to implement those changes are the very people who fucked up in the first place.

Is no one accountable for their mistakes anymore?

 

(*) I've heard a report that the commission members plan to continue working together to push their proposals.