Image by IDF Spokesperson's Unit photographer

On 21 JAN 2025, Israeli Defense Forces Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi resigned. He took personal responsibility for the October 7, 2023 security lapses that contributed to the Hamas surprise attacks on Israel. Halevi’s resignation letter stated that the IDF’s investigation into the IDF failures were “currently in their final stages.” Halevi also told journalists he advocated a full public inquiry into the military’s failures and stated that such an investigation would be “granted full transparency” by the Israeli military.1

Halevi puts US generals to shame. The US military has been plagued by the following, although not all-inclusive list of scandals and failures in the past few years:

Loss in Afghanistan

Generals lying about Afghanistan war

COVID mandate

DEI failures

Readiness failures

To date, 0 US generals have resigned or taken responsibility for these egregious debacles.

 Honor. Lt. Gen Halevi at least publicly manifests a sense of honor. He feels that under his leadership the IDF did not perform its functions to help prevent attacks to Israel. As a man of conscience, he feels he can no longer lead the IDF and is resigning. Honor is a foreign concept to US generals these days. None have admitted any responsibility for the war in Afghanistan that led to trillions in lost taxpayer dollars and more importantly over 2,000 American servicemember deaths.

 Accountability. Lt. Gen Halevi welcomed and encouraged a public investigation into military failures. To date, the US general officer leadership has performed no large scale investigation or even introspection into the failures in Afghanistan. More worrisome, no generals have spoken up about how generals failed America and its military in Afghanistan, COVID, DEI, etc. It is as if these debacles never happened. US generals just seem to move on to the next disaster they will preside over. Worse, any active-duty leaders that spoke up to criticize the military were summarily fired by the US generals who clearly don’t want any accountability or even mention of failures.

 

 Transparency. Lt. Gen Halevi stated that the IDF would show “full transparency.” By contrast, US generals have been at best obstructionist and at worse less than truthful about scandals and crises that have occurred non-stop on their watch. Lawsuits, congressional inquiries, public outcries don’t seem to matter to US generals. They just “keep on keeping on” and like ostriches put their collective heads in the sand hoping the crises will pass.

“"The only person held accountable in those moments was a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who had the courage to stand up and say, 'Someone should be held accountable for that.' His name is Stu Scheller," Hegseth told members of a Senate Committee.”

     SECDEF Nominee Pete Hegseth

     January 20252

 It is time to hold US generals accountable. Generals like GEN Chris Donahue, LTG Steven Gilland, etc continue to advance up the ranks and avoid scrutiny. President Trump’s firing of the Coast Guard Commandant this week was the opening salvo of accountability. There need to be many more firings and disciplinary actions in the US general officer ranks. Failure to do so will doom the US and its military to further debacles.

  1. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israels-top-general-resigns-over-oct-7-failures-as-it-launches-major-operation-in-west-bank/ar-AA1xAIg5?ocid=BingNewsSerp
  2. https://www.wlwt.com/article/marine-corps-department-defense-cincinnati-stuart-scheller/63486554