Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, concerned over instances of “misbehavior” that have shed negative light on the US military, issued a “personal plea” for US troops to “honor their military values:”

“These days, it takes only seconds — seconds — for a picture, a photo, to suddenly become an international headline,” Panetta said. “And those headlines can impact the mission that we’re engaged in, they can put your fellow service members at risk, they can hurt morale, they can damage our standing in the world, and they can cost lives.”

The sentiment was reportedly echoed by the top commander in Afghanistan:

Marine Gen. John Allen…believes that a number of major setbacks in the past six months have resulted from moral, not operational, failures, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments.

Read that carefully:  US military leaders are concerned that moral behavior is having more influence on the mission than operations are.  Didn’t somebody say it wasn’t the military’s place to dictate morality?

There is a twist of irony in calling for “moral behavior” in a military that was recently forced to accept a form of homosexuality large portions of the Nation, and most religions, consider “immoral behavior.”  Of course, if your definition of “moral” is relative, then it makes perfect sense — except for your ability to explain how the US military can call for “moral” conduct without being able to define it.