The person being dismissed assumed command AFTER the scandal had broken and initiated a wide-ranging investigation into wrongdoing that unearthed all of the problems.

It seems he is being punished for fixing the problems because the fixing caused the command and the Air Force some embarrassment.

Unless I am reading this wrong, he is not the bad guy here.

he's a fall guy

I don't take much at face value. I'm guessing AFOSI is running the investigation at this point. That being the case, they really don't care about Palmer or the general for that matter.
That said, that is how the Air Force works. The squadron commander and the group commander gets fired for poor supervision. On my last trip to the middle east, a young airman got extremely drunk (blew a 0.35) at the Royal Omani Air Force NCO club. The USAF MSgt sitting next to her got in trouble, and the captain over her (who wasn't there) got in trouble as well.

The wrongdoing was not a product of this person's leadership, he undertook to fix it.

The OSI are not the folks who removed this person, his commander did. If OSI were in the belief that he was engaged in wrongdoing, they would refer charges to the convening authority to initiate an article 32 hearing. Thats what the OSI does, they investigate wrongdoing. They do not determine fitness for command.

My point was that he could be a OSI target himself, or he simply did a poor job of trying to fix it. Either could get him removed from command. I did not mean to imply that the OSI took any action themselves.

He just took command when the first rape was reported. He EXPANDED the investigation. You don't think this abuse was going on before he took command?

...it appears he was the ''good guy.''

Officials tell The Associated Press that the Air Force has relieved Palmer, a top commander at Lackland Air Force base from his position in the wake of a widening sex scandal.

A two-star general is now investigating alongside a separate criminal probe, which military prosecutors say could sweep up more airmen. Advocates for female service members and members of Congress have started taking notice.

"It's a pretty big scandal the Air Force is having to deal with at this point," said Greg Jacob, a former Marine infantry officer and policy director of the Service Women's Action Network. "It's pretty substantial in its scope."

Yet there are signs the Air Force still doesn't have a handle on the full depth of the problem. Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado pleaded guilty earlier this month to having sex with a female trainee and struck a plea deal for 90 days' confinement. Then he acknowledged being involved with a total of 10 trainees — a number previously unknown to investigators.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47960915/ns/us_news/t/widening-sex-scandal-rocks-texas-air-force-base/#.UCWTD6DgxUA

In the Military, you can NOT investigate someone of superior or equal rank. Thus Colonels can NOT investigate Colonels. "Full Bird" Colonels can investigate Lieutenant Colonels but NOT the reverse.

Now, to be on the safe side, the Military will appoint someone well above the ranks involved, so that if it is bigger then it is at first believe, the investigator hopefully would still be higher rank (During the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal, the investigating General asked to be relieved for he ended up investigating another General of the Same Rank. The investigating General realized he was no longer dealing with lower ranking personnel but equal rank and realized he had to be replaced by a higher ranking general which is why he asked to be relieved.

Thus it looks like a Colonel is being investigated, but may be a one star general, but I lean to a Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel.

The officers in charge of the basic training squadrons are never involved directly with trainees. The NCOs conduct all of the training. My entire time at basic in Lackland, I think I saw officers twice, and both times they were giving speeches to multiple squadrons of new airmen.

If a Lt. Colonel or Colonel is involved in wrongdoing, it is an after the fact kind of crime like a coverup, but in a case like this one that would also be hard to believe. The commanding officers at Basic training in Lackland do not work as closely with the NCOs as they do in other situations and thus arent close enough to the to want to risk as much as a major coverup to save them.

is equivalent to a Dishonorable Discharge for an enlisted service member. It may be part of a sentence by a General Court Martial for certain offenses under the UCMJ.

The proper headline would have said that the Officer was Relieved of Command.

Typical journalist mistake - often when the reporter has no military experience.