It’s Hard In The Corps For A Queer-Basher
Before I continue, I want to point out
that some of my comments following
will appear to be extreme at first.
Please go with the flow until you see where it goes.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reports a decline in overall military readiness which might take years to “reduce” the risk to the nation’s security, such as it now is. One reason for this decline is, despite lots of claims to the contrary, Pentagon is having poor results in their attempts to recruit new troops despite reducing standards to the point that convicted felons are allowed to enlist. The Arizona Star wants to see some kind of oversight over these convict enlistees in order to prevent “harming America’s war effort.”
But in order to perform this logical duty, the Pentagon would need more officers, but it seems that they already are falling short of the necessary numbers without meeting the oversight duty needs requested by The Arizona Star even if they are promoting officers beyond their experience, threatening the quality of the military officer corps at a time when quality has never been more necessary.
That’s why one has to wonder why General Pace is insisting on shooting himself in the foot with his loaded mouth.
Pace’ expressed personal belief that “homosexual acts between individuals are immoral” and should not be condoned is an example that there is a serious lack of wisdom within the Five Points of the Pentagon. Back prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq, the military needed every Arabic-speaking soldier it could scrape up, yet they threw six of them out of the service for being openly gay. “All the servicemembers had stellar service records and wanted to continue doing the important jobs they held, but they were fired because of their sexual orientation,” said Steve Ralls of the Servicemen’s Legal Defense Network.
That policy has not changed despite the clear need for every Arabic-speaker possible to be put to work on the Quagmire. As of July of 2006, yet another translator was drummed out of the military over his sexual orientation. MSNBC noted that the U.S. military anti-gay policy appeared more important to the Pentagon than national security. Christopher Fahey of graphpaper.com thought this ridiculous, protesting that “It’s both ludicrous and tragic that we’re allowing homophobia to gut our counterterrorism capabilities.” The Daily Show’s Jason Jones also looked into this contradiction.
So, as of the posting date, Gen. Pace refuses to apologize for his anti-gay remarks even though he regrets them.
Too many modern Christians are very hostile people, and gays are only one of the objects of hateful scorn and vicious ridicule. There is verifiable proof that homosexuals are considered worthy and deserving of murder due to vile comments made a while back by Jimmy Swaggart, who declared that he would kill any man that looked at him with “romantic intent.”
Since Gen. Pace appears to consider himself a Christian based on his bias, would not the wise military leader see a way to solve two “problems” with one solution by putting the gays into units sent to the most dangerous areas of Iraq and Afghanistan? He could save good and straight Christians for breeding more good and straight Christians who would grow up and …
You get the point. He doesn’t, so fear not. It won’t happen.
Pace also doesn’t seem to understand that there are many gays already serving in the military, which makes the military’s gay policy absurd. Congress’ nonpartisan Government Accountability Office presented evidence in a February report that a minimum $191 million has been spent since 1993 to recruit and train enlistees to replace those discharged for being gay. Many of those let go were highly trained specialists, including 322 language specialists, 90 nuclear power engineers, 150 missile specialists, 49 nuclear, chemical and biological warfare specialists, 50 intelligence operatives.
This gay-hostile policy has no logical reason to exist except that the top military officers might well be bigots. The Navy’s 1957 Crittenden Reportfound no basis for the claim that homosexuals posed a security risk. A 1993 GAO study came to the same conclusions as the 2005 study. And, the experience of other national military organizations should be examined. Great Britain and Canada lifted their bans and saw no adverse effects, and twenty-four nations, including Israel, now let gays serve openly.
If the American military were smart, and as up-to-date, as they like to think they are, they would be leading the charge toward using every volunteer who appears instead of retreating to avoid utilizing highly talented and motivated individuals who happen to have differing ideas on what constitutes an ideal partner.