You have to give credit where credit is due. After Senator Carl Levin announced yesterday that he would hold hearings on "don't ask, don't tell," anti-gay forces in the Pentagon responded immediately. Levin was sending a strong signal that both the White House and Congress are ready to move forward with plans to repeal the gay ban, so the Pentagon needed to move quickly.
Within hours of Senator Levin's announcement, the military stuck back by leaking an internal memo to the Associated Press. In the memo, top advisers to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff explain that now is not the time to tinker with social policy. Yes we love our gay brothers and sisters, the argument goes. But we're fighting two wars. So don't divert our military leaders' attention by forcing them to deal with gay troops while bullets are flying.
The Pentagon response is clearly part of a coordinated strategy, since this is the second time in recent months that the military trotted out the "we can't deal with gays during wartime" argument in response to forward momentum. After Army Secretary John McHugh said that the military is ready to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, the head of the Marine Corps leaked a story indicating that, guess what, we're fighting two wars and we have other more important issues to deal with than gays.
The "don't-bother-us-while-we're-at-war" argument sounds good on its face. But when you look more closely at the argument, you can see the cynicism that informs it.
Consider that military commanders on the ground are ignoring "don't ask, don't tell" and allowing gay troops to serve. Almost every year since 2001, gay discharges have dropped. This is consistent with a long term pattern that includes World War II and wars in Korea and Vietnam in which gay discharges always drop during wartime. Wartime, in other words, is exactly when the Pentagon allows gays and lesbians to serve openly. With respect to the the current wars, my research team and I uncovered a military regulation which orders commanders to deploy gay troops to the Middle East during the current wars. So the "don't-bother-us-now" argument is, at best, disingenuous.
Indeed, before 2001, when the nation was at peace, and when future war seemed very unlikely, conservatives were arguing that peace was not the time to lift the gay ban. They said that wartime was the best moment to lift the ban because once the bullets start flying, the troops are focused on defeating our enemies and don't care as much about social issues. So we should wait for a war to start to lift the ban.
One fascinating aspect of the new Pentagon strategy is that it cedes the argument that integration will not undermine unit cohesion. Anti-gay obstructionists are not arguing that the ban should not be lifted. They're simply saying, "don't do this now."
Sadly, however, civilian leaders often hesitate to question military pronouncements, as if military matters are so rarified, obscure, and complicated that only a uniformed officer has the expertise to evaluate them. (Anyone who buys into this notion should research what the generals predicted would happen if African Americans and women were allowed to serve.)
The question to ask is whether Democrats in the White House and Congress will melt in the face of this new, bogus Pentagon argument. Or if they will move forward with their long-stated plans of treating gay troops like everyone else.
1) We are NOT AT WAR. Nobody has declared anything, except a PR "war" on a concept (terr or)
2) When has the US NOT injected itself into some kind of conflict over the past hundred years?
You're suggesting that re-instituting the draft is the true motive of those advocating the repeal of DADT?
And could you be more specific about what you mean by "nonexempt military draft?" Is that how you'd classify what we had before?
When you stop laughing, you see how Obama has been manipulated. They want the bodies/boots in Iraq and Afghanistan, Even felons. It's all a game. divide and conquer and increase the budget and give them promotions. [and supposedly scared of their pee-pees.]
That happens all the time. Most recently, we read of 'signing statements' during the Bush Administration. When the President signs a bill into law, he may also give a 'signing statement' about that law. That statement may include how he will or will not enforce various parts of the bill.
The President can also issue an executive order to his military department. That order might contain an order to the Secretary of Defense to order his subordinates to stop enforcing portions of the DODT law which he finds objectionable. That is effectively, the force of law within the Executive Branch.
The President has done nothing during his first year - to his shame.
Another post below probably correctly states the situation - gays are too important to the Republicans for their bigoted platform, and are not nearly important enough to the Democrats to do anything about institutionalized government discrimination against gays for generations, up to and including today.
That directly contradicts their reasoning for prohibiting open GLBT from serving. They say that during war, the presence of known homosexuals would be a detriment to unit cohesion and to morale, putting the troops and missions at risk.
A Conservative MO is using gays for their own interests...during war, sending gays to fight, but not refusing to repeal DODT during peacetime...during elections, using gays as a wedge issue to gain votes.
I once believed the Democratic Party meant standing up for people like GLBTs. I was kidding myself. We are simply political commodity.
They call these fools 'fodder' because, if the live through the fighting, they get thrown out of the military later.
That's when their trouble really begins. The Pentagon boys use secret code numbers on discharge papers which are known to employers all over the nation, but are unknown to this 'disgraced gay warrior'. So, the gay soldier can't get a job.
After fighting for his country, he likely leaves the military with less than honorable discharge. So, he also gets no veterans benefits.
This situation has been permitted in our military for generations now. It is nothing less than institutional governmental discrimination heaped upon a minority class for a very long time - up to and including today.
Anybody who believes that the military will stop discriminating against gays in the next generation does not understand how these homophobic generals and admirals operate. And, it has become worse since the military has been permitted to become 'evangelized' within the Pentagon, and within the service academies who lead the military in future generations.
It is the same as states writing gay discrimination into their constitutions knowing that the next generation which supports gay rights will not be allowed to because of their state's amended constitution which permits discrimination.
The ban should be lifted. It is the right thing to do. Still, I'm puzzled by the determination of those who know they are gay and know that their country holds them as second class citizens in so many respects to possibily sacrifice their life for this country. Why would they want to do that for a country that doesn't want them?
Although it reflects official policy, we know it isn't the "country that doesn't want them," just some people in it. Perhaps those who put their lives on the line in spite of that knowledge and policy do so to protect - and sacrifice for - the principles upon which the nation was founded and by which it continues to struggle to live by.
The president, after all, takes an oath to protect and defend one thing only: the Constitution. That, and what it represents, I'm sure contributes to the willingness of all who serve to do so.