DADT clearly CRAP

Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been a complete failure by all accounts. And now I really think the leaders of the military and this administration like the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy because it's their version of "better to stay silent and be thought an idiot than to speak and prove them right" because the military is looking very, very stupid.

Number of service members dismissed under DADT: 11,000+. And 726 in 2005.
Cost to the pentagon: $369 million.
Number of gays recently discharged with "critical" abilities: 800.

For a military that can't replace its soldiers, has the lowest recruitment in history, and is considering activating retired reservists and bandies about a draft, it is ridiculous to spend time hunting down capable and critical soldiers eager to serve and boot them out because some guys might "feel weird" being around a fag or "showering with one."

Honestly, someone in congress has GOT to be thinking: "For fuck's sake!"

And today, the Army dismissed an Arab liguist not because he told he was gay or appeared gay, but the Army asked if he was gay (following, no joke, a question about participation in regional theater) because someone sent a threatening letter to Army leaders accusing the officer of being gay. Army representatives received an annonymous e-mail threatening to make trouble if they didn't act on his anonymous tip that someone in particular on the base was gay.

I'm calling the Army out on this one: you are cowards. If you are afraid of a jilted bar fag making trouble, you have no business leading men into battle. What the administration should have done is take the side of the soldier. He's a patriot serving his country. The annonymous e-mailer was a vile little cretin bent on causing trouble.

And I'll say it again, at the risk of having my blog/phone/life tapped: if you can't handle working with or serving with a man or a woman merely because he or she loves or pokes someone of the same gender in his or her off-time, you are a coward. Are American soldiers that afraid of "the gay?" If a solder has that level of fear and insecurity, if he or she can't deal with gay servicemen and women, he or she has no business being in the American military that puts a capital C in Courage.

And what happened today? "A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified." (AP article)

Despite the flawed DADT policy, the Army violated its own DADT rules! And I'm sorry but I can't imagine any soldier would care in the least who the guy telling him "I've overheard some chatter that your location has been compromised and you need to evac immediately" is sleeping with. Hmmm... what might our soldiers be thinking? "I can get shot at, killed, maimed, blown up, lose my best friend, lose my batallion and I wish we had some reliable intel" versus "the guy who is able to tell me what the insurgents are saying is a freakin' fag--beat him up and get him out."

I think of my friend Prentiss in the Marines, in Takrit. I know he doesn't care that I'm gay. He wouldn't care if his platoon had any gay guys, and would be really grateful if someone listening into radio chatter or intercepting communications could freaking understand Arabic.

There's my rant. This is irresponsible and unpatriotic. And it should be considered UnAmerican. We should not fire any soldier willing to give his life and serve his country for being gay. And we certainly shouldn't be diminishing our troops, or putting the soldiers at risk, or wasting money better spent on body armor, by expelling capable and critically necessary patriots just for being gay.

Illogial, irrational, ignorant, and ill-conceived.

With an unfounded war with exhorbitant human and financial costs, and another "conflict" in Afganistan, gays in the military should be the least of the Pentagon's worries.