Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Utterly indefensible

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There is simply no rational way to defend firing this man from the Navy because of his sexual orientation.  None.

The lack of qualified translators has been a pressing issue for some time — the Army had filled only half its authorized positions for Arabic translators in 2001. Cables went untranslated on Sept. 10 that might have prevented the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. Today, the American Embassy in Baghdad has nearly 1,000 personnel, but only a handful of fluent Arabic speakers.

I was an Arabic translator. After joining the Navy in 2003, I attended the Defense Language Institute, graduated in the top 10 percent of my class and then spent two years giving our troops the critical translation services they desperately needed. I was ready to serve in Iraq.

But I never got to. In March, I was ousted from the Navy under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which mandates dismissal if a service member is found to be gay….

My supervisors did not want to lose me. Most of my peers knew I was gay, and that didn’t bother them. I was always accepted as a member of the team. And my experience was not anomalous: polls of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan show an overwhelming majority are comfortable with gays. Many were aware of at least one gay person in their unit and had no problem with it….

Consider: more than 58 Arabic linguists have been kicked out since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was instituted. How much valuable intelligence could those men and women be providing today to troops in harm’s way?  In addition to those translators, 11,000 other service members have been ousted since the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was passed by Congress in 1993. Many held critical jobs in intelligence, medicine and counterterrorism….

I’m trained to fight, I speak Arabic and I’m willing to serve. No recruiter needs to make a persuasive argument to sign me up. I’m ready, and I’m waiting.

This is nothing short of a national disgrace.

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Comments

  1. this sailor was kicked out under DADT, then recalled, then kicked out agains under DADT, and has now been placed on reserves, meaning he could get called up again.  I think “DADT” is just a very shortened version of the true policy title, which is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Make Any Sense Whatsoever”.

  2. This firing is pernicious and it weakens America. One might even describe its supporters as traitors insofar as they support a policy that hurts our ability to defend ourselves. But given the facts, and our existing laws, I am not sure how you can say the firing — however ill advised — is “irrational.” 

    • 1.  No, bigotry is not “rational,” almost by definition.

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      2.  If the facts as reported in the op-ed are correct, the firing may not have been strictly required by the ghastly DADT policy.  Rather, overly-aggressive military investigators decided to fire the guy because they accidentally discovered his sexual orientation, despite the obvious harm to America’s ability to defend itself from terrorists.

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      3.  Even if the letter of the DADT law did require his firing, that doesn’t make it rational, at least in the sense that a “rational” federal law or regulation should in some sense advance the interests of the United States.  What I am saying is that the application of DADT here did not advance, and in fact demonstrably harmed, the national interest.  Therefore, his firing cannot be rationally defended.  Just “following orders” isn’t good enough.

        • … when assuming the truth of some irrational premises.  If an argument has irrational premises (the color of one’s skin matters in terms of character for example) and then one draws a rational conclusion (the conclusion follows naturally from the premises), then the whole aregument can be said to be irrational (valid in form, but wrong in substance).  Rationality can be demonstrated in the form of the argument, but only in its form.

        • that’s a pretty bad definition of “bigot,” IMHO.  But who am I to question the AHD.

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          Second, can you defend bigotry as having a rational basis?

          • BIGOTRY, n.  The action of another who obstinately and zealously adheres to an opinion with which you do not agree.

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            RATIONAL BASIS:  n. a test of whether the action has a reasonable connection to achieving a legitimate and/or reasonable objective.

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            So, can bigotry achieve a reasonable objective?

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            I don’t know, but I’ve always hated fascists.

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    • Gen. Pace served 40 years in the defense of this nation.
      I could go on, but will refrain from doing so. Aside from not being a fan of Gen. Pace’s for a number of reasons, I salute his courage and his service.

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      The day will come, sooner rather than later, when there will be a dearth of men like Gen. Pace and USA and it’s occupants will be in deep shit.

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      Always remember that the next Adolph Hitler may be in junior high school as we speak. 

      • Gen. Pace undermined the effectiveness of his troops by calling those who are gay “immoral”.  Just for being gay.  Brave, brave man.  Great, great leader!  Where, MCRD, do you find courage in crap treatment of troops like that?  Troops, in fact, who are forced to shoulder an extra burden of shutting the fuck up about any personal aspect of their lives.  I can only hope that you are correct – that sooner rather than later there will be a dearth of men like Gen. Pace.  We need generals who can tell the difference between their personal beliefs and the constitution they have sworn to protect.  Good riddance!

        • …as far as I’m concerned, good riddance to bad rubbish.  And not just because of his outburts regarding gay people.  According to reports, he has been a “yes man” regarding Bush’s invasion of Iraq from early on, which is probably why he was nominated to be the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the first place.  It was reported yesterday that the reason why he was not being re-nominated is that, since Democrats now control the Senate, he would be grilled for his support for the invasion during the re-nomination hearings, and that SecDef Gates did not want to go through that.

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          BTW, Pace’s comments about gays were about as dumb as the comments of one of his fellow generals–I forget his name–that he made while in uniform a few years ago at a christian church on the west coast, that essentially boiled down to “my (christian) god is more powerful than your (muslim) god.”  Good grief, what kind of idiots is the military employing?

  4. What is happening here is an obvious attack against gays.  Without a national hate crime law, we the people are powerless to stop it.  We are seeing more and more hate crimes take place, not only against gays, but also Jews, Blacks, Asians, Native Americans.  Now we have the power to stop it.  Pass the hate crime bill.

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    As I write this, a group of armed Ron Paul supporters in a fortified bunker is in stand-off against US Marshals and other law enforcement officials.  Does anyone deny that the proper use of this law could have taken these people off the street years ago? 

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    Certainly the military officials involved in the discrimination act would have thought twice before playing their little games on the gay sailors.

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