This is the problem created by pols who churn out a “leave marriage to the states” position as a fig leaf to hide behind; real life sometimes places this problem — and the existence of the federal Defense of Marriage Act — in stark relief.

Until same-sex unions (marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, or the other patchwork of state arrangements around the country) are recognized, lesbian and gay relationships are meaningless in the eyes of the federal government. The average gay couple doesn’t have Nancy Pelosi to intervene when we are discriminated against. (The Politico):

Prior to the Easter recess, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to intervene with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in order to get Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s domestic partner on a military flight for a congressional fact-finding trip to Europe.

The speaker succeeded, but the issue continues to simmer for both sides. The Pentagon appears to be self-conscious about transporting gay domestic partners at a time when it continues to enforce a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in its own ranks. The speaker is sensitive to the gay rights issue but doesn’t want to be drawn into a situation where it appears she is dictating policy for the use of military planes.

Under House guidelines, members of Congress may take their spouses with them on military flights if there is room for them and when it is “necessary for protocol purposes.” Although Baldwin, the only openly gay woman elected to Congress, exchanged wedding vows with Lauren Azar in 1998, her home state of Wisconsin does not officially recognize same-sex marriages, and military officials were apparently unwilling to consider Azar a “spouse” within the meaning of the House guidelines.

What’s interesting is that Denny Hastert apparently approved Azar’s travel as a spouse before, something now disputed. Read below the fold.
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Wow. What candor — from a man who desperately avoided serving his country. I’m sure all 4,000 service members that have died as a result of the Cheney/Bush Iraq misadventure really wanted to be there.

“The president carries the biggest burden, obviously,” Cheney said. “He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.”

[ABC News’ White House correspondent Martha] Raddatz noted that some soldiers, Air Force members, and Marines have been on multiple deployments and have been sent back to Iraq because of the stop-loss policy — an involuntary extension of a service member’s enlistment contract. The Army alone says 58,000 US soldiers have been redeployed to war because of the stop-loss policy.

“When you talk about an all-volunteer force, some of these soldiers, airmen, Marines have been on two, three, four, some of them more than that, deployments,” Raddatz said. “Do you think when they volunteered they had any idea that there would be so many deployments or stop-loss? Some of those who want to get out can’t because of stop-loss?”

…”A lot of men and women sign up because sometimes they will see developments,” Cheney said. “For example, 9/11 stimulated a lot of folks to volunteer for the military because they wanted to be involved in defending the country.”

Oh, so he’s still pimping the idea that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, or that he and Dear Leader did the old bait-and-switch on those who enlisted?

Take a look at this video from Brave New Films that blows away the ludicrous claim by Bill O’Reilly this week that there are no homeless veterans. He said this in response to a speech by John Edwards where the presidential candidate cited that there are 200K homeless vets out there on any given night in the U.S. He denied their existence again when interviewing progressive talk show host Ed Schultz.BNF found plenty of these invisible vets without batting an eye:

I went to U.S. Vets in Inglewood, California. US Vets is the largest non-profit organization in the US dedicated to helping homeless and at-risk veterans with temporary housing, counseling, and employment assistance. The facility currently houses up to 500 homeless veterans.

I talked to over a dozen homeless vets, some who had served as far back as the Korean War, and showed them the clips of BOR denying or dismissing their existence. The reactions to the clips were quite similar - a shaking of the head in disbelief, a derisive chuckle or snort, and a deep sigh when the videos were over. Some of the veterans couldn’t believe that anyone could be so clueless and naïve, while others wondered why BOR hadn’t bothered to do any research before making such a dubious claim. Twice.

Considering how the Bush Administration has treated men and women serving while on his watch, added to all the Vietnam-era vets down on their luck, many with untreated PTSD and mental health issues, the number isn’t surprising. Billo’s on-air denial is wishful thinking on his part; it’s politically inconvenient.

This WingNutDaily crowd is really consuming some serious-*ss Kool-Aid.

Wait, which party ran the country into the ground and exploded the deficit? Which party rubber-stamped Dear Leader’s Big Military Mi$adventure? Man, the list could go on and on…feel free to add your own.

The hyped poll it cites, btw, says only 22% of those surveyed “indicated having a Democrat president worried them more than concerns such as global unrest, a terrorist attack or a recession.”

One of the benefits/drawbacks of the holidays is the opportunity to venture out of the blue enclave of Austin into the Rest of Texas, where knee-jerk religiosity and jingoism have a foothold. But even a connoisseur of “Jesus loves a fetus” billboards and crying eagle bumper stickers such as myself was still surprised and impressed by the levels of self-congratulatory immoral war-mongering going on in this ad I witnessed in the pre-movie show before the movie “Walk Hard”.

3 Doors Down says gain yourself an insta-manhood by joining the National Guard! Defend the country from foreign invaders, help save people from natural disasters, live the tradition of American self-determination, and take the infinitesimal chance of being deployed to fight in a war overseas. And by “infinitesimal”, they mean, “Hope you like the desert weather and the non-stop fear of ambush by guerrilla forces.”

The sleaze of it all dripped off the screen. This isn’t directly related, but related in spirit. A couple of blogs have noticed the weird standards employed by the MPAA in what posters are acceptable and not. This is terrible and whiny adults who can’t stand having their thoughtless nationalism questioned children can’t be exposed to it.

The subtle hint of how terrible actual, real life torture is disturbs too many beautiful minds, I guess. However, if the movie’s entire purpose is to titillate misogynists that are angry at hot women for not sucking their cocks at the snap of a finger, then the standards get a lot looser:

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God/FSM help us. Senator Kit Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee said something completely unhinged to Gwen Ifill on PBS Newshour. She started out with a clear definition of waterboarding and asks whether it’s torture.

GWEN IFILL: Let me ask Senator Bond a little bit about this issue of waterboarding. And let me describe for our viewers first to remind them what it is. It’s when there’s a piece of cloth that’s placed over the mouth of a person who’s been strapped down, and water is poured on their face so they feel like they’re inhaling water, and it gives a sensation of drowning. Do you think that’s torture?

SEN. KIT BOND: First, let me go back and take issue with some of the things that have just been said. Number one, what the CIA is doing is not torture. It conforms to the Detainee Treatment Act, the Geneva Convention, the Convention against Torture. None of these things that are being used, by any stretch of the imagination, could be described as torture.

Now, I think it was a terribly bad idea that in the intelligence authorization bill there was a ban imposed on the CIA using any techniques other than those in the Army Field Manual.

He goes on at length, but Ifill asks him again to specifically address whether what it’s torture and this is what came out of the man’s mouth. (via TPM):

GWEN IFILL: I just would like to — but do you think that waterboarding, as I described it, constitutes torture?

SEN. KIT BOND: There are different ways of doing it. It’s like swimming, freestyle, backstroke. The waterboarding could be used almost to define some of the techniques that our trainees are put through, but that’s beside the point. It’s not being used.

There are four ways someone can leave the Army prior to the end of a first-term contract:
* they cannot meet physical fitness requirements (that threshold has been lowered, considering who they are recruiting these days)
* they are found to be “unable to adapt” to life in the military (lord, what on earth qualifies as that — being exposed to IEDs on a daily basis — how does anyone adapt to that?)
* they declare they are a homo and DADT is invoked.
* they go AWOL (that’s obviously not legal).

According to the Army, more than 18 percent of the soldiers in their first six months of service left under one of the above four provisions. The peak of desertion rates was during Vietnam, but the numbers these days, while Dear Leader’s Big Endless Military Adventures go on, are still staggering. (AP):

Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year.

…The increase comes as the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military leaders - including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey - have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. Efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments.

The Army spokesperson said more than 75 percent of deserters are male soldiers in their first term of enlistment, but didn’t know whether the numbers reflected those signing up for a short or long tour of duty (two to six years).

Also, the Pentagon isn’t punishing most deserters — they need the warm bodies.

Despite the continued increase in Army desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they find. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.

“My personal opinion is the only way to stop desertions is to change the climate … how they are living and doing what they need to do,” said Wallace, adding that good officers and more attention from Army leaders could “go a long way to stemming desertions.”

After all, the deserters can’t wait to get back into units where the Pentagon has created a climate where it recruits folks convicted of aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats.

Nearly one in five U.S. Army recruits was issued some type of waiver in order to serve, including many with felony convictions and arrest. All while law-abiding gays and lesbians are not permitted in the military. (Chicago Trib):

More than 11 percent of the Army recruits needed waivers for problems with the law — up from 7.9 percent the previous year and more than double the percentage in 2003, the year the U.S. invaded Iraq. Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, stressed that a vast majority, about 87 percent, of those allowed in with waivers had misdemeanors for such offenses as joy riding or violating curfew. Most faced little punishment beyond community service for their actions, Bostick said.

But at the same time, the number of enlistees with felony convictions and arrests in their pasts has increased. In 2003, the Army allowed 459 enlistees with felony arrests and convictions into the service compared to 1,620 this past year. The startling figures come at a time when the Army is trying to grow amid persistent questions about how the armed forces can increase force size during a time of war without significantly lowering the quality of recruits.

No high school diploma? No problem.

Additionally, the Army, which carries a vast majority of the weight in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, saw the percentage of new recruits with high school diplomas slip for the fourth straight year to below 80 percent, well below the Defense Department's goal of 90 percent.

More than 94 percent of Army enlistees in 2003 had earned a diploma, according to U.S. Army Recruiting Command statistics.

…Beth Asch, a senior economist and expert on military recruitment and retention at the Rand Corp., said that the decline in the number of enlistees with high school diplomas is more disconcerting than the increase in the number of character waivers granted by the Army.

“One reason you don't bring in non-grads is they tend not to complete things,” Asch said. “People who are better educated tend to be learners and the military needs life-long learners.”

Steve Clemons of The Washington Note asks an interesting question. While the Pentagon has issued more than 125K moral waivers to boost its recruiting numbers and keeps those pesky homos out, we have a whole bunch of Blackwater guns for hire out there. What kind of standards does it have for its employees?

I don’t know the answers but it would be interesting to know if Blackwater has issued any moral waivers to its recruits — or whether it has any moral benchmarks at all. Someone really ought to ask.

Also, does Blackwater have a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy? Or does it allow homosexuals into its private combat operations (as opposed to the gay folks at headquarters doing the planning and pushing paper)? Or does it discriminate against any homosexuals joining its ranks?

Would be interesting to know.

After all, we’ve recently learned that Blackwater, already in a heap of trouble for its role in an incident on September 16 when 11 Iraqis were killed in a shoot-out involving Blackwater guards, has dismissed 122 people over the past three years for all sorts of problems — misusing weapons, alcohol/drug violations, violent behavior, etc. The North Carolina-based firm has been paid over $800 million dollars by the State Department to perform security work.

Harvard recently hosted the ceremony of the Ig Nobel Awards, given out to dubious achievements in research, celebrating "the unusual, honour the imaginative - and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology."

The top winner in the "Peace" category was the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory, which spent precious tax dollars on ridiculous research on the effectiveness of creating a non-lethal weapon that would make enemy combatants amorous toward their same-sex colleagues — allegedly distracting and upsetting unit cohesion.

From my earlier post on the "research": In the report ("Harassing, Annoying, and "Bad Guy" Identifying Chemicals"), some of the outlandish proposals for non-lethal weapons to use against enemy forces included :
* a spray to inflict "severe and lasting halitosis";

* a chemical that would cause bees to behave more aggressively and sting them;

* a weapon that would make the enemy very sensitive to sunlight;

* and the aphrodisiac chemical designed to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other and cause widespread homosexual behavior (a "distasteful but completely non-lethal blow" to affect troop "discipline and morale"). These plans were part of a six-year project that would have cost $7.5 million of your tax dollars.

Other winners of the Ig Nobel awards are below the fold.
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Sigh. Poor Michael Medved of Town Hall. He bloviates in his column that lifting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will result in an explosion of toe-tapping cruising in the latrines.

Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities?

Of course, advocates for gays in the military will insist that any such indulgence would involve a violation of the rules, with offenders facing stiff, severe consequences. But the impact of gay GI’s on bathroom atmospherics doesn’t just stem from the real chance of actual sex acts in the latrine, it involves whole sexualization of one of the most frequented and important conveniences on any base.

Does he not realize that Larry Craig has said he’s not gay, and that the Atlanta police department found that the majority of men busted in his stings are married with kids? How, exactly then, will DADT prevent bathroom hookups if self-proclaimed heterosexuals are engaging in public, anonymous homosex? If you read on, it’s clear the level of Medved’s projection that he will be the target of amorous toe-tapping is, well, extreme.

The problem isn’t just the chance of molestation, it’s the radical change of mood and sensibility if you know you may be checked out as a sex object at a very private moment (of urination or defecation) when most normal people prefer to avoid any and all thoughts of physical intimacy.

…The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men’s rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military.

Oh, please. How does the desire to serve  one’s country without being in the closet now turn into an orgy of bathroom sex? It’s about the inappropriate nature and location of a sex act, not the orientation, Medved.

If Craig thinks he’s straight and has to cruise public restrooms for same-sex encounters, it says more about homophobia and the pathology of the closet driving men like him to engage in this kind of public, anonymous, illicit behavior, particularly because of the deceit and the pain it causes their families.

Mitt Romney was raked over the coals for saying this in Iowa last week when he was asked why his sons did not sign up to serve their country:

“It’s remarkable how we can show our support for our nation, and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country”

First his campaign tried to say the remarks were “taken out of context.” If you watch the above video, that didn’t pass the smell test. So today, he had to clarify those remarks.

“I misspoke,'’ the former Massachusetts governor said today on “Fox News Sunday.'’ “It’s not service to the country, it’s service for me, and there’s just no comparison there.'’

…Romney said today that he “didn’t mean in any way to compare service in the country with my boys in any way. Service in this country is an extraordinary sacrifice being made by individuals and their families.'’

***

Mitt’s a bit on the ropes, even though he bought off walked away the most votes in the Iowa straw poll this weekend (31%). Second-place finisher, covenant marriage advocate and Baptist minister Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas took a few potshots at the former governor of Massachusetts.

“Republicans are looking for a conservative who has had consistency in his principles,'’ Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said on the CBS “Face the Nation'’ program. “There are not going to be any ‘YouTube’ moments saying something different.'’

YouTube, a Web site with videos submitted by the public, contains clips of Romney expressing support for abortion rights during his term as Massachusetts governor. Now he describes himself as “pro-life.'’

Romney today defended his abortion-rights turnabout on “Fox News Sunday,'’ saying he expects voters to see through political attacks about his change of position.

“People want to look beyond the attacks and understand what is it that a person stands for,'’ Romney said. “I changed my position on abortion. I was effectively pro-choice, given the statements I had made, but I am pro-life. I’m proud of that.”

Hmmm…wasn’t the whole “flip-flop” campaign against Kerry all the right wing rage in 2004, Mitt?

This can’t make him happy either:

A fund-raiser for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign resigned from his volunteer post last week after being indicted in Maryland for allegedly defrauding companies of $32 million.

Alan B. Fabian, 43, a Maryland businessman who cochaired the national finance committee for Romney’s campaign, was indicted Wednesday by a Maryland grand jury on 23 counts of mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury, and obstruction of justice, according to the US attorney’s office in Baltimore.

Considering what a screw-up this president regarding the treatment of those serving our country — not enough body armor or re-inforced Humvees, shoddy equipment, atrocious conditions at Walter Reed, the latest bottom of the barrel thinking coming out of this admin is par for the course:

3.5% raise too much for Bush.

With President Bush’s popularity scraping bottom in opinion polls, with U.S. casualties rising in Iraq in a force surge that has stretched tours to 15 months, the Bush administration has said it “strongly opposes” key military pay and benefit gains tossed into the fiscal 2008 defense bill.

…Like the House, senators favor a 3.5 percent military pay raise for 2008 versus the administration’s proposed 3 percent to match private sector wage growth as measured by the government’s Employment Cost Index or ECI. The White House calls the extra half percentage point unnecessary and notes that basic pay has jumped by 33 percent since 2001. The added cost of the bigger raise, $2.2 billion through 2013, is money “that would otherwise be available to support our troops,” said the OMB letter.

Can you even imagine the outcry if a Democratic president proposed such BS while flagging military conflicts were going on? All these Yellow Elephants and neo-cons who beat the war drum but don’t step up to serve would be on Faux News 24/7 talking about how the Dem destroyed the military.

I’m sure they’ll have nothing to say about the sociopath-in-chief, who doesn’t give a damn about what military families are going through. This administration is tone deaf and amoral.

And how much are some of those contractor guns-for-hire getting paid compared to our men and women in uniform?

The 145,000 active-duty U.S. forces are nearly matched by occupation personnel that currently come from companies like Blackwater USA and the former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, which enjoy close personal and political ties with the Bush administration. Until Congress reins in these massive corporate forces and the whopping federal funding that goes into their coffers, partially withdrawing U.S. troops may only set the stage for the increased use of private military companies (and their rent-a-guns) which stand to profit from any kind of privatized future “surge” in Iraq.

…According to the Government Accountability Office, there are now some 48,000 employees of private military companies in Iraq. These not-quite GI Joes, working for Blackwater and other major U.S. firms, can clear in a month what some active-duty soldiers make in a year. “We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense,” said House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. “How in the hell do you justify that?”

Sure, we’ll help you interrogate the suspect. You want us to be good cop, or bad cop?

The military in London’s bustling nightclub and theater district on Friday defused a bomb that could have killed hundreds after an FV513 crew spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes filled with a lethal mix of gasoline, propane and nails, authorities said.

The bomb near Piccadilly Circus was powerful enough to have caused “significant injury or loss of life” - possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror General Peter Clarke said.

Wait, no.

Still not a law enforcement issue, though.

(Actually, for people like Malkin, Schlussel, and LGFers, it is: Let’s get law enforcement to round up every Muslim within our borders.)

Pre-publishing Update: Also, it occurs to me to wonder whether there was a massive anti-Irish backlash during the eighties, when an incident like that would be assumed to be IRA rather than al Qaeda. Anyone?

The AP reports that between job prospects opening up and family members pressuring them not to join up for Dear Leader’s Military Adventures, young black men and women aren’t ready to sign on the dotted line.

According to the Pentagon, the number of new black recruits for active duty and reserves has declined 38% since 2001.

Walking past the Army recruiting station in downtown Washington, D.C., this past week, Sean Glover said he has done all he can to talk black relatives out of joining the military.

“I don’t think it’s a good time. I don’t support the government’s efforts here and abroad,” said Glover, 36.

Glover doesn’t have to try too hard — who can blame young black men and women from steering away from the military with news like this:

In desperation, military suggests foot patrols can be safer than Humvees, tanks. The surge is really working out well for our troops in harm’s way, huh?

Top US commanders in Iraq have been encouraging soldiers in Baghdad to “get out and walk.”

In fact — they’ve been using those very words. According to Friday’s LA Times, a counterinsurgency guidance memo “released last week by Army Lt. Gen Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day military operations, urges Iraqi and American troops to ‘get out and walk.’

“I would rather go out without any armor or gear,” one soldier told the Times. “If an EFP [explosively formed penetrator, or projectile] hits the vehicle, you are dead anyway no matter how much armor you have. It can take out an Abrams tank; these 1114 [armored Humvees] are nothing.”

Back to the subject at hand though, I think it’s obvious why fewer blacks are joining the military. If you’ve tuned in on the TV or gone to the movies, you’ve seen the tack that the ads have taken (showing “patriotic” black parents talking to their sons about signing up) I’m sure these have left a bitter taste in many black families’ mouths.

The aggressive, misleading recruiting in poor black areas has not gone unnoticed, either. You’ll recall how in Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore showed recruits trolling the low-income areas and strip malls where young minority men frequent (as opposed to the suburban white well-to-do malls where no kids showed interest). From F9/11, the outlandish recruiting tactics in Moore’s hometown of Flint (the best part is about 3:30 in):

The simple math is that if these black kids can find better job opportunities (not even great ones at this point) that don’t involve signing up for a suicide mission like Iraq, common sense dictates that they aren’t going to find the military appealing right now.

Another factor to consider is that the military, for many young minority men living in socioeconomically depressed areas, represented an opportunity to get out, receive valuable skills they wouldn’t have acquired in the dire situations of the ghetto, while receiving funds for education in an environment that offers discipline and order.

George Bush’s military is increasingly looking like the gang-infested, crime holes these young men and women are trying to escape from. What’s appealing about a military that is recruiting folks convicted of aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats. The number of convicted felons enlisted in the U.S. military has almost doubled in the past three years, and 43,977 individuals convicted of serious misdemeanors such as assault have enlisted under the moral waivers program.

An excellent article on problem of the Pentagon recruiting and enlisting active gang members in a piece by Radar Magazine’s Seamus McGraw, Gangs of Iraq. It’s a chilling account of how far the military has fallen, with its backdrop the murder of Sergeant Juwan Johnson a decorated war vet, who was killed as a result of a gang initiation by the Gangster Disciples while in the military.

It wasn’t until May 2006, five months after the Army papered the base with fliers offering a $25,000 reward (later upped to $50,000) for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case, that investigators acknowledged a gang connection.

Ten months lapsed before the first suspect was charged. Since then, five soldiers have been charged in the case, according to a U.S. Army spokesperson. Only one of them, Specialist Bobby Morrissette - a friend who served alongside Johnson throughout his deployment overseas — has been slated to stand trial.

But according to gang experts, including one who has been called to testify, the real mystery is why it took the Army so long to accept that Johnson was the victim of a growing epidemic of gang violence that has infected all branches of the armed services. Lax enlistment standards have inadvertently allowed thousands of gang members to join the military, including young men who belong to the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, and various white supremacist groups. But no gang has infiltrated the armed forces as deeply as the Gangster Disciples, a 100,000-member Chicago-based syndicate that has been linked to an assortment of crimes ranging from murder to mortgage fraud.

“There’s no doubt about it — the Gangster Disciples are the biggest [gang] in the Army,” says Chicago Police Lieutenant Robert Stasch, who has spent 30 years tracking the group’s rise from a handful of street-corner hoodlums to what he calls “the most sophisticated criminal enterprise in the United States.”

Finding that an invasion and occupation isn’t going so well?  Well, try some new R&D.  Like, say, into gay bombs and armed sharks. 

Creating armor that renders a soldier invisible. Stimulating the brain
to suppress sleep for days. Arming sharks with chemical implants and
cameras to work as spies.

This year the Pentagon will spend $78 billion — about half of
all government research and development dollars — on a variety of
projects, according to the American Association for the Advancement for
Science (AAAS).

There seems to be no failure of imagination in advancing warfare, but
some experts fear these farfetched projects show a little too much
imagination.

Just this month, the government confirmed that an Ohio Air
Force laboratory had asked for $7.5 million to build a nonlethal "gay
bomb," a weapon that would encourage enemies to make love, not war. The
weapon would use strong aphrodisiacs to make enemy troops so sexually
attracted to each other that they’d lose interest in fighting.

Oh, hell.  We at the Feminist and Homosexual Agenda, Inc. would love to have that bomb go off stateside in order to destroy this Godly nation.  I’m thinking the government jettisoned it for one of these reasons:

1. It’s a really dumb-ass, hare-brained idea.
2. There’s too much of a chance of the bomb either blowing back over our troops, or the enemy developing the same weapon, in which case we’ll have to make a peace treaty double-quick and hope that Massachusetts, having ensured that single-sex marriage stays legal, can handle the new influx of couples and honeymooners.

Granted, I think it would be traumatic if such a weapon was developed, simply because people suddenly subjected to an overwhelming urge to have sex with folks they wouldn’t normally consider are being violated and humiliated.  It’s funny–if it’s in a movie or sitcom, not if it really happens.

What’s really creepy is the non-lethal torture implement weapons they have already developed:

The ADS, or Active Denial System, fires an invisible beam that
penetrates the top 1/64th of an inch on a target’s skin, hitting
sensitive pain receptors and causing a burning sensation some have
likened to being dipped in molten lava.

When the target steps out of the beam’s path, the pain goes
away instantly, causing no permanent damage and leaving no marks,
bruises or burns.

Some military experts are calling it the Holy Grail of crowd
control. But critics fear that after incidents like the Abu Ghraib
prison torture scandal, the potential for the technology to be used for
more sinister means is simply too great.

Now, the article started off by giving a scenario where soldiers in a convoy in Iraq are shot at and surrounded by an "unruly" crowd; their only choices are to warn people to get away from the convoy or shoot into the crowd.  So torturing the entire crowd without leaving a mark is apparently preferable.

Molten lava.  How, um, special.  And this is a good weapon because it’s "non-leathal."  It just tortures people.  Makes them wish they were dead.

The device uses millimeter waves that are much easier to control than
microwaves but have a similar effect — they heat things up.

LeVine insisted that millimeter waves are not nearly as harmful
as microwaves — though both can cause cancer. She said extensive
testing has proven that the device isn’t dangerous beyond the pain it
generates.

There hasn’t been any evidence of long-term damage, which makes me wonder: Who in the hell have you all been testing this on? And if the waves heat up your skin, I’m thinking they can do damage.  Hell, isn’t causing pain doing damage?  You know, trauma?

 

This article in the WaPo about the ongoing problems for those who are fighting the Shrub’s adventure war completely overlooks the great sacrifices of the 101st Fightin’ Keyboardists, fighting the real war at home against the meanie liberal naysayers. Not a word in the entire thing about carpal tunnel syndrome from excessive typing, nothing about Cheeto-dust inhalation, not one word about the struggles against wives who want you to stop flaming peaceniks right now and get your ass to dinner so you can engage in some of those heavily promised family values. No, it’s all wah-wah post-traumatic stress disorder, cry cry long term brain damage, and all to those softie marshmallow types who actually enlisted and are fighting for Bush’s ego and Halliburton’s profit margins in Iraq.

All dark jokes aside, this sobering article about the mental health costs from fighting a war—and the military’s inadequate response—is a must-read. The American Psychological Association estimates that 25% of those who serve in Iraq are returning with mental health problems, with 20% currently in Iraq testing positive for anxiety, depression and acute stress. Obviously, when it comes to situations like this, prevention is the best cure, but since we still have our monomaniacal war pig in the White House, preventing this unnecessary spread of mental illness is off the table. In lieu of that, we could provide veterans of the war proper treatment for PTSD and other mental health problems, but naturally that’s not happening either. To be somewhat fair to the military in this, the sheer number of soldiers returning with mental health disorders appears to be overwhelming, but still, the lack of care available to people who made such an enormous sacrifice for BushCo’s ego-and-profiteering needs is a travesty. There’s you CEO President, folks. Military is a labor resource, and caring for the people in it outside of waving a flag and conflating “support of troops” with “support of missions that kill and maim troops”, is bad for the bottom line, which is tax cuts for the rich in this model of government. The article details carefully how the military has insufficient numbers of psychologists and treatment, and few resources for identifying people who need mental health care.

To compound the problem of inadequate resources, there’s still plenty of social resistance to the very idea that PTSD is real and deserves a health care-based response.

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If you didn’t think our Army was at the breaking point, this fact should send a chill down your spine. This is the first time since World War II that the entire Fort Bragg-based unit is completely off home soil. From the CBS Evening News, broadcast on June 10, via Raw Story:

REPORTER: Good evening, russ. This is only going to be to be the second time since world war that the entire 82nd Airborne will be deployed overseas. Just one more sign of how thinly stretched the arm see right now. Tonight what’s left of the 82nd Airborne flies to Kuwait on its way to Iraq for a one-year tour. For decades the 82nd Airborne has been the go-to team in a time of crisis. But now they are all deployed. The surge is in full swing, but some worry its demands could be draining America’s ability to respond to a crisis.

MITCHELL: we are in a pretty tight position in being able to respond rapidly the way we would like.

REPORTER: Of the Army’s 44 combat brigades, nearly half are in Iraq or Afghanistan.

MITCHELL: we can’t keep this level of commitment up indefinitely in my judgment, with the size Army and Marine Corps that we have.

…REPORTER: Although the Pentagon admits readiness has been compromised, commanders say if an emergency happened elsewhere in the world, they could draw ground troops from Iraq and units recuperating at bases back in the U.S. But it won’t be easy.

MITCHELL: most of that Army has its equipment in depot or its people on leave or its reservists deactivated or temporarily back with their families.

I don’t ever want to hear a Republican talk about Democrats destroying the military. This president has driven it into the ground leaving the country more at risk than ever before, and leaving those serving without enough equipment and little relief. Body armor collected by the American Legion is sitting unused.

Several of you sent me the link to the CBS5 story by Hank Plante about the Pentagon confirming that it had plans to create a hormone-based bomb to turn enemy soldiers gay — and presumably so horny that they would spend their time humping instead of fighting. This week, Pentagon officials confirmed to Plante that it had considered Homo Bomb project, but subsequently rejected it.

The strange thing about this story is that it’s a couple of years old. Back in 2005, I blogged about the 1994 report Harassing, Annoying, and “Bad Guy” Identifying Chemicals. It was uncovered by The Sunshine Project, an organization that exposes research into chemical and biological weapons (and cited in the CBS5 report). It filed a Freedom of Information Act to make the document public.

In it, some of the outlandish proposals for non-lethal weapons to use against enemy forces included :
* a spray to inflict “severe and lasting halitosis”;
* a chemical that would cause bees to behave more aggressively and sting them;
* a weapon that would make the enemy very sensitive to sunlight;
* and the aphrodisiac chemical designed to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other and cause widespread homosexual behavior (a “distasteful but completely non-lethal blow” to affect troop “discipline and morale”).

These plans were part of a six-year project that would have cost $7.5 million of your tax dollars. Two years ago, Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said “none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed“. Steve Ralls of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), said at the time, “It is a homophobic and delusional proposition for the Pentagon to assume a gay opponent is any less formidable than a straight one.”

My god. Right-wing pundit Mark Smith was on CNN the other night bloviating about why it’s harmful to have gays and lesbians serving openly in the military; instead of invoking the familiar nonsense about “unit cohesion,” he gave everyone a interesting peek into his homophobic psyche:

CHETRY: Mark, in your opinion, do you think don’t-ask/don’t-tell is successful?

MARK SMITH, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR & CONSTITUTIONAL ATTORNEY: Well, I think we have to keep in mind that the military is about winning wars.

And, as a civilian, I’m not comfortable second-guessing the military with respect to military policy during a time of war. To me, putting openly gay people in the military is a social experiment. And now is not the time for it.

But, certainly, there — there certainly are concerns about having, you know, openly gay people in the military. I mean, the example I like to give is if — for example, if you put me in a platoon with nothing but, let’s say, Hooter waitresses, that’s going to distract me, and I’m not going to be focused on winning the war. I am going to be focused on other things.

And that’s the sort of tension, that, frankly, can hurt the morale and hurt the fighting mission. So, to me, I understand what the military is getting at. And I?m not here to second-guess military decisions on these kinds of critical issues about winning wars.

Is this man not in control of his sexual desires? This is about as good as the fear of dropping the bar of soap in the shower argument.

Smith seems to overlook all the armed services in countries where gays and lesbians calmly and competently serve alongside their straight fellow service members in the military right now. They are showering and sleeping in the same spaces without the world coming to an end — or the place turning into an orgy. He also ignores the fact that although DADT is in place, many openly gay and lesbian soldiers are accepted by their straight colleagues without incident. People in the line of fire couldn’t give a damn about someone’s sexual orientation when they are facing IEDs and gun battles each day. And they clearly have better control over their sexual impulses than Mr. Smith.

“I have now spent five years in the Navy, and I have loved every minute of it. It is unfortunate that in our country, which prides itself on being a beacon of liberty to the world, discrimination is still alive and well, even in our own government. I am proud to be among the one million gay veterans who have answered the call to duty, and I look forward to working alongside them to topple this un-American and counter-productive law.”
– Jason Knight, commenting on the Navy’s decision to give him a pink slip — again.

The Navy, caught with its Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell pants down in a paperwork snafu, claims another trained and ready servicemember.

Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight refused to stay in the closet after he made headlines recently because he received recall orders to serve in Kuwait. He had been discharged before for coming out to his command during his last enlistment.

The insanity of this policy is out there for everyone to see in yet another embarrassment for this government straining to find qualified recruits.  (SLDN):

The United States Navy has informed Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight that it intends to fire him under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law just weeks prior to completing his one-year commitment.  Knight, an openly gay sailor, was recalled to active duty in June 2006 and recently completed a tour of duty in Kuwait, where he was open about his sexual orientation with his command and fellow sailors. Knight told his story last weekend in the newspaper Stars & Stripes and was notified yesterday that he will be receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy based, in part, on his recent media interviews.  Knight was scheduled to end his commitment on May 28, 2007, but will face early dismissal because he chose to go public about his experience.

“Jason Knight was an exemplary sailor who gladly returned to active duty when our country needed him,” said Sharra E. Greer, director of law and policy for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN).  “Now, despite his dedication and service, and the praise of those he served alongside, the Navy has decided to fire him because he dared to tell his story and put a public face to the courage of lesbian and gay service personnel.  Our nation should be embarrassed that our armed forces are forced to respond to Knight’s selfless service with a government-sanctioned pink slip.  `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ silences lesbians and gays and attempts to make them invisible.  Because Knight refused invisibility, he will now be fired.” 

Remember, this is the same Pentagon brass that is allowing branches to lower standards and recruit people with antisocial personality disorder, autism, and troll for recruits on MySpace.

Also welcomed into the fold, as they look for warm bodies, are folks convicted of aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats. The number of convicted felons enlisted in the U.S. military has almost doubled in the past three years, and 43,977 individuals convicted of serious misdemeanors such as assault have enlisted under the moral waivers program.

Steve Ralls at SLDN’s The Frontlines:

And they did it all just 17 days before the scheduled end to his current, one-year commitment.

We also learned today that Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon says more troops are needed to stop the bloodshed in Iraq; that there is woefully inadequate healthcare in our veterans’ health care system; and that there are new concerns about the “surge” of troops in Iraq.

But, despite all those pressing matters to deal with, the Pentagon found time today to fire Jason Knight because he happens to be gay.

Read my exclusive Q&A with him from earlier this week.

Thanks to the good folks at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s blog The Frontlines I have a lengthy Q&A with Petty Officer Second Class Jason Knight up at my pad.

Knight was the sailor discharged under the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy who recently made headlines when he received recall orders to serve in Kuwait — and Knight had no intention of going back into the closet (see my earlier post). He talks about the current status of acceptance of gays in the military in the ranks, his views on General Peter “homosexuality is immoral” Pace, and John McCain, who recently belched out the insane statement that gays present an “intolerable risk to morale, cohesion and discipline.”

Click over to the Blend for the interview.

When there aren’t enough warm bodies to serve in Dear Leader’s Big Military Adventure, all bets are off, huh?

Jason Knight had the title of Petty Officer 3rd Class when he came out of the closet and was kicked out of the Navy under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Somehow, he was called back and is now serving — with a promotion to petty officer second class. (Stars and Stripes):

“I thought it was a joke at first,” he said, remembering the day he received his recall orders. “It was the ultimate kick in the ass. But then I thought, there isn’t much they can do to me they haven’t done the first time.”

It was comments by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that spurred Knight to come out publicly a second time. In defending the military’s policy, Pace called homosexual acts immoral and contrary to military values.

“Though I respect [Pace] as a leader, it made me so mad,” Knight said.

“I spent four years in the Navy, buried fallen servicemembers as part of the Ceremonial Guard, served as a Hebrew Linguist in Navy Intelligence, and received awards for exemplary service,” he wrote in a letter to Stripes. “However, because I was gay, the Navy discharged me and recouped my 13k sign-on bonus. Nine months later, the Navy recalled me to active duty. Did I accept despite everything that happened? Of course I did, and I would do it again. Because I love the Navy and I love my country. And despite Pace’s opinion, my shipmates support me.”

And, as we’ve seen before, his supervisors not only have no problem with Knight’s sexual orientation, they praise his work.

“He’s better than the average sailor at his job,” said Bill Driver, the leading petty officer of Knight’s 15-person customs crew in Kuwait. “It’s not at all a strange situation. As open as he is now, it was under wraps for quite a while. It wasn’t an issue at work.”

“I’ve obviously never heard of something like this happening before,” [Petty Officer 1st Class Tisha Hanson] said of Knight’s return to active duty. “But it doesn’t bother me. The Navy tends to keep people who don’t want to be here, but Jason does.”

Someone needs to ask Peter Pace a few questions, such as what happened in this case and does he have a problem with it? Is homosexuality no longer immoral? Are homos no longer an “intolerable risk to morale, cohesion and discipline?”

This will be an interesting story to tell at hearings for the Military Readiness Enhancement Act.

Hat tip to Jim Burroway, at Box Turtle Bulletin and Noonie Fortin<

***

And on the flip side, to show you what a difference it makes when you have leadership that is more concerned with gay-baiting than running their ship and defending the country, Stars and Stripes also covers homobigotry aboard the USS Kitty Hawk.

It’s after the flip.
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Well, f*ck you too, Tool, excuse my French. There is no end to the depths to which this man will sink to rope in the right wing extremist vote. (SLDN):

United States Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, has reiterated his support for the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual service members. In an April 16 letter to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), McCain says the law, passed in 1993, “unambiguously maintains that open homosexuality within the military services presents an intolerable risk to morale, cohesion and discipline.” Senator McCain goes on to incorrectly assert that the U.S. Supreme Court “has ruled that the military may constitutionally discharge a service member for overt homosexual behavior.”

“Senator McCain’s comments are out of step with the overwhelming majority of the American people, and out of touch with the best interests of our armed forces,” said Sharra E. Greer, SLDN’s director of law and policy. “‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ prevents our military from recruiting and retaining the best and brightest Americans, and undermines our country’s ability to assemble the strongest fighting force possible. Now, more than ever, elected officials should be primarily concerned about military readiness. Senator McCain’s defense of this counter-productive law is disrespectful to the more than 65,000 lesbian and gay service members on duty today.”

I want McCain to stand in a room with retired Marine Sgt. Eric Alva, the first American service member injured in Iraq, who lost a leg on March 21, 2003 when he tripped a landmine that he is an intolerable risk.

Here are snapshots of part of the letter sent to SLDN by McCain’s office. PDF is here.

In approximately a month’s time, my just turned 43-years old today, mother of three, extreme badass of a sister will head to Virginia to wait six months as an alternate to see if she has to do a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Why? Good question. My sister is currently a desk jockey in the U.S. Coast Guard. Reserve. If she goes, she’ll perform some kind of specialized work only coasties do.

When I asked her if she tried to get out of it, she said, “I volunteered. And if I don’t go, someone else will have to …”

She’s not a saint. Nor is she a rabid, Bush-supporting Republican. She’s just one of the faceless, nameless thousands I wish our leaders spent more time thinking about.

---

Background

Last week there was a ton of commentary about General Peter Pace’s remarks about homosexuality and military service, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff cited his personal views as a reason to keep Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in place.

“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe that the United States is well served by a policy that says its is okay to be immoral in any way.”

A reader, Nash, sent me a link to one piece, Running At The Wrong Pace, at The Evening Bulletin, and I thought I was going to fall out of my chair as I read it. It was a blazing indictment of the American Family Association’s nearly single-minded fixation on anything gay, calling out Don and Tim Wildmon’s use of fear and smear tactics in support of Pace’s bigotry.

The author of the editorial was none other than Joe Murray, a columnist and a former staff attorney for the AFA, which is based in Tupelo, Mississippi. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists it among “A Mighty Army” of religious right organizations that promotes homophobia through its direct mail appeals, email action alerts and columns. In an October 2004 article, the AFA Journal suggests that the Homosexual Agenda is leading to a “grotesque culture” that will include “quick encounters in the middle school boys’ restroom,” and SPLC notes that one of its fundraising letters included this gem — “Since homosexuals cannot reproduce, the only way for them to ‘breed’ is to RECRUIT! And who are their targets for recruitment? Children!“  I’ve posted  quite a bit on the organization as well.

Murray’s work is well-known here at the Blend because he’s written some of the most entertaining anti-gay columns for the AFA I’ve ever read (see my posts Bring on the Sodomy Squadron and Joe Murray, Man-on-Dog, and the Buggery Blitzkrieg). I couldn’t believe that this was the same person writing this about the AFA regarding Pace’s comments:

The American Family Association, a pro-family organization and former employer of this writer, sprung into action sending out this “action alert”: “Homosexuals working to get Marine general punished for comments calling homosexual act immoral.”

AFA then warned that the homosexual lobby “already forced [Pace] to back down a step,” and urged supporters to defend Pace and “take a stand for our troops who cannot get involved in this political situation.” AFA, like others, had pulled out its red herring.

This is not a political situation, but instead it is a situation where a high ranking official made comments that judged individuals, not ideas. Pace singled out gay soldiers during a time of war and told these men and women that they were immoral. His comments, as a military official, were over the line and not defensible.

AFA, like other “Christian” groups, chose to run to Pace’s aid and such an act suggests borderline bigoted behavior from an organization claiming the mantle of Christianity. This is disturbing.

I blogged about it here.

I decided to write Murray after putting up my post, because I really wanted to know where he was coming from, and to thank him for seeing things so clearly. I was hoping that he would agree to a discussion on how his position on LGBT issues had evolved — and I was pleasantly surprised when he enthusiastically agreed to do a Q&A.

Joe, who has also served as National Director of Correspondence for Patrick J. Buchanan’s 2000 bid for the GOP nomination, joined the AFA because it aligned with his pro-life outlook, is today uncomfortable with the label “conservative” because he feels that its definition has been hijacked by the fringe, though he’s clearly not on the progressive side of the fence politically.

While in the environment of the AFA, however, he noticed troubling signs that the efforts of the organization often didn’t resemble compassion, concern or principles of Christianity that he believes in. The hypocrisy that he saw there opened his eyes.

You’ll see that he has done a lot of soul searching about his record of homophobic commentary, and has concluded that he got it wrong.

I give Joe a lot of credit and kudos for opening up like this for Pam’s House Blend/Pandagon. It’s a rare opportunity to engage with someone who’s been on the inside of the anti-gay movement, and I appreciate the effort he put into answering some pretty frank questions; he has my respect.

*** The interview is after the flip ***
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“GO BACK TO AFRICA AND DO YOUR GAY VOODOO LIMBO TANGO AND WANGO DANCE AND JUMP AROUND AND PRANCE AND RUN ALL OVER THE PLACE HALF NAKED THERE.”
– U.S. Army recruiter Sgt. Marcia Ramode, using her military email address to respond to Jersey City resident Corey Andrew, after Ramode learned Andrew was gay.

Is this the General Peter Pace policy at work?

Corey Andrew had his profile and resume posted at Careerbuilder.com, and it caught the eye of Army recruiter Marcia Ramode, who contacted him. He wasn’t interested in a position in the military, particularly because of the ban on gays and lesbians in the military.

When Andrew informed Ramode that he is gay, and believed that the DADT policy was wrong, the two engaged in a three-day email exchange that included statements by Ramode, in her official capacity as a recruiter, that boggle the mind. (Jersey Journal):

After more prodding from Andrew on the Army’s recruitment policy, the messages escalated into a bigoted tirade. For example, Ramode told Andrew that “being gay is disgusting and immoral.”

…Steve Ralls, a director of communications for the Service Members Legal Defense Network, which helps victims of discrimination under the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, says Ramode should be fired.

“The recruiter’s remarks were outrageous and offensive in almost every way,” Ralls said. “Anti-gay harassment throughout the military is well documented but this is particularly egregious because the recruiter’s language is so homophobic and racist.”

Andrew forwarded the emails to SLDN, and, well, it blows your mind to see the calibre of people now being allowed to recruit. This is completely unacceptable, and stains the reputation of those wearing the uniform.

See screenshots of some of the actual emails after the jump. Unbelieveable…
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I’m in DC to live blog Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s 15th annual national dinner, held at the National Building Museum. Tonight the Showtime series The L Word will be honored for its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” storyline.

When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace said gays are ‘immoral’ in defense of the policy known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, he inadvertently gave the issue a high profile and attention that the misguided policy deserves.  That will be clear tonight at the SLDN dinner, where over 900 people will gather this evening in support of the repeal of DADT.

The liveblogging kicks off at 8PM, but there is a press reception an hour earlier — we’ll grab some video, audio and pictures to post up during the live blog, barring any technical gremlins.

If you’re interested, click on over later. You can read up while you wait for the events to begin — MetroWeekly has a great feature issue on the event, check out these articles already online:

* Red, White and Bleu: Bleu Copas joined the Army in the aftermath of 9/11 — but the Army decided it didn’t want his help
* Cybill Rights: ‘The L Word’s’ Cybill Shepherd on gays in the military, sexual attraction and coming out on TV
* Spreading the Word: When Pam Grier talks, you are going to listen

Here’s some coverage of yesterday’s ACT UP rally. The protest, led by gay activist Larry Kramer, was held at the U.S. Military Recruiting Center at Times Square, with marchers calling for the immediate resignation of General Peter Pace.

Jeremy of Good As You sent in some video…

Andrés@ Blabbeando has a series of excellent pics (including the one below of Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman being placed under arrest).

With home made-signs that read “Being gay is not immoral, being bigoted is,” “Torture is Immoral, Love is Fabulous,” “Pace = Hate,” and “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, General Pace Go to Hell,” a lively and lovely crowd of about 200 to 250 people showed up to the protest following Larry Kramer’s call to arms on Tuesday.

…Rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker brought along a 100 foot flag that participants used to frame the protest and surround the recruitment center.

This was the same flag that Matt Foreman and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum used at the end of the protest to stop traffic in an act of civil disobedience as they extended it across 7th Avenue. Mr. Foreman and Rabbi Kleinbaum were first warned by police officers and then quickly arrested after they sat down and would not budge.

Joe. My. God. blogs it; Andy at Towleroad has coverage as well.

Related:
* Advocacy groups turn up the heat on Clinton and Obama
* Obama and Clinton botch the ‘immorality’ question; Edwards answers it directly
* ACT UP protest of General Pace’s comments
* Republican Senator Warner trashed by WND columnist, Freepers for condemning Pace
* Sam Brownback ‘commends Pace’s leadership, personal commitment to moral principles’
* Faith, morality and a message to General Pace
* Former Sen. Simpson crushes Gen. Pace, DADT in op-ed
* Anti-gay military hack Elaine Donnelly surfaces to comment on Pace 
* Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: gays are ‘immoral’
* Gen. Pace: no apologies for calling gays immoral

This is a collection of posts from my pad on the outrageous comments by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace that gays are immoral, basing it on “his upbringing” — and using that opinion to justify Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

“I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way…As an individual, I would not want (acceptance of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else’s wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior.

***

Anti-gay military hack Elaine Donnelly surfaces to comment on Pace

I was wondering when the shrill doyenne of discrimination in the military would surface to opine on Gen. Peter Pace’s comments that gays are immoral. Elaine Donnelly of the anti-gay Center for Military Readiness surfaced in a piece at Daddy D’s CitizenLink today and it’s no surprise that she backs General Pace.

…Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said calls for an apology from Pace are “absurd,” noting that the 1993 Homosexual Conduct law, which bans homosexuals in the military, is still in effect.

“He doesn’t need to apologize for supporting that law,” she said.

Donnelly said the ban on homosexuals serving in the military, she added, exists to protect good order, discipline and unit cohesion in “conditions of forced intimacy” in which military personnel may have little or no privacy from others who might be sexually attracted to them.

“The activists who are demanding an apology from General Pace have an agenda,” Donnelly said, “an agenda that should not be imposed on the armed services, the Marine Corps or any branch of the military.”

Focus on the Family’s Stephen Adams, who wrote the article, hilariously labels Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s director of communications Steve Ralls as a “homosexual activist” for calling for an apology from Pace.  [Go Steve! ]

What is this horrible agenda SLDN is pushing? To allow trained, ready and sorely-needed service members who happen to be gay and lesbian to openly serve in the military. National security is at risk; the remarks were disrespectful to these people who are laying their lives on the line so that Ms. Donnelly has the right to bleat about how gays need to be purged from the ranks of the military. Has she served…what is her sacrifice to the cause?

Why does Elaine Donnelly hate America — is keeping qualified, skilled Arabic linguists out of the military, for instance, more important than fighting Bush’s war on terror? She’s so unhinged about gays and lesbians serving that she claimed that members of The Homosexual Agenda somehow coerced former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John M. Shalikashvili into writing a NYT op-ed that called for a re-examination and repeal of DADT. My post on that is here.

This is what she said:

Donnelly notes that Shalikashvili has in the last year or so suffered a debilitating stroke and is, in her words, “struggling to retain his health.” She says it is “really sad” to see someone like the general being used by the homosexual propaganda machine as “the latest tool of a public relations campaign.”

Now THAT’s shameful. Why, for instance, isn’t Donnelly concerned about the following bits of business that have made the news…after the flip.
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[UPDATE : I wonder what Pace thinks of Matt Sanchez’s interview on The Michelangelo Signorile show yesterday — see the end of the post.
UPDATE 2: SLDN’s Steve Ralls says you can send a message politely taking Pace to task by filling out the DoD comment form online, or call the Pentagon directly, at (703) 428-0711.
UPDATE 3: Freeper reactions are below the fold.]

Well it’s nice to see a refreshing, frank, Tim Hardaway kind of anti-gay statement coming from the military leadership, which has presided over countless immoral military acts in Iraq. Way to go. [Think Progress has the audio of Pace.]

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday that he supports the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving in the military because homosexuality is “immoral” and on par with having an extramarital affair.

…Addressing the controversial policy as part of a wide-ranging interview with the Tribune in Chicago, Pace said the military should not “condone” immoral behavior by allowing gay soldiers to serve openly. He said his views were based on his “upbringing,” in which certain types of conduct were thought to be immoral.

…Pace did not address concerns raised by a 2005 government audit that showed some 10,000 troops have been discharged because of the policy. Among those discharged were more than 322 linguists, including 54 Arabic specialists, according to the Government Accountability Office report.

“The real question is: what is moral about discharging qualified linguists during a time of war simply for being gay or lesbian?” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group. “Our military needs the best qualified men and women who are willing to serve in the military, protect our freedoms and preserve our American values of equality.”

Uh, what does Pace’s upbringing have to do with military readiness and effectiveness? This is not the kind of leadership the military needs when medically unfit soldiers being shipped to Iraq, roaches and rat droppings are in the hospital rooms of wounded vets, and there is a shortage of trained people waiting to serve whose only “crime” is being gay.

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) didn’t hold back and calls for Pace to apologize.

“General Pace’s comments are outrageous, insensitive and disrespectful to the 65,000 lesbian and gay troops now serving in our armed forces,” said C. Dixon Osburn, the group’s executive director.  “Our men and women in uniform make tremendous sacrifices for our country, and deserve General Pace’s praise, not his condemnation.  As a Marine and a military leader, General Pace knows that prejudice should not dictate policy.  It is inappropriate for the Chairman to condemn those who serve our country because of his own personal bias.  He should immediately apologize for his remarks.”

…The Williams Project at the University of California-Los Angeles estimates at least 65,000 lesbian and gay Americans are currently serving on active duty and the reserves.  Another 1 million gay Americans, the group has estimated, are veterans of the armed forces.

“Regardless of one’s opinion about `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ every service member deserves respect,” said Osburn.  “Secretary of Defense Gates should immediately condemn Pace’s remarks.  Their apologies should be swift and sincere.”

Personally, I think Pace should resign — contact your members of Congress and tell them that.

Anyone who would denigrate the gays and lesbians who are already serving — many openly in their units where their commanding officer and colleagues are accepting — doesn’t deserve to lead. Pace has nowhere to hide on this one. Unacceptable.

John is spot-on:

No, I’d say “immoral” is letting our own injured and maimed soldiers sleep in their own urine when you all knew about it and didn’t give a damn. Immoral is lying to the American people in order to get us into a war. Immoral is sending hundreds of thousands of US soldiers into battle without the proper armor. Immoral is risking the lives of our soldiers by still not having a plan for victory or exit.

Actually, Pace is right in line with the thinking of the knuckledraggers over at WingNutDaily:

What is your reaction to the latest campaign to install ‘gays’ in military?

UPDATE: Military man, darling of Fox and conservatives like Ann Coulter, former f*ck for hire and gay porn star Matt Sanchez was on the Michelangelo Signorile Show yesterday and declared that he’s not gay.

Surf over to Joe.My.God to listen to clips of the show, where he evades questions about DADT, his life in porn, and gay bloggers. Joe:

Signorile was led in circles for most of the interview, getting Sanchez to at least declare that he is not gay, never was, and that he willed himself into erections during all that man-fucking. Set your bullshit detectors on high.

One of the ironies of Sanchez’s appearance, with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff mooing about the immorality of homosexuality, is that Sanchez says he has spoken to the Marine Corps and was told that he didn’t have to worry about getting kicked out. Has Pace been notified of this?

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