Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Don't ask, don't tell and the political farce

Don't ask, don't tell, a military policy started under President Clinton as a compromise, had a shot of being repealed today. It was shot down. In fact, it never came to a vote.

The political silliness that started this ball rolling downhill, was trying to attach it to a military spending bill and run it rough shod through the Senate. All Republicans and a couple of Democrats voted to not vote on it.

But there's more. Harry Reid also attached an immigration reform bill to it, making it an even bigger political show.

Why must military funding get hijacked by political shenanigans? It should be a stand alone bill. In fact, bills of this magnitude should be stand alone anyway.

Politics should have nothing to do with sound military doctrine or policies anyway.

In fact, even one of the writers of the immigration bill voted it down in a direct showing in defiance of politics and military funding.

But people who supported the two cargo bills knew this. They knew neither would pass. They wanted to shove this out there in hopes of scoring political points against those who voted against it. But the American people are smarter, we hope.

This is not about gays in the military. Never has been. Gays have served in the military. Admirably. Anyone who has served, knows this. But we kept our mouths shut 99% of the time. It was a non issue. People kept to themselves, did their jobs, and moved on.

But now we have political people, many who have not served in the military, trying to somehow equate the military with social justice. The military is no such animal. We kill them all, ask questions later, for one example. We drop bombs. We break things. We kill people. Sometimes innocent bystanders. In war and defense of this country, that is a sad reality.

The military cannot be used for someone's perceived political justice. The military does not operate that way. In fact, is the exact opposite of political justice. If it weren't, the military would be a complete failure. Everything the military tries to accomplish in times of war, goes head to head with political justice.

Getting back to gays. If being gay in the military is a problem, then it must be treated the same as anyone and anything that causes a problem for the mission at hand. That goes for heterosexual as well. People get kicked out of the military for all sorts of reasons. Being gay is just not something that people are routinely kicked out for, even though some politicians want you to believe.

Since the war in Iraq began, almost 30,000 military personnel have been kicked out. Of these, about 2,100 have been gay. As stated above, if you just do your job, nobody says anything much. If you cause problems, gay or straight, that's when trouble starts. Why do you need to broadcast certain personal things to the world?

>>How to fly the flag.

>>Homeless veterans benefits.

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