US Homophobes Helping Our Enemies

You read that right. Homophobes in the United States are traitors. No, make that Traitors, with a capital "T." They are giving comfort to our enemies, jeopardizing our efforts to protect the homeland, and putting us all at greater risk. I expect them to be rounded up and their trials to begin immediately.

{You drinking this early, Ed?}
{Not yet, Just thought I'd try a bit of Coulter-esque rhetoric on for size...think I'm gonna need a shower when I'm done here.}

OK, this is not a particularly new story on the blogosphere, but the New York Times had an editorial about it today as it turns out that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in our military had not ejected 9 linguist translators from the service as reported long ago, but actually as many as 20 linguists, including Arabic language translators, because they were discovered to be gay:

Don't ask, don't tell - just scream in frustration: it turns out that 20 of the Arabic speakers so vitally needed by the nation have been thrown out of the military since 1998 because they were found to be gay. It is hard to imagine a more wrongheaded rebuff of national priorities. The focus must be on the search for Osama bin Laden and his terrorist legions, not the closet door. The Pentagon's snooping after potential gays trumps what every investigative agency in the war on terror has admitted is a crucial shortage of effective Arabic translators.

After the first World Trade Center attack, in 1993, government agents revealed an alarming shortage of Arabic speakers. Key notes, videotapes and a phone call pertaining to the attack were later found in a backlog of untranslated investigative data. The shortage continued right up to and well beyond the 9/11 attacks. Three years after the towers were destroyed, the F.B.I., rife with translation problems, admitted it had an untranslated backlog of 120,000 hours of intercepts with potential value about looming threats. At the State Department, a study showed that only one in five of the 279 Arabic translators were fluent enough to handle the subtleties of the language, with its many regional dialects.

The military's experience is no more encouraging, with intelligence results muddied at times by a rush, as one inquiry put it, to recruit Arab convenience store owners and cabdrivers, who couldn't handle the task. The military is right to rely more on its language schools, but it can take several years to produce fluent graduates. The folly of using "don't ask, don't tell" policy against such precious national resources amounts to comfort for the enemy.

Personally, I find this mind-staggeringly offensive on so many levels (as a gay, as a citizen, as a mammal with a spinal cord and brain), but of course how can you both deny gay Americans the personal dignity to marry the person they love AND let them serve their country openly. They must be demonized. Stopping the threat gays represents requires sacrificing a bit of national security. You can always tell the weeping mothers of an American lost in another attack, "Hey, cheer up, at least those fags can't leave their inheritances to each other."

Simply shameful.

Comments

[James Casey]

Double post - just in case you've not spotted yet.

[Edward]

Double post - just in case you've not spotted yet.

Ok, so maybe there's just a drop of whiskey in my hot chocolate... ;-p

thanks for the head's up.

[Anarch]

the New York Times had an editorial about it today...

Heck, The Daily Show had an editorial about it a few days ago. Get with the times, man!

[Edward]

Heck, The Daily Show had an editorial about it a few days ago. Get with the times, man!

Yeah, I was surprised the Times ran that editorial today as well...it does seem like old news. Although, the point has not been addressed by the powers that be, so the beatings will continue until attitudes improve...

[cleek]

even if someone's said it before, it bears repeating.

[votermom]

We don't need translators, Edward, doncha know torturing prisoners will magically make them spill the beans in English.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Did the NYT really just now report this story. I swear I've known about it since at least November 2001. And yes, the military's ban on homosexuals is stupid. I have quite a few friends in the military who are constantly worrying about being found out. It is sad.

[Stan LS]

Didn't see this get much play, either:

Despite a shortage of Arabic translators, the FBI turned down applications for linguist jobs from nearly 100 Arabic-speaking Jews in New York following the World Trade Center attacks, WorldNetDaily has learned.

[Anarch]

Did the NYT really just now report this story. I swear I've known about it since at least November 2001.

The original story was that six linguists were fired for their sexuality. The FBI, I think it was, just came clean this past week and upped the number to twenty.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"The original story was that six linguists were fired for their sexuality. The FBI, I think it was, just came clean this past week and upped the number to twenty."

Wait, wait, wait. I'm confused. The article talks about the problems that the FBI has getting to translators and also talks about the military firing people because they are gay. Is the FBI firing people because they are gay? That would be news to me.

Assuming that they aren't, I know this isn't the ideal solution (which would be for people to wake the heck up and realize that there isn't anything wrong with being gay), but why doesn't the FBI hire those who were fired by the military?

[praktike]

Yeah, but aren't you worried that these translators might make their translations sound "all gay and stuff"?

[Jesurgislac]

The American military ban on gays looks particularly stupid now virtually no other Western nation feels that it's impossible to have out-of-the-closet gays serving in the military. (I actually can't think of a single one that does, but I'm willing to be corrected.)

What is the Pentagon waiting for - all the military homophobes to die off or otherwise quit being obstructionist?

[Bernard Yomtov]

This is an indescribably stupid policy.

An Administration that puts catering to anti-homosexual bigotry ahead of national security is supposed to make us safer?

[hilzoy]

Jeez, Bernard, where are your priorities? ;)

[Katherine]

The American people are ahead of their leaders on this one, if those poll results are anywhere near right.

A new poll has found that 79 percent of all Americans believe that gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, which was conducted December 5-7, 2003, surveyed 1,004 adults. Survey participants were asked, "Do you think people who are openly gay or homosexual should - or should not - be allowed to serve in the U.S. military?"

In the 18-29 year age range, 91 percent said that gays should be allowed to serve openly. Those aged 30-49, 50-64, and 65 and over were 81, 74, and 68 percent respectively.

Seventy-three percent of men, and 85 percent of women, responded affirmatively.

The numbers show a significant improvement over earlier polls.

An August, 2003 Fox News poll found that 64 percent of the public believed that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military. Previously, a 2001 survey published by MIT Press found that 56 percent of civilian respondents believed that gays should be allowed to serve openly.

I'm also interested in the variance/trend of those polls. Some of it must be the phrasing of the question or sample selection, but it also looks like something else is going on. Part of it is generational, but generational change doesn't happen this quickly.

I maintain that the gay marriage push has actually led the public to become much, much more pro-gay rights in areas like employment discrimination, to say nothing of civil unions. It's swung the "I'm not homophobic but..."/ "I believe in equal rights but..." folks into support of more moderate improvements in gay rights.

Calling on the better angels of our nature could work for politicians--in this area, in the debate over torture too. We all want to feel good about ourselves. Like Digby said,

It's not that I believe that all Americans are horrified, or even a majority of Americans are horrified. Clearly, the dittoheads think it is just ducky. But that isn't the point. Just because they aren't horrified or even endorse it on some level doesn't mean that they don't know that it's wrong. They do. And it is very uncomfortable to be put in the position of defending yourself when you know you are wrong. Even good people find ways, but it cuts a little piece out of their self respect every time they do it.

You don't have to agree with what he said about "dittoheads" to see his point....Look at how many people were willing to argue against von. Exactly zero. Look at the success of a Barack Obama. Look at Russell Feingold beating John Kerry easily in a swing state. You can do the right thing and win, sometimes.

This isn't meant as a threadjack. The same principle applies to gays in the military. "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is stupid. It's contrary to national security--most glaringly so when it comes to Arabic-speaking linguists, but across the board at a time when we're calling up retired grandmothers from the national guard and sending them to Iraq for one more tour. It's wrong. At some level I think the President must know it's wrong. And it's not even popular anymore. Yet somehow, no one dares to touch it.

It's as if politicians have so internalized consultants' messages that they think that whenever you do something good you'll suffer politically--even when the polls show no evidence of this at all. They all praise the decency and good sense of the American people to the skies in their speeches, but they act like they don't trust us at all--not our intelligence, and not our decency.

I'm sick of seeing our leaders asssume the worst about us. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Katherine]

Here's the original Daily Show report on this, from way back in 2002(ish).

[Jay C]

Well, Katherine, while I, for one, agree 110% with your comment

"At some level I think the President must know it's wrong. And it's not even popular anymore. Yet somehow, no one dares to touch it."

the pure political fact remains that this current President owes his election, in no non-trivial part, to the support of precisely that voting bloc who are all too willing to exploit homophobic bigotry (most usually wrapped in the mantle of religion) for political advantage. Whether or not this is in line with the majority of Americans is, of course, to the Bushophiles, irrelevant: after all, Dear Leader has already claimed his "mandate" from the last election as a blanket vindication of any and all policies past, present and, presumably, future.
While it is certainly a positive to learns that (even via Fox News)

"...64 percent of the public believed that gays should be allowed to serve openly in the military."

as long as obsessive creatures like James Dobson (see today's NY Times for an article on his latest homophobic fetish - you'll be surprised who he has "outed"!) have the overblown political leverage on the present Admistration that they do, it will be a long time (hopefully, just four more years) before gay Americans get anything more from the National government (which their taxes, too, go to support) than the sort of semi-tolerance, semi-obloquy which is the current status quo - and, of course, the wonderful and unique advantage of being the despised-minority-du-jour in a nominally tolerant democracy.

[Jay C]

PS: Sorry about the lack of link re James Dobson's latest bashing: a helpful reminder re how to post links would be appreciated!

[Edward]

It's as if politicians have so internalized consultants' messages that they think that whenever you do something good you'll suffer politically--even when the polls show no evidence of this at all.

I think it's simplier than that. There are issues on which it doesn't pay to be out there by yourself.

Look at Social Security. Most of the Republican Congressfolk will tell you that they're not going to vote for changes unless the Dems do too. They know how easy it would be for their opponents to use that against them in the next elections. Does this mean they don't believe that changes/cuts/etc. are appropriate? No. They just don't believe it strongly enough to end their career over it.

[votermom]

helpful reminder re how to post links would be appreciated!

like this:
[a href="http://something/whatever.com"] whatever [/a]

except instead of [ ] use the greater than and lesser than symbols

[Jay C]

Thank, vm: hopefully James Dobson's latest idiocy can be more easily spotted a href= "http//:www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/politics/20sponge.html?adxnnl=199hpib=9oref=login&adxnnlx-110624771-FwRmlyCvxgv3rsmyEvqK/w here /a

[Jay C]

Oops, guess not!

[Anarch]

Jay: Type this...

<a href="http://something/whatever.com"> whatever </a>

Make sure that you close those quotation marks too, otherwise serious weirdness will ensue.