Thursday, May 24, 2007

More gay Arab linguists discharged

Lawmakers who say the military has kicked out 58 Arabic linguists because they were gay want the Pentagon to explain how it can afford to let the valuable language specialists go.

Seizing on the latest discharges, involving three specialists, members of the House of Representatives wrote the House Armed Services Committee chairman that the continued loss of such “capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war.” (Army Times)

Yes this is incredibly asinine and yes this policy needs to be abolished. Yet talk about political nonsense, it doesn't matter if the top leadership in the all branches of the military are raging homophobes. Thanks to President Clinton and Congress, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is the law of the land which military leaders are bound to obey. I agree with this Congressman that it is stupid and needs to be repealed, but that's Congress' job and not the Pentagon. Instead of this farce in dressing down the military, Congress should focus on passing the Military Readiness Enhancement Act which repeals DADT.

0 comments: