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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Rachel Tells All

. It's all about the U.S. military this week. Rachel Maddow traveled to Afghanistan last week and broadcast an entire week of her shows from there, and the news wasn't heartening. She highlighted the extent to which we are paying millions and millions of dollars to bribe Afghans not to kill us, or to build Afghan city services, which is especially discouraging considering that so many American cities are begging for money to shore up desperately needed social services or crumbling infrastructure. Millions of our tax dollars are also finding their way into the pockets of the Afghani elite, who are using the money to build huge homes surrounded by high security walls. And then, of course, these are the same people who are quick to tell our military leaders whatever our leaders want to hear, because it's in the interest of those Afghani elite to keep us in their country as long as possible. Most shocking, though, was when Rachel interviewed an American military leader who explained our current strategy, afterwhich Rachel asked him, "Okay, if that plan doesn't work, what's our 'Plan B'?" The military leader didn't have an answer. Wow. People, we are fucked in Afghanistan; it's Vietnam all over again, period. It's time to get out. And our Plan B should be to get out.
. Coming on the heels of Rachel's stellar reporting, was the news that the U.S. military was about to issue a survey to current service members asking them their opinions about serving with openly gay service members. Typical questions were, "How would you feel about showering with a gay person?", and "What would you do if another service member brought someone of their own gender to a military-sponsored social event?". Multiple choice responses followed the questions, one being, "Would it make you less likely to want to serve in the U.S. military?". We couldn't believe it; it's truly difficult to imagine that this type of ignorance and homophobia is still so rampant in American society in 2010. First, can you believe that the military asked its members what they thought about a military order? Doesn't that fly in the face of everything we've ever heard about how the U.S. Military works? We always thought that once orders are given, it's the soldier's job to follow them. Period. We don't remember hearing very many examples of generals asking their soldiers in World War II, "Well, guys, I'd like to take that hill. What do you think? Would taking that hill make you less likely to want to be in my unit?" When the U.S. President issues the order that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has ended, and that openly gay people can serve openly in the U.S. military, isn't it the job of the soldiers to follow and respect that order, or be court-martialed? Or are we missing something here? Can you imagine if white soldiers were asked in the 1940's if Black people should be allowed to serve, or if male soldiers in the 1970's were asked how they felt about women serving beside them? . But even if you take the survey at face value, believing that the creators of the survey really believed they were helping to head off mass protestations and anger among the ranks of the military, even that notion is a little shocking. Because to believe that that was the motive of the survey creators is to realize that those creators are hopelessly mired in their own homophobia and 1950's-era ignorance. Gay people have served in the U.S. military since the beginning of American history, and in 2010, most "straight" service members know this, understand it, and for the most part, don't have a problem with it. Because as we all know, the quickest way to end homophobia is to place a straight with a gay, and in very little time, that straight person realizes that gay people aren't really very different from anyone else. We would venture to guess that most straight service members already know that they've been showering with gay service members, and sharing barracks and foxholes with them, for a long, long time, and are probably laughing their asses off at the thought that our military leaders are the very top think they can't handle it. It's time for Pres. Obama to end this ridiculous issue right now; he should end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" immediately, and let us start to put this shameful chapter of our American history behind us.

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