Colin, Barack and DADT

It will have no effect,

  The push for dumping DADT is further then the reach of Powell.  Elaine Donnelly and he tribe made complete asses of them selves in the last hearing.

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 15:22:34 PM CDT

Speed it up

If Powell can bring the recalcitrant right-winger militarists along, DADT might be gone before the snows of this winter!

Just like only Nixon could go to China, if the four-star the GOP always approvingly quotes now says DADT must go -- then it will go, and quickly.

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by: TeddySanFran @ Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 15:47:09 PM CDT

Powell and DADT

Colin Powell knows the military as well as anyone alive.  And I don't just mean the American military, but the armed services of every substantial nation in the world.  And that, in my mind, is the thing that makes his support for DADT so heinous.

As we all know, virtually all of our allies--Britain, France, Israel, the UK, Australia and on and on--permit openly gay persons to serve in their armies.  Which is to say that the American forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are serving--have served--side by side with openly gay service people for years.  And there has not been one incident of unpleasantness reported.  Not one instance of this harming morale or "unit cohesion."  Not one.

Colin Powell knows this, as well as anyone does.  Yet his support for discrimination has been unwavering.  I hope he really has had second thoughts about the policy.  Only time will tell us that.  As things stand, Powell is one more shining example of Republican hypocrisy, arguing for political advantage something he knows very well to be untrue.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  

-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 15:59:11 PM CDT

Exactly...

And just as importantly a legal scholar named Bill Clinton knew exactly what he was doing. The explanation is that they were, are, all bigots or at best pandering to bigots.

If they move to abolish DADT it won't be becasue the Democrats have a sudden change of heart and give up the bigotry that led them to vote overwhelmingly for DADT and DOMA, to trash ENDA and to ditch the hate crimes bill.

It'll be because of Obama's stated intent to stay in the Middle East and he'll attempt, ala Nixon, to win an unwinnable war. That requires cannon fodder, which is why the bigoted discharges under DADT have dwindeled at about the same rate as the number of coffins flown into DC rises.  


The looter rich much prefer working with Democrats like Obama and the Clintons - they're greedier, they fool more people and they're able to get away with a lot more than Republicans.  

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by: donal1944 @ Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 21:55:18 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Europe Leads The Way. Again.

Many European countries have banned their militaries from discriminating against LGB servicemen & women in the way that US military must under DADT. I haven't noticed any drop in morale as a result - in fact, I've heard high praise coming from US servicemen and women regarding their British LGB counterparts. The only notable case I can think of where LGB issues came up is one where a British lesbian officer was subjected to sexual harassment by a male officer; under DADT she would probably have said nothing for fear of losing the ability to serve her country, leaving the male officer free to intimidate other women.

I have no doubt that, having worked closely with the British military since DADT was passed, Colin Powell has seen that it's a load of bigoted and discriminatory bullcrap and needs to be removed ASAP.

____________________________________
Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.

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by: tavdy79 @ Sun Oct 19, 2008 at 16:19:33 PM CDT

Don't bet on it

Powell says differently - with Tim Russert last year:

MR. RUSSERT: The only two countries from the original NATO group that do not allow openly gay people to serve in the military are the U.S. and Portugal. Is it a time to do away with "don't ask, don't tell" and allow openly gay people to serve in the military?

GEN. POWELL: I think the, the country has changed in its attitudes quite a bit. "Don't ask, don't tell" was an appropriate response to the situation back in 1993. And the country certainly has changed. I don't know that it has changed so much that this would be the right thing to do now. My, my, my successor, General Shalikashvili has written a letter about this.

MR. RUSSERT: Yes.

GEN. POWELL: He thinks it has changed sufficiently. But he ends his letter by saying, "We're in a war right now, and let's not do this right now." My own judgment is that gays and lesbians should be allowed to have maximum access to all aspects of society. In the State Department, we had a very open policy, we had gay ambassadors. I swore in gay ambassadors with their partners present. But the military is different. It is unique. It exists for one purpose and that's to apply state violence. And in the intimate confines of military life, in barracks life, where we tell you who you're going to live with, where we tell you who you're going to sleep with, we have to have a different set of rules. I will not second-guess the commanders who are serving now, just as I didn't want to be second-guessed 12 or 13 years ago. But I think the country is changing. We may eventually reach that point. I'm not sure.

MR. RUSSERT: Is it inevitable?

GEN. POWELL: I don't know if it's inevitable, but I think it's certainly moving in that direction. I just don't-I'm not convinced we have reached that point yet, and I will let the military commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Congress make the judgment. Remember, it is the Congress who put this into law. It was a policy. And that's all I wanted it to be was a policy change, but it was Congress in 1993 that made it a matter of law. And so there are some proposed pieces of legislation up there. I don't know if all of the candidates the other night who were saying it ought to be overturned have co-signed that or introduced law. But it's a matter of law now, not a matter of military policy.

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by: tiponeill @ Mon Oct 20, 2008 at 12:40:48 PM CDT

[ Parent ]