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Military intelligence

Stupidity at this level is nearly criminal. The US Army dismissed six Arabic language translators on grounds which had nothing to do with their ability to serve and protect the USA.

Yes, the US military does need some transformational changes. Some of its’ people need to be transformed into residents of the 21st Century – instead of the 19th. I want a military whose first concern is accomplishing their mission. One uses the resources at hand whether one likes them or not.

Nothing else matters worth a damn but winning this war before millions of us die.

24 comments to Military intelligence

  • Mike

    I’m not sure how to react to this story as a graduate from the military school in question in the late 70’s. We lost about 20 gay students from our course just before graduation. Of course we had lost others earlier for drug use, disciplinary infractions and bad grades. I believe the course completion rate was around 65%. The military expects to lose alot of the students and the students all know what is required to stay in.

    That said, this is an intelligence school and all the students need to maintain high security clearances. We were told that an entire class of bulgarian linguists had lost their clearances, and been given different jobs (painting rocks), because they had each been sent a congratulations card by the bulgarian embassy on graduation.

    Any behavior that could be used by an enemy to blackmail a soldier is grounds for losing their clearance. If the soldiers are engaging in an activity that they would want to hide from the military, they are a danger and cannot be trusted with classified material.

    The military spent many thousand dollars training them to do a job. They knew the rules and the consequences. Sex in the barracks is not permitted, regardless of the participants gender, and if you tell your commander you’re gay, you know you’re going to be discharged. In fact soldiers sometimes confess to being gay, true or not, just to get out. These soldiers volunteered for the military to do a job, they knew the rules and took the training, and wasted alot of taxpayer money.

  • The logic is sound. Therefore an ‘out’ gay, who can hardly be blackmailed for being gay, is not a security risk.

    The rational thing is therefore to require disclosure of one’s sexual predilections (hetro, gay, bi, s&m, goat lover, whatever) and once that is established as a matter of record, that should be the end of the matter.

  • Felonious Punk

    The problem is, Perry, if the servicemember in question discloses that he or she is gay, then they are out of the service. It’s a Catch 22. In effect, the only reason sexual orientation is potentially blackmailable is because the military kicks you out for it. What a sad situtation.

    Being gay in no way affects your ability to do a particular job. As Barry Goldwater said it, “You don’t have to be straight to shoot straight.” Since sexual orientation in no way prevents you from being able to kill the enemy, it shouldn’t be an issue. Hell, considering who our enemy now is, I think we could get quite a few motivated homosexual recruits.

    Also, it’s a policy that’s very unevenly enforced. There are units (like some I’ve been in, including one I commanded) where the issue is ignored. The services need to drop this dumb policy. It’s counterproductive and embarrassing. Allowing gays to serve certainly hasn’t hurt the great IDF, I seriously doubt that it would hurt the US military either.

  • That was rather my whole point, Felonious… rather than kick people how because they make whoopie with guys/goats/gummibears etc., just register their favoured weirdness and thus remove any security implications it might have.

  • I agree with you, Perry, but I also agree with Mike, that those discharged were looking to get discharged. Even if gays were allowed (as they should be), these men would have found other grounds for dismissal. Either these men didn’t want to serve out their commitment or they had an agenda from the start.

  • Ryan Waxx

    Sometimes, life in the military involves hard descisions. Small, unimportant descisions like ‘who do you tell to charge the machine gun nest and likely die while the others move to flank?.’

    You’ll forgive me if I sound skeptical that the sgt is going to send his male lover to do that job. Or that if he sends someone else’s lover and that person dies, that unit cohesion does not break down rapidly.

    Of course, during peacetime, several levels of sgt also controls who gets reccommended for promotion. And interdependence between soldiers obviously goes beyond the sgt-soldier relationship.

    This isn’t 19th century that these people are ‘stuck’ in… it is the 4th, or whichever one it was that they invented logic in.

    Fucking your bunkie makes for bad soldiering.

    With the excpetion of the ‘clearances’ catch-22, the only soldiers who are affected by a ‘don’t ask-don’t tell’ policy is the ones who out themselves either by stupidity/carelessness or because they want to make a political point. The army is not the place to play politics. There are several reasons for this, and a great many regulations against it (like not showing up at political rallies in uniform).

    There are a great many straights serving the U.S. military with honor. The best of them don’t make an issue of their sexual alignment.

    Now substitute the word ‘gays’ for ‘straights’ in the above paragraph. Why should it be any less true?

    BTW I agree that the same ‘rules’ do not apply to interactions between straights. This cuts both ways: Do you really want to see seperate basic training for gays, as they do with men and women?

  • David Carr

    Perry

    Whilst I agree with the thrust (ahem!) of your point, I do see some potential embarrassments by use of the ‘open register’ approach.

    An admission to the effect of: “Yes, I am gay and I have a particular weakness for men in uniform” might lead some to question the motivation for joining the service in the first place.

  • Scott Janssens: You are probably correct… I was speaking more as a matter of general principle.

  • Walter E. Wallis

    Hire them back, civil service, for twice the pay. Most of those civil servants are gay, anyway.

  • Ryan Waxx

    Wallis… Now THAT’s an idea!

    Though unfortunately it wouldn’t work as a matter of general policy (natch!). Peoplewould be claiming to be gay all the time to transfer to civil service.

  • RK Jones

    If one were to suggest that there should be no gays in the military, any of Ryan’s points would be fine. He states however, that any gays who are ‘outed’ are either careless or political; while in the same breath suggesting that they should be more like straights in not making an issue of sexuality

    As some units actively ferret out gays (a common tactic being to stake out the nearest gay club), the above suggestion is code for, ‘it is ok for gays to be in the military so long as they don’t actually have a sexual alignment.’ Often, when people say that gays make an issue of their sexuality, they simply don’t wish to see two men kissing. When gays are allowed to engage in exactly the same behaviour in the same venues as straights, then no one will have to make an issue of sexuality.

  • Ryan Waxx

    Oh, I’m speaking in code am I?

    001100100101010110011

    That’s binary for ‘take your false characterizations and screw off’. You can be gay without holding a parade.

    And if some units actively ferret out gays(which I notice you haven’t provided a link or other proof for), then that would be a criticism that they aren’t following the ‘don’t ask’ part of the policy, rather than a criticism of the policy itself, now wouldn’t it?

  • RK Jones

    Ryan,
    If I have mischaracterized you, I apologize. However, when looking at ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ as a policy, the question of what behavior is permissible for members of the military is important. Should there be a different standard of conduct for gays? Is open sexual conduct in general prohibited by the UCMJ? If so, is a seperate rule concerning gay conduct neccesary?

    You raised some interesting questions in your original post concerning the effects of homosexuality on military effectiveness and morale. There are several nations who allow gays in their armed forces, Israel among them. Presumably there have been studies documenting these negative effects. However, due to the lack of links or other proof in your earlier post, we have no way to judge them.

    Does “fucking your bunkie make for bad soldiering?” I don’t know. In my opinion however, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is a flawed policy. If it is destructive to morale to have gays in the military, then don’t have them. If it isn’t then don’t worry about it. The current policy is nothing more than an attempt to curry favor with the gay community while not alienatiing anyone.

  • Ryan Waxx

    As to your question about differing standards for homosexual/hetrosexual relations:

    Homosexuality has to be treated differently for practical reasons. First, as I said before, the military has some sex-seperation that cannot (or at least SHOULD not) be replicated with gays. Seperate basic training, serperate showers, etc. This seperation, plus the greater number of men than women in the service, keeps the amount of hetero sex-relations problems down to something manageable, or at least controllable.

    But lets assume that you are serious about equality. You want everyone treated the same?

    OK, we will treat gay+gay relations like we do man+women relations

    Lets have seperate showers and basic training for gays, plus you can’t assign 2 gays to a 2-man room (just like you would not assign a male soldier and a female soldier to the same 2-man room).

    What is that you say? Seperating gays out would be discrimination?

    OK, we will treat man+woman relations like we do gay+straight relations

    But since we have to treat everyone equal, now we have to chuck all rules regarding gender seperation. Men and women training together, showering together, sleeping together.

    We could save a lot of money too. We would not have to redesign our subs to allow women their privacy.

    But, pal, I would NOT want to be in your shoes when you propose that to congress.

    Treating everyone exactly equal creates a lot more problems then just trying to be reasonable and strike a balance. You are absolutely, utterly right when you say that DA/DT is flawed. I will go you one further: It is impossible to implement completely.

    Because top-shelf security clearances demand that people look for things that could be used as blackmail, and ‘Don’t ask’ demands that if that thing is homosexuality, that you may not look. That is a contradiction that cannot be resolved without comprimising one of the rules.

    DA/DT has problems. In particular, it ends up being harder on gays than other folk. But it does a better job than the alternatives, especially if you have sensible people enforcing it. Its when you get idiots (on either side), that problems occur.

    As I’ve said, there are a lot of things you can’t do as a soldier that would be perfectly all right for a civilian. And if I can’t ‘out’ myself as an environmentalist and sue my commander for driving tanks near wetlands, then maybe a gay can’t ‘out’ himself and sleep with whomever he wants.

    The military is different than the civilian world, and unfortuately it has to be that way to work properly.

  • Dale Amon

    It’s good to see the general discussion, but my point was a very particular one. We need all the native american Arabic speakers we can possibly get our hands on. This is a critical issue that impacts the lives and safety of americans everywhere.

    You can argue all you want about combat postings; I could jump in and take either side myself; but I’m very specifically pointing at critical skills that are dangerously short supply.

    This is like being in battle at Arnhem and deciding to toss any ammo box that got dinged in the glider landing into the river ’cause its’ not quite up to MilSpec any more.

    It’s ridiculous.

  • Ryan Waxx

    I agree we need arabic speakers. Forgive me if

    > ‘Some of its’ people need to be transformed into residents of the 21st Century – instead of the 19th. ‘

    sounded a lot like calling the brass a bunch of homophobes. You weren’t, were you?

    If we are only talking about this specific instance, then I think we can agree that Walter Wallis’s plan is the ticket. The grunts aren’t the only ones who deal with the enemy, as that poor CIA chap in Tora Bora found out.

  • RK Jones

    Given the litigious mindset in the U.S. it would seem difficult, even in wartime, for an exception to be made for one small M.O.S. to the general policy. Is it ludicrous? Yes, but that’s the world we live in.

  • I don’t normally disagree with Libertarian bloggers, but you are wrong, wrong, wrong on the subject of the discharge of the Arabic linguists for violating the “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy of the armed forces.

    Read the article. These soldiers knew that they were in violation of the policy. They deliberately engineered this fiasco to put the military in an untenable position: Either let the policy slide (which would effectively end it) or discharge a soldier with a critically important skill. The military made the right decision, because an army where a private soldier is allowed to dictate policy to his superiors is not an army that wins wars.

    Think about it this way: These soldiers were more interested in advancing their own political agenda than they were in fighting America’s enemies. They put their selfish desires ahead of the security of the nation they pledged to defend. They also violated the oath they swore to obey the laws and regulations of the military and the orders of their superiors. These are good soldiers?

    As a 20-year veteran and an NCO still serving in the armed forces, I don’t want someone like that in the foxhole next to me. I want someone who is willing to put the security of the nation first, someone who takes his orders seriously, even when he doesn’t like them. Do you think I liked every order I was given over the past 20 years?

    The proper analogy to this is the case of Spc Michael New [for those not familiar with US Army ranks, a specialist is just above private in rank and receives higher pay, but is not a noncommissioned officer]. You may (or may not) remember that back in 1994 or 95, Specialist New, who was assigned as a medic in the 3rd Infantry division in Germany, informed his commander that he would NOT obey the commander’s order to put UN insignia on his uniforms, nor would he deploy with his assigned unit to Macedonia beacause he believed it was illegal/unconstitutional for him to be placed under UN command. New characterized his position as being in opposition to Clinton’s foreign policy, and many right-wingers rallied to his cause. I was on a few conservative message boards and I was one of the few voices that was saying he deserved what was coming to him (which was a court-martial and a bad-conduct discharge for failing to obey a lawful order.) The reason was that, even though I opposed Clinton’s foreign policy as much as New did, when I signed up for the military, I agreed to carry out the policies of the US, whatever they may be. The day we have an army where a private gets to dictate the legality of his orders to his superiors is the day we cease to have an army.

    These linguists didn’t get drafted. They volunteered, and they knew (or should have known) what the military policy on homosexuality is. If they didn’t like it, they should have chosen another career path.

    As for the US military getting with the ’21st century’, I’ll let the insult slide but will simply comment that the reason the military of the US is so conservative is because that’s who joins. The military is no different than any other organization – it reflects the politics of its members. If liberals and libertarians want to change the military, they’re going to have to put their principles where their mouths are and join up. Otherwise, the military is going to stay what it is and all the pissing and moaning in the world won’t change it.

    Serving in the armed forces is not a right.

  • Scott Milner

    I’m not sure that I understand the outrage here.

    First, these soldiers were students. They were *not* linguists. Language training can take anywhere from 2 months (only in very unusual circumstances) to more than two years. And that assumes that the student isn’t “recycled” due to academic, physical fitness or administrative reasons. It also assumes that the student is able to complete the course, which can be very challenging academically. Students are frequently re-cycled into easier languages, or re-classified into another Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) entirely.

    Somehow, my immediate suspicion is that at least one of these soldiers contrived to “out” him/herself knowing it would result in an immediate discharge, at least under general conditions (that is, it wouldn’t have been Dishonorable, or Less Than Honorable). I also suspect that if any of these student soldiers had been outstanding academic performers, or even just plain outstanding soldiers, the command would have opted to “look the other way” as it were. Countless times I witnessed soldiers who were unable or unwilling to adapt to military life fall back on the magic bullet of the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy. It provides a framework for easy termintation of the enlistment contract while ensuring that most benefits and entitlements (i.e. VA loans, GI Bill, etc.) remain intact.

    Additionally, from past experience as an Army NCO, most commanders are not inclined to immediately issue a discharge order under “Don’t ask, Don’t tell.” It’s not until the soldier makes an issue of it that a discharge is ordered. I have seen soldiers essentially blackmail their commanders, threatening going to the press or filing charges, in order to ensure a speedy discharge and secure special privileges (exemption from additional duties for example) while awaiting discharge paperwork.

    I also want to clarify something. Soldiers, defence contractors and civil servants requiring any level of security clearance cannot be asked about their sexual orientation as part of the vetting process. This has been true for at least the last ten years. Sexual orientation is not a disqualifier for the retention of a clearance, though certain sexual behavior may be. Adultery is punishable under the UCMJ, as is sodomy, which the military defines as, essentially, anything other than the missionary positions. Not that it makes sense, but oral sex, anal sex among heterosexual partners, and group sex fall into the category of sodomy. Violation of the article of the UCMJ that covers this may validate a discharge order, yet it still remains likely that the affected soldier would retain his/her clearance.

    Another issue that this story highlights regards the *Military’s* policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” This is a red herring. The military takes its orders, which include recruiting, retention and other personnel issues from the Commander in Chief. If the Prez tells the military that they can no longer disqualify a soldier from serving because he/she is gay, the military can do nothing about it. I cringe when hearing about schools preventing recruiters from visiting their campuses because of the *military’s* discriminatory policies. The fact remains that “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” is an executive policy that arose from a White House administration that didn’t have the balls to back up its claims of being a champion of gay rights.

    Methinks these soldiers set out to gain something at the military’s expense, and they succeeded.

  • Dale Amon

    These are some valid points. I’ll not argue that if someone abuses the system they should be taken to task. However I will argue some other cases, as I do not believe (nor do I believe any of our guests above believe) that a soldier leaves their sense of right and wrong behind when they join.

    In the case of the soldier who refused the UN patch: while I do not care about the issue one way or the other, I do have to respect him for standing up for what he believes; but on the other hand the court martial was appropriate. If ones conscious is so loud the punishment is felt a small price to pay for what one believes to be right, then one must act on their conscious. No man or woman is a tool; they are conscious moral actors, responsible at all times for their actions.

    This also goes on the battlefield. If someone refuses an order for a trivial reason and puts the mission and lives in jeopardy, then the punishment (if not summary execution) should be severe. But if the order is to do something utterly repugnant, say machine gun a nursery, then even threat of death should be insufficient to prevent one from refusing the order.

    Personally, I’d go around the back, fire a couple clips into the bushes, say “Yes, sir, all done” and then report him as soon as I had the opportunity. But that’s just my preference for staying alive if at all possible speaking.

    Now in the case of the gay translators. They did not take a moral stand; they simply got themselves caught. Fair enough. But that is not what I am really complaining about.

    Let me use a current example. Some Al Qaeda associated terrorists were captured here today. They are suspected of planning to release Cyanide into the subways in London. Now just for argument sake, lets say the information that led to them was in a pile of arabic language intercepts on the desk of a terminally overworked translator. He or she is working as hard as they can but can’t keep up. There are too few people doing it; too many are being rejected because they are gay, or in the case of FBI and others, if they smoked pot in college.

    So should I calmly accept the deaths of hundreds so that someone’s idea of proper behavior can be satisfied?

    The Hell I will!

    I would scream bloody murder and want heads on platters of those responsible for the lack of translators. These policies are putting lives at risk, and if this costs American lives, I will want blood.

  • Well, Dale, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one then. I don’t care if they have an IQ of 295 and Osama bin Laden’s home telephone number, people who can’t follow orders don’t belong in the military.

    How about another analogy: Many Libertarians are opposed to laws regulating the use and consumption of recreational drugs. As you may or may not know, the US military has a strong policy against drugs, and performs random urinalysis to enforce this policy (incidentally, this includes the entire military, even the part-time soldiers in the the Reserves and the National Guard as well.)

    Suppose a soldier goes on leave to Amsterdam or some other place, smokes a little pot, maybe snorts a line or two of coke, but does it on his off-duty time and never drives or operates machinery while under the influence. Further suppose that soldier is an Arabic translator. Now, when he comes out ‘hot’ on his urinalysis, should he be booted from the military?

    Hell YES! The soldier is a liability to his unit and to other soldiers. He’s unreliable and untrustworthy.

    In the military we protect democracy, we don’t practice it. It’s not an easy life and it’s not for everybody. Those that can’t handle the restrictions, additional rules and regulations, and other difficulties of military life have no business being in the armed forces.

    As for the example you gave above of “machine gunning a nursery”, such an order would clearly be illegal, and anyone with enough intelligence to pass the entrance exams for the armed forces would know that. On the other hand, sewing a shoulder patch onto ones uniform clearly falls withing the realm of a lawful order, and whatever the soldier’s opinion of it, he disobeys that order at his peril. Can you imagine what kind of chaos we’d have in the service if it were otherwise: “Gee, Sarge, I don’t think I’m going to mop the latrine, that seems like an unconstitutional order to me.”

    The most interesting aspect of this debate is that virtually all of the people who are saying “what’s the big deal, why not just drop the anti-homosexual policy” are people who have never served in the enlisted ranks of the armed forces, in other words, they are people who have no idea what military life is like. Those of us who have “been there, done that” realize that as flawed as the don’t ask/don’t tell policy is, it’s the only practical, workable policy for the modern-day US armed forces.

    Martin

  • Dale Amon

    I don’t know why I’m still answering at 5am GMT, but…

    I thought it would be clear from my example above that it was understood to be an illegal order by the comment “report him as soon as I had the opportunity”.

    The reason there are punishments for disobedience of orders is to prevent chaos; the level of punishment is in another way a threshold to filter out petty reasons for disobedience. If the cost is several years in a military prison, they an individual is going to think long and hard about their principles and only act upon them if they could not live with themselves otherwise. That is right and proper.

    And perhaps we have to agree to disagree… but you will hear me calling for blood if something happens and the translator shortage has *not* been solved. One must use the tools available. I will not be forgiving if people die because of a policy.

    And as to the drug thing, yeah, I don’t really think its’ anyones business whether they do a joint or a bottle of gin when off duty. I don’t see a lot of difference betwixt the two. But if they get drunk or high on duty… they should get their arses toasted to a crispy carbon black.

    However I’ve been told that’s not what is happening with the FBI. They are apparently rejecting people even if they toked one 20 years ago and never since. It’s assinine. But I never did have much respect for *that* organization anyway.

    BTW: I know guys who were in Germany in the 70’s and the on duty stories I’ve heard would give you a full retraction. LSD and Pershings don’t mix to my way of thinking…

  • Mike

    Martin has made some good points. I must say that I agree with everything he has said.

    As far as the DA-DT policy though, I think everyone has missed the point. You need to realize that today’s military is largely co-ed and that soldiers often sleep two to a room. Now I don’t think that many would complain about sharing a shower with homosexuals, I’m sure we’ve all done it and I know that I wasn’t bothered by it. I think the problem would be that gay couples would be able to share a room, but heterosexual couples would not. I know I’d be pretty pissed off if two homosexual soldiers were shacking up next door, but I had to rent a hotel room on weekends to sleep with my girlfriend.

    So why not have co-ed boarding? You have to realize that the majority of soldiers are under twenty-one, away from home for the first time, and not terribly mature. In units with large numbers of female soldiers the first sergeants spend too much time dealing with personal problems as it is. If soldiers get married then you have to try to station them in the same place for the rest of their careers, If one gets pregnant, she has the option of getting out of the military, after time and money has been spent on her training, if she stays in it is difficult to deploy both parents at the same time. The military and sex or family life do not mix and never will.

    As far as arab translators being at a premium, thats probably true only in the military. The military will not train a soldier to be a translator for a language they already speak, but thats not true of other government agencies and there are tens of thousands of americans who are already native arabic speakers. If you think they’re patriotism or loyalty is a problem, well they can’t be any worse than walker or pollard etc.

    I was a russian translator until 1981, then I got out and finished college. After graduation in 1983 I applied for jobs with the CIA, FBI and NSA, and none were even interested. The skills learned in the military may not be very transferrable to civilian agencies, and like I said, there are plenty of native speakers available.

  • Brandon

    I believe that being gay in the military is a brave thing. Many people don’t mind today and are very excepting. Although there are a few bad seeds out there. If a troop is gay and wants to get out of the service, by all means let him or her. Strait people can have sex where they want and with whomever they want, but a gay person cannot think about it. It’s hard to carry out a relationship due to this FACT! I’m trying to get out because of this. To all those trying to get discharged for being gay, DO IT, you can get back to having a life filled with more happy days.