Comments on: If you ask me President Meanswell, I will tell (you), stop discriminating NOW!

By: jjl

jjl — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:51:12 +0000

The example of the NCO months from retirement suddenly dismissed for a racial slur – retirement gone – amazing. Naturally I don’t remember it, but it’s what a military organization can do. Harsh as it was, it was crystal clear. The military got better than the country as a whole on the simple principle of race-irrelevance, and it all happened right quick. Thanks for the story.

By: dirigo

dirigo — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:54:35 +0000

Well even allowing for how things go in the service, encouraging a third party to turn someone (or a couple) in under suspicion of having an “assignation” or whatever is like living in a town where witches are being hunted down.

I’d love to hear a commander defend this practice as contributing to “good order and discipline.”

And then, how many cases brought in this way have been filed, adjudicated and disposed of?

That would be interesting, and maybe embarrassing.

By: rmp

rmp — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:53:14 +0000

Not allowing a third party to turn someone in and get the person they are mad at kicked out of the military is at least a start. The article says that Obama can’t do much more until congress does. With that change, it would then be up to the individual as to how long they can stand living in a closet hiding who they really are.

By: dirigo

dirigo — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:45:45 +0000

Slow walking …

http://rawstory.com/2010/02/pentagon-expected-stop-enforcing-don/

By: dirigo

dirigo — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:52:31 +0000

What is really strange about slow-walking the demise of DADT is that getting rid of it ASAP would provide an instant, very useful recruiting tool.

Capable people are needed in the services. Today! It’s that simple, considering the strain on the force due to the Iraq and Afghanistan operations, where there appears to be no end in sight, or, to borrow a phrase from another era long ago and far away: no light at the end of the tunnel.

The defense chiefs are saying what: that the tender sensibilities of the people now in uniform need two (or more) years to adjust, to be “conditioned,” to a change in policy allowing gays to serve?

What nonsense! Moreover, it’s irresponsible to the said tender troops now in uniform who certainly could use some help right away.

Ain’t gonna be no draft no time soon!

Give me a break.

By: rmp

rmp — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:20:25 +0000

Cowardice and apathy are even more of a problem with the right. Here’s a HuffPo post where the author through the headline asks a very intriguing question. Suggest you answer it before you read the post. It’s making me do some rethinking about those lemmings I am always complaining about who act against their own best interests.

Is Apathy Socially Redeeming?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russ-wellen/is-apathy-socially-redeem_b_443388.html

By: rmp

rmp — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:04:10 +0000

Back when I was in Central Command, I got to know a lot of officers and generals in the Army and not one of them had any respect for Gen. Powell. He achieved all of his advancements in rank from Lt. Col. on through political connections and ass kissing. An Army general gets respect for commanding and leading the troops. They all saw him as a phony politician and nothing more.

By: cocktailhag

cocktailhag — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:42:31 +0000

Would that he will. Such cowardice seems part of Dem DNA these days. I used to respect Powell myself, but after reading a Lewis Lapham essay that correctly identified him as a “supple careerist,” and watching him lie his ass off to the UN, my opinion got a tad jaded. Unfortunately, the civilian branch bowing to the dumbest and most benighted parts of the uniformed one is par for the course these days, all these years later.