Still Don't Care

I’m taking a hiatus from Antiwar.com until they can afford to pay me again.  In the meantime I’ll be working full time on Sandbox Generals, the sequel to the critically applauded and commercially capsized Bathtub Admirals. 

I’ll also be posting blog-like notes here on Tuesdays.  The Queer-Eye Joe issue has emerged again this week.  Senator Ex-Prisoner of War John McCain says he’ll see Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repealed over his dead body, which I think bodes ill for the repeal of Don’t Ask.  That patch on his cheek they said a few years had something to do with melanoma?  I have it from unnamed senior officials that that’s actually a side effect of the on-going treatment McCain is having done to have himself genetically turned into a giant tortoise extend his life span.  And as we saw in the last election, McCain will gargle bodily fluids in in front of television cameras in order to stay in office.  So he could put the kibosh on gays serving in the military for as long as he manages to keep us entangled in self-defeating wars, which may be a very, very long time indeed.

He’ll do this despite the fact that the Pentagon review he demanded to have taken backfired on him: a Pentagon survey of active duty members and their families show that a majority couldn’t give a pig’s wings less about it if gay men and women serve openly. 

Defense secretary Bob Gates, in a rare show of sensibility and independent thought, has encouraged Congress to repeal Don’t Ask law in a lame duck session before the Zombies take power in the House. 

Gen. James F. Amos, the newly appointed commandant of the Marine Corps, says (as per the New York Times) that ending the ban in the middle of two wars would involve “risk” for Marines, who, unlike other service members who generally have private quarters, share rooms to promote unity. 

Amos is as full of crap as a four-star officer can get and, folks, that’s might full of crap. 

For starters, the Marines don’t put their troops in shared quarters to promote unity; they do it because they can’t afford to give them private quarters.  Amos is also apparently unaware that other services put their personnel in shared quarters as well.  On Navy ships, for example, only the senior-most officers have private staterooms. 

Amos appears to further be comfortable with a blithe dismissal of the fact that his Marines already know that they’re sharing quarters with homosexuals and that, as per the Pentagon survey, they don’t care.