Defense Policy

[John Dibble]

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

These two are in blatant conflict with one another and no it doesn't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has cost us tons of money and many competent people.

[John Dibble]

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

These two are in blatant conflict with one another and no it doesn't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has cost us tons of money and many competent people.

Do you support women and gays being allowed to serve in the military? What I meant is to let gays serve through "Don't ask, don't tell." As for the role of women, we should leave it up to the generals on the ground.

I support letting gays and women serve in the military but Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a policy that basically says you can't be gay and in the military. It is discriminatory. It discourages them from joining, and ends up getting them kicked out if they come out or are outed. It's also a double standard - if someone is openly straight they won't get kicked out for it. There is absolutely no good reason to say someone can't be open about their sexual orientation and serve in our military so long as they are able to maintain a state of professionalism while they are doing the job.

[John Dibble]

Again I see what you're saying. It happened in the armies of ancient Greece and would happen now.

What happened? The Greek armies were historically very effective. Hell, one army had a group of gay couples as the core of their army and were very effective for about a generation, and the guy who eventually defeated them (Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great) was so impressed with them he erected a monument on their gravesite.

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Such as?

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Considering that generals can be influenced by bigotry like anyone else, I'm not particularly caring what they think. Unless they have some data to back up their opinions, it isn't really a worthwhile thing to ask them.

[John Dibble]

1. Yes I was affirming that it was positive for the Greeks.

So if them serving openly wasn't a drawback for the Greeks how exactly does that make it a reason to back a measure that says they can't serve openly? Your logic here seems bass ackwards.

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Which is only a problem if they can't be disciplined enough to not do sexual stuff while on the job. Are you saying that homosexuals aren't capable of being professional unless they are in the closet?

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If you think generals aren't affected by petty personal prejudices you are just naive. This goes beyond mere battlefield experience as they can be influenced by things such as their religious beliefs. Therefore their opinion isn't enough - they have to have data to back up their objections. Right now the data we have indicates that Don't Ask, Don't Tell costs us valuable resources.

To give another example, it used to be that if you polled the generals many of them would have thought it a bad idea to have black people as soldiers, pilots, etc. The actual facts proved them wrong.

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Primarily I believe we need a higher reliance on special operations forces for anti-terrorist efforts. Occupying a country is costly in more ways than one and the American people can only tolerate it for so long, which means insurgents only have to play a waiting game and not lose. Better to go in, kill/capture the bad guys, and then leave whenever that's possible.

In regards to our war in Afghanistan, our current approach isn't good enough. I've started reading the paper One Tribe at a Time and so far I think that would be a good strategy.