Timothy Rieger: Pentagon Must Stop Dissembling Before Repeal of DADT
[Timothy Rieger, a former congressional lobbyist and LGBT advocate, is a writer living in Miami.]
The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is an easy target for an editorial board to express its moral indignation over the lies of U.S. military leaders. The Times has published several editorials on the subject, most recently the March 29 piece on retired Marine Gen. John Sheehan's false allegations that gay Dutch troops were partly to blame for the Srebrenica massacre. The comments are inexcusable, but as a gay American I thoroughly reject the notion that we ought to be focused on repealing "don't ask, don't tell" before addressing the far greater threats that the U.S. military structure poses to American democracy. Sheehan's lies are far less threatening than the cavalcade of military rhetorical manipulations that all Americans, regardless of sexuality, have been subjected to for decades.
Take, for example, the late former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who did his utmost to co-opt the anxieties of the American people over the ill-conceived Vietnam War for the sole purpose of rationalizing it. Not until his 1995 memoire, "In Retrospect," did McNamara finally admit that the Vietnam War was a mistake. Yet in 1968, when his views on the war actually mattered, McNamara was still in full co-opting mode, writing in his book, "The Essence of Security": "This is a nation in which the freedom of dissent is fundamental. And beneath its specific protests there runs a generalized theme in most of the serious student discussion. It is the fear that somehow society, all society -- East and West -- has fallen victim to a bureaucratic tyranny of technology that is gradually depersonalizing and alienating modern man himself."
McNamara, he would have his readers in 1968 believe, felt hippie pain. The Vietnam War lasted another seven years after McNamara penned those chillingly manipulative words....
So why do the American people so passively accept this behavior by their leaders? Has the lack of a draft since the Vietnam War created such an effective bulwark between the vast majority of Americans and those in the military establishment, who would otherwise be in a position to abuse us, that it relieves us of thinking too deeply about going to war? Ill-conceived and open-ended wars that could take our lives, destroy our spirits and tear apart our families would surely hurt us, but mere words -- rhetorical manipulation from defense secretaries, generals and others -- cannot....
Read entire article at LA Times
The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is an easy target for an editorial board to express its moral indignation over the lies of U.S. military leaders. The Times has published several editorials on the subject, most recently the March 29 piece on retired Marine Gen. John Sheehan's false allegations that gay Dutch troops were partly to blame for the Srebrenica massacre. The comments are inexcusable, but as a gay American I thoroughly reject the notion that we ought to be focused on repealing "don't ask, don't tell" before addressing the far greater threats that the U.S. military structure poses to American democracy. Sheehan's lies are far less threatening than the cavalcade of military rhetorical manipulations that all Americans, regardless of sexuality, have been subjected to for decades.
Take, for example, the late former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who did his utmost to co-opt the anxieties of the American people over the ill-conceived Vietnam War for the sole purpose of rationalizing it. Not until his 1995 memoire, "In Retrospect," did McNamara finally admit that the Vietnam War was a mistake. Yet in 1968, when his views on the war actually mattered, McNamara was still in full co-opting mode, writing in his book, "The Essence of Security": "This is a nation in which the freedom of dissent is fundamental. And beneath its specific protests there runs a generalized theme in most of the serious student discussion. It is the fear that somehow society, all society -- East and West -- has fallen victim to a bureaucratic tyranny of technology that is gradually depersonalizing and alienating modern man himself."
McNamara, he would have his readers in 1968 believe, felt hippie pain. The Vietnam War lasted another seven years after McNamara penned those chillingly manipulative words....
So why do the American people so passively accept this behavior by their leaders? Has the lack of a draft since the Vietnam War created such an effective bulwark between the vast majority of Americans and those in the military establishment, who would otherwise be in a position to abuse us, that it relieves us of thinking too deeply about going to war? Ill-conceived and open-ended wars that could take our lives, destroy our spirits and tear apart our families would surely hurt us, but mere words -- rhetorical manipulation from defense secretaries, generals and others -- cannot....