Does Harry Reid Hate Gay People?

The authors on Information Dissemination are intentionally different - it is by design. Bryan McGrath and Robert Farley for example - represent two very different sides of the political spectrum. Feng and GvG are not Americans, as if you couldn't tell. CDR Rawley and LtCol Galbriath add professional flare. Boyko - well when he or any of the other random authors pop up they provide unique perspectives.

The point is that ID is by design intended to hopefully provide insight from multiple perspectives on the major naval policy topics discussed, and those perspectives will often passionately be different. I hope so - I may not be very political but i love a good debate.

But on one topic discussed here - Don't Ask, Don't Tell - it is interesting to me that both Robert and Bryan agree it is time to repeal. I think it is time for the law to go as well, but for different reasons. It is a subject that has huge attention in the Navy, as represented by the large number of comments discussions about DADT can produce on blogs. People get very passionate about political discussions like DADT - and like all hot political debates the passion often leads to better ideas and discussion, although those same debates sometimes also bring out the very worst in people.

My only question as the summer rolled into voting season on Capitol Hill has been what would the Democrats do to screw up the DADT repeal before the defense bill vote. Well, Harry Reid, line one:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he will add the DREAM Act, a controversial immigration measure, to a defense policy bill the Senate will take up next week.

The decision means the defense bill, which often passes with bipartisan support, will be home to two major, thorny political issues - the other being the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

DADT may be controversial, but the repeal was going to pass within the bill - indeed there is Republican and DoD support to repeal DADT which means the repeal was going to be a bipartisan effort in a military ready to engage the issue head on.

The DREAM Act on the other hand is going to be a huge political dumpster fire. Look, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Green Card working visa legal immigrants working in the US today who have been following the rules trying to become citizens for much longer than 6 years - and Congress wants to pass a law giving non-working illegals under age 18 a six year path to citizenship? It frustrates me to no end that legal immigrant working adults are stuck in a terribly broken government system trying to attain citizenship, and all the Washington elites do is focus efforts towards illegal immigration - often sacrificing everyone else (in this case the homosexual community, not to mention a DoD ready to establish a new policy that actually fits the complexity of the DoD) to the alter of illegal immigrants.

It does not even matter that the DREAM Act has several good ideas that make up its core. It does not matter at all that there is actually a lot of good in the bill - because it is nothing more than a band aid to a bullet wound - and I won't even go into the legal side of the various family law issues surrounding custody of minors the bill introduces on a mass scale.

The political problem is ultimately that the DREAM Act is a complicated, profile driven, and ultimately very unknown immigration concept that is part of a highly politically charged issue like immigration just a few weeks before an election, and thus the DREAM Act is able to be anything and everything a critic with money wants it to be. Immigration is a political lightning rod discussion that is important to a lot of people - hell I am very interested in immigration reform because of the enormous impact the failed legal immigration policies have today on the IT community. For example, I can tell stories all day of people in the IT industry who are essentially legal US slaves because of the broken green card work visa system. I am not abusing the word slave either - and even worse several state governments actively and knowingly exploit that slave work system with their broken low bid contractor policies.

I have a very hard time believing the 2010 defense bill will pass if Harry Reid attaches the DREAM Act to the defense bill - meaning the defense bill may not pass until after the election. If the Defense bill does fail, will the defense bill that emerges from the smoke include the repeal of DADT? Nobody knows, because it is an election year.

This move doesn't make any sense to me, which is why I am left with the opinion Harry Reid is willing to sacrifice DADT to some greater cause. Maybe folks who have followed DADT in Nevada and others who are more politically astute than I can explain why Harry Reid just took DADT off the serenity of the library shelf and tossed it into the bonfire?

Does Harry Reid hate gay people? Naa, he simply understands that no matter what - they will vote for him and other Democrats. Democrats in 2010 are just reminding us they really aren't any different than Republicans in 2006 - and will gladly screw their own entrenched constituencies when doing so offers the possibility of advancing their own pursuits for political power. That dysfunctional selfish attitude towards power in Washington today is why at some level I admire what the grass roots level tea party movement is trying to do - organize people who are tired of having their values dismissed at the whim by power thirsty elites like Harry Reid.

Cultural Differences

Check out this well written, interesting story worth reading in full.

During off-duty hours, the sauna is at the heart of socializing on the ship. Spanish, German and Norwegian officers meet their Swedish colleagues there after long days in the Indian Ocean searching for pirates, responding to their attacks and planning escorts for ships.

Of course, in the waters off the sweltering Somali coast, sailors can work up a good sweat by simply doing nothing. Temperatures often hover around 100 degrees (37 degrees Celsius).

Taking a steam together is an essential way of getting to know someone in much of Scandinavia, said Mika Raunu, a sailor in the Finnish navy. It's in the same tradition of Scandinavian egalitarianism that sees officers sharing rooms with lower-ranking sailors.

It also has led to a few cultural misunderstandings.

Lt. Cmdr. Carl Sjostrand told of a Swedish captain who invited a U.S. admiral to meet his senior officers after a formal ship's dinner. The American was led down to the sauna in full dress uniform - only to end up shaking hands with a line of sweaty, smiling and naked Swedish sailors.

Like all facilities, the saunas are used by both men and women, and the Swedish military does not segregate living quarters or bathrooms.

The repeal of DADT will introduce some form of cultural change. No one can say with any accuracy how much, but since all change is difficult in military culture - it can be safely expected that this change will be hard as well.

But like any challenge, opportunity exists, and it should be noted that DADT repeal is not the only cultural change being introduced to the military these days. There is now a strategic focus on developing broader cultural understanding among our soldiers, sailers, and airmen. This process essentially involves preparing our service folks to manage situations where human interaction falls outside an existing cultural norm.

Something tells me the Admiral in the story above may have felt uncomfortable being in that situation, and yet something also tells me that Admiral was able to adapt to the cultural differences that exist in the human interaction described. Given the Carlskrona is acting as the EU Flagship fighting pirates, it is not unreasonable to assume that one day LT Jane American will be serving on that vessel. To improve relations and become accepted among her culturally different shipmates, she could very well end up being one of those sailors standing naked in line shaking hands with Admirals outside the sauna.

The same professionalism, discipline, intelligence, and control of instincts come into play regardless of the cultural situation being discussed - whether one is discussing DADT or serving on a Swedish warship. The military is moving forward with both eyes wide open regarding the challenges that come with operating in the diversity of cultures that exist in the world. Those same skills will be necessary in dealing with any cultural diversity that exists within the military services.

I for one believe that the soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the military can meet this challenge, but I strongly believe the unpopularity and divisions that result from the diversity industry in the DOD may be the biggest challenge to overcome - a bigger challenge than any particular policy change. When the focus of diversity deviates from the development of professionalism, discipline, training, and education - the foundation in addressing cultural understanding and strengthening human self control - the efforts become counterproductive to the organization because they act as a segregation technique, rather than an education technique.

More on Data and DADT

With due respect, this doesn't cut it:

In the first, we are told that there are other fine militaries around the world in which gays are allowed to serve openly. In this latest edition of this line of thinking, the Australian, British, Canadian and Israeli Armed Services are put forward as examples of countries where "unit cohesion" issues are apparently insufficient to stymie gay service. I take a backseat to no one in admiration of these country's armed services, but come on now--who'd you take in a fight with us? The Canadians? The Australians? I know, I know--that's not what the proponents are saying--but what I'M SAYING is that there is only one global superpower and the forces and influences upon ITS combat readiness are different and more important than those that impact any other nations.

I'm sorry; "come on" doesn't constitute an argument. If you're going to suggest that allowing gays to openly serve negatively affects the application of military power, then you have to give some explanation of why that's the case. The "unit cohesion" is one such effort at an argument, although it has notably failed; there is thus far no meaningful data that indicates that openly serving gay soldiers negatively effect the capability of tactical units. If you want to SAY that there is only one global superpower and the forces and influences upon ITS combat readiness are different and more important than those that impact any other nations, then you must at least hint at what those forces and influences might be; if you know what you have in mind tell us, and if you don't, then please stop making the argument that the experiences of other major military organizations don't matter. Call me a crazy academic, but I need both a causal argument and some data indicating the validity of that causal argument before I accept this line of thinking.

I suppose you could argue that not enough data exists, and that it would be irresponsible for the United States to risk its military effectiveness on the experimental introduction of openly gay soldiers into its military organizations. To this I would respond that, again, you need a convincing argument about a) how openly serving gays has damaged the military effectiveness of Israeli*, German, British, Australian, and Canadian units, or b) a convincing argument about why none of these should be relevant to the US case. Neither of these are here; that the US military is bigger than the British can't in and of itself explain why unit level effects for similar sized units would be different in the UK than in the US.

So, again; "come on" doesn't constitute an argument that anyone has an obligation to respect. Please specify terms, articulate a relationship between variables, explain how we might test, and introduce some data. The advocates of openly serving gay soldiers have already done this; it's time for the opponents to step up to the plate.

*The argument has been made in a couple of places that the German and Israeli experiences shouldn't count because those countries retain conscription. This would make some sense if either Israel or Germany had anything approaching full conscription, but they don't. Escaping military conscription in Germany has been easy since before the end of the Cold War, and has been relatively easy in Israel since the mid-1990s. The Israelis have discarded the idea that mass is an important determinant of military effectiveness, and have consequently made the avoidance of conscription, even by military age males, relatively easy. If the IDF really believed that excluding gays would increase its effectiveness, then it is entirely capable of doing so.

Repealing DADT: Two Specious Rationales

Crossposted at The Conservative Wahoo:

As the Obama Administration moves forward with trying to get Congress to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell (a move I support), two arguments are frequently raised.

In the first, we are told that there are other fine militaries around the world in which gays are allowed to serve openly. In this latest edition of this line of thinking, the Australian, British, Canadian and Israeli Armed Services are put forward as examples of countries where "unit cohesion" issues are apparently insufficient to stymie gay service. I take a backseat to no one in admiration of these country's armed services, but come on now--who'd you take in a fight with us? The Canadians? The Australians? I know, I know--that's not what the proponents are saying--but what I'M SAYING is that there is only one global superpower and the forces and influences upon ITS combat readiness are different and more important than those that impact any other nations.

Secondly, there's the "military should reflect the society it serves" argument. In this line of thinking, since there are gay people in society, there should be gay people in the military. Hogwash. There are obese people in society. There are wheelchair-bound people in society. There are people in persistent vegetative states in society--yet we seem to have no problem excluding these people from military service.

No, the only reason to overturn DADT would be the recognition that excluding gay people--qualified in every other way--makes us a less combat ready force, a force appropriate to the needs and interests of the world's most important power. Not because the Brits do it or the Israelis do it. Not because our military should reflect our society.

And it is my opinion that we are losing talented people whose presence in the ranks far outweighs whatever loss in unit cohesion might apply. Unit cohesion isn't binary--a 1 or a 0. It is a continuum, constantly changing, increasing and decreasing as leadership and unit make-up changes. What matters most are how good you are and how well you work with the others. I'm convinced that gay people can do those things as well as straight people.

Bryan McGrath