Obama era expected to end taboo on gays in US military

Good.

Sixteen years after Bill Clinton tried to end restrictions on gays in the military, the US armed forces under Barack Obama may be forced to give homosexuals the same welcome as non-gays.

Under president Clinton, the policy that once saw homosexuals discharged from US military service evolved to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” allowing gays to remain in the military so long as they did not reveal their sexual orientation.

Obama has pledged to overhaul current law.

“The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited,” reads an entry on the president-elect’s transition website.

Going way back in the early days of this blog I talked about the anti-gay rules in the military, and especially how they hurt us tactically when the military started firing Arabic linguists left and right for being gay.  Beyond the rights issue, we have been irresponsibly stupid over the years by forcibly removing good and patriotic men and women from service just because they like grab-ass with people whose parts match their own.  Beyond the blogging, for my entire life I have been a proponent of full and equal...no, that’s not right either.  “Equal” rights for anything implies that there is a separation that deserves noting and I don’t believe that.  I have always believed in full recognition of the same rights gay people have that everyone else has.  I believe those rights to be inherent and obvious, and recognition that they are legally no different as human beings is the way things oughtta be, to steal a phrase.

Obama is god-damned frightening when it comes to economic policy.  He seems to be a bigger spender than anyone could or has ever imagined.  However, on this issue, I proudly state that my President would do me proud to eliminate this irresponsible and unconstitutional discrimination of good and decent (and useful) patriotic Americans.  Not only is it wrong, it’s actually harming our safety and security.  As a practical matter, we are making a huge mistake here.

Gay people should be able to proudly serve their country if they so choose, and we as a people should count ourselves lucky that we treat them so poorly and yet they still want to stand between us and the barbarians at the gate.  I’m not sure I would love my country that much if I were gay.  I’m not sure some of you would either.  If you are one of those who despise gay people, think about the ones that volunteer to get between you and a bad guy with a rifle.  If your very next thought isn’t “Thank you so much for being a better person than I am” then you clearly need to do some soul-searching.

Posted by JimK at 06:48 PM on January 07, 2009
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Categories: War,  U.S. Military

Thank a vet

Thank a vet today.  In general and specifically for what they did to serve this country.  They’re all braver people than I, and probably you too. :)

To any vets reading this: your service is greatly appreciated, and I can only hope that you consider any sacrifices you made (or are making) to defend this country worth the cost.

Posted by JimK at 04:08 PM on November 11, 2008
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Categories: War,  U.S. Military

Yellow cake is delicious

Remember how there was no yellowcake uranium in Iraq?

Uhh...oops?

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program _ a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium _ reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” _ the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment _ was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What’s now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad _ using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” _ a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material _ it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth “tens of millions of dollars.” A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

“We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity,” he said.

Huh.  That’s...odd.  Canada bought non-existent yellowcake from Iraq?  But that’s unpossible.  Bush lied.  Joe Wilson said so.  So did every human being that is to the left of Sean Hannity...which quite frankly is most of them.  I’m confused.  What did Canada pay for?  Air?  Bush’s lies?  A reacharound?

Posted by JimK at 02:14 PM on July 06, 2008
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Categories: News,  International Events,  Politics,  The Middle East,  War
Tags: yellowcake uranium

Angelina Jolie says stay in Iraq?

Interesting.  Especially this part:

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

It seems to me that now is the moment to address the humanitarian side of this situation. Without the right support, we could miss an opportunity to do some of the good we always stated we intended to do.

She spends a large portion of her time on these kinds of humanitarian projects.  I mean, not just lip service, she actually does things, goes places and gathers information before she speaks.  She just came back from her second trip to Iraq in six months, having met with Petraeus and Maliki, among others.  Her chief concern at this point is the return of Iraqi refugees from other countries.  She’s dead on as far as I can see.

Read the whole thing.  Jolie is not exactly who you’d expect to be advocating this position, and she makes some sound arguments based in both humanitarian terms and in terms of security.  Maybe some of the clowns running under a (D) banner will take note.  For that matter, most of the clowns with (R) after their name could use a reminder as well.

Posted by JimK at 03:55 PM on February 29, 2008
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Middle East,  War
Tags: military war iraq Election 2008 Politics

CIA waterboarding used three times

A lot of people have talked a lot of crap about waterboarding over the past couple of years.  Too bad the entire conversation was already moot.

The CIA used a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding on three suspects captured after the Sept. 11 attacks, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress on Tuesday.

”Waterboarding has been used on only three detainees,” Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was the first time a U.S. official publicly specified the number of people subjected to waterboarding and named them.

...

Those subjected to waterboarding were suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Hayden said at the Senate hearing on threats to the United States.

He said waterboarding has not been used in five years.

Emphasis mine.

To all of you who have used over-the-top rhetoric to condemn your friends and family that didn’t give a shit about this issue: these are the three lowlifes over whom you were alienating your friends.  Three of the worst scum on the planet.  Random Iraqi innocents were not being scooped off the street and taken to Gitmo where they suffered daily waterboarding for the enjoyment of the staff.  Bush wasn’t personally waterboarding any swinging dick that happen to get caught in a raid, unlike the hysterical rantings of some bloggers would have you believe.

Three scumbags, back in 2001-2002 when it was actually thought there might be a ticking bomb in the form of another massive terrorist attack.  We all had to read all that hysterical nonsense over three of the worst terrorists around.

All that hysteria.  Turns out, the issue was over before it started.

Hat tip: DrewM at Ace’s, who has links to info about the three scumbags, and a commenter-inspired ironic observation:

more protesters and media members subjected themselves to waterboarding than the CIA did terrorists.

Posted by JimK at 02:45 PM on February 06, 2008
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Middle East,  War,  U.S. Military
Tags: military war iraq

Iraqi death toll significantly lower

Interesting.  In the fall of 2006, you couldn’t throw a rock online without hitting a politically-themed blog either discussing or trumpeting the fact that the U.S. was responsible for over 600,000 deaths in Iraq, making us worse than Saddam.

It seems that number, as was stated by many a “right-wing rethuglinazi,” was highly inflated.  I just did a date-filtered Google News search, and since January 4th, maybe a hundred news stories about this have been published.  Most of those are wire service recaps of one or two versions.

Odd, isn’t it?  This 600,000+ number was used to sweep Democrats into Congress all over the country.  Turns out it was more lie than truth.  When the news was as horrible as one could imagine, the story was A-1, above the fold, right next to the seven million stories about how we were failing, losing the war and committing atrocities on a wide scale.  Like most media corrections, however, the story now seems to be running on page D-26 , right next to the seven million stories about how the “surge” is actually working, it looks like we might achieve a real, honest-to-goodness victory of sorts and many of the atrocity stories were made up.

Oh, that liberal media

Posted by JimK at 03:34 PM on January 11, 2008
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Middle East,  The Fourth Estate,  War,  U.S. Military
Tags: Election 2008 Politics military war iraq

Seven for Seven in Iraq

Doh.

Add this bogus report with the other 6 that were found out to be false and you have 7 bogus slaughter reports from Iraq in 7 weeks since October 29, 2007.
The MSM keeps it perfect.

Oh, that liberal media.

Posted by JimK at 09:45 PM on December 18, 2007
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Categories: News,  The Middle East,  The Fourth Estate,  War
Tags: military war iraq media

Veteran’s Day

I didn’t even realize today was Veteran’s Day.  I apologize, and I thank each and every vet that has served, and those who are serving.

Speaking of those who are serving, Donna and I are sending some items to a unit of the 325th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq for Christmas...if you’re interested in helping, email me.

Posted by JimK at 08:56 PM on November 11, 2007
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Categories: War,  U.S. Military

Holocaust survivor trumps Dutch

A Democrat with some balls.  Nice.

The Dutch are threatening to remove their 1,600 troops from Afghanistan to protest Gitmo. Dutch politicians face growing problems with Islamic youths and likely fear a L’Intifada like France suffered in 2005.

Peters said: “We have to close Guantanamo because it symbolizes for me everything that is wrong with this war on terror.”

To which Lantos apparently replied: “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay”

Tom Lantos is a Democrat from California.  He’s also the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, and he’s not taking any Dutch crap over camps and wars.

Sure, he’s a fairly liberal Democrat, which means many of his policies are in opposition to the way I think, but credit where credit is due.  If the report is right and he really said this, I thank him and I hope he doesn’t even consider apologizing for it.  It needed to be said.  I respect him for saying it.

Imagine if this kind of thing happened all the time.  We could respect politicians again, even when we disagreed with them.  Wait.  Has anyone ever respected politicians?  I might be off on that.  ;)

Posted by JimK at 07:45 PM on October 27, 2007
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Categories: News,  International Events,  Politics,  War
Tags: Tom Lantos Holocaust Politics Guantanamo

Media reports half of Gen. Sanchez speech

Oh, that liberal media.

Posted by JimK at 03:35 PM on October 13, 2007
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Categories: News,  Politics,  The Middle East,  The Fourth Estate,  War,  U.S. Military
Tags: Ricardo Sanchez military war iraq media