‘When we consider changing military policy, the should ask is “Will it help win war?” If the answer is “no” or even “we don’t know,’ then we should not make such change.
Thomas H. Moorer, Admiral, USN(retired)
Matthew Yglesias [1]has his knickers in twist because Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, will not support over turning the Clinton era “don’t asks, don’t tell” policy:
Robert Gates’ statement that we shouldn’t expect the Obama administration to fulfill its pledge to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell anytime soon is highly disappointing:
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Meanwhile, racial desegregation of the military actually required a large number of active steps and was successfully carried out near the peak of Cold War tensions. The biggest step toward ending discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military would be the passive step of just not discriminating against them.
The military has two objectives: one, to prepare for war and two, to prevail in war. The purpose of the military personnel policy is support the ability achieve these objectives. By their very nature, all military personnel policy disseminates. The military discriminates against the young, the old, the weak, the fat. Sobeit! There simply is no such thing as a right to serve. Military service is a duty, not a right. The objective of the military personnel policy is war winning, not advancing some dubious social agenda.
Yglesias does not even acknowledge that military personnel policy is by its nature discriminatory, or even mount an attempt to show changing “don’t ask, don’t tell” would somehow improve the policy.
By making a false analogy between sexual behavior and racial genetics, is Yglesias suggesting the formation of prototype “‘rainbow” units?