Month: July 2008

by hilzoy

Yesterday the House Armed Services Committee held hearings on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Apparently, there were fireworks, and perhaps in a different mood I might enjoy poking fun at them. But I was struck by two things about the hearing. The first was Rep. Patrick Murphy’s questioning of a witness opposed to letting gay men and lesbians serve in the military, whether openly or not:

Murphy makes what I’ve always thought is an important point about arguments against letting gay men and lesbians serve: that those arguments are an insult to the men and women in our armed forces. He says:

“Ms. Donnelly, you testified that gays and lesbians cannot serve openly in the military because, and I quote, it would be detrimental to unit cohesion, end quote. In essence, you’re arguing that straight men and women in our military aren’t professional enough to serve openly with gay troops while successfully completing their military mission. As a former Army officer, I can tell you I think that’s an insult to me and to many of the soldiers.”

I imagine that it often happens that soldiers who are part of the same unit do not like one another. Sometimes, a soldier might even despise another member of his or her unit, or think that other soldier immoral or contemptible. And yet, when these feelings do not have to do with sexual orientation, we routinely expect soldiers to put their personal feelings aside and do their jobs. And when they don’t, we assume that they, not the people they endanger, should be disciplined.

If, for instance, a soldier is racist, and cannot find a way to work with African-American soldiers, we do not discipline or expel the African-Americans. If a soldier dislikes another and cannot put her feelings aside and do her job, we do not punish the soldier she dislikes; we punish her. In all other cases, we assume that given a choice between two soldiers, one of whom is trying to complete his mission to the best of his ability, and one of whom is unable or unwilling to put his animosity aside and do his job, we choose the first. We expect this of our men and women in uniform, and we also expect that they will be given the training and the leadership they need to act like professionals.

I have never understood why it’s different when gay men and lesbians enter the picture.

The second is a passage from the testimony (pdf) of Captain (ret.) Joan Darrah. Captain Darrah served in naval intelligence for almost thirty years. She writes:

“In September of 2001, the true impact of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” on me personally came into sharp focus. On Tuesday, September 11, I was at the Pentagon attending the weekly 8:30 intelligence briefing. During the briefing, we watched on CNN as the planes hit the Twin Towers. Finally at 9:30 my meeting was adjourned. When American Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, I was at the Pentagon bus stop. As it turned out, the space I had been in seven minutes earlier was completely destroyed. Seven of my co-workers were killed. The reality is that if I had been killed, my partner then of 11 years, would have been the last to know as I had not dared to list her in my emergency contact information.”

I cannot imagine what it must be like to serve in the military, of all things, and not dare to list the woman you love on your emergency contact information. Not to know that if something happens to you, she will be told. To depend on others to decide whether or not to inform the woman you have been with for eleven years, others who might or might not accept who you are, and who she is to you.

Asking someone to choose between serving their country and acknowledging who they are is obviously cruel. But the smaller and more intimate effects of our policy, like this one, are what truly brings its inhumanity home to me.

(Cross-posted at Obsidian Wings)

By Patrick Appel
The bill passed the house intact by a vote of a 303 to 115. It now heads to the president’s desk. Andrew’s reaction to the Senate passing the bill is here.

By Patrick Appel
In case you missed it:

By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:

I wanted to point out the full quote. NYT: “I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before,” Mr. Obama said, “not as a candidate for president but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.” So Obama prefaced the remark with "proud citizen of the United States" but that gets dropping in the GOP talking point. Note that "citizen of the world" isn’t some new age Obama-thing. It dates back to Thomas Paine and originates with Diogenes.

Thomas Paine, speech opposing the execution of Louis XVI: "I was present at the time of the flight or abdication of Louis XVI., when he was taken and brought back. The proposal of restoring to him the supreme power struck me with amazement ; and although at that time I was not a citizen, yet as a citizen of the world, I employed all the efforts that depended on me to prevent it."

Wikipedia, "Diogenes is credited with the first known use of the word "cosmopolitan". When he was asked where he came from, he replied, "I am a citizen of the world (cosmopolites)".

There is a two thousand year old human tradition of humane pragmatism that that involves being a "citizen of the world". I don’t have a problem with JFK saying he’s a Berliner or Le Monde saying "Nous sommes tous Americains" after 9/11/01 or Bono saying "I am an American" in the Superdome after Katrina. I’m pretty sure a governing majority of Americans don’t have a problem with it either.

By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:

I’ve noticed that McCain, and the right in general, are latching on to Obama’s statement that he was speaking as a “proud citizen of the United States and a fellow citizen of the world.”  I see an attempt at cultural warfare in the making, and it should be squelched fast. The argument from the right appears to be that only some squishy leftist would call himself a “citizen of the world,” or that using the term suggests less than a full attachment to one’s own country (even if accompanied by a statement like Obama’s that he’s a “proud citizen of the United States”). A reader over at Politico has already noted that John F. Kennedy used the same phrase in his famous inaugural address in referring to his global audience.  I also did a one minute Google search – and I’m sure I could find more if I did a 15-minute Google search – and discovered that President George H.W. Bush used the exact phrase “citizen of the world” in presenting the national medal of the arts to Vladimir Horowitz, the legendary Russian-born pianist who became a US citizen in 1940.  Was he insulting Horowitz as a lefty? I don’t think so. Also, Ronald Reagan introduced himself in a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations as “both a citizen of the United States and of the world.” Do McCain and the right really want to start this meme?

By Patrick Appel
Matt Cooper grudgingly accepts the housing bill:

It’s not a great bill. The conservatives are right that there’s a lot of pork in it. And it doesn’t fix Fannie and Freddie in the long term, even if it provides more regulation. But the bill should help ease stress in the housing markets and, more importantly, if it hadn’t passed the guy on the ledge might have jumped. The consequences of not coming up with some kind of housing bill would have been far worse. Yes, the housing bill leaves the taxpayers on the hook for a Fannie and Freddie bailout, but that was true before the mess anyway.

By Patrick Appel
John Habgood studies the history of creationism:

Outside the ranks of the most extreme biblical literalists, the concept of Intelligent Design has now become the main battleground between Creationists and orthodox scientists. It feeds on a residual suspicion of evolutionary theory by employing the notion of “irreducible complexity” in some of the more awkward evolutionary transitions, not least in the origin of life itself. Objections to it have come both from scientists and theologians. To introduce a supernatural agency at certain points in what is being studied as a scientifically explicable process, is in effect to abandon science. It also presupposes a God whose creative activity is so inefficient that it requires constant readjustment. If science and theology are to live together in this contentious area, both need to be treated as comprehensive. If God is the ground and basis of all existence, this is the best possible reason for believing that even the most unlikely events can have a rational explanation.

(hat tip: Frank Wilson)

By Patrick Appel
The McCain statement on Obama’s speech:

While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a ‘citizen of the world,’ John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it.

By Patrick Appel
Some reaction from around the web. Gerhard Spörl, writing for Der Spiegel, gushes:

George W. Bush is yesterday, the Texas version of the arrogant world power. Obama is all about today: the "everybody really just wants to be brothers and save the world" utopia. As for us, we who sometimes admire and sometimes curse this somewhat anemic, pragmatic democracy, we will have to quickly get used to Barack Obama, the new leader of a lofty democracy that loves those big nice words — words that warm our hearts and alarm our minds.

Poulos says the "citizen of the world" comment was a mistake:

In addition to being meaningless — the world is not a polity, so citizenship in it is impossible — this is exactly the sort of redundantly empty rhetoric that does nothing to energize his base, nothing to allay the concerns of Middle America about his meta-attitude, and supplies the frantic and the furious on the right with a fresh tranch of attacks. Why did he do it? Bad advice? His own advice? Why couldn’t he just say “a big fan of the world,” or “a product of the world,” something that at least had the merit of being accurate? Anyone?

Weigel gets into the substance of the speech:

I count at least four extensions of American foreign policy here: increased foreign aid, increased funding for PEPFAR, sanctions, and maybe a little bit of ol’ fashioned humanitarian intervention. (That’s what he’s occasionally suggested for Darfur, at least.) It’s proof, if any more was needed, that Obama is not wary of foreign engagements. He’s a progressive realist who thinks America hasn’t done enough to police the world and to stave off future threats by doing whatever NGOs say we should be doing.

Larison reacts along similar lines:

If voters think that electing Obama President will mean doing a lot of heavy-lifting with foreign aid, sheltering refugees in Africa and protecting Burmese dissidents and the Zimbabwean opposition party, they will not be terribly interested in putting him in that office.  I would have thought that he would have understood the public’s weariness with the Iraq adventure better than this.  Does he not understand that one important source of discontent with the war is its costliness and the diversion of resources to Iraq rather than having them used and invested here at home?

And Judah Grunstein thinks Obama asking Europe to give more troops is unrealistic:

…calling for greater troop contributions from Europe ignore the fact that it’s not going to happen. England’s looking to reduce its engagement, Germany has already ponied up, and France has already downsized the contingent it committed to send at the April NATO summit.

(Image by Carsten Koall/Getty)