A Modest Proposal *

Government-sponsored homophobia in this country has now officially jumped the shark.

SHE WASN'T ASKED AND DIDN'T TELL.... Amy Brian, as a Kansas Army National Guard lieutenant, served honorably in Iraq. She was part of a convoy that was hit by an IED; she worked 12-hour shifts at Camp Anaconda; and her superiors asked her to narrate award ceremonies.

By all appearances, Amy Brian is the type of proud, patriotic American we would all want to wear the uniform. Upon returning home after a tour of duty, Brian was given a job reorganizing the Kansas Army National Guard's government purchase card program. Except now she's been discharged -- because someone found out Brian is gay.

SNIP

She joins nearly 12,500 other lesbian, gay and bisexual service members who have been discharged by the Pentagon from 1994 through 2007.

And in the New York Times, a Marine who served two tours in Iraq explains why he has changed his mind about DADT and now opposes it.

In addition, six years of war have clarified priorities. The battlefield has its own values, starting with courage. Sexual orientation falls somewhere below musical taste. What a person chooses to do back stateside, off-duty, in his own apartment is irrelevant in a fight. For months I lived with 12 other American advisers on an Iraqi outpost. There was a single pipe shower next to a hole that masqueraded as a sewer. But the reality of combat dominated personality quirks — nobody wondered about sexual orientation.

A 2006 poll of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans showed that 72 percent were personally comfortable interacting with gays. Bonnie Moradi, a University of Florida psychologist, and Laura Miller, a sociologist at the Rand Corporation, summarized the study this way: "The data indicated no associations between knowing a lesbian or gay unit member and ratings of perceived unit cohesion or readiness. Instead, findings pointed to the importance of leadership and instrumental quality in shaping perceptions of unit cohesion and readiness."

The other readiness argument concerns recruiting. To fill its swelling ranks, the military now grants one in five recruits waivers for disqualifications that run the gamut from attention-deficit disorder to obesity to armed robbery convictions. In a press conference last fall, Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, the head of Army recruiting, said the relevant question in considering such applicants was, "Does that person deserve an opportunity to serve their country?" That's exactly right. And to choose a felon over a combat-proven veteran on the basis of sexuality is defeatist. Ask any squad leader.

In the end, however, there is one factor that outweighs public opinion, troop morale and recruiting combined. The military is a dictatorship, not a republic. It is built to win in combat. Its strict codes of conduct ensure good order and discipline.

If "don't ask, don't tell" is rescinded, military leaders will ensure smooth compliance, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has said. Cohesion depends on leadership. Our troops will follow the lead of our combat-tested professionals who base their opinions on what a soldier brings to the fight, and little else.

So here's my proposal: reinstate the draft, expanding it to include both men and women, age 18 to 50, but restricting military service to homosexuals. Only homosexuals. No more heterosexuals in the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Guard or Reserves. Bonus: no more inconvenient pregnancies in the all-gay Armed Forces!

Why stop at the military? Let's ban heterosexuals from the government benefits of marriage, too. Seriously, they've had it to themselves for 5,000 years and have completely fucked it up. Gay-only marriage can't possibly make it any worse, and might even improve it.

Gay-Only Adoption. No more subjecting orphans to the twisted values of so-called straights.

And I can't imagine someone barred from serving in the military, from state-sanctioned marriage, from adopting, passing an FBI background check for a federal job.

Think of the political campaigns! Spying on candidates, trying to get pictures of them embracing someone of the opposite sex, the interviews with tearful gay spouses, the denials of heterosexual perversions.

Certainly no more ridiculous than the self-defeating anti-gay idiocy we've got now.

* With apologies to Jonathan Swift.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic.

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Good Intentions or Better Methods?

So when this GAO report on VA and DOD joint projects landed in my inbox (thanks BG!), I was expecting some serious inside baseball type stuff, the bureaucratic healthcare version of when to use a left handed pitcher who has a really good cut fastball but whose curve ball occasionally hangs over the plate. Now that I’ve managed to scare away everyone but some bemused Orioles fans and die hard healthcare geeks, let me say that this report did not live up to my expectations. It was surprisingly light on minutia, almost disappointingly so. But there were some interesting and broad points to be gleaned from it (there go the Oriole fans).

VA Health Care: Additional Efforts to Better Assess Joint Ventures Needed. GAO-08-399, March 28
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-399
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08399high.pdf

Basically Congress has tasked the VA and the DOD with identifying and cooperating on joint projects that will reduce costs and improve healthcare for veterans and soldiers. Like most such mandates this is one sounds relatively benign and unobjectionable, and like most mandates, this tells us pretty much nothing about what it’s supposed to do or why it’s being done.

Obviously improving care for veterans and soldiers sounds good to me, but I’m skeptical that joint ventures between the DOD and the VA are the best way to improve care. At the macro-level I’ve got concerns about mixing the two cultures, and nothing illustrates those concerns better than the contretemps around the interactions and miscommunications between the Army and the VA at Ft. Drum back in February (link):

The document summarizes a meeting at Fort Drum between VA workers and members of what the Army calls a "Tiger Team" — an ad-hoc group assigned to investigate, in this case, medical-disability benefits.

According to the memo, one member of the Tiger Team told the VA not to counsel soldiers on their disability benefits because "there exists a conflict of interest."

Conflict of interest? That’s my Army, always looking out for us soldiers. And that’s the nature of the problem: the Army (and by extension the DOD) have way more pull than the VA. Not to say the people in the VA aren’t going to fight the good fight for veterans, but they’ve got less levers to pull and theirs are way smaller. So commingling the cultures has some drawbacks as the report itself details (p.24):

VA officials stated that DOD’s readiness mission may be incompatible in certain situations with VA’s mission to provide quality and timely care to veterans. Similarly, VA officials noted that VA and its academic affiliates have different missions and, at times, competing priorities, which has raised concerns among veterans that they may not always receive appropriate access to equipment and services.

And as the report also states, it is possible to manage through these sorts of incompatibilities with careful planning. But then what’s the benefit? In terms of cost reduction, the report describes it this way (p.10):

Joint ventures are intended to avoid costs by maximizing available resources by jointly using a medical facility. According to VA, joint ventures involve a multi-entity, collaborative and strategic arrangement of at least 5 years in duration and a level of magnitude and scale comparable to VA’s current major capital threshold ($10 million). Joint ventures are complex in that they require an integrated approach because two separate health care systems must develop multiple sharing agreements that allow them to operate as one system at one location. VA currently has eight joint ventures with DOD...

So we’ve got complex projects that have to net at least $10 million in savings; what kind of a track record do we have to date? It seems to be mixed and here’s the kicker: not particularly well understood. Although various VA locations say that they’re able to realize cost savings from collaboration with the DOD, they don’t have a lot of hard data to back these “hunches” up with (p. 26):

VA and DOD officials told us that they do not use performance measures to assess the extent to which the joint ventures produce the identified benefits, such as improved care or lower costs.

Officials give a number of reasons for not routinely or comprehensively documenting cost savings from these joint ventures, including [emphasis added]:

• VA officials noted that they are not required to conduct assessments.

• Officials at the VA-DOD sites said that differences in their computer systems and business processes can limit their ability to conduct such assessments.

• The VA-DOD sites have competing priorities for the limited resources that would be required to conduct such assessments, according to officials from several sites.

• …several VA and DOD officials said they intuitively knew they were saving money as a result of the joint venture, but they were unable to provide data to support this belief. Without comprehensive, supporting evidence, the extent to which the cited outcomes have been achieved at joint venture sites is largely unknown.

Now I don’t mean to pick on the good people doing the good work that these people are doing, and I think it’s important to pay attention to your hunches when doing analysis (which I do for a living), but you always want to gut-check your hunches with some facts. Unless you aspire to be Paul Wolfowitz or Douglas Feith. But how to put all this ambivalence into context? I mean why is anyone bothering with this? Here’s why I think they’re doing it:

VA officials said that since all of the existing joint ventures with DOD have been congressionally directed, there is little incentive to document or measure the results of the joint ventures.

Never underestimate the negative impact of top down, hierarchical decrees. One doesn’t have to be particularly skilled at reading between the bureaucratic lines to get a handle on this one: they’re doing it cause they were told to do it. So obviously this raises a whole slew of questions about how this mandate came down from Congress and why it didn’t have some language built in about collecting data to verify results. But that’s a whole ‘nother post. My take away is this:

Since the VA needs to do cost savings to get veterans the care they need, it’s pretty obvious to me that the VA isn’t fully funded. I’m not saying they should be able to spend without oversight, but if they’re being asked to cost save without oversight, how much sense does that make? And how much of priority is this cost savings anyway? Looks like someone got to check off a box without knowing if anything worthwhile was accomplished. So while we have the very real risk of muddying the VA’s mission by forcing it to join with the DOD on various projects, we don’t have a sense of the real benefits in dollars and cents.

But everything about this isn’t negative. This venture has some potential real benefits apart from cost savings. One of the best outcomes (setting aside the issue of adequate care) is making the transition from soldier to veteran a seamless one. As the report states, “Some VA and DOD officials noted that joint ventures support the Presidential Task Force objective for VA and DOD to collaborate at all levels to ensure a seamless transition for eligible military personnel from active duty to veteran status.” This is the best news in the report from my perspective as a veteran. The military generally does a piss poor job preparing their people for life as veterans. And I do mean veterans, not civilians. We’re going to have a lot of people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with issues and needs that are specific to people trying to readjust after combat tours. But again, the way to figure out if any of these mandates and the joint ventures that support them are doing any good is to collect data, and that is exactly what isn’t going on. So the question uppermost in mind is why was this mandate sent down without any instructions for follow-up and verification that the joint ventures are actually helping our veterans and service people? I can’t say for sure, but the cynic in me sees a bunch of veterans issues under a rug that Congress is holding the corner of.

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Does Mitch Really Want to Get Re-elected?

UPDATE Below, UPDATE II

Then why does he say unforgivable - and unforgivably stupid - shit like this?

Senate Minority Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on U.S. casualties in Iraq: "Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers."

In other words, the wages of professional soldiery are disability and death? Yeah, that's right, Mitch, they chose to fight in an injust occupation while handicapped by a criminal dictator pretending to be president, without enough troops, without proper equipment or protection, without sufficient help from allies, in a doomed cause Smirky is ensuring they cannot win.

So fuck 'em.

Right back atcha, Mitch.

UPDATE. 1:44 p.m.: Likely Democratic challenger Lt. Col. Andrew Horne responds to Mitch's despicable insult to the troops.

"I would say that Mitch McConnell owes every member of our service and the families of the fallen an apology, but no apology from him can take back the venom he has spewed at our troops, this time. For anyone to believe that casualties of war are somehow more acceptable because they were not draftees is disgusting. For the Republican leader in the United States Senate to say that is beyond repugnant."

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE II, 2:23 p.m.: Media Czech at BlueGrassRoots notes that Mitch's repugnant comment comes at the same time that the state he represents is mourning the deaths of three Fort Campbell soldiers in a bombing in Iraq. But hey, they're professional soldiers, they deserve it, right, Mitch?

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

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About Half The Money Raised From Employees Of The Military By Republican Presidental Candidates During The Second Quarter Donated To Ron Paul

Remember Lindsey Graham saying on Meet The Press that the men and women of the military are strongly in favor of the war in Iraq, and James Webb responding that the opinion of military people is just about the same as the rest of the country? Well here are some numbers that seem to back up Sen. Webb. According to the blog IraqSlogger antiwar Republican Ron Paul "received nearly 50% of the money donated by employees of the US military" to Republicans. The blog The Truth @ The Spin Factor Atomizing the truth (An academic journal) citing just released Federal Election Commission data pegs the percentages at:

52.53% Ron Paul
35.4% McCain
7.9% Romney
5.2% Rudy
2.2% Hunter
2.6% Others.

The numbers need to be verified, but if true they would demonstrate that staying the course is not as popular with the military as Republicans believe.

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Setting the Mideast on fire

Retired U.S Army Colonel Pat Lang, the former head of Middle East intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the Pentagon, discussed the situation in Gaza with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Key points: American foreign policy has gone down the wrong track: invading Iraq blew the lid off, weakened America's influence, and damaged the U.S. military's capability to intervene elsewhere in the region. The U.S. must step up diplomatic efforts with Iran, Syria, among others. IOW, see what you get when you trust Republicans with national security? One giant clusterfuck.

Watch the video. Transcript below the fold.



BLITZER: How worried should the -- concerned should the U.S. be that what has happened in Gaza -- Hamas taking over there, getting rid of Fatah -- could spread and then happen on the West Bank, as well?

LANG: Well, I think it's a possibility. I mean the fact of the matter is that, however, unpleasant it is to us, the Palestinian people, in elections that everybody says were pretty fair, in fact, elected these guys to run the parliamentary government. And, in fact, it's very difficult to choose other people's leaders for them, in the long run.

So I think maybe American policy has been on the wrong track in this. You know, no matter how much we might -- how much we may dislike these guys, they have offered a truce to Israel over -- for a 10 year period, and we ought to be looking at that as the best alternative of a group of bad alternatives.

BLITZER: Earlier today, Saeb Erakat, a well-known Palestinian figure here on CNN, a Fatah member, suggested that outside forces were instigating this Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence. And he also said this.... Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAEB ERAKAT, CHIEF PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR: We are determined not to allow what happened in Gaza to happen in the West Bank. And we stand tall with this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Suggesting it's part of a bigger regional problem. And a lot of experts, as you know, see the hand of Iran, maybe Syria, in a lot of this mischief.

LANG: Well, with regard to what he said about the West Bank, they were determined to not have this happen in Gaza as well. I think, you know, as you've been saying today, in fact, there's a major stress being put on the region by the fact that the Iranians are seeking to realize what they think of as their place in the sun, expanding their influence, getting recognized as being a paramount power to Islam, things like that, on the other hand.

On the other hand, the United States government has its own agenda, seeking westernization and democracy. These two things are exacerbating local conflicts of this kind in a tremendous way. And the real problem in this region is between us and the Iranians, really.

BLITZER: How much of this current explosion of violence in Iraq, in Gaza, in Lebanon, a threat potentially between Turkey and Kurdistan in the North, is a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein?

LANG: Well, the specifics of the invasion of Iraq, of course, set off a maelstrom inside Iraq as we took the lid off a jar full of competing factions that was Iraq. And now they're all competing (ph). But there's this larger problem involving the whole region, involved in the fact that we have been pushing the whole region to change in directions in which are not natural to them and which various people in the area seek to manipulate and make use of in order to advance their own particular interests.

So, in general, our policy in the region is not helping the cause of people. Things are being (ph) quiet there.

BLITZER: I asked the question because a lot of analysts have suggested that the U.S. now, given the situation in Iraq, is seen as weakened. And whenever the United States in that part of the world as season as weakened, others want to take advantage of that and score their own points.

LANG: I think it is true, in fact, that people see it as very unlikely that we are going to intervene on the ground anywhere in the region with ground troops because of the fact we are so absolutely committed in Iraq to the very limit of our capacity, as you've been saying. On the other hand, they also know that the United States remains vastly powerful in terms of air power, possession of a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, things like this, and that this country is not something they can discount.

So we do have a lot of leverage in terms of that kind of implied power, plus the fact that there are a lot of things people want from us in terms of recognition and assistance in the credit markets and all kinds of things like that. We do have manipulating levers if we wish to use them.

BLITZER: If you were still at the Pentagon, what would you be advising the secretary of defense and other top officials?

LANG: Well, to the extent that Secretary Gates would let me, I would say that the Defense Department ought to say that we need to seek to engage especially the Iranians, but also a number of other groups around the area, in various things that involve our desires and their desires in such a way as reach some meeting of the minds that will bring the temperature down enough so that we can restore a status in which at least people are not shooting at each other.

BLITZER: You mean talking to Iran and Syria, among others?

LANG: Absolutely. Among others.

BLITZER: Who else?

LANG: Well, I think you need to talk to the Turks in particular as to what their intentions are with regard to our Kurdish clients. I mean, there's no doubt the Kurds are relying on us tremendously.

We've encouraged them to set up what amounts to a very autonomous state in the north. We owe them something to that regard.

There are the factions inside Iraq that involve the different Shia militia armies and parties, as well as different insurgent groups. All of these are groups are groups in which we can engage, and which we're starting to do now out in Anbar province with the tribes and some of the secular insurgents.

BLITZER: Pat Lang, thanks for coming in.

LANG: My pleasure.

(H/t to No Quarter)

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S.Sgt. Donald B. Farmer

Yesterday, 29 May 2007, on the Western Washington University campus in Bellingham, Washington (the school at which I am currently earning an MA), a local anti-Iraq War group who displays the names of all the war dead around town on the weekend passed out little cards for students to wear in an effort to draw attention to the number of U.S. soldiers who have died since March 2003. Each card, about 2''X4'', had written on it the name of a fallen soldier, their home down, and the date on which they died. Attached to a long string, the WWU campus community spent the day with these cards our their necks. Protesting wars can be difficult, particularly in communities which host military bases or include large veteran communities. All too often "supporting the troops" is equated with "supporting the war," and when speaking out against the travesty of military action in Iraq, many misinterpret anti-war sentiment with, somehow, speaking out against U.S. soldiers. Of course, this is silly, as war protests are focused on criticisms of bad policy and not bad people (except, of course, bad policy makers). The Bush administration has made a concerted effort to disarticulate the war effort from the war dead - no photographs of home-bound coffins, limited media access to the front (tightly controlled 'embedded' reports not withstanding), and more recently, the moratorium on combat photojournalism which indicates, in anyway, the name of soldiers or the units involved. The action yesterday is, in my opinion, an important step toward recognizing that war affects individuals, and that soldiers are people with families, friends, and lives from which they were extracted to extend U.S. federal government policy beyond our borders. I am not a veteran. Nor are my brothers, my father, my mother, my aunts or my uncles. My grandfather was in the Army Air Corp./Air Force from 1947-1951 and never saw combat. The last member of my family to fight in an American war was my Mother's grandfather who fought in World War One. Of course, like many my age, I have friends from high school and college who are in the military and have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the era of the volunteer military, I, like many, have few personal connections to these wars. It's easy, then, for me to ignore, in a self-interested way, the goings-on in the Middle-East and Central Asia. My taxes pay for bullets and bombs, prosthetics, and night-vision goggles, but I am not in a position to lose much, personally, from these wars. However, as a citizen of the republic, I do take very personally the policies of my government, and as a democratic citizen, I am in part responsible for such policies. While I do not fight, and do not stand to lose a loved one in these wars, it is my duty to participate in the public square and to work hard to end this conflict. I whole-heartedly support local civil actions like those at WWU's campus yesterday, and this blog entry is my little way of bringing to the public square the story of one soldier.

I've never met S.Sgt. Donald B. Farmer. I don't know his family, or his friends, and I am unaware of his hopes, dreams, goals, hobbies, or his political affiliation. My only connection to S.Sgt. Farmer is that his name, home town, age, and date of death were printed on a small white card that I wore around my neck for 9 hours on the Tuesday after Memorial day. I would like to apologize to anyone who knows him if they feel like I am politicizing his death; that is not my intention.

S. Sgt. Donald B. Farmer died in Kuwait on 19 December 2004, he was struck by a passing vehicle and killed, along with another soldier, while changing a tire. He told his mother that, after serving in combat in Iraq, his assignment to Kuwait would be safe; he was 33. In his final contact with his 16 year old daughter, he wrote that he would send money home for Christmas. He is survived by his wife and high school sweetheart, his mother, his 16 year old daughter, an 8 year old son, and a 12 year old step-daughter. He was the son of Zion Illinois, and a standout football and track athlete who joined the Marines after two years of college in North Dakota. On 18 January 2006, the Zion city council passed a Resolution of Respect for S.Sgt. Farmer and it passed, of course, unanimously.

His friends and colleagues remembered him as mature, social, and fond of barbecues. When stationed in Italy, one soldier-friend of his recalled a time in which Farmer saved her from getting hurt while in a fight, and noted how he always kept his subordinates in line and protected. While stationed in Germany, Farmer impressed upon a Captain a sense of responsibility and friendship, exchanging Christmas care-packages prior to his death on 19 Dec. The spouse of one of his soldiers recounted a time at which, while in labor, S.Sgt. Farmer took her husband off a mission so that he could witness the birth of his son; he was a man who understood priorities. He was a beloved member of the 180th Transportation Battalion, 13th Corps Support Command, Fort Hood, Texas, and has been sorely missed by all accounts.

S.Sgt. Farmer was a soldier, and he survived combat to die while performing a mundane task that any one of us has done time and again. His family most likely did not receive the financial benefits that come with combat death, yet his mission in support of the ground forces in Iraq was a critical part of the war effort. We hear, often, of soldiers and marines being killed by IEDs, snipers, and helicopter crashes, but it is not often that the soldiers who die in accidents are showcased. Farmer, I am sure, would have taken a bullet to save the life of one of his subordinates, and surely would have given his life in an effort to complete a combat mission. But his job was not to go out on patrol, or to defend the Green Zone from mortar attacks; his mission was to keep the machines of war in good condition, and to ensure that the tools combat soldiers rely on worked dependably. He did his job, internalized it, loved it, and made it a career.

I am not one for hero worship, and I don't put members of the military on a pedestal simply because they are in the military - soldiers are people, and people are good and bad. I know men and women in the military who I wouldn't trust to take care of a goldfish, and I know others who are Westpoint Graduates or career oriented Marines with whom I have shared some of the best moments of my life, and I judge them on their merits. I cannot say much about S.Sgt. Farmer with any certainly, but I respect him, and I respect how he lived his life, how he maintained contact with friends from afar, and how he built what is, by all accounts a fine family. It's a shame that he's passed.

It's easy to say that we will "never forget," but those words are cliche. Of course we will never forget the Iraq War, and the loved ones of the war dead will never forget their lost friends and family members, but we as a people must not forget what happens when we send our military to war. There exists a sacred promise between the people of the United States and the men and women of the military; soldiers will go anywhere and fight anyone so long as the civilians make sound choices as to when and where. The civilian leadership of the Untied States has besmirched that promise, and when this war ends, we all have an obligation to atone for that violation of trust.

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Ah, Come On President Bush, Don't Be So Cheap. Give the Guys and Gals Being Shot At A Break.

The following is a letter sent by the house leadership to the President. It seems the Congress has proposed a modest 3.5% pay raise for our troops plus some additional money for surviving spouses. The President, suddenly a fiscal conservative, says "no, they only deserve 3.0%."

Dear Mr. President,

We are writing to urge you to reconsider your objections to H.R. 1585, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.

Your office's recent Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 1585 raised several concerns regarding this bipartisan legislation that the House of Representatives passed yesterday by an overwhelming 397-27 margin.

In particular, the Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 1585 objected to sections 601 and 606, which raises military pay 0.5% above your proposal, and Section 644, which provides an extra $40 per month for surviving spouses of fallen members of our armed services.

Mr. President, you have consistently called on Congress and the American people to support our troops. Considering the sacrifices that our military families make, the Democratic proposal to provide the troops with the pay raise they deserve and an increase in benefits for the spouses they may leave behind is one small way that we can support our troops.

When it comes to supporting our troops, our actions must match our words. Please join us in supporting our troops by reconsidering both your veto threat to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, and your objections to an increase in military pay and survivor benefits for the brave men and women serving our country in the armed forces.
Respectfully,

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker

Steny Hoyer
Majority leader

James Clyburn
Majority whip

Rahm Emanuel
Chair, Democratic Caucus

Ike Skelton
Chair, House Armed Services Committee

Ellen Tauscher
Chair, Strategic Forces Subcommittee

Steve Israel
Member of Congress

Tell me again why people think Republicans are more supportive of our troops than Democrats.

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