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Defense Department Study Shows Few Problems with Ending DADT

Posted: November 30, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Civil Rights, GLBT Rights, Human Rights | Tags: , , , , , |58 Comments

Here is a summary of the report at DOD Live:

U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Army Europe, said the study found that 50 to 55 percent of people surveyed said there would be no major effect if the repeal passed, while 15 to 20 percent said they’d expect a positive change. Only 30 percent said repeal would have a negative impact.

Ham indicated that he doesn’t think repeal would be harmful, if handled properly and performed deliberately. He said the leadership today has the ability to implement a new policy and maintain unit cohesion.

There is still a lot of discussion required, Ham said, but the military should begin planning now. “The best way for us to think about this is as a contingency plan,” Ham said. “Our report lays out the groundwork for actions that we recommend, if repeal does come.”

You can read the full report here.

From The Boston Globe: Pentagon study finds overturning “don’t ask, don’t tell” will do little long-term harm.

A long-awaited Pentagon report released today concluded that overturning the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would do little long-term harm to morale or military effectiveness, dispelling chief arguments opponents have had with allowing gay and lesbian service members to serve openly.

The report’s release shifts the focus on the issue to moderate members of the Senate, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who had said they wanted to read the report before voting on whether to end the policy.

The House has passed a bill overturning the policy, but a Republican-led threat of a filibuster halted a similar effort in the Senate in the fall….

The study, conducted over ten months, found that 70 percent of troops surveyed believed that repealing the law would have mixed, positive, or no impact. The other 30 percent felt there would be negative consequences if gays were allowed to serve openly, with opposition strongest among combat troops.

Secretary Gates is strongly recommending that Congress and the President complete the repeal of the law before the end of this year. He held a long press conference earlier today. Lynn Sweet at the Chicago Sun-Times published the transcript. Here is an excerpt:

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell after a number of steps take place – the last being certification by the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman that the new policies and regulations were consistent with the U.S. military’s standards of readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention. Now that we have completed this review, I strongly urge the Senate to pass this legislation and send it to the president for signature before the end of this year.

I believe this is a matter of some urgency because, as we have seen this past year, the federal courts are increasingly becoming involved in this issue. Just a few weeks ago, one lower-court ruling forced the Department into an abrupt series of changes that were no doubt confusing and distracting to men and women in the ranks. It is only a matter of time before the federal courts are drawn once more into the fray, with the very real possibility that this change would be imposed immediately by judicial fiat – by far the most disruptive and damaging scenario I can imagine, and the one most hazardous to military morale, readiness and battlefield performance.

Therefore, it is important that this change come via legislative means – that is, legislation informed by the review just completed. What is needed is a process that allows for a well-prepared and well-considered implementation. Above all, a process that carries the imprimatur of the elected representatives of the people of the United States. Given the present circumstances, those that choose not to act legislatively are rolling the dice that this policy will not be abruptly overturned by the courts.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, that was seen as a thinly veiled “warning to John McCain.”
[MABlue here]
BostonBoomer was much faster with her post. I wanted to add this video showing McCain bizarre behavior on DADT. What a creep!

Meanwhile, opponents of repeal are shifting their arguments.

The ball is now in the Congress’s court. What will President Obama do now to prevent gays from serving openly in the military? Or will he actually support repeal of this discriminatory and unjust law?

Stay tuned.

58 Comments on “Defense Department Study Shows Few Problems with Ending DADT”

  1. bostonboomer says:
    November 30, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    President Obama’s BFF Susan Collins still won’t vote for it, according to the Huffpo article.

    • dakinikat says:
      November 30, 2010 at 5:06 pm

      This really puts Obama in the catbird seat, doesn’t it?

      • bostonboomer says:
        November 30, 2010 at 6:18 pm

        Yep, how will he get around it?

        • dakinikat says:
          November 30, 2010 at 6:26 pm

          did you see this? WikiLeaks Using Amazon Servers After Attack and I’m researching the bank stuff. It is BOA. Minkoff Minx will be jubilant.

          • bostonboomer says:
            November 30, 2010 at 6:46 pm

            I told you so….

          • bostonboomer says:
            November 30, 2010 at 6:50 pm

            How about this:

            ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Less than a month after President Obama testily assured reporters in 2009 that Pakistan’s nuclear materials “will remain out of militant hands,” his ambassador here sent a secret message to Washington suggesting that she was worried about just that.

            The ambassador’s concern was a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, sitting for years near an aging research nuclear reactor in Pakistan. There was enough to build several “dirty bombs” or, in skilled hands, possibly enough for an actual nuclear bomb.

            In the cable dated May 27, 2009, the ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, reported that the Pakistani government was yet again dragging its feet on an agreement reached two years earlier to have the United States remove the material.

            She wrote to senior American officials that the Pakistani government had concluded that “the ‘sensational’ international and local media coverage of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons made it impossible to proceed at this time.” A senior Pakistani official, she said, warned that if word leaked out that Americans were helping remove the fuel, the local press would “certainly portray it as it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.”

            The fuel is still there.

          • dakinikat says:
            November 30, 2010 at 6:56 pm

            Aiyee… crazy people with WMDS …

          • RalphB says:
            November 30, 2010 at 6:55 pm

            More than one corporation? From Assange’s interview in Time…

            A story in Forbes magazine, which interviewed Assange before the latest leak, said that WikiLeaks has a large U.S. financial corporation in its sights. Assange confirmed that. “Yes, the banks are in there. Many different multinational organizations are in the upcoming weeks, but that is a continuation of what we have been doing for the past four years” since WikiLeaks was founded. He added that the volume of material has increased. “The upcoming bank material is 10,000 documents, as opposed to hundreds, which we have gotten in the other cases.”

          • Minkoff Minx says:
            November 30, 2010 at 7:04 pm

            Yes, Happy Day! If it was not raining I would be out running down the street, screaming for joy…I have not finished catching up on the post below, but I heard that Interpol has issued a warrant for Wiki dude’s extradition to Sweden.

          • Wonk the Vote says:
            November 30, 2010 at 7:26 pm

            Thought it would be BOA too.

            Does the happy dance with MM! 🙂

    • mablue2 says:
      November 30, 2010 at 5:15 pm

      I hope these 2 Presidents from ME will get out of the Senate soon. There always talk nice and end up voting will all other Rightwing freaks on every major issue.

      • dakinikat says:
        November 30, 2010 at 5:37 pm

        honk honk!!! And to think, I used to send them money!!!

      • Woman Voter says:
        November 30, 2010 at 5:54 pm

        I don’t know about you MaBlue, but I am going to the mirror to see if I have any spontaneous tattoos as a consequence of Civil Rights…nope can’t see any tattoos. Coast is clear, give the LGBT their Civil Rights!

      • newdealdem1 says:
        November 30, 2010 at 6:44 pm

        Oh, man, I’m so sick of these two Maine sisters. They are worse than demented Demint or ignorant Inhofe because as you say, they are two faced. Saying it one way and turning around voting with the nutzoids. Collins was also responsible for so many tax cuts in the stim by blackmailing Mr. O for her vote. And, now she’s holding out again not voting for repeal of DADT. Shame on her cowardice and Snowe’s.

        Now that the tea party has scared Collins and Snowe into siding with the nutz for fear they will be primaried, they won’t vote for any legislation even with a hint of social justice in it, like they didn’t vote for the Paycheck Fairness Bill earlier in the month.

        Where are the giants in the Senate? Now, all we’ve got are uninspired middle managers for the most part. Sad.

        And, fasten your seatbelts kids, it’s gonna get real bumpy come January.

  2. pdgrey says:
    November 30, 2010 at 5:07 pm

    To me Obama will always be “a lily liver little chicken pants that sleeps on plastic sheets”. I think if there is a repeal on DATA Obama thinks it’s his ace in the hole for re-election.

    • Wonk the Vote says:
      November 30, 2010 at 7:29 pm

      bingo

    • Seriously says:
      November 30, 2010 at 8:32 pm

      I don’t think Obama has much sense of theatre, which is hilarious, because it’s not like he’s good at anything else. Someone needs to explain to him that if you string things out too long, people tend to just shut down emotionally, and at that point you almost can’t get them back.

  3. Woman Voter says:
    November 30, 2010 at 6:25 pm

    WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Tells TIME: Hillary Clinton ‘Should Resign’

    Hillary Clinton, Julian Assange said, “should resign.” Speaking over Skype from an undisclosed location on Tuesday, the WikiLeaks founder was replying to a question by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel over the diplomatic-cable dump that Assange’s organization loosed on the world this past weekend. Stengel had said the U.S. Secretary of State was looking like “the fall guy” in the ensuing controversy, and had asked whether her firing or resignation was an outcome that Assange wanted. “I don’t think it would make much of a difference either way,” Assange said. “But she should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that.”

    😯 A hemmm, excuse me, but how about first showing us the evidence that SHE did the executive order and if those rules/directives were in place prior to and were not removed by President Obama.

  4. Boo Radly says:
    November 30, 2010 at 7:00 pm

    O/T – from the naked capitalism – Scientists confirm use of dispersants in the Gulf clean-up causing increased contamination –

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/11/14111.html

    Now, the website of the prestigious Journal Nature is also reporting on the increase of PAH contamination due to the use of dispersants in the Gulf:

    Peter Hodson, an aquatic toxicologist from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, presented his case on 9 November at a meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Portland, Oregon…

    The problem, explains Hodson, is that the dispersed cloud of microscopic oil droplets allows the PAHs to contaminate a volume of water 100–1,000 times greater than if the oil were confined to a floating surface slick. This hugely increases the exposure of wildlife to the dispersed oil. …

    Worse, the toxic constituents of oil hang around longer than other components, another speaker told the meeting. “This idea that there’s an oil biodegradation rate doesn’t hold,” says Ronald Atlas, a microbiologist at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, who has studied the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. Alkanes, the simple hydrocarbons that comprise the bulk of oil, are degraded more readily than the PAHs, he points out.

    Please delete if already discussed.

    I noted back in June that I found on the FDA agency site – they had just approved a new test for PAH. Wonder if it will be used to test seafood.

    More from the post:

    As the Press Register notes:

    “These chemicals, these are PAHs that are carcinogenic. … These items are not in any way appropriate for anyone to eat,” said Ed Cake, an environmental consultant from Ocean Springs. “There’s no low-dose level that’s acceptable to eat.”…

    [William Sawyer], the [veteran] Florida toxicologist, said the government tests do not look for total petroleum hydrocarbons in the seafood. He said his tests of Gulf shrimp have shown unsafe levels of the compounds, which can cause liver or kidney damage in a matter of weeks.

  5. B Kilpatrick says:
    November 30, 2010 at 7:18 pm

    PC is big in the military, so the numbers who admit that they think it would cause problems and the number who think it will cause problems but won’t admit it are two different things.

  6. Boo Radly says:
    November 30, 2010 at 7:21 pm

    Seems like the only person to get good news today is Obumbles –

    Narcissism No Longer a Psychiatric Disorder

    h/t to CH

    • Branjor says:
      November 30, 2010 at 7:28 pm

      Paranoid personality disorder was also eliminated, so I guess paranoia is no longer a psychiatric disorder either.

  7. Minkoff Minx says:
    November 30, 2010 at 7:34 pm

    Just in case anyone miss this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/30/interpol-wanted-notice-julian-assange

    WikiLeaks: Interpol issues wanted notice for Julian Assange
    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange facing growing legal problems around world

  8. Minkoff Minx says:
    November 30, 2010 at 8:12 pm

    It looks like another “dump” has been taken over at Wikileaks…I just tried to get on the website, and it is down again. Guardian has some new cables. Also just saw this pop up:

    US officials insist Clinton not ordering diplomats to spy
    http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/30/wikileaks.clinton/

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