A Platoon of Lesbians to March on Baghdad

Politics International Politics
1

Silly. Funny. Sad.

[quote=“CBC: A Platoon of Lesbians”]A New York congressman on Wednesday jokingly suggested the Bush administration may fear a “platoon of lesbians” more than terrorists in Baghdad, given the military’s resistance to letting homosexuals openly serve.

Representative Gary Ackerman’s criticism of Pentagon policy came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ackerman, a New York City Democrat, complained to Rice that the military had fired Arabic and Farsi translators after learning they were gay.

"For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists. They’re very brave with the terrorists, and if the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad," said Ackerman, prompting laughter in the hearing room.

The legislator, who in 2002 voted for the invasion of Iraq but is now a fierce opponent of the war, made one other crack, too, in reference to the Bush administration’s opposition to gay marriage.

[b]Ackerman suggested the Department of State could hire dozens of outed - and ousted - former military translators.

“Can we marry up these two - or maybe that’s not the right word. . . . Can we have some kind of union of those two issues?” Ackerman asked, prompting a fresh outburst of laughter.[/b]

Rice, in diplomatic fashion, played it cool.

“Congressman, I’m not aware of the availability of people, but I will certainly look,” she said, adding that her department has quadrupled the number of employees in critical languages.[/quote]Four times the number of linguists or not, I’m sure that they could use more. This is goofy.

2

As if you really care.
How are the Canadian Forces doing?
How about making it your job to keep us updated on them?

3

:laughing: Why wouldn’t I care?

The Canadian Forces are undermanned, underpaid, and ill-equiped, but things are getting better.

They’re also overstretched between peacekeeping missions, Afghanistan, and training rotations.

Being gay in the Canadian Forces isn’t a happy experience either.

Anything you’d like to know?

4

Is the collective noun for a group of lesbians a ‘platoon?’
I’d also have thought that their best weapon of attack would be ‘carpet’ bombing.

I’ll get my coat…

5

Give it a go Jaboney - Be our link to the Canadian Forces in the Coalition.

Support your home team Jaboney! :canada:

6

These linguists ? Were they crafty ?

That gets funnier every time I hear it. :roflmao:

7

TC, you’d be better served by going to the source.
Try here: espritdecorps.ca/
sfu.ca/casr/
and of course janes.com/ (They have some really rotten things to say about the Canadian Forces.)

8

Interesting. I was under the impression federal employees are protected from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Perhaps they were contractors and not under the umbrella?

It’s idiotic to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. The Israeli Defense Forces allow gay soldiers. In fact there are several career, high ranking military officers in the IDF who are openly gay. There is a myth out there that gay soldiers will be ineffective…a myth debunked by the experiences of the IDF and other militaries who have integrated gays. It is even more ludicrous to fire civilian translators of crucial languages based on their sexual orientation.

I think the idea that gays can’t be good soldiers is based on the stereotype of gay men as all foppish, effeminate nancy boys. Such men are not generally drawn toward the military. In Israel of course they have no choice in the matter, but the information we receive from the IDF is that gays don’t make any worse or better soldiers than straights. I support complete acceptance of gays in the US military.

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C’mon Jaboney…be the voice of the Canadian Troops here on Forumosa.com.
Tell us about them. Show us your Canadian pride!

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[quote=“TainanCowboy”]C’mon Jaboney…be the voice of the Canadian Troops here on Forumosa.com.
Tell us about them. Show us your Canadian pride![/quote]:lol: I don’t put the flag under my avatar, and you want me to slap it on the butt of another guy’s rifle and wave that around? :roflmao:

My pride, my expression. Ain’t diversity great?
When I hear anything interesting and relevant from the guy I know in Khandahar, I’ll let you know. But I don’t pretend to speak for anyone but myself.

11

The problem is that the “critical languages” they’ve added personnel into are ones like Chinese, Russian, etc.

The story of tossing out gay Arabic translators has gotten to be so embarrassing that the DoD has been withholding names of those drummed out of the service as part of their homophobic witchhunt. Of course, the story of indefinitely jailing and “renditioning” native Arabic-language speakers living in the United States has become so embarrassing that the Bush administration doesn’t talk about it at all.

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[quote=“gao_bo_han”]Interesting. I was under the impression federal employees are protected from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Perhaps they were contractors and not under the umbrella?
[/quote]

Not exactly

So it’s an interpretation, not a law.

And the US Armed Forces aren’t covered by it. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy allows discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is why many colleges won’t allow recruiters on campus.

13

I thought they worked for the State Department, not the military.

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I think it’s a good idea that the US military has started to employ Arabic speakers. You never know when they might come in handy. There might be a war in Arabia some time or something.