Be on the lookout for a ‘platoon of lesbians’

I’m delighted to see that Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and I are on the same page about reaching out to the government-trained military linguists, removed from duty because of their sexual orientation. (Carpetbagger regular Michael W already mentioned this in comments, but I wanted to give it a post of its own.)

Condoleezza Rice got a grilling Wednesday [before the House Foreign Affairs Committee] when she bemoaned “the foreign language deficit that we have” and how much the government needs Farsi and Arabic speakers during an appearance on Capitol Hill…. After she complained several times that the department was facing a problem finding translators an exasperated Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) asked why the department had not hired any of the translators fired by the Pentagon because they are gay and lesbian. Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” more than two dozen Arabic translators have been dropped since the war in Iraq began.

“It seems that the Defense Department has a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ when it comes to homosexuals. You don’t have such a prohibition in your agency, do you?” Ackerman asked Rice. “No, we do not,” Rice replied.

“Well, it seems that the military has gone around and fired a whole bunch of people who speak foreign languages — Farsi and Arabic, etc.,” Ackerman told her. He added, “For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they’re very brave with the terrorists,” Ackerman said. “If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they’d get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.”

Rice was reportedly not amused by the comment, and refused to make any commitments, other than to say that she “will look [at] what we are doing right now.” (I think the answer is “not much.”)

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network noted that “our government could go a long way in addressing the shortage of language expertise by doing just as Congressman Ackerman suggests. SLDN would be happy to introduce Secretary Rice to our many clients who speak Arabic but have been dismissed because of the ban.”

See how easy this would be, Secretary Rice?



In related news, on the heels of two new polls showing broad support for allowing gay Americans to serve in the military, Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), who helped write the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy 14 years ago, is poised to unveil legislation to undo the policy.

Meehan, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee subcommittee on oversight and investigation, introduced a similar bill in the last Congress that garnered 122 co-sponsors, including now Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Meehan’s bill was bottled up by Republicans and never got out of committee. So far, roughly 70 lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation, and Meehan is continuing to seek additional backers and wants to get to at least 100 before he drops his new bill. […] “Our military is stretched to the breaking point,” Meehan wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter he circulated on Monday seeking backers for his bill. “Extended deployments and frequent redeployments are the norm for our Armed Forces right now. Everyone from the new Democratic leadership in Congress to Senator [John] McCain to President Bush has recognized that our military is not large enough to handle all of the demands placed upon it.” Meehan added: “Yet, because of the discriminatory policy set up in the 1993 more than 11,000 able-bodied, capable and willing soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women have been kicked out of the military for no other reason than their sexual orientation.”

Meehan is now looking for Republican co-sponsors — and a senator who’ll champion a similar measure in the other chamber.