Other military's certainly not as large and as powerful as our own but whose personnel selection and training is as rigorous and often more so than our own have officially had gays in their armed forces for quite a spell with no untoward effects at least to my knowledge.

Also, gays have been serving in the military for a long time (probably as long as we have had our own military and even before as provincials) again with honor and often distinction. Those that violate the UCMJ should be court martialed just like their straight comrades in arms who are probably more likely to be heterosexually predatory.

Show me a Western military in the last 2000 years with endemic homosexuality which successfully defeated existential threats over any significant period of time. In fact, you'll see that over most of the West's history homosexuality was treated as something to be ashamed of and certainly not as a thing to be flaunted. You might think that is because all those people were far dumber than we are, bound by the chains of prejudice, etc. I would guess that this was an adaptive social trait that was part of a complex of such traits which enabled the West to thrive and conquer the rest of the world. I would also say that if you've inherited a giant piece of machinery that indisputably works, pulling big parts of it off just because you can't figure out what they're there for is NOT a good idea. Then again, I'm a reactionary, not a progressive.

Personally, I am glad that while I had to worry about leaders who were more worried about their careers and image than the mission or my men, I never had to deal with leaders who wanted to bone me.

A good example might be Sparta, with its separation of the sexes early in life, which certainly resulted in homosexual relationships while growing-up in the barracks, and partially explains dieing in place with each other, rather than the shame of flight.

James Jones, the author of “From Here to Eternity” is known to have wanted to include a homosexual element in his book on army life, but was dissuaded from doing so. . .I believe the army he served in, went on to win a world war?

2000 years ago, Sparta was a theme park for Romans. Furthermore, endemic homosexuality in Sparta's heyday did not exist in a vacuum but was part of a holistic complex of social mores including infanticide, eugenics, a gerontocratic police state built on the backs of helots, etc. All these institutions worked ok together (sort of) until their bearers got whupped by another band of feral homosexuals led by Epaminondas, and it was all downhill from there. The point I am making is that you can't just pluck an institution from its organic roots (now thankfully extinct,) and slap it on to your society any more than you can take a radiator from a Model T and put it on a 747.

Unless James Jones served in an Army where homosexuality was openly accepted, I fail to see your anecdote's relevance. Just to clarify-I am certain that homosexuals served in his Army, just like they served in mine in the dark, oppressive days of DADT. I am also certain that they kept their homosexuality under wraps, much like you would any other paraphilia.

I now know what I need to know for another time, on another topic of real interest to me that you might participate in. : )

Thanks. . .and happy holidays.

And on that cryptic note, happy holidays to you too :)

A little extra food for thought: male homosexuals have a much higher chance of carrying various infections than heterosexuals, due both to the nature of male-to-male sexual activity and the homosexual culture in the US. Some details are available on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_who_have_sex_with_men#Health_issues.) The only study I know of which has been done on average homosexual life span suggests it is something like 20 years shorter than average heterosexual life span. The internet is full of angry homosexuals picking holes in the study, but nobody seems to have come up with contradictory research, and intuitively, it would seem that being at a much higher lifelong risk for various severe infectious illnesses would correlate to a shorter lifespan. Many of the diseases involved are not tested for routinely by the US military. HIV is tested for on a yearly basis, which is sufficient for its prevalence in the heterosexual population; it remains to be seen if this is so for homosexuals. A straight troop that goes downrange free of an STD is pretty likely to avoid coming back with one, for sheer lack of opportunity. This is not necessarily the case for homosexuals.

In combat, bad things occasionally happen to American servicemembers. The various fluids which, in the normal course of events, are contained within their bodies sometimes cease to be so and get all over everything and everybody. Shrapnel and projectiles knock sharp chunks of bone out of bodies, which sometimes lodge themselves in nearby servicemembers. Even if this doesn't happen, Tactical Combat Casualty Care involves getting the casualty's fluids on you. It's just the nature of the game. No matter how many times you drill "BSI (Body Substance Isolation, read "latex gloves") for my partner and I" into guys' heads, when bad things are happening around them, they will forget or choose to disregard. Stopping their buddy's bleed may be more urgent than taking off combat gloves and putting on latex ones. Latex gloves are flimsy and rip all the time, and unless you're a medic, you might not have a spare pair on hand or the time to get them. Furthermore, you might have cuts or abrasions on parts of your body which are not covered by gloves, but DO get body fluids on them. Now, please tell me how you explain to a guy that he got syphilis/hep B or C/whatever because DoD values a political agenda so much that it opened its doors to a demographic group which has such a high disease load that blood banks won't allow them to donate. I had a boss who got Hep C as a Corpsman treating casualties in Beirut. That shit is no joke, and while I personally was reconciled to it as one of the possible outcomes of a hazardous profession, it is the leadership's responsibility to minimize the likelihood of such outcomes. Even if it causes butthurt to a politically important segment of the population.

A whole different can of worms is mental illness. Again, it's hard to make out with the clouds of political squid ink, but every study I've seen suggests that rates are much higher in homosexuals. For instance, The British Journal of Psychiatry reports that over 40% of their sample had some sort of mental disorder (http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/185/6/479.full.pdf.) In theory, the military's pre-enlistment screening should filter people with mental problems out. In reality, the filter sucks because everybody has an incentive to look the other way. The enlistee has an incentive to lie, the screeners have an incentive to push paperwork through and not look too hard in order to make quotas and not be the turd in the punchbowl. Once someone with mental problems is in, until their issues cross a fairly high threshold, they often wind up being passed around the Army. I don't have to go far to find an example of a homosexual soldier who harmed the system and whose motivation seems to have been, in large part, mental problems. Bradley Manning is on trial in Maryland right now. Anticipating a counter that these problems are caused by prejudice in the general population, I'd like to say that first, the assertion is largely unfalsifiable, and second, who cares what they're caused by? They're there, and until this is no longer the case, there would have to be a large payoff to justify opening the military's gates to a population group with a 40% incidence of mental illness.

If anyone wishes to regale me with stories of homosexuals they've known who served honorably, you can save it-I've got such stories too. I'm talking about general trends, not wonderful exceptions. I know guys who used to do all KINDS of shit and became wonderful soldiers, but the only reason they were allowed to become soldiers is that they successfully lied about their past lives. Using them as a justification for why (for instance) having been a crack dealer should not be a bar to enlistment would not be kosher, for obvious reasons which also apply to homosexuality.

As you indicate in point 4) above, this is a calculation of consequences, of efficacy. The rate at which uninfected soldiers are exposed to bone fragments and body fluid would play into this calculation. Should the facts of increased incidence of infection in the gay male population trump the lack of data that efficacy (operational and political) suffers? And that is not a rhetorical question because I am assuming many think it should, at least for certain units.

Also, about Sparta being a Roman theme park--that was worth this entire thread. :)

...but not this one.

I would rather serve with any gay soldier who is able to conduct his or her job effectively than a straight soldier who is out-of-shape, incompetent, or an idiot. But even prior to the repeal of DADT, I seem to recall gay humor being pretty common amongst 11Bs. I can't imagine many "normal" joes I know giving a damn about a person's sexual orientation. I mean that seriously. Perhaps we're from different generations.

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

Dude, your frame is wrong. Anybody would rather serve with a stellar soldier who just happens to be homosexual than with a certifiably straight dirtbag. The question is, would you rather have 10,000 straight soldiers or 10,000 gay soldiers enlist (the number is arbitrary-plug in any sufficiently large number that you're dealing with statistics, not individuals)? Assuming both fit the normal bell curve distribution in terms of performance (lots of average performers, few studs and dirtbags,) the latter have much higher rates of mental and infectious physical illness. If you think that's their business and will not affect you, or that the military's medical and psychiatric specialists will screen the affected out, think again.

You miss the point with your second objection, too-homosexual humor (Gay Chicken, etc.) can only exist in a place where you can safely assume the target and the onlookers are straight. First of all, playing Gay Chicken with an actual gay dude is a losing game. Second, homosexual jokes in a Federal job where homosexuals can openly serve are actually something called sexual harassment and will get you crucified in front of the flagpole. You didn't think you'd have to worry about that shit as an infantryman? Wrong. You don't think guys living out in Combat Outposts in the asscrack of the world will get relieved of their jobs and have their careers ruined because they or somebody under them said "faggot" in front of the wrong guy? Wrong again.

I think the problem is you view them as gay or straight soldiers...I don't care about their sexuality. I just want "good" soldiers.

It's no different than race baiting...once upon a time there were plenty of reasons why certain races were better at war than others. I don't think any of us would use those statistics now.

Gay humor is not the same thing as calling someone a "fag"; it's no different than calling anyone "n!gger". Use it if you want to, but don't be surprised if there are repercussions.

B, the problem is that you undercut all your good ideas when you jump on this bandwagon, and this really isn't the solution (or the problem) with today's military.

"Reality isthat which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away"-Philip K. Dick

The reality is that people engaging in what is epidemiologically referred to as MSM form their own demographic, with its own epidemiological trends. The terms in which you think of a particular member of that demographic have no bearing on his likelihood of suffering from a mental illness or an STD. Your refusal to think of a soldier in terms of his sexuality has no effect on the likelihood that you'll get syphilis when you're trying to keep him from bleeding out. His sexuality DOES have an effect on that likelihood.

On the social level, you are the one who brought the prevalence of homosexual humor up in an attempt to illustrate how open minded today's 11B's are. I pointed out that its prevalence actually illustrates the opposite point. As far as whether homosexual humor is OK or not-that's debatable. Regardless, the repeal of DADT will have social consequences including a lowering of trust within units. An openly gay soldier being punished for something will wonder if he is actually being punished for his sexuality. His supervisor will always wonder if he is about to be embroiled in a mess of "he said-she said" allegations, potentially wrecking his life. As a private, when my squad leader would tell me that he would ream me if I failed a room inspection or whatever, I could focus on my room in the certainty that he was just using a figure of speech and would not actually violate my delicate man-flower. As an NCO, I could use terse and informal language to efficiently communicate the urgency of a task to my subordinates if I so chose, without worrying that they would think I was about to go Oz on them and respond appropriately.

As Steven Pinker's study shows, increased diversity is associated with plummeting trust levels within a community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and_trust_within_communities). Sexual diversity is no different. In the military, trust is very important, and it is foolish to think that it will not suffer as a result of these politically-motivated shenanigans.

Finally, your point of view is one shared by Congress, the CoS, the senior levels of command, the media and academe. My viewpoint is hazardous to the career of one expressing it in public. Who's on the bandwagon?

I think terminal lance says it best:
http://terminallance.com/2010/04/30/terminal-lance-34-its-already-gay/

You're making the argument that we should not allow gay soldiers into the military because gays suffer from higher than average cases of mental illness and have higher rates of STDs, right? Or rather, that gays are fine in the military as long as they are not open with their sexuality?

So...how about we just screen for STDs and mental illness prior to enlisting or commissioning someone?

Look man, I don't care if Congress, Baby Jesus or all the electric sheep are on "my" side. I want recruit good people, train them to a high standard, and then retain them. I don't care who they're doing in their free time as long as he or she is over 18, it's consensusal, not even remotely in their chain of command, and not married to someone who's deployed.

You leave out gays and women, and you're leaving out a lot of talent that could serve the country. That doesn't make any sense.

And I still don't get it...out of all the stupid stuff the military does (and we do a lot)...you're focused on gays? What's your motivation?

>You're making the argument that we should not allow gay soldiers into the military because gays suffer from higher than average cases of mental illness and have higher rates of STDs, right?

I'm making the argument that not filtering homosexuals out has multiple potential negative systemic consequences.

>So...how about we just screen for STDs and mental illness prior to enlisting or commissioning someone?

I already addressed that argument. See above.

>Look man, I don't care if Congress, Baby Jesus or all the electric sheep are on "my" side.

Well, if they ARE in fact on your side (and they are,) it is you who are on the bandwagon. Not that the bandwagon is by definition headed in the wrong direction, but it might be.

>I want recruit good people, train them to a high standard, and then retain them. I don't care who they're doing in their free time as long as he or she is over 18, it's consensusal, not even remotely in their chain of command, and not married to someone who's deployed.

Again, individually that makes sense. Systemically, it doesn't. When you have a behavior that's a good marker for all kinds of negative things, it makes sense to filter for that behavior, even if by itself the behavior is harmless.

>You leave out gays and women, and you're leaving out a lot of talent that could serve the country.

Debatable. Can you bring up some supporting evidence for this statement? How many otherwise qualified gay servicemembers were kept out by DADT? How many jobs went unfilled or were filled by less qualified personnel because homosexuals were turned away? What we CAN unambiguously say is that the converse of your statement is true. You leave out gays and you're leaving out a lot of people with mental illnesses and STDs. You lower the risks associated with having these people in your military. As far as women-I'm gonna refer you to Eric Stratton's posts on the issue, which is a separate topic for discussion.

>And I still don't get it...out of all the stupid stuff the military does (and we do a lot)...you're focused on gays? What's your motivation?

My motivation is that this is one of a complex of systemic issues where the military's higher ranks and civilian leadership/oversight sign off on a policy for political reasons, at the expense of the mission, the organization and the Joes. It is no less deserving of opproborium than reflective belt madness and probably more-nobody has ever needed a liver transplant due to an overuse of reflective belts. People HAVE needed new livers due to being infected with Hep C.

Since this is the second time you've implied that I have some sort of personal agenda at stake here, I'd like to point out that I also believe that zoophiles, necrophiles, coprophiles, etc., etc., have no place in the military, for the exact same reasons. What's that tell you?

I'm cynical...and it seems so often that the guys who preach "family values" or "homosexuality is immoral"...seem to end up with a wide stance in a public restroom. I also don't like seeing people "picked on." You're comment that says, "I don't want a member of my chain of command that wants to bang me"...come on, bro. Seriously. You're a big boy; if you're sexually harassed by your commander I'm sure you can deal with it just fine. I'd say the odds are far more likely that you'll either get shot by an ND near a clearing barrel or get heat stroke while standing in a mandatory formation.

That's fantastic that Congress supports my view; I would have the same view even if I was the only one who held it.

And so my cynical side questions the vehemence at which you rant against the repeal of DADT. It's not just you; I get the same cynicism when I read someone write, "I'm a member of the best military in the history of the world". It's not only what you're saying; it's also why you're saying it.

So, I just don't "get" your argument. I can understand not having a guy or gal in a unit who doesn't have the physical strength to charge a .50 cal. Who has lower than average intelligence. Who has emotional issues or mental illness.

But homosexuality is not a mental illness, and it certainly doesn't seem to be a choice anymore than one can choose their race or ethnicity. If we assume 10 percent of the population is gay, than that's 10% of a potential recruitment pool that we are automatically excluding. Being gay is not the same as being attracted to children, animals, dead people or folks dressed in furry animal costumes. There's no reason to treat it as such.

I see far more correlation between desegregation and the repeal of DADT than I do even with including women in combat units.

I'm gonna repeat myself, since you don't seem to be picking up what I'm putting down.

a) Implying that I'm opposed to homosexuals in the military because I myself am a latent homosexual is a great rhetorical move. Way to take the high road. Since I also vehemently opposed to zoophiles, necrophiles and pedophiles in the military, you can only imagine what my weekends look like. Is there anything out there you really don't like? Maybe the reason is that you secretly like it!

b) The fact that there are other stupid things the military engages in, such as an overuse of formations, clearing barrels and reflective belts would irrelevant to my feelings about this particular stupid thing even if they had the same potentially catastrophic outcomes, which they don't.

c) "But homosexuality is not a mental illness, and it certainly doesn't seem to be a choice anymore than one can choose their race or ethnicity. If we assume 10 percent of the population is gay, than that's 10% of a potential recruitment pool that we are automatically excluding. Being gay is not the same as being attracted to children, animals, dead people or folks dressed in furry animal costumes. There's no reason to treat it as such."

The above paragraph is literally made of unfounded assumptions glued together with poor reasoning. Homosexuality used to be a mental illness. Then DSM got rewritten, and it wasn't. If there was anything beyond politics behind the decision, it's unclear to me. I have not seen any conclusive studies demonstrating that homosexual behavior is anything but a choice, and in fact, the gay rights movement used to emphatically assert that human sexuality was plastic, and it WAS in fact a choice-a valid one, which no one had the right to look down upon. The party line only shifted to "we were born this way" within the last 15 years or so, and I have yet to see any genetic research demonstrating this assertion. I see no more reason to assume that ten percent of the population is gay. Even if it were the case, it does not follow that the same proportion of that ten percent are eligible for enlistment or commissioning as of the general population-if anything, the opposite would be true, due to a much higher incidence of various conditions which are a bar to enlistment (for instance, according to a 2010 federal study, 20% of American homosexuals have HIV.) I see no way in which homosexuality is inherently different from any other paraphilia, other than its current status as a cause celebre, and see no reason why its practitioners should be treated differently from other paraphiles.

d) I'm not picking on anyone. I'm explaining my point of view and citing history, multiple studies and my common-sense reasoning. YOU are the guy asserting that those with contrary opinions are "taking a wide stance in a public restroom," "on the bandwagon," and so forth, and not really bringing anything of substance to the conversation. Since you are an adherent of a viewpoint prevailing in our society, maybe you feel you don't have to support it with anything else. This is not a good way to establish what is true, what is not, and the future outcomes of potential courses of action.

Interesting comparison. I just want to say that non straight is against the system nature has defined for them. we need to see how its side effects in military service. I just want to say that this is sick and if these sick people are serving the country then you can better guess the outcome....

Firmenlogo Design

And thanks for all your comments!
Best,
Tom

Actually, how have the Canadian armed forces fared in combat? An honest question....I just don't know where and how significantly they have been committed to combat.

Totally not true or close to being accurate as far as woman go, worked with the Canadians, heck who hasn't in Southern Afghanistan? Simply not the case. Also, they actually make females meet the same standards (although they are low as are ours) as the men on the PT test, something people at your rank will have never done nor will they ever do in our military.

The Canadians are good to go for the most part, their snipers are very good and their CT unit is also very good but more akin to the FBI HRT than a Military Unit but they are looking to change, their ROEs were a lot stricter as well. They were pretty much all over the Khandahar area, I am sure you can find something on them somewhere, ISAF and RC South both have public web pages, there must be something on there that can at least link you to some AARs or what not.

Well, how many did he have?

inside of Mobile with the Memphis _B_lues again.

Can someone please stick a sock in this runny fauxet?

Eric, I thought you were holed up in the Batcave wargaming apocalyptic global warming scenarios?

_b_lah,_b_lah,_b_lah,_b_lah,_b_lah,_b_lah,_b_lah . . . ad nausaeum.

You know, Hams, a guy who's never served writing military books is like a eunuch reviewing porn.

Gian, the only thing I directed at you was that people of Senior Rank in the Military do not hold females to the same standard, that is it. I have not idea how you got the rest of that out of this post-

"Totally not true or close to being accurate as far as woman go, worked with the Canadians, heck who hasn't in Southern Afghanistan? Simply not the case. Also, they actually make females meet the same standards (although they are low as are ours) as the men on the PT test, something people at your rank will have never done nor will they ever do in our military"

I worked and went on more than a few ops with the Canucks, and those guys, not the typical Kool Aid Drinking and Company Line repeating Officer Corps who sit in a TOC/JOC, told me just the opposite. Hearing one Officer say they are great is not exactly "Gospel" and let's be honest too, our Officers Corps will sing the PC Company line the same way when asked on the record, they might say something else about females off line though. As for the PT comment it was about how the Canucks at least make the females meet the same PT standards as the men but that ALL PT standards are low. How in the heck did you get anything else out of the post? Seriously Gian, No idea about where you think I commented on your age, your personal PT or even how homosexuals came into it with regard to my post. Although perhaps you might want to get some glasses for reading? ;) (kidding!)

Tom, your rational question is getting in the way of my pissing contest. When I'm trying to lay out my reasoning for an unconventional position and putting a chunk of myself out there, if some dude comes out of left field and tells me what I wrote is worthless and I need to shut it, OF COURSE my immediate response is to crush nuts using whatever is at hand. I'm a primate-it's only natural.

Seriously, your analogy isn't valid. I would use an oncologist who had never had cancer. I would not take oncological advice from a guy with a degree in journalism who has never set foot in a hospital, no matter how many articles on medicine he's had published in Reader's Digest. I used to read a lot of military books back in the day. The difference between even the best military book and war is like the difference between pornography and sex.

Most military history books I see today are written by and for war groupies. Normal civilians don't alienate me, but war groupies do. I suspect many combat veterans feel the same way. I also have the suspicion that a large part of why the Iraq War went the way it did is that it was run by war groupies at the highest level, dudes who got their idea of war from stories on the Nazi Channel and their elders, and wanted to try their hand at it but not bad enough to ante up when they had the chance.

I haven't laid out a single argument on the topic of gays in the military because I don't feel qualified to do so. What, _B_, makes =you= qualified? We know about me because I don't hide behind a handle and my vita is easy to locate. What makes you the expert you're posing as? Were you in on the policymaking end of the decision to rescind DADT, or were you just a participant in homphobic bull sessions while serving your two years behind a typewriter at Fort Dix? And why should we believe the one, the other, or anything in between?

My initial comment was aimed at your propensity to suck the light and air out of the discussion--to dominate the discussion at all costs--and your inexorable drive to both throttle and patronize the living crap out of anyone who dares to questions your arguments, your conclusions, your authority.

You suppose a lot for an anonymous poster of hate rhetoric. You suppose you know me, you suppose you know Gian. Until you find a way to convince me otherwise, I suppose you're a loquacious parrot who doesn't know his ass from deep centerfield.

What if we pretend for a second that the issue at hand is not rocket surgery, and that all it takes to have a qualified opinion is a little bit of thinking and research? What if I tell you that whether I drafted the policy or am a PV2 cook, it has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of my assertions? I don't have to present credentials to present an opinion if I back it up with logic and evidence. If they are deficient, no credentials will help. I mean, duh.

I am not personally familiar with COL Gentile, though of course I know who he is and have read his work. I do feel that I can ask how many gay soldiers his Canadian friend had in his battalion-it's germane to the discussion. If you don't dig my comments, do what I do to your books-don't read them. Easy, right?

I'm not the one who ragged on credentials. That was all you, obfuscating to beat the band.

I don't get bummed if people don't read, don't like, don't believe, don't know about my books. If everyone read them, loved them, and sang their praises, I'd have retired before half of them were written and I'd own the fricking place.

I don't believe for a second that anything said here has the slightest impact on how the world turns out, though I do believe there are people here who do actually influence outcomes. I'm going to make a wild guess that you're not one of them, and that it's thus probably okay to let your guard down a little and treat this collective with a bit more felicity.

Which is why I asked if the lack of data for anticipated bad effects on efficacy is good enough reason to trump the issues B raises, which is what the "bandwagon" says. Or should the issues he raises trump the lack of data that efficacy will be impaired, which is what he seems to argue. Efficacy, especially operational efficacy, is going to be multi-facetted. And there is such a thing as political efficacy in the larger scheme of national security, even if it sounds distasteful as hell. My guess is that in this case the lack of real data for harming efficacy (it would take a lote more than a few liver transplants of psychotic breakdowns) has won out over the fears of the surfacing of such data. B is no doubt right that there will be no going back, but so far it also appears there will be no need to go back (especially if technology continues to makes those feras less imposing over time).

(it would take a LOT more than a few liver transplants OR psychotic breakdowns)

Political decisions made to effect social justice is part of national security, and it far outweighs the potential harm of the possibility of someone being infected with tainted blood. It may sound bad (i.e., "political") to people who worry about the issues B raises, but in the final calculation involving those factors has to run up against how we define ourselves as a moral people. Operational effectiveness in the real world depends much more on that moral reality than on infection rates and sociopathic outliers.

So what? So, there's a deeper issue involved.

There is always an objective reality which we can't perceive directly; we take sensory input from our organs and hang it onto some kind of mental carcass to build a model of that reality, then act based on our perception of that model. Reality is affected by our actions, and we collect sensory feedback, adjust our mental model, lather, rinse, repeat. This is my understanding of the OODA loop.

How well you interact with reality primarily depends on how accurate the model of it that you're constantly building is. If the machinery involved starts to generate its own sensory input and is not corrected for, your interactions with reality become inadequate very quickly. For instance, the guys you see walking down the street, ranting at invisible demons. In their model, those demons are there, because the machinery is malfunctioning and generating them. From the outside, they are obviously dysfunctional, but to themselves, their actions make perfect sense. A positive feedback loop quickly forms and becomes a downward spiral.

On the national level, the military's job is to bring sensory input to the higher echelons, who are supposed to build a model of reality, orient and decide, so that the military can act. When, as you put it, "the driving priorities are political incentives," i.e., internally generated sensory input, the model becomes skewed, and everything else follows. We start behaving like a 300 pound homeless schizophrenic lurching down the street, swinging at hallucinations. Not a good place to be. We've been able to get away with it only because there's a lot of ruin in a nation, technological progress has been skyrocketing, and most of the competition over the last 70 years has been just as dysfunctional. Still, this can't go on forever.

>until we define what it will be used for, in specific terms, and limit its use to only those actions within those terms we will not be able to categorically state what the US military NEEDS to look like

To define what the military will be used for, you'd have to be able to predict the future accurately, something that's impossible to do. And to limit the military's use to anything, you'd have to be in charge of it. Otherwise, you get the Powell Doctrine, which lasts until the political leadership goes, "that's nice, but here's what you'll actually be doing."

>we should be advocating for a US security strategy that we can actually use when arguing composition and use of military force

First, you'd have to find someone to advocate TO. Who are you gonna get to sign off on this idea? Who's got both the pull to implement and the immunity from democratic processes that means they'll stick around to keep implementing? Nobody in our government.

PYORTOR-"Political decisions made to effect social justice is part of national security, and it far outweighs the potential harm of the possibility of someone being infected with tainted blood."

Social justice is basically a religious concept, belonging to our unofficial state religion (Universalism.) I don't partake in that religion, and think it's a bunch of evil falsehood, through and through. So, to me, what you're saying is that even though guys will come to harm, it's OK because we're sacrificing them to a (false) religion. Furthermore, even if the religion were not false, any ideology which adversely affects its adherents ability to defend themselves and defeat their enemies is maladaptive, as Machiavelli pointed out when he talked about good men struggling against evil men.

Again: When have decisions involving the bulk of the US military not been politically driven?

> There is always an objective reality which we can't perceive directly; ...

If I understand your argument you are saying that there are things that affect the greater reality that we share that we just do not know. Something like that? As in, COMISAF has information that I am not privy to and his decisions affect my reality? If my model of reality does not account for COMISAF's decision making then my model is skewed?

Rephrasing my question above: "...internally generated sensory input, the model becomes skewed..."; when has the model NOT been skewed?

My contention is that the US military has always been subject to the whim of the civilian leadership and has always had to contend with this skewing of its perceived reality. I offered the AVF etc in support of my contention. Perhaps you have an example of decision making for the whole US military that has not been based on political incentives?

And your last paragraph: social justice is a religious concept? I completely disagree. And I have no idea what Universalism is. Not a critique here, just not sure what you are getting at.

On a separate subject: merry x-mas, happy holidays, etc. Hope you and yours' are enjoying some time off. My computer tells me that today is x-mas eve, and will be for folks in the US in about an hour and a half. So, enjoy.

Staff guy-the decisions used to be at least driven by the politics of those aware of reality. Now, they're driven by politics which are totally disassociated from the reality on the ground. COMISAF either doesn't know what the reality on the ground is, or doesn't really care. He's too busy doing the powerpoint interagency joint coordination safety dance.

An example of a US action where politics played second fiddle to reality? The USMC in Nicaragua. The Indian Wars. Even as recently as WW2, while the leadership loved their political BS, they acknowledged the primacy of objective reality-on some level, they understood that no amount of press releases would make a difference as long as Japanese aircraft carriers and German panzer divisions were running loose. Granted, there were signs of what was to come (Patton being stopped at Falaise, Operation Market Garden, etc.,) but they were only foreshadowing. It was understood that in order for Macarthur to go "I have returned," he had to actually, you know, return.

As far as Universalism is concerned, I can point you towards some very long posts by my favorite reactionary ideologue, Moldbug, who breaks it down Barney-style, but I can't boil it down to a comment-length summary. Basically, the idea that Afghan social justice, gender equality or democratic government are objectively worth something to us and should be goals we strive to achieve at any expense is an article of faith.

Happy holidays to you too.

If social justice is a religion, then what is not religion? I think I'm getting a better picture of your position now, and I think your stance that on metaphysicis is at the heart of it. If, as you say in mentioning the OODA loop, we hang factitious intersubjective meaning on every little bit of sensory input, then what makes your judgment any more valid than mine or anyone elses? I think you are on to something in having a serious objection to gays serving, but the evidence for the fears you have as being something decisive is just not there. You say we are sacrificing soldiers for social justice if we prioritze such a moral issue--is that not what they are there for anyway, to sacrifice because we believe in the moral superiority of our values--like freedom, or whatever? Your argument may be sound if all we value is some mechanism in a monistic, material universe (and that may be all there is, but people don't think that way generally, which is important because that is where morale and fighting spirit comes in). On the other hand, it could be another metaphysical view you are operating from that you have not yet reavealed, something that would trump the value of social justice because it is anethma to that view. My guess would be some religious discourse that says being gay is "evil." Honestly, it sounds like that is where you are going--heading toward some sophistic traditionalist perspective based on authority and grounded in a clever but incomplete evaluation.