So we got the good news that legislative repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy that kept LBGT folks from openly serving in the military has occurred, as the Senate voted Saturday to first cut off debate on the question (that's the vote that required 60 Senators to pass) and then to pass the actual repeal legislation (which also garnered more than 60 Senate votes, even though it only needed 51).
Most people would assume that once Bill (remember Bill, from "Schoolhouse Rock"?) made it out of Congress and over to the President to for a signature that the process of repeal will be ended-but in fact, there's quite a bit more yet to do, and it's entirely possible that a year or more could go by before the entire process is complete.
Today we'll discuss our way through why it's going to take so long; to illustrate the point we'll consider an actual military order that is quite similar to the sort of work that will be required from the Department of Defense (DOD) before the entire "DADT to open service" transition is complete.
Tax time is reason enough to reflect on our budgets, personal and national. How realistic are our expenditures? Do we spend more than we earn? Does our income allow for a few irrational indulgences? Do discretionary dollars exist? Might we consider our ample debt. Does this represent a temporary deficit, easily resolved, or an obligation that cannot be paid promptly. We may wish to rethink our reality. At home, families have taken scissors to credit cards. More than the minimum payment is made. The intention is to lessen liabilities and increase savings. In the month of April, after we pay Uncle Sam, most of us concluded, it is time to clean our own fiscal house. Next, we move to the nation's ledger.
Expenses The largest share of our moneys go to military operations. The terror tax has become a tremendous burden of American household and communities. Yet, few wish to rethink this "duty."
I'm not a huge fan of Robert Gates, but I think it's worth noting that asking for a progressive to lead the Department of Defense relies on the assumption that America will begin to follow a more anti-imperialist foreign policy. Residual Cold War orthodoxy and the iron triangle is so strong that it's going to even more serious economic shocks before that becomes possible. So is Bob Gates a reasonable choice to lead the Pentagon, knowing of course that 'reasonable' in modern American politics means only insane as opposed to batshit insane?
I think, yes. While he did advocate for the US to bomb Nicaragua in the 1980s and was heavily involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, Gates is the reason that America has not yet attacked Iran, and while people don't normally get credit for preventing messes, I'd like to give him some. A few years ago, Glenn Greenwald implied that a war with Iran was practically inevitable and up to the President's personality, and I assumed he was correct. This was a reasonable supposition at the time, and Gates deserves a lot of credit for turning Bush away from using force against Iran. Now, it may yet happen that America goes to war with Iran, since we're only down from batshit insane to insane, but still, we haven't yet gone to war, and with Cheney's itchy trigger finger away from the White House the chances of doing so (or at least doing so joyfully) have dropped.
My hunch is that Gates wants a chance to make the kind of leaps in the Middle East I have been writing about for some time. He wants to try and push Iran-US relations into a constructive direction. He wants to change the game in Afghanistan -- and the answer will not be a military-dominant strategy. He wants to try and stabilize Iraq in a negotiated, confidence building process that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and other regional forces. And he wants to support a big push on Israel-Palestine peace and reconfigure relations between much of the Arab League and Israel.
This is a far more progressive agenda than you'll find among most Democratic hawks, who are quite happily situated in the Obama administration. Of course, I don't think anyone should expect Obama's policy apparatus to be particularly progressive. Peace in the Middle East, negotiations with Afghanistan, a partial withdrawal from Iraq, a grand bargain in the Middle East - these are all realist policies. A genuinely progressive foreign policy would involve all of this plus removing American bases from half the countries on the planet, ending the drug war, restructuring global trade and financial flows to make a more equitable planet that is not dependent on oil, and negotiating a new global social contract. But that'll have to wait until there's a political consensus for all that nice stuff.
For now, the centrists are in charge, and if Gates and Hillary Clinton want to negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine, I will happily watch and encourage them to do so. Eventually, the folks from Avaaz.org will be in major policy-making roles, and at that moment we can put forward strong alternatives.
crossposted on the NoSlaves.com blog
Most engineers know there are many ways to hide malicious code and design within architecture. Yet, most subscribe to an engineering code of ethics, the thought of such a betrayal analgous to a Medical Doctor using their skills to commit murder.
Yet in terms of policy is our Government undervaluing the national loyalty of most US citizen engineers? Are they enabling U.S. Scientists, Technologists, Engineers and Mathematicians to use their skills in support of infrastructure that is within the national interest?
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