Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell - Don’t Go
Excerpted from Justin RaimondoTo begin with, there is no “right” to engage in mass murder, and, under the current regime as well as the previous one, that is precisely what the US military is engaged in: unabashedly naked aggression. Today we are fighting three unjust (not to mention unwinnable) wars simultaneously: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the unacknowledged war on Pakistani soil. Hopeful neocons are planning a fourth, and the President’s rhetoric and actions give them ample reason for optimism. Anyone who joins the American armed forces at this point necessarily becomes an accessory to murder on a mass scale.
My position is not derived from pacifism, although I respect those who hold that view: it is, instead, based on a moral evaluation of US foreign policy as it has been conducted at least since September 11, 2001, although the roots of the moral rot precede that date by a few decades. In a normal context - that is, the context of a non-aggressor nation, one that neither seeks to dominate others, nor is willing to submit to domination by a foreign power - a military career would be just another occupation, neither calumniated nor valorized in an unseemly way. In the present context, however, enlisting means being an accomplice to the commission of a crime. To claim the “right" of gays, or anyone else, to join the US military is to claim the “right” to be a war criminal.
For years, the US military has proscribed, tracked down, harassed, prosecuted, and imprisoned lesbians and gay men, entrapping them, depriving them of their pensions, and disrespecting them as people - and now that they’re desperate, and backed up against a wall, with an unpopular couple of wars to fight, suddenly they need us, they want us, and, by the way, they’re oh-so-sorry about the past.
Anyone who agrees to such a deal - far from being noble, or even patriotic - must be suffering from an enormous lack of self-esteem. We hear so much about “gay pride,” these days - so what kind of “pride” is that?
Finally, to any gay person contemplating a military career at this point, I have to ask: are you ready to not ask and not tell about the atrocities you could well be ordered to commit? If not, then my advice to you is simple: forget “don’t ask, don’t tell” - and just don’t go.
My position is not derived from pacifism, although I respect those who hold that view: it is, instead, based on a moral evaluation of US foreign policy as it has been conducted at least since September 11, 2001, although the roots of the moral rot precede that date by a few decades. In a normal context - that is, the context of a non-aggressor nation, one that neither seeks to dominate others, nor is willing to submit to domination by a foreign power - a military career would be just another occupation, neither calumniated nor valorized in an unseemly way. In the present context, however, enlisting means being an accomplice to the commission of a crime. To claim the “right" of gays, or anyone else, to join the US military is to claim the “right” to be a war criminal.
For years, the US military has proscribed, tracked down, harassed, prosecuted, and imprisoned lesbians and gay men, entrapping them, depriving them of their pensions, and disrespecting them as people - and now that they’re desperate, and backed up against a wall, with an unpopular couple of wars to fight, suddenly they need us, they want us, and, by the way, they’re oh-so-sorry about the past.
Anyone who agrees to such a deal - far from being noble, or even patriotic - must be suffering from an enormous lack of self-esteem. We hear so much about “gay pride,” these days - so what kind of “pride” is that?
Finally, to any gay person contemplating a military career at this point, I have to ask: are you ready to not ask and not tell about the atrocities you could well be ordered to commit? If not, then my advice to you is simple: forget “don’t ask, don’t tell” - and just don’t go.