quote:
By DEROY MURDOCK
Scripps Howard News Service
13-JAN-05 NEW YORK -- Name the greater risk to national security: patriotic military translators who happen to be homosexual or anti-American Islamofascist terrorists who happen to be homicidal. If you picked the latter, thanks for putting U.S. safety first. Alas, the Pentagon disagrees.
According to new Defense Department data, between fiscal years 1998 and 2003, 20 Arabic- and six Farsi-language experts were booted from the military under President Bill Clinton's 1993 "don't ask/don't tell" policy. These GIs trained at the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. Had they graduated _ assuming 40-hour workweeks and two-week vacations _ they could have dedicated 52,000 man-hours annually to interrogate Arab-speaking bomb builders, interpret intercepted enemy communications or transmit reassuring words to bewildered Baghdad residents.
Preparation for these vital activities ends when a dedicated warrior is found to be gay. Under "don't ask," if that GI's homosexuality becomes evident, he must stop conjugating verbs and head home.
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This problem extends beyond those who can communicate with combative Iraqis, duplicitous Saudis or atom-splitting Iranians. Including Finkenbinder, at least 74 language specialists have been jettisoned from the military between fiscal 1998 and 2003. At least 37 were dismissed after 9/11, reports Nathaniel Frank, an adjunct history professor at New York University. Frank is also a senior research fellow at the University of California-Santa Barbara's Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military. His findings appear in the Jan. 24 New Republic.
Those whose homosexuality impressed the Pentagon more than their rare verbal talents include 18 Korean speakers (visualize Kim Jong Il), 11 Russophones, eight Spanish specialists, three Mandarin Chinese experts, three Serbo-Croatian speakers (Kosovo, anyone?) and one each steeped in German, Hebrew, Italian and Vietnamese.
No more conjugating for you, homo sapiens.