Jul 27, 11:54 PM EDT
Army Dismisses Gay Arabic Linguist
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (AP) -- A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.
Bleu Copas, 30, told The Associated Press he is gay, but said he was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Read more.
In case you didn't know, the U.S. government is seriously short of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashtun speakers willing to translate all of the telephone calls and e-mails that we're spending billions to intercept.
The story referenced above is not an isolated incident. This 2005 story from FOX News makes is clear that institutional homophobia is much more important to the Bush White House than protecting Americans from terrorism.
Think of all of the attacks that the U.S. military could have stopped in Iraq or Afghanistan had these linguists not been shoved aside for the sake of homophobia.
1 comments:
A couple of observations:
A) I would bet decent money that the anonymous email campaign comes from gay activists trying to sabotage the "don't ask don't tell" by pointing out its (at least in this case... priorities, priorities) absurdity.
B) 55 have been dismissed??? Assuming that:
1) homosexuals are not siginificantly more likely than average to be come Arab language specialists,
2) homosexuals are somewhat less likely than average to join the military
3) Many gay military Arab langauge specialists have yet to be outed.
4) Homosexuals comprise 2-4% of the population in general
We come up with a rough gues that at most 1% military lanaguage specialists have been outed as gay. Which leads to a total at least 5500 Arab Military language specialists.
Conclusions:
1) The number of 55 dismissed looks shaky OR
2) We have enough Arab Langauge Specialists anyway that a 1% dismissal is not THAT big of deal.
All I am saying is something doesn't add up.
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