Screw repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell until the war is over

[BR_Parkway]

I'll probably catch some flack for this, but before that you should probably understand - I am an Army Veteran, serving honorably for 3 years - accelerated promotions based on over the top performance, kin fact in 1984 I was awarded Soldier of the Year for my entire command. Then someone told that I was gay - report to the commander, armed "escort" to the mental hospital for mandatory pysch evaluations, discharge under "less than honorable conditions"

I'm not bitter, but the plain and simple fact is this - they didn't want me (or other GLBT's) then, but now that they are having trouble recruiting, now they think maybe all those things they said before just aren't going to be a problem after all. Well screw them. End the war, bring the troops home and THEN you can get around to treating us like actual Americans instead of 2nd class people. People are dying every day for the Idiot in Chief's ego and oil war - fix that problem first.

Another couple of months of pretending I'm not a real American entitled to equal standing isn't going to hurt too much - if fact, we're pretty used to it by now. We're an "issue" so they can get campaign donations, but the real truth is that very few politicians of either political stripe are showing the courage to question where in the Constitution they swore to defend and protect it says that some citizens are entitled to different treatment under the law than others because someone's religion doesn't like it or their own personal "ick" factor doesn't sit well.

Don't spend too much time on this one Congress, not when you're still allowing the States to define who we can love to be eligible for tax breaks and hospital visits. Not when you're still not willing to say that it's against the law for an employer to fire someone simply for being "queer". Not when you sit there silently as these hate groups rail against us. We'll survive a while longer.

It's the 3,003 of my fellow veterans that have already been lost that worries me most right now. I don't want there to be a 3,004 or 5 or 30,004. End it now. You have the power, you probably can convince enough of your esteemed Republican colleagues to go along, if for no other reason than they want to protect their political hides in the next election.

You voted this war making authority (well, technically you abdicated it to the "Decider") - Let me tell you how it's done really, really simply. You have the clerk read the proposal stating that the war is over, that victory has been achieved. You beat the Republicans over the head and you have an "uperdown" vote and you simply tell the world that we won and we're bringing the troops home. With that vote, you end Shrub's basis for his claims of "extraordinary powers" where he gets to spy on us without a warrant, snoop through our computers at will, lock us up his say-so and deny us access to the courts. If there is no war, then even W can't claim extra powers because of his Commander in Chief role.

[Der Blaue Engel]

1. I heartily concur

k&r

[Staph]

2. This evening on The Situation Room on CNN,

former SecDef William Cohen said the same thing -- solve Iraq first and then "don't ask, don't tell".