DADT advocate: "Abu Ghraib happened because there are women in the military"

[ck4829]

In the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Richard Socarides, a former adviser to President Clinton on gay issues, wrote that “recently we saw the potential beginning of an antigay fear campaign” over President Obama’s pledge to end the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. “Fortunately, these scare tactics are for the most part relics of an older era,” wrote Socarides. “People understand that our military needs every talented American it can get, and that excluding gays from the military detracts from our ability to win wars.”

But on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom Radio show Monday, Center for Military Readiness’ Elaine Donnelly, the right’s most prominent “crusader against gays in the military,” attacked Socarides column as “ludicrous,” noting that he “is open and professed as a gay person.” Donnelly particularly objected to Socarides argument that “men and women serve side by side today in combat, as do gay and straight service members, without incident,” saying that the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was an “incident” that resulted from allowing women to serve with men in the military:

DONNELLY: Ok, now how are we going to deal with four different sexual groups, say in Special Operations summaries. How’s that going to work? Or are we going to have the kind of military — and he clearly suggests this — he says yes, we have women in the military. We all support women in the military. However, he says that everything has been going on just fine without incident. Umm, what was that Abu Ghraib scandal all about? It started out as misconduct between men and women and then it steadily deteriorated into abuse of prisoners. The common denominator is lack of discipline. Once you break down discipline, good order and discipline and morale, everything that’s required for unit cohesion, you undermine the culture and the strength of the armed forces. This man obviously doesn’t get that.

During the interview, Donnelly also suggested that she believes openly gay men and women shouldn’t be allowed to teach in schools. When Gaffney claimed that repealing DADT was “a backdoor way” for “imposing” the gay rights agenda “on the rest of society,” Donnelly agreed, saying, “If it’s ok for the Marines then why is it not ok for the local school.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/27/donnelly-abu-ghraib/

[peacetalksforall]

1. Mrs. Donnelly - Abu Graib came down from Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld. Please process that. And please

explain how misconduct between a heterosexual couple in one prison was replicated in all the prisons since the beginning to today? Did it go on all the while the female of the couple you are referring to was pregnant and after they received their discharges? Torture is going on at all the other prisons today (except Guantanamo, so we are told)? And the baby is about two or three, now?

And Donnelly - how would you know about the prison(s) at Diego Garcia where everything it totally secret?

Utter arrogance.

[sarge43]

2. Now it can be told.

Da wimmins was behind the Minot nuke fiasco.

Jeebus on a soda cracker, these creatures are shitheads.

[shadowknows69]

3. When you have nothing else resort to misogyny?

All logic eludes these monsters.

[justabob]

4. wow

What can you say to someone like that? Other than... "the men in white coats will be here shortly". Really.

[pipi_k]

5. There might be a point here....

I mean, if you kick women out of the military, then kick out ALL gays, and then for good measure kick out all the non-Christians/Atheists too, then what do you have?

A military that's probably not even big enough to conduct a war on flatulence, never mind a couple of real wars with bombs and guns and such...


It works for me...

:7

[sarge43]

7. When the shitheads start this 'kick out the wimmins' blather,

I always ask "Does that include the female members of the Nurse Corps?" That tends to make them break step.

However, as pointed out up thread, logic is not their default position.

[karynnj]

6. Your title is wrong - it is not the DADT advocate who said that - but Donnelly

the far right interviewer - is there time to edit it?

[Bluenorthwest]

8. A great example of the well noted fact

that misogyny is the foundation upon which homophobia is built.