Reporters Fail to Probe Pentagon Brass

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen began their news conference on the issue of gays in the military at 2:00 p.m. last Tuesday but the report they were talking about was not released to the public on the Internet for another 15 minutes or so. Hence, people watching the on-line news conference could not immediately judge the factual assertions—or omissions—being made by Gates and Mullen as they relate to the report.

Despite the leaks in advance of the release of the report, which supposedly found that most troops would welcome gays into the ranks, Gates acknowledged that “the survey data showed that a higher proportion—between 40 (percent) and 60 percent—of those troops serving in predominately all-male combat specialties—mostly Army and Marines, but including the Special Operations formations of the Navy and the Air Force—predicted a negative effective on unit cohesion from repealing the current law.”

This is absolute proof that inclusion of open homosexuals would prove disruptive to military operations involving our front-line warriors. Hence, our war effort would suffer.

One of the curious aspects was that, when reporters at the Pentagon briefing were finally permitted to ask a few questions, none pointed out that the source of the WikiLeaks documents scandal, another sensitive subject raised with Gates, is a homosexual. Army Private Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the documents, advertised his homosexuality on Facebook and by marching in gay rights parades.

How could reporters ignore such an obvious question? Gates and Mullen should have been asked how Manning had been able to flaunt his homosexuality in the military. Had Gates told his subordinates not to enforce the law? By doing so, had Gates given Manning the opportunity to spend his time downloading sensitive documents and passing them on to Julian Assange at WikiLeaks?

Gates was also let off the hook in regard to his curious assertion that the Pentagon’s homosexual exclusion policy “requires people to lie.” But that statement is based on the false assumption that people are required to serve. There is no such requirement.

“Telling the truth” is “important” to the military, Gates said. He added, “It’s a very important value. And so for me, and I thought the Admiral was—that Admiral Mullen was eloquent on this last February—a policy that requires people to lie about themselves somehow seems to me fundamentally flawed.”

Again, there is no requirement for homosexuals to serve and so they are not required to lie about themselves.

The Gates/Mullen statements suggest that homosexuals who want to join the military are willing to lie when it serves their purposes. Is this conduct that should now be rewarded with Congressional repeal of the Pentagon policy?