Military lawyers are saying that 2010 isn't a good year for a DADT repeal.
"Now is not the time," the in-house legal counsel for Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote recently in a memorandum obtained by The Associated Press. "The importance of winning the wars we are in, along with the stress on the force, our body of knowledge and the number of unknowns, demand that we act with deliberation."
Joint Chiefs legal advisers recommended delaying the start of the repeal process into 2011, with the Pentagon sending a proposed replacement law to Congress by late summer of that year. That would be after the White House says it will begin bringing troops home from Afghanistan, and a few months before all U.S. forces are due to leave Iraq.
Congress would follow with debate lasting six months to a year, the legal advisers wrote, meaning repeal would be unlikely until 2012. The memo does not spell it out, but that is a presidential election year when Obama will presumably run for a second term. The calendar calculates that the Iraq war would be over and the Afghanistan war smaller before the ban is lifted.
Mullen and other military leaders cautioned last year that repeal of the law must be done carefully so as not to disrupt military cohesion in wartime. Last April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates indicated the process could take years - if it ever happens.
Mullen was unable to get the full backing of other senior uniformed leaders during an unusual meeting of the top officers from each branch of the military last week, U.S. officials said. He is expected to hold a follow-up session within days.
This is so complicated, but I guess when you are untying knots, you going to get kinks.
4 comments:
And in 2012 they'll say 2014 is better, and so on and so on.
Out of interest what is your opinion?
Kate x
So, they want time for careful deliberation and to rid the armed forces of hundreds more qualified enlisted men and women, because we need our current [str8] troops to focus on a war. Because ratting out, witch hunting, and dishonorably discharging people doesn't disrupt like allowing gays to continue to serve would...
V, I think you know what I am going to say on this.
I am confused exactly what kind of deliberation needs to take place. It's not as if gay soldiers require special treatment. They already serve side-by-side heterosexuals right now!
2012, will become 2014, 2014 will become 2016, and then we might have a Republican in the White House; and then what do we do.
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