The purpose of “wedge” politics, which Dems are not good at (and have never really tried), is finding those issues on the periphery in which opponents of a given issue start to bring supporters to the other side. On an issue like abortion, parental notification and late-term abortions are classic wedges — most Americans are pro-choice, but opponents of abortion peel off support with these secondary issues that have broader support. With enough of these wedges, the argument goes, a majority gets divided and strengthens the opposition.
With this in mind, I wonder if the plight of gay military linguists may be a wedge opportunity for the left.
Nathaniel Frank has an item in this week’s New Republic highlighting the painfully stupid practice of purging military experts, trained as Arabic linguists in a time of desperate need, simply because they’re gay. It’s more-than-a-little discouraging.
[T]he Pentagon continues to dismiss trained linguists — people whose skills are desperately needed in Iraq and elsewhere around the world — for being gay. In fact, newly obtained data from the Department of Defense reveals that these firings were far more widespread than previously known. Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi language speakers under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The new data are not broken down by year, but additional figures from other reports suggest that about half the Arabic discharges came after September 11.
I suspect that most Americans are skeptical of gay rights in general, and hostile to gays serving in the military in specific. But if ever there was a chance to drive a wedge into the right’s anti-gay agenda, this is it. As Richard Cohen argued today:
This country, this government, this Congress and social conservatives in states both blue and red have so much invested in anti-gay policies that they will, if need be, jeopardize national security. It does not matter that Arabic interpreters are badly needed in Iraq, where they could save lives. What matters more — what is downright paramount — is that no gays get into the military or, if they do, that they stay deep in the closet, where, of course, they are smugly felt to belong. This is national policy.
Yes, but it’s a national policy that’s impossible to defend — making it the ideal wedge.
There’s never been a more important time to have highly-trained linguistic specialists serving in the military. On Sept. 10, 2001, for example, the NSA obtained a recording of al Queda operatives saying, “Tomorrow is zero hour.” No one acted on the tape — because it wasn’t translated until after 9/11. Opponents of gays in the military are making it easier for such a mistake to happen again.
We can’t keep up with the flood of information that needs translating now, but yet we’re asking well-trained linguists, including Arab language specialists, to stop working and leave their posts. It’s a simple question of national security vs. a gay-free military — and the Bush administration and its right-wing base have decided to back the latter. It’s not only insane; it’s putting American lives at risk. As Nathaniel Frank explained:
The 9/11 Commission Report’s assessment of the nation’s preparedness for those and future strikes indicated that the government “lacked sufficient translators proficient in Arabic and other key languages, resulting in a significant backlog of untranslated intercepts.” A 2002 General Accounting Office study concluded that staff shortages in Arabic and Farsi “adversely affected agency operations and compromised U.S. military, law enforcement, intelligence, counterterrorism and diplomatic efforts.” And an October 2001 House Intelligence Committee report found that “thousands of pieces of data are never analyzed, or are analyzed ‘after the fact’ because there are too few analysts, even fewer with the necessary language skills.”
The Justice Department has a 12-hour rule mandating that all significant electronic intercepts of suspected terrorist conversations must be translated within 12 hours, but we’re no where close to being able to meet that standard because of a shortage of trained linguists. We’re recruiting the right people who are receiving the right training in key languages (Arabic, Farsi, Korean, etc.), but rather than let them help protect Americans from a potential threat, we’re kicking them out of the military if they turn out to be gay.
I haven’t seen any poll numbers on this, but I’d bet that most Americans, many of whom voted for Bush because they’re worried about national security issues, would never support such a policy. I suspect even the most ardent right-wing lunatic would rather let a gay military linguist save their life than be dead while sticking to homophobic principles.
How about this: Dems in Congress, preferrably some who serve on committees dealing with Defense, unveil a proposal to amend the 12-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” law to make an exception for linguists, saying that the demands of a war on terror make the revision necessary. Let’s see who lines up in opposition and who’s willing to put a nonsensical culture war above national security.
It’s a wedge just waiting to be driven.