CNN is reporting that the Secretary of Defense is looking at "selectively enforcing" the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

Gates says he is now looking at ways to make the ban "more humane" including letting people serve who may have been outed due to vengeance or a jilted lover. The remarks were made in a transcript released Tuesday by the Pentagon.

SNIP

"What we have is a law -- be it a policy or a regulation -- and as I discovered when I got into it, it's a very prescriptive law. It doesn't leave much to the imagination for a lot of flexibility. And so one of the things we're looking at -- is there flexibility in how we apply this law."

The secretary appears to be proposing interim measures. "If somebody is outed by a third party ... does that force us to take an action? And I don't know the answer to that, and I don't want to pretend to. But that's the kind of thing we're looking at to see if there's at least a more humane way to apply the law until the law gets changed."

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What follows is a copy of a letter sent by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation MMRF to the Secretary of Defense.

The letter includes a litany of long-standing and well documented allegations of rightwing religious subversion of our serving military personnel.  How has this been allowed to fester for so long? Who is minding the store?

We have all known for some time that ousting Bush was only the beginning of the  campaign to restore a fully functioning, non-partisan civil service and unbiased Justice Department. Now we have to reverse a fanatic rightwing takeover of religious outreach in the military.

When Homeland Security  Chief Janet Neapolitano recently warned of rightwing fanatacism coming from former military personnel I was undecided as to the merit of the concern, but no more.

I find this sort of indoctrinatiion of our troops utterly appalling. Please lend your support to this group in this fight. The Christian Taliban must be stopped.  

June 24, 2009

Hon. Dr. Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Secretary Gates,

It has recently come to the attention of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) that an ecclesiastical endorsing agency authorized by the DoD to approve chaplains for military service has continually been in flagrant violation of a number of DoD regulations, the U.S. Code, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and the United States Constitution for well over a decade.

1. The Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), headed by retired Army Col. E.H. Jim Ammerman, which, according to its website, currently has over 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates in all branches of the military, habitually denigrates all religions and religious denominations except Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity. This denigration, which includes virulently anti-semitic and Islamophobic statements, as well as the deprecation of Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism, occurs in the CFGC's chaplain newsletters, as well as in the speeches, media appearances, and videos of both Mr. Ammerman and a currently serving CFGC chaplain, Army Maj. James F. Linzey. (See attached enclosures for numerous specific examples of these disparaging statements.)

2. Both Mr. Ammerman and Maj. Linzey have made numerous statements against the government of the United States and certain government officials and departments, promoted civilian militia movements, and disseminated many conspiracy theories in an attempt to foment disloyalty to the government of the the United States among both civilians and military personnel. This type of activity has previously led to an investigation of Ammerman and CFGC, called for by Air Force Lt. Gen. Normand Lezy in 1997. (See enclosed memorandum.)

DoD Directive Number 1325.6, "Guidelines for Handling Dissident and Protest Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces," cited in Lt. Gen. Lezy's 1997 memorandum, states that "Military personnel must reject participation in organizations that espouse supremacist causes." The Prophecy Club, an organization for which both Mr. Ammerman and Maj. Linzey have made videos, unquestionably espouses a supremacist cause. In addition, various statements made by both Mr. Ammerman and Maj. Linzey in their Prophecy Club videos, as well as in other forums, such as radio appearances and speeches, incontrovertibly violate one or more of the following statutory provisions found in Enclosure E1.2 of DoD Directive Number 1325.6.

E1.2. STATUTORY PROVISIONS

E1.2.1. Applicable to All Persons E1.2.1.2. Section 2385 -- Advocating overthrow of the Government. E1.2.1.3. Section 2387 -- Counseling insubordination , disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty.

E1.2.2. Applicable to Members of the Armed Forces E1.2.2.5. Section 888 (Article 88, UCMJ) -- Contemptuous words by commissioned officers against certain officials. E1.2.2.9. Section 934 (Article 134, UCMJ) -- Uttering disloyal statement, criminal libel, communicating a threat, and soliciting another to commit an offense.

3. According to the definition of a "Religious Organization" found in DoD Directive Number 1304.19, "Guidance for the Appointment of Chaplains for the Military Departments," CFGC is not eligible to be authorized as an ecclesiastical endorser. CFGC is not an "entity that is organized and functions primarily to perform religious ministries to a non-military lay constituency." CFGC, which is operated out of a house located in a residential neighborhood of Dallas, Texas zoned for single family homes, did not have a "non-military lay constituency" at the time of its founding, but was founded for the sole purpose of endorsing chaplains, and this continues to be its primary purpose to this day.

4. In a clear and blatant violation of CENTCOM's General Order 1-A, which absolutely prohibits the proselytizing of any religion, faith or practice in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, a network of forty CFGC chaplains has engaged in the organized distribution in Iraq of Arabic language Bibles and other Arabic language fundamentalist Christian evangelizing materials to the Iraqi people. The violation of this explicitly prohibited activity by these forty CFGC chaplains was initiated, encouraged, and aided by Mr. Ammerman. (See enclosed Newsweek article and other enclosures.)

Given CFGC's and Mr. Ammerman's multiple, habitual, and ongoing violations of military regulations, the U.S. Code, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and Mr. Ammerman's encouragement, aiding, and abetting of the chaplains he oversees in their violations of these regulations and the United States Constitution that they swore an oath to uphold, MRFF demands the immediate revocation of CFGC's ecclesiastical endorsing authority. Furthermore, MRFF demands an aggressive investigation to identify and swiftly punish all CFGC chaplains and any other enabling DoD military or civilian personnel involved in any of the aforementioned violations of military regulations and/or the U.S. Code.

Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq.
Founder & President
Military Religious Freedom Foundation
www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org

Enclosure

CC:
President Barack Obama
Pete Geren - Secretary of the Army
Ray Mabus - Secretary of the Navy
Michael B. Donley - Secretary of the Air Force
Admiral Michael Mullen - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General James E. Cartwright - Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General George W. Casey, Jr. - Chief of Staff of the United States Army
Admiral Gary Roughead - Chief of Naval Operations
General Norton A. Schwartz - Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force
General James T. Conway - Commandant of the Marine Corps
Carl Levin - Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services
Ike Skelton - Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services
Executive Director of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board
Gail H. McGinn - Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness
Pedro L. Irigonegaray, Esq. - Law Offices of Irigonegaray & Associates
Robert V. Eye, Esq. - Law Offices of Kaufman & Eye

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From Political Radar reports that President-elect Obama is expected to keep Robert Gates on as Secretary of Defense.

Sources tell ABC News that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be staying on in the top Pentagon job, for at least the first year of the Obama administration. "It is a done deal" a source close to the process tells ABC News.

Gates, while a registered independent, has served numerous Republican administrations. President George W. Bush nominated Gates to replace the Donald Rumsfeld after the 2006 midterm elections, when the war in Iraq was spiraling out of control.

The official announcement in the coming week is expected to be part of a larger roll-out of President-elect Obama's foreign policy team:

The former Eagle Scout is expected to be rolled out immediately after the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend as part of a larger national security team expected to include Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, as Secretary of State; Marine Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.) as National Security Adviser; Admiral Dennis Blair (Ret.) as Director of National Intelligence; and Dr. Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

There are arguments for and against keeping Gates on, the more compelling I've found are against. Chris Bowers rails against the move over at Open Left:

This should be an open and shut case. If there was one message that Obama ran on loudly, clearly, and indisputably, it is that he was going to bring "change" to Washington, D.C.  If Gates were kept on as Secretary of Defense, it apparently would also mean that all of his top advisors would also stay on, and that it all happened because long-time D.C. operatives said it should. Keeping the same guy and all of his advisors at the behest of old establishment types is about as far from change as possible.

Secretary of Defense is the big enchilada. Arguably, due to the vast percentage of federal spending it receives, it is more important than all other cabinet secretaries combined. [...]

Further, keeping Gates on would only worsen Democratic image problems on national security, as he would be the second consecutive non-Democratic Secretary of Defense nominated by a Democratic President. The message would be clear: even Democrats agree that Democrats can't run the military.

Joe Conason, unexpectedly perhaps, takes the pro-Gates position:

First it is important to recall that the president-elect vowed to bring change to politics as well as policy. The Obama administration would foster bipartisan cooperation wherever possible, he said, especially in matters of foreign policy and national security. If those are his objectives, then retaining Mr. Gates makes considerable sense -- at least for the time being.

Of all the possible holdover appointees, the defense secretary has the highest reputation for effectiveness and the lowest potential for conflict with the new president. Unlike the previous occupant, he is respected in Congress and among the military's general staff. Based on his personal history, Gates seems to have a stronger basis for agreement with Mr. Obama than with his current boss on the salient issues of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Remember that during the months before President Bush asked him to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, Gates was serving on the Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. The study group's best-selling report, released only weeks after Mr. Gates resigned to accept the Bush appointment, was strongly critical of the president's failed policies in Iraq.

Conason goes on to argue that in fact Gates and Obama are a better match than it might at first seem.

Upon assuming control of the Pentagon, Gates did his best to subordinate his own opinions to administration policy, working hard to make the best of the troop escalation in Iraq despite personal doubts about the long-term wisdom of the "surge." But he never echoed the Bush administration's official hostility to a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq -- and in fact at one point praised the debate over timetables in Washington as a means of increasing pressure on the Iraqis to achieve reconciliation and security on their own.

That should sound familiar, too, because it is so close to Obama's stated policy.

Another factor at play here is that, because of statements made by then Senator Obama during his campaign, the media is expecting the cabinet to be multi-partisan and is licking their chops to call President-elect Obama out on a broken promise; keeping Gates on will fulfill the promise for the moment.

I'd certainly prefer to see Gates canned as both a very real and a symbolic closing of the door on the Bush years, particularly on foreign policy, but I'm also well aware that Obama is using this transition period and his cabinet appointments to build up goodwill among his critics and the skeptical establishment. As he continues to build upon the significant political capital he collected on November 4th, one of my concerns is at what point after Jan. 20th does he actually intend to spend it. The downside of Robert Gates is tolerable as long as it wins us something much more valuable in the longrun. As of now I'm willing to give President-elect Obama the benefit of the doubt, he's earned it, but my patience is not limitless.

There's more...

Republished from Random Lengths News

Is Bush's nominee to replace Donald Rumsfeld another scandal just waiting to happen? And why don't the Democrats seem to care?

Over two decades before the Bush Administration first thought about politicizing intelligence to build a phony case for war against Iraq, Ronald Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, played a trailblazing role in politicizing intelligence within the CIA, vastly inflating the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and blaming it for a wide range of terrorism it had nothing to do with. His right hand man was Robert Gates, President Bush's appointee to succeed Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

But Gates did more than politicize intelligence. His involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, selling weapons to the terrorist-supporting Iranian government to illegally fund the terrorist Nicaraguan Contras--came close to getting him indicted.

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