A Rejoinder to the Center for Military Readiness
It’s not usually productive to get into a minutia-filled, point-counterpoint debate with your adversary – except when the opponent questions your credibility. Disagree with us in terms of policy, but we take issue with the Center for Military Readiness’ latest missive regarding a RAND study.
The anonymous post on CMR’s website states, “RAND also contacted the SLDN, which replaced their original characterization of the Miller/Moradi paper as ‘a new survey by the RAND Corp.’ with a revision that remains misleading. The SLDN now describes the paper as ‘a new study by researchers from the RAND Corporation and the University of Florida and commissioned by the Palm Center…’ This version still dissembles.”
It is correct that RAND contacted us and as a result we altered a sentence to be even more precise, noting we regretted the misunderstanding. How did we come up with our revised language in italics above? A RAND press release from Nov. 9: “A new study about the U.S. military's ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ policy questions the assumption that allowing openly gay and lesbian military personnel to serve in the U.S. armed forces could harm military readiness.” RAND characterizes the report as “new.” We did not.
CMR continues: “Using the plural word ‘researchers’ suggests a typical RAND team ‘study’ rather than what the Miller/Moradi paper really is. The document was written by a single RAND employee, working without compensation on her own time, together with an associate at the University of Florida, reinterpreting four-year-old (not ‘new’) information from a Zogby Poll paid for by the Palm Center.”
RAND uses “researchers,” plural, twice in their own press release.
The central point of the new RAND study remains the same: 61 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are either in favor of getting rid of the law or are neutral on the matter.
SLDN does not need to, in the words of CMR, “fabricate” information in the name of “perception management.” There are plenty of spin-free, cold, hard facts and statistics that easily make the case for a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Just look at the RAND report commissioned by the Department of Defense in 1993 concluding that openly gay troops do not impact unit cohesion or military readiness.
12-02-09 By Kevin Nix, Communications Director |
5 Comments
Comments for this entry are closed.Dino in Washington, DC on December 17, 2009 at 08.55 am
In addition to the Crittenden Report, which was completed in 1957, the Department of Defense conducted a two year study, completed in 1988 from the Defense Personell Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC). The report confirmed what the Crittenden Report had stated, gays and lesbians posed no harm to cohesion, national security etc etc. The report was almost buried and would have been had it not been for the involvment of US Rep Gerry Studs (D) Mass. PERSEREC issued a second report in 1999, which said the same thing. In 1992 the General Accounting Office (GAO) (now the General Accountability Office) issued a study of the fiscal impact of the military’s antigay ban. It estimated that enforcing the ban i.e. untimely discharges and investigations, from 1980 to 1990, cost nearly 500,000,000. The GAO also did its own research about the rationale for the policy and concluded that it should be aboloshed.
I didn’t know that the of the 1,150 flag officers who were alleged to have signed a request to President Obama to keep DADT in place, three were dead and one has denied that he signed the document. Yes, we definetely SHOULD find out when those officers died and when the petition was circulated. I understand way SLDN may not want to take that up as it might backfire, but some other independent party definetely should!!! After all. our good friend Ms. Donnelly would not and does not hesitate to try and diminish the credibility of her opponents.
legal2 on December 12, 2009 at 02.06 pm
It will probably be repealed after a few more studies.
Carter in Georgia on December 06, 2009 at 09.38 pm
Personally, I give the entire thing less than two to three years before being repealed. Unlike President Clinton, President Obama has a much more receptive audience in his favor.
Admittedly, the entire thing will be subject to fierce opposition from those within the establishment who have something to profit from in opposing the move to repeal DADT.
As for the Crittenden Report; yes, it has been known that allowing homosexuals to serve in the military has no bearing on a large number of factors. The largest reason it was ignored was due to the cultural values of the time, and the fact that most back then preferred to ignore the entire issue of homosexuality in its’ entirety.
Clayton in Chicago on December 03, 2009 at 11.29 am
This thing has been studied to death. Wasn’t the Crittenden Report from like the late 1950s? More studies are just excuses for more delays.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com on December 02, 2009 at 06.40 pm
We should never be surprised at anything such an organization [individual pathologically obsessed with gay sex masquerading as an organization???] as CMR does, but questioning other’s credibility does put itself exceedingly far out on a trembling, very thin limb.
Among other things, one must consider that the Madame Defarge of the anti gay servicemembers cabal has continued to insist the antigay results of a survey by the Military Officers Association of America [MOAA] are valid after the MOAA, themselves, repudiated them.
According to Col. Marv Harris, USAF (Ret), in a response to an inquiry by David Hart of GayNewsService.com, “Because of the low response and indications that some non-members were passing the survey around to their friends in an effort to skew the results, we concluded that the results could not be considered a valid representation of member views.”
Ironically, in a “Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens gave these words to his legendary lethal character herself:
“You would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise.”
Then, from deep in the bowels of her lair, there is the infamous letter to President Obama and Congress demanding DADT not be repealed allegedly from 1000+ so-called “Flag & General Officers of the Military” that she bandies with greater frequency than a cuckoo clock announces the time.
As former SLDN representative Steve Ralls has noted, one of its signatories “has had to apologize for suggesting African-American Marines were somehow less competent than whites.”
And, in June of this year, the PBS “NewsHour” reported that at least three of the officers alleged to have signed the letter were dead. Ms. Defarge er Donnelly insists they died after signing.
Per PBS, “The NewsHour report also stated that one general was surprised to see his name on the list because he did not agree to sign it. That officer and the NewsHour stand by this statement.”
Given mainstream media repeatedly and inexplicably feels the need to give this one woman band of bigotry a platform, with respect, perhaps it is time that SLDN took the offense rather than the weaker episodic defense after the damage to yourselves and the movement for gay servicemember equality has already been done. I’m sure a detailed analysis of her history and histrionics would be most interesting and useful to the cause. E.g., where are the death certificates proving that those three officers were alive when they allegedly signed the document she, and the larger Antigay Industry, wield like a hammer?