Celebrating the ability to oppress?

I recently heard an LGBTQ teen proudly saying that they could openly serve their country without the fear of being dishonorably discharged.

I wondered: Why would they want to?

The first thing that came to my mind were all the LGBTQ service members that were expelled before or during the illegal invasion of Iraq. The next disaster that befell the military was that they did not have enough interpreters of the Arabic language and its various dialects. An already bad war went worse because we lost the people that could communicate with the people we were oppressing.

Then President Obama struck down the Clinton era “Don't ask, don't tell legislation” and made it harder to remove LGBTQ individuals from the service.

Big deal.

Now they can openly serve without fear at all.

And why is this important?

We already have boots on the ground in Syria. A contingent of special forces and trainers is already working with the Syrian opposition. And Obama is clearly setting the stage for the next president to go into a full scale war against the Assad regime and put in power a comprador pro-western capitalist government that will be as bad and as oppressive as the current regime is.

And the US military is currently “broken” from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The combat units are not up to strength and the next president is going to need to do something to get them up to strength so that the boots can be on the ground.

So I expect to see more aggressive recruiting in impoverished school districts – BTW these tend to have higher levels of African and Hispanic populations. The very populations that are oppressed by “stop and frisk” policies and “shoot now and manipulate the media” later policies. Right. The military is sworn to protect Americans against all enemies. Foreign and domestic. When will the military step in to defend African Americans and Hispanics against police brutality and racist laws written by racist politicians? I'm not going to hold my breath.

I expect to see a more aggressive recruiting of women. In spite of the fact that women face sexual violence rates in the military that make civilian violence rates look like nothing. I would like (and the women that serve in the military even more so) would like to see them defend women against the criminals that commit sexual crimes against them in and out of the service. Again, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Look at the violence that has been (and still is) perpetrated against LGBTQ individuals in this society. They are still, even though it is legal, fighting for acceptance as married couples, I believe a couple just won the right to adopt, there is the violence that occurred in Florida and the daily physical violence that is committed against them. And the military is going to defend them against this? I'm not going to try holding my breath.

But go into the countries of our so called “allies” and see how they treat LGBTQ individuals. Look at Saudi Arabia and other socially conservative countries where being caught living as an open LGBTQ individual can carry a death sentence. And look at the fates of LGBTQ individuals in Honduras and other Central and South American countries where the US military has influence and a presence. Nothing to write home about there because the military is upholding the regime that makes those crimes possible and unpunishable.

And this student is proud and celebrating because they can openly serve in the military.

Doing what, exactly?

Dishing out the same oppression that they suffered under all these years?

That is worth celebrating?

Please.

Give me a break.

And I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that one either.