[News] An Open Letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/day04112007.html

April 11, 2007


An Open Letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff


Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts

By SUSIE DAY

As a lesbian, I often turn, in my quest for moral 
guidance, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You, 
Peter Pace, being Chairman of the JCS, are to me 
a virtual guru of ethical enlightenment! So, 
naturally, I was struck by your recent Chicago 
Tribune interview, in which you said, "I believe 
homosexual acts between two individuals are 
immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts."

At first, your words threw me into a panic of 
denial. Does this mean, I asked myself, that I am 
basically good, and bad only when I am performing 
acts of a homosexual nature? What if there were 
more than two individuals getting it homosexually 
on--if I were part of an orgy of, say, 3 to 
11,847 people--would I be less immoral? And what 
if I joined the Army and shot a lot of Iraqi 
insurgents, along with a few innocent 
civilians--would Peter Pace at last condone me?

Then I stopped bargaining with myself. I realized 
that you, Peter Pace, are right. Just as I have 
accepted the fact of my homosexuality, I now must 
accept the fact that I am morally depraved. Thank 
you for informing me of my innate evil. I will 
try to keep this in mind the next time I engage 
in acts of sordid, sin-soaked muff diving with my homosexual girlfriend.

I shall now endeavor to go on with my life, with 
perhaps slightly lower self-esteem, but also with 
joy in the knowledge that that you and I share a 
common humanity. For you, too, Peter Pace, have 
stood alone as an outcast, scorned and snickered 
at by your peers. In 2005, you had the guts to 
stand up to then-Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld, to argue that it was the duty of 
American troops to prevent torture. Wow. It's one 
thing to have humanitarian (or, "humo") 
tendencies--but actually opposing torture in this 
Administration must make you feel like some 
noncom Army fag with his head stuffed into a barracks toilet.

Speaking of epithets, did you hear that, at the 
Conservative Political Action Conference, pundit 
Ann Coulter called Presidential hopeful John 
Edwards a "faggot"? I'm sure she meant that in a 
good way. In fact, in a recent appearance on 
"Hannity and Colmes," Ann explained that her use 
of the word "isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays."

Ann must mean that she sees John Edwards not as a 
homosexual, but as an annoying, effete, wussy 
kind of guy--a guy who possibly wouldn't like to 
be tortured. After all, Ann is unwavering in her 
anti-wuss position, and has made her name with 
such actual, alpha-femme statements as: "I think 
the government should be spying on all Arabs, 
engaging in torture as a televised spectator 
sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout 
the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantánamo."

Ann is not pretty when she's mad. So I worry, 
Peter Pace. I worry that Ann Coulter will find 
out about your stance against torture and call 
you, at some nationally-televised gathering, a 
"faggot." I mean, we homosexuals can take it when 
we're called names, but you people are more 
delicate. It's good, then, that you reclaimed the 
moral high ground with your defense of the use of 
white phosphorous--an incendiary chemical that 
burns down to the bone when exposed to oxygen--in 
flushing out insurgents during the American siege 
on Fallujah. "It is a legitimate tool of the military," you said.

I guess "legitimate," here, is a code word for 
"moral." Which is a code word for "heterosexual." 
Which is the preferred libidinal default of you 
and God and Ann Coulter and all good people. It 
is natural, then, that when we meet a person, we 
assume she or he is heterosexual--or 
"moral"--unless, of course, we ask and are then 
told that the person we have just met is a godlessly debauched queer.

So, given that there are, according to the 
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 
approximately 65,000 gay men and lesbians serving 
in our military, your endorsement of the "Don't 
Ask, Don't Tell" policy makes perfect sense. I 
feel truly proud, truly grateful, knowing that 
none of our soldiers who caused the deaths of at 
least 60,411 (and counting) Iraqi civilians were 
immoral enough to admit that they were queer.

Perhaps, in order for us all to sleep nights, 
Peter Pace, we Americans--straight and 
gay--should apply the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" 
policy to you, as well. For instance, we won't 
ask you just what the military did at Fallujah 
and other places in Iraq, and you won't tell us, 
OK? It's one way of maintaining our national morality at its current level.

Well, gotta go. My girlfriend wants to have sex 
again. This time, she's asked me to dress up as 
Ann Coulter. As if that could wash away the stain

Susie Day can be reached at: <mailto:sday at skadden.com>sday at skadden.com

© Susie Day, 2007


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