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Liberlisation of the Military and Social Engineering
Good preparation, high moral, belief in the mission and good leaders were what was required that day. Someone's sexual orientation has absolutely no bearing on the persons capacity to be a good solider.
Gay soldiers were to blame for Dutch troops being overrun during the Srebrenica massacre, a retired general has claimed.
Does the General have a point about the negative impact of liberalisation by the military in all its forms?
Or, is it just a homophobic rant?
Not at all,
General Jack Sheehan is proud of his Irish and especially- Kerry- connections. And he has
a reputation for speaking out. To my mind his most famous quote is
"SACRED COWS MAKE THE BEST HAMBURGERS!" Gen Jack Sheehan.
See below:
This man is "crazy"? Why the "ad hominem" attack TODAY against this USMC General Jack Sheehan?
Look at this list of Military Medals that were awarded to one man:
Defense Distinguished Service Medal w/ 1 oak leaf cluster
Silver Star Defense Superior Service Medal Bronze Star w/ 1 award star & valor device Purple Heart w/ 1 award star
Defense Meritorious Service Medal Meritorious Service Medal Army Commendation Medal Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal
Combat Action Ribbon Navy Presidential Unit Citation Navy Unit Commendation Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal
National Defense Service Medal w/ 1 service star Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal Vietnam Service Medal w/ 5 service stars Southwest Asia Service Medal w/ 2 service stars
Humanitarian Service Medal Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon Arctic Service Ribbon Vietnam Gallantry Cross w/ 2 silver stars
Vietnam Armed Forces Honor Medal Vietnam Gallantry Cross unit citation Vietnam Campaign Medal Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia)
Now, look at his background:
The son of Irish immigrants he is one of seven children. He graduated with a B.A. degree in English from Boston College in June 1962. After graduation, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.
He holds an M.S. degree from Georgetown University in Government. His professional military education includes the Amphibious Warfare School, Naval Command and Staff College, and National War College. He served in various command positions ranging from company commander to brigade commander in both the Atlantic and Pacific theater of operations.
His combat tours include duty in Vietnam and Desert Shield/Desert Storm. His staff positions included duties as regimental, division, and service headquarters staff officer as well as joint duty with the United States Army, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. Atlantic Command.
He knew exactly what he was saying. BTW, he refused the top job in AFG. from Cheney as he thought it was unwinnable. The man speaks his mind.
Tim Horgan
PS
Study finds cronyism in Iraq, Afghanistan contracts
By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent | October 31, 2003
WASHINGTON -- Many of the companies that have received government contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan have collectively contributed more money to President Bush's election campaigns than to any other candidate in more than a decade, according to a study released yesterday.
More than 7 million federal contracting actions maintained in a General Services Administration database also were reviewed.
The center described the report as "cautious and conservative," noting that the center was not given access to all the documentation it requested and that it filed suit Wednesday against the State Department and the Army for not complying fully with its information requests.
Jonathan Marshall, a spokesman for Bechtel, the second-largest recipient of postwar contracts, said yesterday that "there was no cronyism involved and no access to civil servants other than under very strictly-controlled federal procedures." As for political contributions, "we are not ashamed of that," he said. "They were legal and proper, and the conclusion that that is why we were awarded the contracts is flatly untrue and grossly unfair."
But the report outlined a pattern of political contributions and personal links to senior government officials overseeing the agencies responsible for parceling out the postwar work.
Topping the list, with more than $2.3 billion in contracts, was Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the energy services conglomerate. Bechtel, a major construction and engineering firm that landed more than $1 billion worth of contracts for a variety of capital projects in both Iraq and Afghanistan, counts among its board members former secretary of state George Shultz and retired Marine Corps general Jack Sheehan, also a member of the Pentagon's advisory Defense Policy Board.
Kevin Myers: You will be hung, drawn and quartered for uttering a word 'interpreted' as violating liberal taboos
By Kevin Myers
Tuesday March 23 2010
You might not think what follows is relevant to us in Ireland. It is. For why it encapsulates the power of the ruling pieties of our time is so very compelling, and why dissent is equally difficult. Make it easy for me here: please google 'Lieutenant General John Sheehan', 'Srebrenica' and 'gays'. Done that? Good. So you will have seen there are hundreds of stories saying that the USMC Gen Sheehan declared that the Srebrenica massacre of 15 years ago happened because of the large number of homosexuals in the Dutch army.
But he said no such thing. And what these stories tell you is less about Gen Sheehan and much more about what long-term ideological media brain-washing has done to journalists.
In any civilisation, certain values or concepts or individuals can achieve an iconic, untouchable status: imperialism and General Gordon in Victorian Britain, or Patrick Pearse and blood sacrifice in 1960s Ireland, or John F Kennedy and the Great American Dream after his assassination. The creation of the global village since then has also generated a set of international iconic values, which are beyond discussion or analysis: Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, women's equality, gay rights, Palestine. These issues do not permit discussion. They stand as virtues that are unassailably "right" in themselves. If you criticise Nelson Mandela for his presidency of South Africa, you are clearly a supporter of apartheid. And so on.
But it is worse than that: for if you utter an opinion that could be interpreted as violating the new international liberal taboos, then you will be hung, drawn and quartered, regardless of what you had actually said. The perception is all: and, of course, the perception is usually the creation of our friends in the media. Hence The Ruination of the Good Name of Gen John Sheehan.
Having checked through the internet like the good little readers you are, you will now be aware that every single headline covering Gen Sheehan's testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee runs on the lines of: 'Outrage as US general blames gays for Srebrenica massacre'. Indeed, amid all the fury, you will probably find it impossible to discover what Gen Sheehan actually said, for this is how this two-stage process went: first the journalists misreported what Gen Sheehan said, and next they got the reactions of professional liberals (including, in this case, predictably, the Dutch government) to those misreported opinions.
What Gen Sheehan had actually told the Senate Armed Services Committee in its hearings into allowing open homosexuality in the US armed forces was largely as follows. He said that after the Cold War, European militaries had "concluded that there was no longer a need for a combat capability". The peace dividend had caused European governments to socialise their militaries, to unionise them, and to allow open homosexuality. This resulted in "a focus on peacekeeping operations because they did not believe the Germans were going to attack again or the Soviets were coming back". He then turned to events in Srebrenica, where the Dutch battalion was "understrength and poorly led". He described how Serb forces entered the town, tied Dutch soldiers to telephone poles and then massacred the Muslims.
The chairman of the committee, Carl Levin, interrupted him: "Did the Dutch leaders tell you that it was because there were gay soldiers there?"
"It was a combination. . ."
Levin interrupted him again. "Did they tell you it was because of gay soldiers, that's my question."
"They included that as part of the problem. It was the liberalisation of the military, the net effect of, basically, social engineering."
Senator Levin, who had controlled the questioning, then denounced Gen Sheehan for blaming the massacre on homosexuals. Gen Sheehan spoke again: "My comment was the liberalisation of. . ."
He was interrupted again, while the senator lectured him for stereotyping, and for suggesting that gays could be not be great fighters. "I didn't say gays weren't great fighters," protested the general. "The liberalisation of the Dutch military. . ."
He was interrupted again, and lectured once more for saying what he hadn't said. Levin thus began the destruction of the reputation of a great and patriotic marine who had served in his country at war, while Levin had stayed at home.
Never mind that you might think Gen Sheehan's arguments are poor and his opinions old-fashioned. They might very well be both. He is nonetheless entitled to be reported fairly and that didn't happen. And so everywhere he is accused of alleging that gays in the Dutch army (even more, apparently, than General Mladic) caused the massacre at Srebrenica.
This is a good example of how the media agenda works today, and it is, moreover, made altogether more sinister by the fact that its proponents are usually completely unaware of what they are doing. They are contestants in an endless "liberalism" competition, the outcome of which is for liberal thought police to seek out and magnify the possibly heretical thoughts of suspected bigots, as a prelude to their destruction: Sheehan today, and Everyman hereafter. Liberal journalism is no longer the voice of the free, but the hunting horn of the mob.
"Army chiefs face the nightmare prospect of having to consider their soldiers' childcare problems before giving them orders. The devastating blow follows a successful sex discrimination claim brought by a single mother. Tilern DeBique, 28, says she was forced to leave the Army because she was expected to be available for duty around the clock."
IMAGINE! THE CHEEK OF THE MILITARY TO EXPECT ALL THOSE ON THE SAME PAY AND CONDITIONS TO BE AVAILABLE FOR DUTY AROUND THE CLOCK!
I came across some cases of this myself with females pulling the single mother card. Sometimes it wasn't even the single mother card, it was the 'my husband works too so I can't go overseas, can't do weekend duties, can't go on exercise etc. etc. card'. Anecdotally I know the NS had some terrible problems in the early noughties but I understand the FOCNS took a tough line as it was becoming a real problem.
I did notice a more determined attempt to tackle this area before I left as the MA seemed to have come to terms with the fear of the bad PR and the topic ending up on Joe Duffy versus it developing into a real problem.
That is unbelieveable! It makes me glad that the BA doesn't have women in the infantry!
She has a valid reason to hold a grievance having been recruited in the Commonwealth, but surely she must have copped onto the fact that she is in the Army of a nation involved heavily in conflict. The lads at the front who send their radios back to be repaired don't and won't give a flying fúck about your babysitting problems! Man your post and fix the fúcking radio! If you're not happy with this scenario, then you're in the wrong job!
Just because you have kids doesn't mean the Army should accommodate you either by bouncing you around on a string of war-dodging postings!
She chose to get pregnant; if she didn't, then she chose to keep the baby. Her issues are self inflicted and not the Army's problem. You go AWOL, you get charged! Can't means Won't means Jail!
Now having had some experience of employment tribunals in the UK. i would say that some are jumping on their high horse, without knowing the full details, (as jessup points out in another post it is the Daily mail).
British law is very favourable to the employer, an employer is perfectly entitled to point out to somebody that they employ them not their kids, but as the same time, they are expected to be "reasonable", and make reasonable adjustments for genuine problems.
The woman offered a solution herself, suggesting that her sister move in with her to look after the child, which is, as the article points out, is a common solution with British soldiers who are single parents. It would have been relatively easy for the army to contact the immigration people to arrange this. In failing to consider this solution, she was less favourably treated then a british person by the army in the tribunal's opinion.
And you've got to see her point, the woman was left isolated, her family was living in the Carribean, what was she suppposed to do when the child got sick? Leave it there for the day and face charges of child neglect? Constructive unfair dismissal is actually very difficult to prove and the fact that she got it is to me a sign that perhaps there is more to this case than reported.
As for social engineering, any army is a collection of diverse people, all of who have diverse problems, some genuine, some not, its the job of managers to sort them out. Government bodies, are really light years behind on things like HR procedures, which results in people who extract the urine, and don't do their fair share get away with murder, while others who do have problems, ending up going to the tribunal. In many cases its down to whether or not your face fits.
Now I manage people for a living, and every week I go onto Bailii.org, and read over all the changes in employment law, and the next day have a meeting with one of the HR management team to ensure that we're compliant, and that junior managers are kept up to speed on changes. That way we cut down on the urine extractors, and don't end up having our fingers burnt by the genuine cases.
This the case in question. if the correct procedures had been followed, especially by Major Sykes, his predecessor and Staff Sargent Bagstaff, none of this would have happened.
The point you make isn't unreasonable Paul G, but it still grates on me that £100,000 of the MOD's already shrinking budget is going to this woman who in the end made a bad career/lifestyle choice. Not to mention the precedent it has set.
I'm sure that money would have paid for the rehabilitation for at least one badly wounded soldier returning from Afghanistan.
The point you make isn't unreasonable Paul G, but it still grates on me that £100,000 of the MOD's already shrinking budget is going to this woman who in the end made a bad career/lifestyle choice. Not to mention the precedent it has set.
I'm sure that money would have paid for the rehabilitation for at least one badly wounded soldier returning from Afghanistan.
Actually if you read the case in detail, what is equally upsetting is that Major Sykes made such a mess of things. Look between points 15 and 25 in the judgement in particular. Fact is that the good major done his job, then none of this would have happened.
Fact is that they appear to have tried to bully her, when had they actually followed procedures, and even written a half hearted letter to the border agency.
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