Who needs to know Arabic anyway?

• A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.
• Bleu Copas, 30, told The Associated Press he is gay, but said he was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
• An eight-month Army investigation culminated in Copas' honorable discharge on Jan. 30 - less than four years after he enlisted, he said, out of a post-Sept. 11 sense of duty to his country.
• Copas said he was never open about his sexuality in the military and suspects his accuser was someone he mistakenly befriended and apparently slighted.
• Among questions posed to Sgt. Copas by an Army investigator attempting to confirm his gayness: are you now or have you ever been involved in community theater.

The number-one rule of counter-insurgency is to establish good relations with the local population. Hard-working U.S. soldiers are attempting counter-insurgency in Iraq without speaking the language. Of the precious few U.S. soldiers trained in Arabic, the Pentagon has expelled 55 of them soley for being gay.

Meanwhile, to meet recruiting quotas, the military is accepting recruits with criminal histories. One of them is Steven D. Green, the former Army private accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family.

Hey guys, if you're not serious about winning the war, why should anyone else be?