As the Bush war machine revved up for a beating of Tehran, or maybe for a beating at Tehran, depending on your particular fancy, he led the General Staff in rejecting the plans to invade and came out most strongly to rubbish intelligence claims that links pointing to Tehran had been found in Iraq, among the rubble left by anti-US bombings. Many (including me) felt that here was a military man who could think before he pulled the trigger, a departure from the Rumsfeldian tradition of 'ready, fire, aim' that has wrought destruction not just on the second-class lives of Middle Easterners, but also on the heart of America, as it continues to waste lives and treasure in a never ending charm offensive pursued through cross-hairs and cluster bombs.

Those sagacious pronouncements of General Pace's now fade into the sunset in my mind, as I consider his most recent vituperation against homosexuality and gays and lesbians serving in the US armed forces. The UK chapters seem much less fussed, especially the Royal Navy whose motto is rather tellingly, 'Life without Limits', but back now if you please to General Peter Pace and his views on homosexuality.

"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace said in a wide-ranging discussion with editors and reporters of the Tribune in Chicago. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way."

"As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Pace said.

The general was commenting on the famous or notorious 'don't ask, don't tell' policy that has been the corner-stone of Pentagon position towards gays and lesbians in the Armed Services. Under this policy, gays and lesbians may serve only if they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts within the armed forces. In return, their commanders may not ask about their orientation. This policy, it had been previously argued, had little to do with morality or any imposition of values, but instead bowed to the realistic view that cohesion in the armed forces would be jeopardized by the presence of sexual relationships among serving same sex members.

General Pace's musings are hardly unique, with most interviewed members of the forces citing "morality" (and not discipline) as their reference on whether or nor they accepted gays and lesbians serving alongside them. The National Clergy Council, an ecumenical Christian organization, unsurprisingly has also come out strongly in defence of the general.

Like any club, it is really up to the US military themselves what action they decide to take on this. It is also interesting because in this the age of non-conscription the Anglo-American armed forces have been continuously lowering their standards for entry, now accepting ex-felons and non-nationals into their ranks. So, how hypocritical it is to admit all sorts of felons into the military, and to invite mercenaries from all over the world (not a few Kenyans among them), while at the same time locking out gays and lesbians for "immorality", of all things?!

But the unapologetic General may soon change his mind, because the bar on gays it is claimed keeps out of the armed forces up to 14,000 possible recruits. With the Bush-McCain 'surge', the Taliban resurgence and any possible conflict in the Middle East likely to demand more cannon fodder for the bone mill, the Joint Chiefs may want to turn around and come out in favor of a more tolerant and less anachronistic recruitment policy.