Since the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy went into effect, the Pentagon has dismissed more than 11,000 servicemembers, many of whom have key specialty skills such as training in medicine and language. At a time when the military faces a readiness crisis, the Pentagon cannot afford to dismiss two service members a day as it is doing under the current policy.

Today, Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA) reintroduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a bill that would allow gays to serve openly in the military. Joining Meehan at a press conference today was retired Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, the first American soldier to be seriously wounded in Iraq. A gay man, Alva did not admit his sexual orientation until he retired from the military, but Alva has since become a strong advocate for repealing the policy. Good Morning America told his story this morning.

Watch it:

In an interview not included in the televised report, Alva told ABC News about how his old Marine buddies took the news that he was gay:

“I told tons of people,” he said, with a laugh. “A lot of my friends, my buddies, my closest Marines, people I had served in combat with. Straight guys, married, with children and everything, three of them which I have become their sons’ godfather now. Everybody was just respectful and was just like ordinary. ‘That’s it? That’s your big news?’”

Alva says that while anti-gay language wasn’t exactly unheard of in the Marines, generally he thinks troops are ready for gays and lesbians to serve openly.

“Being on the front lines and serving with the people who even actually knew that I was gay, you know, that was never a factor. We were there to do a job. We were [there] to do a mission. I don’t think people would have a hard time with it because they know that the person right next to them is going to be there to protect them, in our terms, ‘have their back.’”

Learn more about the effort to lift the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy here.

VoteVets.org has teamed up with Gen. Wesley Clark to promote a new campaign warning against a military strike on Iran. StopIranWar.com is calling on Americans to build political pressure on U.S. policymakers to work with our allies and use every diplomatic, political, and economic option at our disposal to deal with Iran.

In a web-ad released today, Clark warns, “We’re approaching the last moments in which the administration can change its policy and head off a looming confrontation with Iran.” Watch it:

Take action here.

Also today, the Center for American Progress released a progressive strategy to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem: “Contain and Engage.”

Rather than pursue the faint hope that coercive measures will force Iran’s capitulation, our contain-and-engage strategy couples the pressures created by sanctions, diplomatic isolation and investment freezes with practical compromises and realizable security assurances to encourage Iran onto a verifiable, non-nuclear weapons path.

Read the full report HERE.

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The television show 24 has become a foreign policy guide for the right wing. Numerous conservative pundits have cited 24 as a sanction for harsh interrogation practices. In September, Laura Ingraham stated, “The average American out there loves the show 24. … In my mind that’s close to a national referendum that it’s OK to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get.”

Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan recently told the 24 producers that he was concerned that the show’s promotion of illegal torture “was having a damaging effect on young troops.” In a new interview with Newsweek, former U.S. Army specialist Tony Lagouranis, who left the military with an honorable discharge in 2005, confirms Finnegans fears — that U.S. soldiers did take cues from 24 to torture prisoners:

Interrogators didn’t have guidance from the military on what to do because we were told that the Geneva Conventions didn’t apply any more. So our training was obsolete, and we were encouraged to be creative. We turned to television and movies to look for ways of interrogating. I can say that I saw that with myself, also. I would adopt the posture of the television or movie interrogator, thinking that establishing that simple power arrangement, establishing absolute power over the detainee, would force him to break. …

[We adopted mock] executions and mock electrocution, stress positions, isolation, hypothermia. Threatening to execute family members or rape detainees’ wives and things like that.

Lagouranis has teamed up with Human Rights First to advocate against torture, noting that what is seen on 24 “is not an effective technique for gaining intelligence.” Kiefer Sutherland, the actor who stars as Jack Bauer, has also said that the torture techniques employed in the show are not effective ways to get information in real life. He recently agreed to speak with cadets at the West Point military academy to teach them that torture is wrong.

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In his Jan. 10 address to the nation, Bush cited Iran’s growing influence in Iraq as a key argument for escalating U.S. troop presence. “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We’ll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria,” Bush said.

Last night on Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor, Gen. Wesley Clark said that using escalation to counter Iran is a “fundamentally flawed” strategy. “What is actually happening with the surge strategy is the Shiite militia have gone underground and the U.S. troops are going to concentrate against the Sunnis. The actual impact of the surge strategy is likely to be that we deliver total control of Baghdad to the Shiites sooner rather than later.” In other words, if anything, the escalation will end up empowering Iran. Watch it:

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President Bush reportedly met yesterday with Walid Jumblatt, a member of the Lebanese Parliament who has repeatedly called for U.S.-backed regime change in Syria.

After visiting the White House, Jumblatt addressed the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, which wields significant influence within the administration. “Many people say there won’t be a stable Lebanon without regime change in Syria,” Jumblatt said, adding that he “urged the Bush administration to aid opposition groups fighting the rule” of Syrian President Assad.

Jumblatt’s meeting with the White House is notable not just because of his radical foreign policy views. In the past, Jumblatt has cheered the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq, referred to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “oil-colored,” and claimed the real axis of evil is one of “oil and Jews.”

– “We are all happy when U.S. soldiers are killed [in Iraq] week in and week out. The killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory.” [Link]

– “The oil axis is present in most of the U.S. administration, beginning with its president, vice-president and top advisers, including (Condoleezza) Rice, who is oil-colored, while the axis of Jews is present with Paul Wolfowitz, the leading hawk who is inciting (America) to occupy and destroy Iraq.” [Link]

– “In November 2003, the United States revoked Jumblatt’s diplomatic visa for wishing out loud that Wolfowitz had been killed in a Baghdad rocket attack.” [Link]

While the White House has yet to comment on Jumblatt’s visit, his regime change talk yesterday “drew a round of applause from the AEI audience.”

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When Senate leaders first announced their intention to revoke the 2002 Iraq war authorization, they said they planned to attach their legislation to a homeland security bill being debated this week. Thanks to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who is the chairman of the homeland security committee, that apparently won’t be happening. CongressDaily reports:

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Lieberman is making it clear he does not want Iraq-related amendments attached to a bill scheduled for floor action this week that would implement unfulfilled recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Democratic leaders seemed inclined today to hold off introducing Iraq-related amendments to the bill, possibly to avoid upsetting Lieberman and moving him closer to switching party affiliations, which would swing the Senate back to GOP control.

One Democratic aide quoted by CongressDaily says it “depends on whether Republicans push to attach language supportive of President Bush’s so-called surge in U.S. troop strength in the most dangerous areas of Iraq. ‘The Democrats won’t [offer Iraq amendments] if Republicans don’t,‘ this aide said.” Aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) say they have not decided how to proceed with the Iraq proposals.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, Lieberman expressed his desire not to have a debate over Iraq, saying “let us declare a truce in the Washington political war over Iraq until” the “end of summer.”

As Glenn Greenwald notes, Lieberman wrote “almost exactly the same op-ed, on the same Wall St. Journal page, more than a year ago,” in effect arguing “that it is therefore our duty as Americans (still) to keep our mouths shut and be led to Victory.”

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New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the “single most explosive” element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni groups.

Hersh says the U.S. has been “pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight” for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to “stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.” Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of “three Sunni jihadist groups” who are “connected to al Qaeda” but “want to take on Hezbollah.”

Hersh summed up his scoop in stark terms: “We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11.” Watch it:

Hersh added, “All of this should be investigated by Congress, by the way, and I trust it will be. In my talking to membership — members there, they are very upset that they know nothing about this. And they have great many suspicions.”

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Appearing on CNN’s Late Edition to discuss his new article, “The Redirection,” Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh warned that the Bush administration is “very far along” in its plans for a war with Iran.

Among the other highlights from the interview:

– Hersh said U.S. special forces and intelligence operatives have been conducting a lot of “very aggressive” activities inside Iran on the border of Iraq.

– Inside the military, they are planning “a 24 hour package” — that is, a plan to operationalize a strike on Iran within 24 hours of Bush’s order.

– Noting Bush’s steadfast refusal to talk with Iran, Hersh said, “Maybe we just have to really listen to what he is saying. And I don’t know what can stop him because he is president.”

Watch it:

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On NBC’s Meet the Press today, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) argued that the Senate Armed Services Committee did not conduct oversight of the treatment at military facilities in recent years because “they did not want to embarrass the President.” As the new chairman of the committee, Levin said he will be visiting Walter Reed this week and holding a hearing on March 6.

Levin decried the deplorable conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. “Where we need a surge is not in Iraq. We need a surge of concern for our troops, for the veterans, for the injured, for the wounded, for the families of those who have lost loved ones. That’s the surge of concern and that’s the surge that we need,” Levin said. Watch it:

In its cover story, “Failing Our Wounded,” Newsweek reports that the government is struggling to care for an increasing number of injured soldiers. Newsweek’s investigation of the VA system “paints a grim portrait of an overloaded bureaucracy cluttered with red tape; veterans having to wait weeks or months for mental-health care and other appointments; families sliding into debt as VA case managers study disability claims over many months, and the seriously wounded requiring help from outside experts just to understand the VA’s arcane system of rights and benefits.”

Last week, Vice President Cheney attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) for supporting Iraq redeployment. He charged that their plan would “validate the al Qaeda strategy.”

Today, former President Jimmy Carter rejected Cheney’s charges, stating that calls for a change of policy in Iraq are “not playing into the hands of al Qaeda or the people who are causing violence and destruction over there.” He added, “If you go back and see what Vice President Cheney has said for the last three or four years concerning Iraq, his batting average is abysmally low. He hasn’t been right on hardly anything.” Watch it:

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In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports that a special Pentagon unit has been charged in recent months with developing plans for U.S. air attacks on Iran. From Reuters:

Despite the Bush administration’s insistence it has no plans to go to war with Iran, a Pentagon panel has been created to plan a bombing attack that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President George W. Bush, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.

The special planning group was established within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent months, according to an unidentified former U.S. intelligence official cited in the article by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the March 4 issue.

According to the article, the Pentagon unit was initially charged with destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities but has recently changed its mission “to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq.”

Earlier this week, the BBC also reported the existence of U.S. contingency plans for war with Iran that extend beyond Iran’s nuclear facilities. This weekend, Vice President Cheney said war with Iran remains an option.

While contingency war plans exist for many potential conflicts around the world, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) warned this week that the administration’s rhetoric and flawed intelligence on Iran give rise to a special concern that a strategic mistake could lead to war:

In a hazy, hair-triggered environment, careless rhetoric and military movements that one side may believe are required to demonstrate resolve and strength…can be misinterpreted as preparations for military options. The risk of inadvertent conflict because of miscalculation is great.

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UPDATE: Hersh’s article is now posted.

In a recent interview on CNN, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) claimed that it was “absolutely untrue” that he once said we should “take out Mecca in order to send a message.”

After airing Tancredo’s remarks, host Anderson Cooper said, “As always, we care about the facts on 360″ and proceeded to display Tancredo’s statements from an interview he conducted with Pat Campbell in July 2005. A review of the transcript showed Tancredo arguing that if terrorists were to use nuclear weapons in the U.S., we should respond by nuking the Muslim holy city of Mecca. Watch it:

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In a recent interview, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) claimed that she knows of a secret plan by Iran to partition Iraq and turn half of the country into a “terrorist safe haven zone” called the “Iraq State of Islam.” Bachmann, who famously refused to let go of President Bush at the State of the Union, claimed there is “already an agreement made,” but she “did not say how she knew about this plan, nor with whom Iran has made this deal.”

Listen here:

ThinkProgress contacted Bachmann about her remarks, and received a statement from her office stating that coverage of her Iran statement was “misconstrued.” Bachmann claims she was actually talking about widely-discussed plans to partition Iraq among the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, and her fear that Iran would overtake the Shiite region.

Bachmann is no stranger to conspiracy theories. She continues to insist that there is a link between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Iraq, despite the 9/11 Commission’s conclusion that there was “no credible evidence” of any connection.

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Read her radio transcript and full statement: Read more