Posted on 06/03/2005 4:29:05 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Why are our generals trying to push women into ground combat in Iraq despite Pentagon regulations and congressional law against it? What is it about civilian control of the military that the generals don't understand?
Current Department of Defense regulations exclude women from ground combat, as well as from assignment to forward support units that "collocate [i.e., are embedded side by side] with units assigned a direct ground combat mission." Federal law requires that Congress be given 30 legislative days' advance notice of any change to this policy.
Army Secretary Francis Harvey has been skirting (pardon the word) this policy by unilaterally rewording it to assign women to forward- support units except when "CONDUCTING an assigned direct ground combat mission." (emphasis added) When a ground-combat unit actually engages the enemy, the women (who are slated to be roughly 10 percent of the forward-support companies) will have to be evacuated from the battlefield.
How many ground and air vehicles, and how many extra men, will this ridiculous plan require? Will the enemy hold his fire until the evacuation is complete?
Frustrated by the Army's devious behavior, Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and John McHugh (R-NY) tried to add an amendment to the military appropriations bill to codify the current DoD regulations which the Army seems to have difficulty understanding. The feminists are lining up their media allies to demand that women be forced into land combat situations, while falsely asserting that Hunter-McHugh is "changing" the rule.
Much of the demand for women in combat comes from female officers who are eager for medals and promotions. Enlisted women are acutely aware of the heavy lifting that must be done by the combat infantry.
The Army's own opinion surveys prior to 2001 consistently reported that 85 to 90 percent of enlisted women oppose "being assigned to combat units on the same basis as men." Women enlistees have a right to expect the Army to obey current policy and law.
The advocates of women in combat say the front line is everywhere in Iraq. They continually try to fuzzy over the difference between being subject to risk (such as being ambushed by a car bomb) versus the task of aggressively seeking out and killing the enemy.
Army Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker tried to laugh off the difference by saying that "maybe since we're killing 40,000 people a year on the highways, they [women] shouldn't drive. That's very dangerous, too." Comparing the risk of highway driving with engaging the enemy in combat is insulting to our intelligence and common sense.
Putting women in military combat is the cutting edge of the feminist goal to force us into an androgynous society. Feminists are determined to impose what Gloria Steinem called "liberation biology" that pretends all male-female differences are culturally imposed by a discriminatory patriarchy.
History offers no evidence for the proposition that the assignment of women to military combat jobs is the way to win wars, improve combat readiness, or promote national security.
Women, on the average, have only 60 percent of the physical strength of men, are about six inches shorter, and survive basic training only by the subterfuge of being graded on effort rather than on performance. These facts, self-evident to anyone who watches professional or Olympic sports competitions, are only some of the many sex differences confirmed by scholarly studies.
Denial of physical differences is an illusion that kills. That's the lesson of the Atlanta courtroom massacre where a 5-foot-one, 51-year-old grandmother police guard was overpowered by a 6-foot-tall, 210-pound former football linebacker criminal; so now three people are dead.
Every country that has experimented with women in actual combat has abandoned the idea, and the notion that Israel uses women in combat is a feminist myth. The armies and navies of every potential enemy are exclusively male; their combat readiness is not diminished by coed complications or social experimentation.
The 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces voted to maintain the exemption of women from assignment to combat in ground troops, combat aviation, amphibious ships and submarines. But already 33 servicewomen including mothers have been killed and 270 wounded in the war in Iraq.
The Army is wondering why it can't meet its recruitment goals. It could be that the current 15 percent female quota is a turn-off to men who don't want to fight alongside of women who can't carry a man off the battlefield if he is wounded. Forcing women in or near land combat will hurt recruiting, not help.
No country in history ever sent mothers of toddlers off to fight enemy soldiers until the United States did this in the Iraq war. We hope this won't be the legacy of the Bush Administration.
And one that just won't go away.
No country in history ever sent mothers of toddlers off to fight enemy soldiers until the United States did this in the Iraq war
It's not something that civilized societies do.
I know women DID fight in the Israeli forces - in the early days. Everyone had to fight.
I really have no problem with it. If a woman can pull her weight all the power to her.
Right. One or a few cases (some exagerated, others just plain luck) mean that it should be universal. Only an ignorant would agree to such stupidity. I wonder how we would have done in the korean war(for example) if every soldier we had was a woman. Oh yes, you dont mean that; you mean they can be mixed with male soldiers right? Male soldiers will survive and bring victory without any female soldiers. Can an all female military survive a nasty war such as the koren war without any males? I rest my case. You will not hear from me again.
Neither do I, provided she can meet the physical requirements.
If the generals want it, there might be a reason. I can't believe that they're *all* Clinton political employees. Maybe we should at least listen to the ones who know.
Phyllis is 'round the bend on this one. She's normally less shrill and strident, so this one must be smackin' her between the eyes for some reason. (Daughter, Niece, Daughter-in-Law in the military?)
We have an ALL VOLUNTEER MILITARY. If you're a woman with toddlers (or if you want them in the near future) don't VOLUNTEER to enlist in a combat unit! The military isn't FORCING these young mothers into combat; they willingly signed on the dotted line...and took the pay and benefits, college tuition reimbursement, enlistment & re-enlistment bonuses, free healthcare, and the paid delivery of their children while they were on duty should that be the case.
There are hundreds of jobs in the military that don't involve combat, and never will unless we're in WWIII when it'll be 'All Hands on Deck.'
As a female combat veteran myself, these pieces never hold water for me. What's the TRUE AGENDA behind not wanting women in combat? Not wanting women in the military at all, which is where Phyllis is coming from. She can be a real 'Anti-Woman Woman' when she puts her mind to it.
Does she rail against female police officers and firefighters? How about female EMTs or First Responders? What's more dangerous than that? (I don't know; just asking, because I don't recall her opinion on those jobs; and the military IS a JOB for all intents and purposes.)
Well written article, though. She supports her assumptive* arguments well, and the average Joe & Josephine that have never served would easily swallow it. ;)
* 2. assumptive - accepted as real or true without proof;
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/assumptive
Crawl back under the rock you came out from under.
The problem is, the PT requirements aren't the same for women, so most aren't......
/sarcasm..
What's your take on the draft?
Having experienced it, I'm not enthralled with the idea of bringing it back.
Because not enough war hawk neo-con men signed up?
By Jon Dougherty
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
Despite 225 years of witnessing the horror of wars fought by male American soldiers, there are still a number of idiots – mostly feminists who themselves will never have to face an armed enemy soldier – pushing lawmakers to drop a ban against allowing women in combat.
Israel – a nation of about 6.2 million people constantly at war with its neighbors – allowed women in combat, the idiots shriek. Why, then, must the American military, as regards ground combat roles, remain so androcentric, so "male-centered"?
It's time to debunk the myth, once and for all, that Israel's experience with allowing women in combat was successful and, therefore, should be duplicated by the Pentagon. It wasn't successful. It was a disaster by Israel's own admission.
"History shows that the presence of women has had a devastating impact on the effectiveness of men in battle," wrote John Luddy in July 27, 1994, for the Heritage Foundation backgrounder.
"For example, it is a common misperception that Israel allows women in combat units. In fact, women have been barred from combat in Israel since 1950, when a review of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War showed how harmful their presence could be. The study revealed that men tried to protect and assist women rather than continue their attack. As a result, they not only put their own lives in greater danger, but also jeopardized the survival of the entire unit. The study further revealed that unit morale was damaged when men saw women killed and maimed on the battlefield," Luddy said.
Writes Edward Norton, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces: "Women have always played an important role in the Israeli military, but they rarely see combat; if they do, it is usually by accident. No one in Israel, including feminists, has any objection to this situation. The fact that the Persian Gulf War has produced calls to allow women on the front lines proves only how atypical that war was and how little Americans really understand combat."
"Few serious armies use women in combat roles. Israel, which drafts most of its young women and uses them in all kinds of military work, has learned from experience to take them out of combat zones. Tests show that few women have the upper-body strength required for combat tasks. Keeping combat forces all male would not be discriminatory, as were earlier racial segregation schemes in the military, because men and women are different both physically and psychologically," said the Feb. 5, 1990, National Review.
Furthermore, Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld has written extensively about the failure of the IDF to successfully integrate and use women in combat.
Finally, even Israeli citizens don't relish the thought of allowing their women into combat roles. In 1998, a survey conducted by the Jerusalem Post newspaper found that 56 percent of Israelis don't want women in combat.
There are now and always will be idiots who say the Pentagon should put women in any combat unit they wish to serve. Most of these people will speak with the ignorance of never having had to experience the horror of combat, as well as the luxury of never having to worry about engaging in armed conflict themselves.
But to use the "Israeli experience" as an allegedly successful model for the U.S. to follow is not only absurd, it's disingenuous. It is a lie propagated by radical feminists like ex-Democratic Rep. Patricia Schroeder who have falsely claimed that such a goal is merely an extension of "the will of the people."
Perhaps if more lawmakers – and Americans in general – were exposed to military service, the idiots who seem to be dominating this debate wouldn't have many sympathetic ears.
Imagine two young soldiers, one male and one female, sharing a foxhole. Assigned to guard their unit's perimeter. It's a quiet, boring night. What are the chances that their attention might be drawn to each other and away from their duty to protect their sleeping comrades?
Their lack of self control could conceivably result in the death of everyone in their unit if the enemy exploited their compromised position.
I have no problem with women serving in the military, but not at the expense of jeopardizing mission safety or effectiveness.
excellent response...one of my 60 gunners in Mogadishu was a young woman, Susan Kay, from Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin...she always had my six...must be something in the water up there...thanks for your service-
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