Fleischer: Rape of POWs 'not worth mentioning'

Editor's note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you'd like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily's exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT!

At today's White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer about the Iraqis' holding of a female United States soldier as a prisoner of war and how it relates to the issue of women in combat.

The Washington Times reported yesterday that Johnson was the first U.S. female held as a POW since the Clinton administration's military leaders repealed a rule barring servicewomen from positions with a high risk of encountering enemy fire or capture.

"It's bad when a man is captured. But if a woman is captured, she doesn't have the same chance [to defend herself] that a man does," Elaine Donnelly, president of the Military Readiness Center, told the paper.

Said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, "You must consider that women in every society are preyed upon if they are overtaken. ... Now that women are closer to the front lines, they are more subject to becoming captives and being manipulated."

Les Kinsolving is WorldNetDaily’s White House correspondent and a talk-show host for WCBM in Baltimore.

According to ESPN that was on the topic list for the owners meeting in Phoenix last weekend. ESPN sources said they weren't going to be making policy but merely discussing it as something they were probably going to have make policy on soon.

Working from memory here but when women in male sports was discussed on Outside the Lines (about 5 months ago) I think they said there were 4 in Division A and nearly a dozen in AA. Compared to the total list of NCAA teams it doesn't sound like much, but if the ones in A were to advance to the NFL they could be the place kickers for one entire division, 1/8 of the league. They also said there were a lot trying out, though they didn't qualify that. There was a female goalie in the AHL for a while. Tammy Granato (captain of the American gold medal winning Women's Olympic hockey team) has said one of here goals in her career was to drop the gloves against her brother (who's in the NHL and was also representing America at the Olympics that year). Later she played on the Florida Heroes of Hockey team against the NHL Heroes team at the All-Star game, she even checked Gordie Howe.

Women in male sports is coming, and sooner than most of us think.

All beer swilling beer farting sports addicted dude.

Above is your answer to my question:

"Before we continue, I'd like to know if you're male or female. I'm male. "

What you appear to be saying is that you're a man, but when parsed carefully, the character string here is confusing, and really doesn't say anything.

It's a simple question; if you were to ask it of me, I would answer with no problem. Why won't you answer it? The answer will not compromise your anonymity, like asking your name, phone or address.

You realize that such evasion creates the assumption that you are female trying to appear as male to add weight to your position? You should also realize that a lie doesn't have to be stated outright to be a lie; it can take the form of projecting a collage of impressions with the intent to deceive, the word "intent" being the operative term here?

So, just answer my question; I stated my gender with no problem at all. Why don't you? Just say, "I'm male" and avoid the appearance that your're trying to misdirect.

Good. I just wanted to get that question resolved. Though all that verbage was unnecessary; "I'm male" would have done nicely.

Now to your other post:

I'm convinced of my convictions because I'm right. Be enough of a man to let a person know when you're insulting them, it;s not that hard to include the person you're slaming in the to field.

First, you're absolutly right. I should have included you in the recipient list. But you found it, so no harm done.

Now so, you're have your convictions because you're right. You have not been influenced by the ubuitous attempts at social reprograming. Ok, I tend to differ, and all healthy cultures in history do not bare you out, but answer me this question.

There are 'way more men, healthy, strong and willing to serve, that the military can make use of with current funding levels, who by physical nature and psychological orientation at birth are uniquely suited to violent and armed conflict. Why allow women, who are suited to nurturing and childbirth, the historical role of a woman, physically and psychologically, in any culture if that culture is to survive, to place themselves in deadly danger to satisfy a infinitesimaly tiny number of them the frequently misplaced and false desire to be like men?

As I have asked in other words, why in the hell scratch around in the watermelon patch for the rare volunteer strawberry? Why not stick with the strawberry patch? For what purpose, so that Martha can use the tiny involvement of combat women to agitate for the de minimus goal of making a golf club include women against their will and over their objections?

Leftist whack-job? Is that what you call me? I'd suggest you read my post over a few more times! I said that there were Palestinian people who are trapped in the middle. If you had read my post the right way, instead of going knee-jerk, you would have seen that!

I do believe that there are innocent people held in thrall of the violent terrorist groups. Many of these people have been seen getting along with Israeli people just fine! In that restaurant bombing awhile back. There were Pali. people sitting in that restaurant, as well as the Israelis. They got hurt too!

Also, there have been Pali. people who have been caught giving the Israeli gov. information on their so-called leaders. And can you even guess what happened to them? Do you even care? Good grief, can't people disagree with you without being called names? I'm a Christian, that's why I stick up for innocent people anywhere! Not a perfect Christian, but one who can have compassion for helpless people anywhere, without supporting those who lead them!

Am I a whack-job for being pro-life, for tax-cuts, supporting homeschooling as a option for anyone, supporting our military, our President, our war in Iraq? No, I don't believe I am! But if you insist, then I'll consider myself privileged to be that kind of whack-job! In other words, if I'm going to be labeled a 'whack-job' for doing the above, well so be it!

The ubiquitous attempts at reprogramming generally avoid facts. The facts are that women have had roles in military service for a long time and have done a good job. The only thing new we're looking at here is combat roles. I'm not saying any woman can do any man's job or anything silly like that. I'm saying SOME women can perform in combat duty and supposedly our military has batteries of tests (including psychological tests of how a person would handle the stress of combat) that can determine if a person can handle it (many of those tests have been weakened in recent years, which is bad, most of the really good tests are reserved for special forces). And I see no reason why if a person can pass those tests they shouldn't be allowed into combat duty. It's very simple we've got the tests, if women can pass them but would still be a detriment in combat then clearly the tests are flawed and obviously some men are passing that shouldn't, if no woman can pass them then the discussion ends right there.

OK one of the serious bulldaddas running around on this thread which I haven't attacked yet is this idea that women who serve are doing it because they want to be like men (or are bull dykes as some have so inelloquently put it). That's a mischaracterization and misunderstanding. Women serve for the same variety of reasons as men: they seek an orderly life, they're seeking a GI Bill paid for education, they wish to serve the nation, their family has a tradition of military service, they couldn't think of anything better to do with their time. The list is long and varied. Having grown up in a VERY military family (I'm related by blood to past or current members of every branch, I'm most directly related to the Marines via both parents). Part of Marine training when my mom was in was learning how to walk in 3 inch pumps without clomping down the hall (a skill I didn't appreciate until high school when I began hearing the "early bloomers" from 100 feet away). A person doesn't learn to do that because they want to be manly. I've met many female servicemen (and former), all either had husbands or ex-husbands and all had kids, none were lacking in feminine traits and the fact that they could break down a rifle faster than most of the men in the room really didn't play much into their life. So your first question comes from false pretexts and therefore gets no direct answer other than correcting the pretexts.

now as for your watermelon field/ strawberry patch analogy. Again you're working from false pretexts. In an all volunteer military we don't go looking for anybody, they come to the military. The proper question is: why do we have an open door policy but keep the door partly closed? Why shouldn't women who have the will and the skill serve in our military? If they have the further will and skill to serve combat duty why not? This has nothing to do with Martha not being able to read the rule book at Augusta (which does NOT btw exclude women, women are only excluded in so far as none have been invited, but there's no policy). It has nothing to do with how private organizations run themselves. The military isn't a private organization, it's part of the government and it's part with a very specific duty: to provide America with the best protection from foreign hostility possible. If women in combat roles won't lessen the protection (or possibly might improve it) then there's no reason to not let them do it (and if there's an improvement it's the military's duty to let them do it).

The ubiquitous attempts at reprogramming do definitely avoid facts. They work on emotions and reactions with images that are lies filmed such they seem to work in reality. Even military manuals state that images are internalized as fact, regardless of whether they are or not. My surface assumption is that you watch too much of them.

The fact is that women have not had "roles" in the military that directly place them in combat danger. This is recent. Oh there might be a woman or two in history that have been known to fight, but the obvious paucity of those examples merely proved the rule, Exceptio probat regulam de rebus non exceptio.

Sure, SOME women CAN perform combat duty. The fact is that women in such roles are hanging on, surviving, but unless they provide some stellar talent with regards to making war, what is the sense of putting them when there is an overabundance of men who take to those roles as a matter of natural inborn ability? Add that to the fact that, with men's obvious and undisputed, also inborn, attitude toward the safety of women, there can actually be harm done.

It really doesn't matter whether women want to be like men, want education benefits or their family has a tradition of military service. The fact is that to use of them for which they are not suited, when there are those waiting in the wings that are every one suited by natural programing is absurd. If these women want to serve their nation, let them serve in the way a woman is uniquely built to serve, by making, raising and socializing more men who are built to fight.

I have been convinced that women are being used by those who hunger for political power, like Hillary Clinton, to plug that one hole in all reasoning for women in political leadership position, the fighting and dying aspect of the social protection role, leadership being a direct outgrowth of the role of social protection.

If women come to the military, they should be allowed duty in a support role while there are still plenty of men to fill combat roles. When the supply of men is exhausted, then women fight to perserve the nation. We are nowhere near that condition and won't ever be unless a war occurs on this soil. Why not let women serve in combat capacity who want to? Why not? I've answered that above.

The military is surely the part of the government with the specific duty to provide America with the best protection from foreign hostility possible. How can you say that women are the best protection possible with (at least) ten thousand years of contrary history behind us? Again, they at best survive. Anything less that survival is a hazzard to the rest of a combat unit.

There has been numerous evidences, by reasoning and direct experience, that indicate women do lessen the protection. Since they have no special talent for war, physically and psychologically, and more men exist that the military can accept, then the only the possibility they will cause a reduction of fighting form in any way is reason enough to keep them out of combat duty.

I didn't say they had roles in the military that placed them in combat danger. I said they had roles in the military. There a difference and I'd appreciate it if you didn't change what I said just to make you right. Now historically there are a handful of very limited examples of women in combat roles (ala Joan of Arc) but it's pretty rare. Even now we aren't putting women in direct combat roles, we're putting them in areas that are supposedly support but might wind up in combat.

You're assuming there's an overabundance. I reject that assumption. If you have proof provide it, I'll listen to proof I ignore unfounded assumptions.

We're all being used by those that hunger for political power, get used to it. Or become a hermit. Your choice. Although I've heard there are a few members of the Libertarian party making eyes at hermits, be adviced. As for women in political roles what's the problem? Didn't like Maggie Thatcher. Politics is the art of compromise and manipulation, as is rearing 3 year olds, I think parenting skills directly apply to careers in politics. This probably explains why Hilary is so bad as a senator, she thinks it takes a village to raise a kid way to advertise one's bad parenting skills.

Problem with your math is who's going to train the women for combat duty when there's no men for the job? If it gets to the point when all secretaries must now become soldiers we've already lost. If a woman is suited for combat duty there is no logical reason to not let them do it. There's a good bet that a woman suited for combat duty isn't suited for a lot of other things we associate with womanness. Forcing them to be something they're not is a waste of their talents.

There isn't any history contradicting it. There's no large based historical example period. Nobody's tried it before in a large scale. You're arguement is akin to people in the 19th century saying that if man was meant to fly they already would be. America is, at its heart, a grand and noble experiment, many of the things we do (like representative democracy, like building democracy in the mid-east) have failed miserably before, and yet we try. Fear of bucking historical trends is contrary to the American dream.

People keep saying there's evidence, and yet nobody has provided any proof. Pony up the proof and I'll read it.

BTW thanks for being polite and interesting. You've elevated the quality of conversation on this thread and I appreciate it.

Not to argue too much in the hypothetical. I can see the possibility of women as kickers, although I am wondering which NFL team, at a position that frequently can mean the difference of millions in dollars in revenue for a ball club, is going to take a chance on a female kicker.

I can speak first-hand about basketball though, from personal experience. I played Div. III college basketball, lettering for 4 years (class of '97). I dont' know if you have any experience w/ college hoops, but the BEST of the Div. III players would be fairly average in Div. II. And the BEST of the Div. II players would be fairly average in Div. I. And the BEST of the Div. I players could be fairly average in the NBA. Only the BEST of the BEST, of Div. I players end up being able to excel in the NBA.

To put my own talents in perspective, I was, relative to my own team, an average player for all 4 years. Even as a senior I wasn't good enough to warrant a starting spot (although i was in the 7-man rotation; but I wasn't a starter). My school was average, in terms of how competitive we were in comparison to ALL Div. III schools. Never qualified for the Div. III tournament (qualified twice for the ECAC tournament - a very small, regional "NIT", if you will). So you get an idea of where I stacked up, relative to my team, Div. III, and college basketball in general.

In my hometown in southern Cal, over the summers, I worked out in a private gym that had a basketball court. The players who played on this court HAD to be members; ie, the competition was limited to in-house, and the great players of southern California weren't stampeding to get "next" on this court by any stretch of the imagination. I grew up working out and playing at this gym, so I had a lot of old friends there. Relative to pick-up games, the quality of play was AT BEST average. Most of the time it was composed of old timers, 15 year olds, bodybuilders who wanted to get in some recreational cardio exercise, and a handful of bona-fide hoopers. Again, this is to give you an idea of the level of quality at this gym's court.

Natalie Williams is a three-time All-WNBA First Team selection (1999, 2000, 2001), a three-time All-Star selection (1999, 2000, 2001), Led the WNBA in rebounding in 2000 with 11.6 rpg , was a member of gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic Team in Sydney, Australia in 2000, was USA Basketball's Female Athlete of the Year in 1999. In 2002 she led the league in offensive rebounding and was #4 overall rebounding. In other words, she's no slouch.

Natalie used to come and play every now and then at the gym. I heard about her showing up and playing, fairly regularly, but never actually watched her. I had a friend at the gym, who was friends w/ the UCLA women's coach at the time (not sure if she's still there), and it was this coach (who was a gym member) who would bring Natalie to play.

Well, one day I show up, and this pretty big looking girl (she's 6'2, 210, according to her stats) shows up, and I figured it was her.

I won't go into details, but that game CONVINCED me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that women are no closer to being able to play in the NBA than they are being able to flap their arms and fly. In that gym, there were easily 10 guys (out of a total of 20), that I would have chosen to have on my team before I would pick her.

So, you may have a case to make for kickers in the NFL -- women can hide at that position. But there's nowhere for them to hide on the NBA court, and that is something that I dont' predict will EVER happen.

As important as special teams are kickers are almost never drafted, they're picked up off of free agency. One of the great "what was he thinking" moments in recent NFL history was when Al Davis actually used draft picks to get both a punter and a place kicker (what he was thinking was that he had an 8-8 record the year before and had lost 4 of those games by less than 1 field goal and had missed a field goal in each, he also had the shortest average punts in the league and was giving up cherry field position, three years later the Raiders were in the Super Bowl, though they got killed). Teams take chances on the kickers all the time, look at Anderson for the Vikes the guy has retired a couple of times and halfway through the season the Vikes beg him to come back. Most kickers make league minimum for their years of play. For an amazingly crucial position it gets almost no respect.

The NBA will be the last place women break into for two reasons. 1 - team size, the NBA has the smallest teams of the major sports and thus the best talent pool ratio of the sports, that makes it very hard to break into for anybody; 2 - the NBA has been described by many as a traveling brothel, of the court lifestyle is legendary for its debauchery, not an environment that's going to welcome women as equals until it absolutely has to.

My prediction for the NFL is that once they settle in as kickers women will start gobbling up the so-called skill positions (wide receiver, then RB, then cornerback and safety, then QB), these are positions that require good hands and smarts over brawn. The NHL will probably proceed faster though, there's already been a woman goalie in the minors, and a lot of the women in the women's league complain about the no checking rule (many of them started off by using hockey to get revenge on their brothers) so there's some serious bucking for change in the NHL. I don't pay enough attention to baseball to make predictions, but given some of the beer guts I see waddling around the bases on ESPN hilights I'm suprised there aren't any women in it already.

I didn't say they had roles in the military that placed them in combat danger. I said they had roles in the military.

We're talking about women in combat. In your posts on this thread you have been talking about women in combat. Women in support roles, even though dangerous from time to time, has not been an issue among the posters on this thread. Services and support roles of women in the military have a long and distinguished history.

You're assuming there's an overabundance. I reject that assumption. If you have proof provide it, I'll listen to proof I ignore unfounded assumptions.

All you have to do is walk around anywhere and note all the healthy young men who are not presently serving in the armed forces. Do you consider that proof?

As for women in political roles what's the problem? Didn't like Maggie Thatcher. Politics is the art of compromise and manipulation, as is rearing 3 year olds, I think parenting skills directly apply to careers in politics.

Political leadership is a direct extension of the role of protector in a healthy culture. Political leadership is a direct extension of nurturing and empathy in a socialism.

There isn't any history contradicting it (women in dangerous roles when there are enough men to do the job). There's no large based historical example period. Nobody's tried it before in a large scale.

Nobody's tried it on a large scale for a reason. That reason is the well settled maxims of the difference in natures of men and women. The difference is profiled very well in the statement of a news commentator who junked his support of man/woman equality inherent in feminism. He said that, from his personal experience, if you give a ball to a little boy he will throw it; if you give a ball to a little girl she will paint a face on it.

You're arguement is akin to people in the 19th century saying that if man was meant to fly they already would be.

You are using an example of the advancement of technology as an analogy to overturn the obvious and observed, for thousands of years in every culture and all times, natures of men and women.

America is, at its heart, a grand and noble experiment, many of the things we do (like representative democracy, like building democracy in the mid-east) have failed miserably before, and yet we try. Fear of bucking historical trends is contrary to the American dream.

There many areas in human interaction with reality that have yet to be defined and maxims therefor refined. The physical and psychological realities of men and women are not among them. The human being has been split into male and female as long as we have had knowledge, and no change has been noticed that deviate from nature's mandate.

You want "proof". If you are surrounded by holes in the ground, do you need a geologist's report to believe they're there? Most of these truths are things that most people know before they pass puberty, and the rest after they pass puberty.

It's not your fault, I suppose. We have all grown up un in a place of high population, a high standard of living and security because of that population. Many of us have forgotten many harsh realities. One harsh reality is is indicated by the question, what happens when a villiage of 500 members feel that a villiage of 50 has what they need? Another is highlighted by the question, what group has a better chance of survival: 100 women and one man, or 100 men and one woman.

Mother nature is not sweet, kind, compassionate, fair and understanding. Neither does she deal with natural lawbreakers instantly; it ofter takes decades for such to be "brought to justice" in the court of the Earth creatures.

She operates on the "natural resting place" doctrine of creatures and objects, that from whence they start, to that they will return. The natural resting place for a pencil is flat on a table top. It takes not energy to maintain it there, and it can stay there forever with no energy expended. To suspend that pencil a foot off the surface of that table top takes a constant expenditure of energy, and within a short time that energy must be exhausted and the pencil return to it natural resting place.

To suspend the natural order of things in creatures requires an expenditure of energy and resources as massive as the distance of removal from the natural resting place. When that energy is finally used up that fall can be great, even lethal.

In order to judge how women will behave in one type of military unit we can expand from what's gone on in other units. I refer to the long history of women in non-combat forces as they are the example we can extrapolate rom there.

Just because there are healthy young men running around not in uniform doesn't mean we have more able bodies combatants than we need. We have no idea how many of those people have any desire to be in the military much less in combat roles within the military. Proof would be coming from the military in stating they are turning qualified people away en mas.

Now you're saying Maggie Thatcher was a socialist?! I think Reagan might take issue with that.

Nobody had tried giving women the vote either, guess that was a mistake. I've never seen any kid paint a face on a ball, they all throw them, unless they have sticks then they usually hit them, big bouncy balls get kicked. The human mind also progresses over time, as our cultural knowledge increases our mind must change, else we wouldn't be able to comprehend these computing devices we use.

No changes have been noticed to deviate from natures mandate?! Let me introduce you to sex change operations.

But history shows that women CAN rise up to protect their society, we don't have them do it in an organized way but it does happen. The natural order of things is that BOTH genders protect their sociey, often in different ways sometime not.

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