Pentagon halts the advance of fighting women

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 11/02/2001 | Toby Harnden

[Pokey78]

THE former president Bill Clinton's policies of allowing women soldiers into combat zones are being halted as part of a fundamental rethink by the Bush administration about the culture and purposes of the armed forces.

Opponents of boosting the role of women in the front line have been appointed to influential positions in the Pentagon and a move to open up a reconnaissance unit linked to special forces is likely to be reversed.

But the primary factor influencing the Pentagon is the need to fight a war against terrorism in response to September 11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks.

Peacetime considerations such as the desirability of gender balance and the avoidance of casualties have been subordinated to the more pressing concern of defending America against a deadly and determined foe.

The Defence Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (Dacowits) is already being marginalised at the Pentagon as senior planners seek to maximise the killing potential of the armed forces. "That's all changing," one Pentagon official told the magazine US News and World Report when asked about women going into combat zones. Another said front-line units "won't involve women".

Traditional fighting skills, rather than the values stressed by the US military's notorious Consideration of Others (Coo) programme, are back in vogue as America engages in probably its biggest conflict since the Second World War.

American women serve in front-line ships and as jet pilots but not in submarines or with combat ground units.

Anita Blair, the new deputy assistant secretary of the US Navy, is an opponent of allowing women to serve in submarines, a key Dacowits aim, and is an advocate of separating the sexes during training.

She is on record as saying: "Defence funding should first be spent on training, equipment, better pay - things that will improve the nation's defence and not just the job opportunities of a tiny number of women."

Sarah White, a former master sergeant in the US air force reserve, has been appointed deputy assistant secretary of the army for force management, manpower and resources.

An opponent of women in combat, she once described the move, introduced by Mr Clinton in 1993, as "a radical departure from where mainstream America believes that good men protect women and that women enjoy being protected by men".

She is against women flying combat aircraft.

"We have to remember that even if you are at a high altitude in an airplane at a distance from the enemy, if you crash, then you automatically become an infantry or special forces-type of person," she said.

"It is your mission then to survive, to escape and to evade, and you have to have all of the skills and the capabilities as the men throughout history have had. And clearly women don't have those as a rule."

Some Pentagon officials are fearful of the American public reaction if a female pilot were shot down over Afghanistan. The only female pilot publicised so far is "Mumbles", a British-educated 26-year-old with an F14 Tomcat squadron based on the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson.

[VaBthang4]

Then I dont understand how you having never served in a line company or MOS would intentionally exalt your personal "opinion" about circumstances you have no experience with, to the level of or above my experience that has fleet and combat MOS service as its foundation.

Not to attack you personally but this is a good example of Liberal thinking.

"My personal opinion about a subject I am not qualified to judge is equal to or more important than the opinion of someone who is qualified to judge"

This means you are judging with "feelings" and not with "experiential knowledge".

Not to imply that you arent allowed to opine on the subject but you have continued past knowing that you arent qualified to judge this matter.

Check yourself.

I am not sure if I said this to you or someone else but your lack of Combat or combat MOS experience...makes you ultimately unqualified to judge this matter past....what you "feel".

REALITY SUCKS IF YOU GO AGAINST IT.

[jo6pac]

I think you are confusing me with some of the others on this thread.

No woman should be placed in a combat situation. That includes warships and aircraft.

There is a definite role for women in the military but in a support position far from harm's way.

[Slick4283]

Ok...First off I just want to let everyone know that I am an eighteen year old college student at Virginia Commonwealth University. I am currently writing an argumentative paper on this exact topic...Women should NOT be in the military(combat situations). Now before you bash my opinion because I am some young, inexperienced kid, let me say that I have done plenty of research on this topic. I have considered both sides of the matter and both are valid. But I see this argument circulating around a subtle issue: What SHOULD be and how it NEEDS to be. Yeah, we SHOULD accept women in combat; that is the "American" thing to do. But factually, we NEED to keep them out, keep them away from the front lines. As stated before, soldiers fight in units, and in order for these units to be strong it has to rely on each of the individual soldiers, and women can only weaken this connection. I don't see what the big problem is with the women who oppose this issue. I'm sorry to say but it is a biological FACT that women are physically and emotionally weaker than men. Yeah, that seems unequal, but it is a naturally occuring inequality. So just accept it, and be happy with the many other positions that women are welcome to take in the military. It just seems that most of the opposition comes from women who don't have a genuine desire but a selfish want to prove someone wrong. At this point in time, we have more important things to worry about than some petty women venting becuase they weren't invited to the party. Get over it. Yeah, it's your right to TRY to join the armed forces, but if you can't pass it, don't complain. You didn't get denied because you are a women...you just couldn't do it. Oh, and just a note, many men don't make the cut either. So don't make the issue something it's not. Let the men do the dirty work, they are better at it NATURALLY. This was how things evolved. Women, be content with the important jobs where you are needed the most....AWAY FROM THE FRONT LINES!!!!

[lawdude]

" If a woman wants to fight. She should be able to fight."

Not if by doing so she jeopardizes a mission or the moral of the fighting unit. If, by being captured, she would subject the unit or the country to undue criticism or herself to undue harm, her "fighting" would become secondary and a negative benefit. No thanks, women can perform valiently in many other regards and have done so in othe conflicts.

[Alia]

Please, let it be so. I know a military woman, a single mother, of a perfect little baby girl. A couple of female higher-ups continue to verbally torture this young woman with threats of "deployment" to the heart of trouble in Iraq. This woman is the only parent to her baby. Lord, hear my prayer.