[OldEagle]

It's like this. War isn't like a politically-correct sporting event and being a grunt in combat usually requires more physical strength and endurance than most women have. It is a fact that most of our military physical requirements have been reduced so women can participate, but we probably will not be able to get Osama et al to respect the reduced standards.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

most of our military physical requirements have been reduced so women can participate, but we probably will not be able to get Osama et al to respect the reduced standards.

It's worse than that--the very use of women (mothers!) in combat roles changes the whole equation in bad ways. You can only work up so much dudgeon about women being killed in the world trade center when we are sending women over to Afghanistan to kill or be killed. It changes the whole moral basis of things in the direction of crying havoc.

To do that, not because you think you have to, but because Bill Clinton felt like it is just simply pitiful. The Israelis tried it, and found that the Arabs simply would never surrender to a woman, fighting to the death in preference. We have plenty of men to fight, we don't have to eek out our personnel requirements by ringing in the rare combat-proficient woman and we certainly are ill-advised to dilute our training standards to do so.