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Locked on 04/08/2003 1:06:44 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
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Posted on 04/08/2003 11:38:26 AM PDT by Pokey78
To puke was the only proper reaction to the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, of the US Army's 50th Maintenance Company, as April Fools' Day dawned in Iraq last week. "To puke" has just the right abrupt, dismissive note to it - "to vomit" and "to regurgitate" both have too much Latin gravity at their roots, "to heave" and "to retch" the false gentility of euphemism, but plain puke, good enough for Shakespeare, is onomatopoeic to perfection. Say "puke" and relish the sound.
It is not that I have any ill-will towards the girl - I have none for any young soldier, of any race or religion, engaged in any cause - it is just that I believe women to have no business to be anywhere near the front line in any campaign, other than, perhaps, as doctors and nurses. I am certain that no such effort would have been made to rescue a young man of her age and inexperience.
Jessica Lynch is 19, blonde, 5ft 4in, and weighs rather less than the equipment carried by a British paratrooper on the yomp. Driving across the desert with other US servicemen unable to read a compass or take direction from the sun, she was separated from a convoy, ambushed, injured, captured by Iraqis and taken to a hospital in Nasiriyah, on the Euphrates, nearer Basra than Baghdad.
There she lay, both legs and one arm fractured, attended by the few members of staff who had not fled, a pharmacist the only man of any qualification.
How these injuries occurred we do not know, but General Tommy Franks, commander of the allied forces, knew of them and knew where she was, knowledge attributed to " intelligence" until the truth was revealed - that a sympathetic Iraqi had trudged for miles across the desert until he found a US officer to tell.
General Franks it was who ordered Jessica's rescue, perhaps sharing her family's anxiety over the possibility of rape, perhaps recognising what a propaganda coup could be made of it. To effect the rescue, US marines staged diversionary attacks in Nasiriyah, on a bridge, a telecommunications relay station and the local headquarters of the Ba'ath party; and with these under way, two transport helicopters landed in the hospital grounds, with the protection of four attack helicopters hovering overhead and two patrolling tankbuster aircraft - all this by dead of night, in pitch darkness and with the appalling safety record of US forces.
How many soldiers were involved and at serious risk in this escapade? Six helicopter crews, two aeroplane crews, medics, stretcher-bearers and all the men engaged in the decoy attacks on the other side of the town.
Would so many men and so much expensive machinery have been risked for the rescue of a jar-head marine of 19, a black boy of 19, a homosexual boy of 19 or a poor white boy of 19 from the same incestuous hills of West Virginia among which Jessica was born?
I doubt it. This girl was rescued not because she was a heroine, not because she was brilliantly qualified and not because she was in possession of information and skills that must on no account be betrayed to the enemy.
She was rescued for no other reason than that she is a girl, and the all-American blonde to boot. The rescue of Jessica Lynch was portrayed even in our most sober and sensible broadsheets as an exploit of extraordinary derring-do, of heroism, valour, audacity, chivalry and chutzpah.
Sane men, however, able to assess the risks involved on such a moonless night, must count this rescue a work of sheer insanity, unless those ordering it put into the equation the publicity inevitable with success. Was it done to hearten the male troops?
Again I doubt it, for these, weary, cold by night, sweating by day, now long unshaven and unshowered, stinking with the stale odours of the body, know perfectly well that no attempt would be made to rescue them were they in the same predicament as Private Lynch and through the same incompetence.
"America doesn't leave its heroes behind, it never has, it never will," were the weasel words of a US army spokesman - and to such nonsense the only possible response is "Tell that to the marines." The objective of this cynical exercise was to fortify the folks at home, and there can be no doubt, so deep is the naivety of the provincial American, that the ruse worked.
In West Virginia, Jessica's rescue is attributed not only to the army, but to God in equal measure, God invoked by the power of prayer. It has occurred to none of them that if God had anything to do with it, he would have stayed the hands of Bush and Blair and sent no one into battle.
The point that everyone has overlooked is that Jessica Lynch should not have been sent to Iraq until active hostilities are over.
I don't care a damn what feminists say, the front line is no place for women. It is where men are ripped apart by shells and bullets, where they are incinerated in tanks, the burnt meats of sacrifice, so, to speak, where men lay down their lives for noble sentiments and causes - forgive me, but what bollocks the euphemisms are.
If a soldier's mind is not wholly engaged in battle, he is a risk to himself and his immediate mates - the last thing a soldier needs is a corporal of poetic mind or a philosopher for a sergeant, the one reciting Horace, the other musing on the nobility of man; he needs, instead, mates driven by adrenaline and the unintellectual antidotes to fear that we call courage and exalt as heroism. But the last thing a soldier needs in battle is a woman by his side, her mere presence a diversion from the matter in hand, a tug at his primeval sense of chivalry.
As, from the safety of Central Command, US Brigadier-General Vince Brooks said of Jessica's rescue, "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen." And so they did, but they should not have been required to do so.
If women feel compelled, in their absurd pursuit of equality, to join the armed forces and cannot, will not, see that in the front line they pose a menace to all men, then the forces must draw the line for them, no matter how great a political incorrectitude it may seem to outsiders.
Women should be the army's clerks, cooks and bottlewashers, its doctors and nurses, its counters of beans and buttons, but never - even though I can imagine nothing more terrifying than a battalion of bearded lesbians - bearers of arms, never frontline soldiers.
Proving an absurdity is impossible. One might argue that this mission was undertaken for publicity/morale reasons (though I would not totally agree; the Son Tay prison raid panners and politicos who signed off on it most certainly considered public and troop morale as side benefits), but it is absurd to think that man's instinctive "nature" had anything to do with this rescue.
If the people of West Virginia (and elsewhere) praised Gaia, his tone would be different, praising that brave warrior for standing her ground until she was out of bullets, then surviving torture and broken limbs.
Puke is right, and Mr. Sewer is full of it.
1. An art critic,
2. Snotty, and
3. British
I'd say more than even odds...
That's sure as hell not her fault. I agree the hype is getting over the top and if it were a guy, it would have likely settled down by now. But that does not mean that she or the military have done anything wrong.
In reality, search & rescue is done BY RANK first, Occupational Specialty second, and I would venture to guess, by sex.
Does the prospect of success ever enter into the equation?
I’d imagine the situation was never presented to you, but if you learned there was an American POW being tortured eight miles away in a very lightly guarded hospital, do you believe you would have been told to ignore that information, even if the POW was a butt-ugly grunt?
She was doing her job. Which as I understand it was to get from A to B in a truck.....hhhmmmmm.
I know what you’re trying to imply, but the fact is she could not have been the one who “got lost” on the mission. Guys don’t let chicks drive.
You bet.
The difference between us and them is that we respect human life. Their torture chambers and prisons demonstrate that.
Damn skippy, Professor. You're probably used to a certain type of female out there at Tidewater, not the kind that learns how to shoot game before she learns how to ride a bike. I don't suppose you bothered reading up on her? She joined to get money for college....to become a kindergarten teacher.
It's an academia thing, too. Contrary and clever is extolled over objective and direct. By idle blowhards who spend much of their spare time "deconstructing" the "conventional". Very, very pathetic, indeed ..
Expert: Arts/Music
Competent: Entertainment/Humour
Personal description: A fine art expert, he is the Art Critic for the Evening Standard and has won the award for "Art Critic of the Year" on several occasions. He has also translated a number of books on Art from French into English and has written about his extensive travels, notably to Turkey in his book "South from Ephesus".
Languages Expert: English, French
Presentation description: Brian is also known as an experienced broadcaster and has contributed to programmes for both radio and television, including various commercials for ITV.
Also known as a "freelance bassoonist" and a "controversial art critic".
Also known as a pathetic snivelling a-hole not fit to write about anything more substantial than playing with himself.
It seems to fit so perfectly.
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