Schuey2002
Member
Skunk, do you hear this? Do you still want to join the Air Force?
A Different View of Jessicas Rescue
- Thread starter Wildalaska
- Start date
- Status
Tamara
Senior Member
Zander,
Show me where I said they weren't.
Funny, you're so polite in person and in private communiques... Does the public acting-out represent a need for something?
Sophistry?
Did you even read my post, or did you just rifle off a response to what you thought I would say? Where did I advocate a lessening of standards? Where did I indicate that such lessening had not already occured?
Most sincerely baffled,
Show me where I said they weren't.
Funny, you're so polite in person and in private communiques... Does the public acting-out represent a need for something?
Sophistry?
Did you even read my post, or did you just rifle off a response to what you thought I would say? Where did I advocate a lessening of standards? Where did I indicate that such lessening had not already occured?
Most sincerely baffled,
p35
Member
Anybody see the latest Newsweek? Had pictures of the 8 troops whose bodies they recovered during the rescue. Black, white, Hispanic, Indian, male, female- God only knows about sexual orientation. No question they would have mounted the same effort for any of them. This columnist is a total idiot- see my sigline.
Apparently they had a secondary mission to catch "Chemical Ali", who had an office in the building- missed him that time but didn't a couple days later.
Apparently they had a secondary mission to catch "Chemical Ali", who had an office in the building- missed him that time but didn't a couple days later.
agricola
Member
fyi Sewell is right-wing
I heard this too. I heard second hand that there was a member of the 507th on TV and he stated that when they were ambushed, they were exactly where they were supposed to be.
I guess that depends where you put the balance point on the see-saw. He may be right of you, ag.
- Gabe
ROTFLMAO great descriptive difference.
I'd hate to get in the middle of this pointing and setting contest, since the same things are being said. Yes standards for physical fitness are too low for both men and women in the military. Yes they are different, always have been lower. For example, as a 28 year old male I would have to do a minimum of 29 push-ups, 45 sit-ups and run 1.5 miles in 13:30 to be judged sat. Obviously easy to do more, to my everlasting shame, I as a former high school 5k CC runner, failed the run some time back, used to be I could not run for six months and show up and run in the low 11s. No more, gotta exercise. A female of the same age would have to crank out 11 grueling push-ups, 35 sit-ups and run in 14:45.
I fully support women in any combat arms job they can physically do. The standards need to be tougher and gender neutral. They also need to be job specific, as in if you want an all female crew on a 155 battery they better be able to toss 90lb shells around all day long.A female Marine had better be able to carry the same combat load as a qualified male counterpart, just as far, just as fast. I have worked with, for, and had work for me some excellent females, and I know some amazons that can physically handle most any tasks long after the guys wanna quit. As far as being disallowed from combat arms because the anguish their dismemberment would cause their male counterparts? Get real, it is pretty un-American to bar someone from a job because of someone elses pre-concieved chauvanistic notions. Further, the battlefield no longer has defined front lines, pretty dumb to think you can keep non-combatants safe.
Zander
member
LOL!
But what do you believe should be the policy? You've managed to say quite a bit without ever really expressing your opinion.
See above...
Pretend that I'm using those little smilies like you do when saying something particularly pithy.
Those basic psychology courses only get you so far, Tam.
In the early days of the Israeli Defense Force they apparently had a significant number of women serving in the combat arms.
The IDFs experience was that it was not a good idea to have women in front line combat outfits. The Israeli male soldiers where distracted by being too protective of their female counterparts.
Also it was the IDF's conclusion that the Arab troops they where fighting fought even harder knowing they were fighting women.
During WWII the Soviet Union used extensive amounts of women as fighter pilots, snipers, anti-aircraft artillery crews and MPs.
After the war was over the Soviets did not continue with large numbers of women in their military.
If I remember correctly, in the opening stages of the battle of Stalingrad the city was defended by a female anti-aircraft artillery battalion of about 800 women and 38 guns. They were overrun and destroyed by the Waffen SS. The AAA battalion had no anti-tank ammo although I would think high velocity AAA ammo would damage the then fairly lightly armored German tanks.
The IDFs experience was that it was not a good idea to have women in front line combat outfits. The Israeli male soldiers where distracted by being too protective of their female counterparts.
Also it was the IDF's conclusion that the Arab troops they where fighting fought even harder knowing they were fighting women.
During WWII the Soviet Union used extensive amounts of women as fighter pilots, snipers, anti-aircraft artillery crews and MPs.
After the war was over the Soviets did not continue with large numbers of women in their military.
If I remember correctly, in the opening stages of the battle of Stalingrad the city was defended by a female anti-aircraft artillery battalion of about 800 women and 38 guns. They were overrun and destroyed by the Waffen SS. The AAA battalion had no anti-tank ammo although I would think high velocity AAA ammo would damage the then fairly lightly armored German tanks.
Tamara
Senior Member
Zander,
It's right there, in my post of 2333 hours last evening:
The part in bold is fairly self explanatory and contains no words with more than two syllables.
You know, it's times like this that I'm glad THR has carried over the "ignore list" feature from TFL...
It's right there, in my post of 2333 hours last evening:
The part in bold is fairly self explanatory and contains no words with more than two syllables.
You know, it's times like this that I'm glad THR has carried over the "ignore list" feature from TFL...
kidao35
Member
Yep, and she looks like a cute little cheerleader, too.
It's my hope that the stories of her shooting until her ammo ran out are true. I hope she brought death to as many of her assailants as possible.
Of all Americans in combat, her type would have commended the least amount of respect from the Iraqis. Let them think now, "SH*T! If the little blonde girl put up that kind of a fight, how tough are the rest of the Americans?!!!"
triggertime
Member
"In the world we currently inhabit, I don't think our society is ready for female combatants, no matter if they're in better shape than Flo Jo and have an attitude that makes Vasquez from Aliens look like a Girl Scout."
I wouldn't have used Florence Griffith-Joyner as an example, Tamara. She died at the young age of 38 from an apparent heart seizure. So much for her physical condition, eh?
Vasquez from Aliens? I'm surprised you didn't reference Sarah Connor from 'Terminator 2'. At least she knew how to use a 1911 and field strip and AR.
I wouldn't have used Florence Griffith-Joyner as an example, Tamara. She died at the young age of 38 from an apparent heart seizure. So much for her physical condition, eh?
Vasquez from Aliens? I'm surprised you didn't reference Sarah Connor from 'Terminator 2'. At least she knew how to use a 1911 and field strip and AR.
Intune
Member
Wow! Who painted the target on Tam's back? She doesn't need me to defend her but just like a front-line male OR female trooper that is receiving fire, I'm laying down some cover. I must be seeing her pov the way she wrote it which makes sense.
I must be seeing her pov the way she wrote it which makes sense.
JeanC
Member
Quote:
------------------------------------------------
You know, it's times like this that I'm glad THR has carried over the "ignore list" feature from TFL...
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Kewl feature
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You know, it's times like this that I'm glad THR has carried over the "ignore list" feature from TFL...
-------------------------------------------------
Kewl feature
zorba
Member
It's shameful that someone can take such a callous position on Jessica Lynch's rescue. I don't care what the reasons that led to her capture were, once the US military knew where she was they executed a flawless rescue that was done because she was an american soldier in enemy captivity. If she becomes wealthy off of movie and book deals, she deserves every penny!
10-Ring
Member
The mission was based on what turned out to be VERY good intel. Those 19+ year old soldiers who went on that mission would have done the same for ANY other comrade.
It's that Euro's way of thinking that truly shows how courageous Tony Blairs decision to be part of the coalition to free Iraq really was!
It's that Euro's way of thinking that truly shows how courageous Tony Blairs decision to be part of the coalition to free Iraq really was!
rennaissancemann
Member
Zander,
Why the double standard where women are concerned? You defend their right to Keep and Bear Arms, and their other rights under the Constitution, why don’t you support their obligation as citizens to defend their country? I’m with Tamara and Navy Joe on this one. If a woman can meet the standards for a given job then I see no impediment to assigning her to it.
Personally, I’m not the least bit concerned about women in military service, just the opposite, I’m all for it. What ticks me off is how the DoD goes about setting standards. This has nothing to do with the women in the service and everything to do with politics inside the beltway. Denigrating the idea of women in uniform is to say that they are not citizens in the same sense as their male counterparts. At best, this attitude is misplaced chivalry, at worst, it’s bigotry.
The notion that women can serve in the military, but not in a combat role is pure folly. To serve in the military is to assume a soldier’s risk regardless of the your AFSC, MOS, etc. Case in point, Pfc Lynch was assigned to a maintenance company rather than a combat arms unit, and like thousands of cooks, clerks, and maintenance personnel in wars past, she found herself in combat. If the reports are true, Pfc Lynch responded to being ambushed as a soldier should, by standing her ground and returning fire. Her actions reflect great credit upon herself, her unit, and the United States Army.
I am proud to serve with her.
Why the double standard where women are concerned? You defend their right to Keep and Bear Arms, and their other rights under the Constitution, why don’t you support their obligation as citizens to defend their country? I’m with Tamara and Navy Joe on this one. If a woman can meet the standards for a given job then I see no impediment to assigning her to it.
Personally, I’m not the least bit concerned about women in military service, just the opposite, I’m all for it. What ticks me off is how the DoD goes about setting standards. This has nothing to do with the women in the service and everything to do with politics inside the beltway. Denigrating the idea of women in uniform is to say that they are not citizens in the same sense as their male counterparts. At best, this attitude is misplaced chivalry, at worst, it’s bigotry.
The notion that women can serve in the military, but not in a combat role is pure folly. To serve in the military is to assume a soldier’s risk regardless of the your AFSC, MOS, etc. Case in point, Pfc Lynch was assigned to a maintenance company rather than a combat arms unit, and like thousands of cooks, clerks, and maintenance personnel in wars past, she found herself in combat. If the reports are true, Pfc Lynch responded to being ambushed as a soldier should, by standing her ground and returning fire. Her actions reflect great credit upon herself, her unit, and the United States Army.
I am proud to serve with her.
Last edited:
Zander
member
There is none on my part. A very distinct double standard does exist, though.
But these are two distinctly different issues, sir. The military isn't a democracy; there is no "right" to serve...it is a privilege.
Therein lies the problem and the inherent contradiction of your position.
I agree with you on the latter; the standards have been lowered so that women can serve in ground combat areas, much as they have been lowered so that females can "qualify" for service in domestic police and fire departments. I find that unacceptable.
Well, once again you are confusing the issues. I support the idea of women in the military. I do not support the idea that women should serve in any and all areas, especially if that gate is opened through the lessening of standards.
I disagree. It is an entirely rational decision and is based on fielding the most effective force possible. Women in ground combat units are inherently dangerous to their male counterparts and are an unacceptable risk.
I agree...and that is without knowing the exact specifics of the firefight and how she comported herself.
As well you should be. She is an exceptional soldier. As I said before, her story is going to make a heck of movie; I only hope that someone in the Hollyweird crowd will make it and portray it accurately.
I'm responding to this point last because it is perhaps the most important one in this discussion. Women, because of their inherent physical-strength limitations, shouldn't be in most, if any, ground combat situations. Should we return to the pre-PC criteria for their inclusion, I'd have no problem. But there is another issue that would be involved. PFC Lynch's treatment is a legitimate departure point for that discussion. Perhaps we can address that in another thread.
In the meantime, there exists a real bigotry, more pervasive I would suggest, in the federal mandate that males, and only males, celebrating their 18th birthday must, under rather severe sanctions [real and threatened under the fed.gov bureaucrats' "authority"], register for the draft. That the draft is, and has been, an anachronism for decades doesn't seem to deter the heavy-handed treatment of males "of age". If we want to address true bigotry, why don't we insist that females be required to register?
Doesn't the current policy give lie to the notion that we are "diversifying" our armed forces for the betterment of all?
Moa: there is a Russian unit, never entirely identified, but reported by a number of German POWs debriefed by the Western Allies after the war that had the rather unusual methodology of taking several female Red Army soldiers along with them on patrol. When they neared a German position, the female soldiers would pretend to be unaware of their surroundings and partially disrobe, as though to change into clothes from their packs. While they were doing this, the rest of the patrol would flank the German position on both sides and open fire. Almost inevitably the Germans were caught with, well with their pants down, so to speak.
rennaissancemann
Member
Zander
I would like for you to clarify two points in your last post.
Question
What do you perceive as the inherent contradiction of my position vis-a-vis women in the military?
Reference
I’m with Tamara and Navy Joe on this one. If a woman can meet the standards for a given job then I see no impediment to assigning her to it. *** What ticks me off is how the DoD goes about setting standards.
Therein lies the problem and the inherent contradiction of your position.
Question
You seem to be saying that women in combat roles are pose an inherent hazard to their male counterparts, yet if the physical standards for assignment to a combat arms assignment were applied to both male and female applicants as an objective standard to be met with no gender bias, you would support women in combat roles. Is this an accurate statement?
Reference
Women in ground combat units are inherently dangerous to their male counterparts and are an unacceptable risk.
Women, because of their inherent physical-strength limitations, shouldn't be in most, if any, ground combat situations. Should we return to the pre-PC criteria for their inclusion, I'd have no problem.
Respectfully
I would like for you to clarify two points in your last post.
Question
What do you perceive as the inherent contradiction of my position vis-a-vis women in the military?
Reference
I’m with Tamara and Navy Joe on this one. If a woman can meet the standards for a given job then I see no impediment to assigning her to it. *** What ticks me off is how the DoD goes about setting standards.
Therein lies the problem and the inherent contradiction of your position.
Question
You seem to be saying that women in combat roles are pose an inherent hazard to their male counterparts, yet if the physical standards for assignment to a combat arms assignment were applied to both male and female applicants as an objective standard to be met with no gender bias, you would support women in combat roles. Is this an accurate statement?
Reference
Women in ground combat units are inherently dangerous to their male counterparts and are an unacceptable risk.
Women, because of their inherent physical-strength limitations, shouldn't be in most, if any, ground combat situations. Should we return to the pre-PC criteria for their inclusion, I'd have no problem.
Respectfully
rennaissancemann
Member
Zander
A Correction...
The question I posed to you was:
why don’t you support their (women's) obligation as citizens to defend their country?
You replied:
The military isn't a democracy; there is no "right" to serve...it is a privilege.
It is my belief that each citizen has an obligation to defend their country, my frame of reference being the United States. While you are correct in stating that the military is not a democracy, the country it serves, is. IN this context, military service is neither a "right" nor a "priviledge." It is an obligation, a duty if you will, that a citizen owes to his or her country.
Respectfully
A Correction...
The question I posed to you was:
why don’t you support their (women's) obligation as citizens to defend their country?
You replied:
The military isn't a democracy; there is no "right" to serve...it is a privilege.
It is my belief that each citizen has an obligation to defend their country, my frame of reference being the United States. While you are correct in stating that the military is not a democracy, the country it serves, is. IN this context, military service is neither a "right" nor a "priviledge." It is an obligation, a duty if you will, that a citizen owes to his or her country.
Respectfully
Wildalaska
member
Hmm some more on the subject...this time from WND...by the way neither the opening article nor this one necesaarily represent my views, which are of course only mine.
Turning women into cannon fodder
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 11, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Robert Knight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
You couldn't help but be elated upon hearing that Pfc. Jessica Lynch was rescued. But it was a little like the relief that parents experience before the anger sets in after junior has done a death-defying stunt and lived to tell about it.
Many brave men risked their lives to save Pfc. Lynch following an Iraqi man's report that a woman soldier was being tortured at a hospital. We still don't know what the Iraqis did to her. The two broken legs and spinal injury indicate torture. No word on whether she was sexually assaulted as well. Her comrades, most of them men, did not fare as well, with nearly a dozen bodies found.
Instead of shaking off our '60s feminist hangover and vowing to end the lunacy of sending young women like Miss Lynch into harm's way, you'd think her brutalization was actually a good thing.
Gen. Wilma Vaught, the harridan who wants to draft our daughters and put them into combat, gushed that Miss Lynch reportedly took out some Iraqis on the way to being captured, so this proves women ought to be in the front lines.
Liberals like the terminally grimacing Patricia Schroeder echoed the call, saying it is time to end all combat exemptions for women, since, in our enlightened way, we are not supposed to care that wives and daughters are turned into hamburger by enemy troops.
Liberalism has a remarkable record for worsening any situation. Are welfare programs destroying black families and creating poverty and crime in the nation's cities? Throw more money at them to snag even more people into a failed system! Does gun control exacerbate crime by disarming innocent citizens? Press for tighter controls!
On the military front, the armed forces have been in full retreat from liberal feminists. If the Navy's Tailhook sex scandal during the '90s proved anything, it is that men and women mixed tightly together will create spontaneous combustion. Instead of admitting this simple truth, feminists used Tailhook to "out" recalcitrant traditionalists who opposed putting women closer to combat. Naval officers who could fearlessly face down enemy fire cowered before the, uh, ladies.
The same folly was at work recently at the Air Force Academy, where several female cadets reported sexual assaults by male cadets. The Academy's response? They took down the big letters over a stone arch that read: "Bring Me Men." That's right, men. Real men. The kind that don't assault women and who think that protecting women from harm is one of the duties that God assigned them. Let's opt for androgyny instead.
The more that we buy into the fiction that women are indistinguishable from men, the more we sleepwalk into an unfolding disaster.
Forget about Miss Lynch for a moment. How about Pfc. Lori Ann Peistewa, the first U.S. servicewomen killed in Iraq? She left behind two preschool kids, aged 3 and 4. Her body was found at the site where Miss Lynch was rescued. Or how about Shoshana Johnson, a single mother of a 2-year-old? We have not heard anything about her since the Iraqis released a haunting photo of her frightened face, along with those of some male comrades.
"Jessica was a clerk, essentially a secretary, doing yeoman's work, I might add," said Martha Kleder, a Culture and Family Institute policy analyst who served with the Air Force in Alaska. "Shoshana Johnson joined the Army to be a cook. Today, no woman is safe in the military. There are no more rear-support jobs. All women should expect to be made cannon fodder. Thanks, Pat Schroeder, thanks for your utter glee that these women who only wanted to serve their country in rear-support jobs are now facing hostile enemy fire."
Political correctness at the Pentagon hangs in the air like Napalm smoke. At the press conference announcing Miss Lynch's rescue, the spokesman lauded her as a "brave woman," and then turned to give credit to her rescuers. "We have to remember" – and then he paused ever so slightly – "the brave souls" who risked their lives to save Miss Lynch. Had he used the term "brave men," it would have clarified the absurdity of putting Miss Lynch near the front lines in the first place.
Americans are probably largely unaware that women are prohibited from being on the front lines, a policy increasingly being broken by our gender-neutral military.
The practice of turning women into cannon fodder got a huge boost when the Clinton administration largely dispensed with the "risk rule," which exempts women from jobs in which they are likely to face enemy fire. Although women are still not technically in combat, it sure looks like they are.
Take 2nd Lt. Sarah Ewing Skinner, for instance. With her "finger on the trigger of her M-16, [she] gives the order to move forward as troops under her command prepared to storm 20 derelict buildings where die-hard Iraqi defenders may have taken refuge," the Associated Press reports in an article headlined "Not for men only." Now isn't that special? Women are supposed to be exempted from combat, and yet they are going house to house just like the grizzled Vic Morrow and his squad in the old "Combat" TV show.
The loophole is that they are serving as military police, and those squads have been ordered to do dangerous cleanup work that looks a lot like combat. In fact, it is combat.
"In Iraq, this stuff includes escorting supply convoys through ambush-prone areas, sweeping villages for weapons, arresting Iraqis hostile to U.S. forces and handling prisoners of war," AP said. Pvt. Kristi Grant, a military policewoman, told AP, "I guess the only thing is that I can't lift some of the same things males do, but I try." How would you like to be her comrade, wounded and in need of being dragged to safety? A good try wouldn't cut it.
There are some other key physical differences between the sexes, but you would never know it from the AP report. Sex means nothing: "She quickly got over her initial anxiety about being squeezed into a tent with male soldiers and discovered 'we were much like one family.'" Nothing about the jealousy, broken marriages and fights that erupted during the Gulf War when men and women were billeted together. Do any parents really want their 20-year-old daughter sleeping in a tent with a bunch of men?
"Women are treated like trash, they're objects in the service," said former Marine Cpl. Carmelo Torres. "They may talk PC, but it's a different story behind closed doors. Women are treated like dirt."
Torres recalls being stationed at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia and seeing staff sergeants picking out attractive young women and declaring them off-limits to other men. "In the women's barracks, the women were being sexually harassed by the lesbians when they weren't being hit on by the men," he said. "Two of the lesbians got new recruits drunk so they could gang-rape them in the women's barracks."
This is not about military women's willingness to serve their country, which is commendable, or their bravery. America owes much to its women service members.
But they shouldn't be in combat. First, they are the bearers of life and the heart of family life, an utterly indispensable role. When America sends young women off to war, watching them kiss their toddlers goodbye, we are making a moral choice that children are just not important anymore. It is much more important to drive a military truck. This callousness is an outgrowth of the abortion culture in which human life itself is cheapened. Any job those women do could be done by a man, but nobody else can be a mother to her children. It is bad enough for children to lose their father, but it is utterly unnecessary for them to lose their mother. Raising children is the most important job in society, and yet it takes a back seat to feminist ambitions to pursue sameness in the name of equality.
Second, women lack the upper-body strength, endurance and speed of men, which, despite all the talk of "push-button wars," can be crucial in battle. As Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness has said, "Women don't have an equal ability to survive on the battlefield."
Third, although some feminists claim that they have a right to serve if they want to, military service is a privilege and a duty – not a right. The armed forces bar numerous classes of people, regardless of individual ability, because they could have a negative impact. Homosexuals are a case in point. Putting women into combat endangers all of our daughters because in the 1986 case Rostker v. Goldberg, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that women could not be drafted because they did not serve in combat, and that Congress had the power only to raise armies to fight wars. A few feminists in the front lines could destroy that exemption.
Fourth, women have a profound effect on men. In 1948, the Israelis put women soldiers into the front lines, but had to pull them after a few weeks. Discipline broke down, morale plummeted and men ignored orders, rushing instead to protect the women. Some men lost their sanity when they saw women being blown apart. These men must have been chauvinist pigs.
The Israelis quickly grasped that women have no business being in combat, and that is their policy to this day. They train women for emergency situations, removing them if combat begins. But we have brushed aside that lesson. We are actually training men to ignore their noble impulse of being protectors. The Navy introduced a program a few years ago in which men were conditioned to endure the cries of women being tortured. The other services have adopted these programs as well. This is progress?
Imagine what these men will be like when the war is over and they return to civilian life. Do we really want thousands of men among us who are indifferent to women's cries of pain? That's a recipe for domestic violence and rape. The floodtide of pornography only makes it worse. But liberals like porn. It's religion they despise. As C.S. Lewis said, the social goal of liberals is to make religion private and pornography public.
It is barbaric to allow pornography to permeate our entire culture, and it is barbaric to put women in combat, even if they are fool enough to want to go.
We're glad that Miss Lynch made it to safety, but we would like to see the larger question addressed. What was she doing there in the first place?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Knight, who authored a study on women in combat for the Heritage Foundation, is director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.
Turning women into cannon fodder
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 11, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Robert Knight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
You couldn't help but be elated upon hearing that Pfc. Jessica Lynch was rescued. But it was a little like the relief that parents experience before the anger sets in after junior has done a death-defying stunt and lived to tell about it.
Many brave men risked their lives to save Pfc. Lynch following an Iraqi man's report that a woman soldier was being tortured at a hospital. We still don't know what the Iraqis did to her. The two broken legs and spinal injury indicate torture. No word on whether she was sexually assaulted as well. Her comrades, most of them men, did not fare as well, with nearly a dozen bodies found.
Instead of shaking off our '60s feminist hangover and vowing to end the lunacy of sending young women like Miss Lynch into harm's way, you'd think her brutalization was actually a good thing.
Gen. Wilma Vaught, the harridan who wants to draft our daughters and put them into combat, gushed that Miss Lynch reportedly took out some Iraqis on the way to being captured, so this proves women ought to be in the front lines.
Liberals like the terminally grimacing Patricia Schroeder echoed the call, saying it is time to end all combat exemptions for women, since, in our enlightened way, we are not supposed to care that wives and daughters are turned into hamburger by enemy troops.
Liberalism has a remarkable record for worsening any situation. Are welfare programs destroying black families and creating poverty and crime in the nation's cities? Throw more money at them to snag even more people into a failed system! Does gun control exacerbate crime by disarming innocent citizens? Press for tighter controls!
On the military front, the armed forces have been in full retreat from liberal feminists. If the Navy's Tailhook sex scandal during the '90s proved anything, it is that men and women mixed tightly together will create spontaneous combustion. Instead of admitting this simple truth, feminists used Tailhook to "out" recalcitrant traditionalists who opposed putting women closer to combat. Naval officers who could fearlessly face down enemy fire cowered before the, uh, ladies.
The same folly was at work recently at the Air Force Academy, where several female cadets reported sexual assaults by male cadets. The Academy's response? They took down the big letters over a stone arch that read: "Bring Me Men." That's right, men. Real men. The kind that don't assault women and who think that protecting women from harm is one of the duties that God assigned them. Let's opt for androgyny instead.
The more that we buy into the fiction that women are indistinguishable from men, the more we sleepwalk into an unfolding disaster.
Forget about Miss Lynch for a moment. How about Pfc. Lori Ann Peistewa, the first U.S. servicewomen killed in Iraq? She left behind two preschool kids, aged 3 and 4. Her body was found at the site where Miss Lynch was rescued. Or how about Shoshana Johnson, a single mother of a 2-year-old? We have not heard anything about her since the Iraqis released a haunting photo of her frightened face, along with those of some male comrades.
"Jessica was a clerk, essentially a secretary, doing yeoman's work, I might add," said Martha Kleder, a Culture and Family Institute policy analyst who served with the Air Force in Alaska. "Shoshana Johnson joined the Army to be a cook. Today, no woman is safe in the military. There are no more rear-support jobs. All women should expect to be made cannon fodder. Thanks, Pat Schroeder, thanks for your utter glee that these women who only wanted to serve their country in rear-support jobs are now facing hostile enemy fire."
Political correctness at the Pentagon hangs in the air like Napalm smoke. At the press conference announcing Miss Lynch's rescue, the spokesman lauded her as a "brave woman," and then turned to give credit to her rescuers. "We have to remember" – and then he paused ever so slightly – "the brave souls" who risked their lives to save Miss Lynch. Had he used the term "brave men," it would have clarified the absurdity of putting Miss Lynch near the front lines in the first place.
Americans are probably largely unaware that women are prohibited from being on the front lines, a policy increasingly being broken by our gender-neutral military.
The practice of turning women into cannon fodder got a huge boost when the Clinton administration largely dispensed with the "risk rule," which exempts women from jobs in which they are likely to face enemy fire. Although women are still not technically in combat, it sure looks like they are.
Take 2nd Lt. Sarah Ewing Skinner, for instance. With her "finger on the trigger of her M-16, [she] gives the order to move forward as troops under her command prepared to storm 20 derelict buildings where die-hard Iraqi defenders may have taken refuge," the Associated Press reports in an article headlined "Not for men only." Now isn't that special? Women are supposed to be exempted from combat, and yet they are going house to house just like the grizzled Vic Morrow and his squad in the old "Combat" TV show.
The loophole is that they are serving as military police, and those squads have been ordered to do dangerous cleanup work that looks a lot like combat. In fact, it is combat.
"In Iraq, this stuff includes escorting supply convoys through ambush-prone areas, sweeping villages for weapons, arresting Iraqis hostile to U.S. forces and handling prisoners of war," AP said. Pvt. Kristi Grant, a military policewoman, told AP, "I guess the only thing is that I can't lift some of the same things males do, but I try." How would you like to be her comrade, wounded and in need of being dragged to safety? A good try wouldn't cut it.
There are some other key physical differences between the sexes, but you would never know it from the AP report. Sex means nothing: "She quickly got over her initial anxiety about being squeezed into a tent with male soldiers and discovered 'we were much like one family.'" Nothing about the jealousy, broken marriages and fights that erupted during the Gulf War when men and women were billeted together. Do any parents really want their 20-year-old daughter sleeping in a tent with a bunch of men?
"Women are treated like trash, they're objects in the service," said former Marine Cpl. Carmelo Torres. "They may talk PC, but it's a different story behind closed doors. Women are treated like dirt."
Torres recalls being stationed at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia and seeing staff sergeants picking out attractive young women and declaring them off-limits to other men. "In the women's barracks, the women were being sexually harassed by the lesbians when they weren't being hit on by the men," he said. "Two of the lesbians got new recruits drunk so they could gang-rape them in the women's barracks."
This is not about military women's willingness to serve their country, which is commendable, or their bravery. America owes much to its women service members.
But they shouldn't be in combat. First, they are the bearers of life and the heart of family life, an utterly indispensable role. When America sends young women off to war, watching them kiss their toddlers goodbye, we are making a moral choice that children are just not important anymore. It is much more important to drive a military truck. This callousness is an outgrowth of the abortion culture in which human life itself is cheapened. Any job those women do could be done by a man, but nobody else can be a mother to her children. It is bad enough for children to lose their father, but it is utterly unnecessary for them to lose their mother. Raising children is the most important job in society, and yet it takes a back seat to feminist ambitions to pursue sameness in the name of equality.
Second, women lack the upper-body strength, endurance and speed of men, which, despite all the talk of "push-button wars," can be crucial in battle. As Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness has said, "Women don't have an equal ability to survive on the battlefield."
Third, although some feminists claim that they have a right to serve if they want to, military service is a privilege and a duty – not a right. The armed forces bar numerous classes of people, regardless of individual ability, because they could have a negative impact. Homosexuals are a case in point. Putting women into combat endangers all of our daughters because in the 1986 case Rostker v. Goldberg, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that women could not be drafted because they did not serve in combat, and that Congress had the power only to raise armies to fight wars. A few feminists in the front lines could destroy that exemption.
Fourth, women have a profound effect on men. In 1948, the Israelis put women soldiers into the front lines, but had to pull them after a few weeks. Discipline broke down, morale plummeted and men ignored orders, rushing instead to protect the women. Some men lost their sanity when they saw women being blown apart. These men must have been chauvinist pigs.
The Israelis quickly grasped that women have no business being in combat, and that is their policy to this day. They train women for emergency situations, removing them if combat begins. But we have brushed aside that lesson. We are actually training men to ignore their noble impulse of being protectors. The Navy introduced a program a few years ago in which men were conditioned to endure the cries of women being tortured. The other services have adopted these programs as well. This is progress?
Imagine what these men will be like when the war is over and they return to civilian life. Do we really want thousands of men among us who are indifferent to women's cries of pain? That's a recipe for domestic violence and rape. The floodtide of pornography only makes it worse. But liberals like porn. It's religion they despise. As C.S. Lewis said, the social goal of liberals is to make religion private and pornography public.
It is barbaric to allow pornography to permeate our entire culture, and it is barbaric to put women in combat, even if they are fool enough to want to go.
We're glad that Miss Lynch made it to safety, but we would like to see the larger question addressed. What was she doing there in the first place?
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Robert Knight, who authored a study on women in combat for the Heritage Foundation, is director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.
LoneStranger
Member
Having worked under, as in they were my supervisors, a number of women at times, and having worked in Heavy Industry with various women as both co-workers and supervisors I have to side with Tamara and friends.
IF there are objective standards then those who meet them should be allowed the job. The problem comes from the definition of "Objective Standard".
To foolishly think that the standards from "Before ?" were actually objective is to display a bit of naivety(sic). A large number of standards were actually written to narrowly limit those who could qualify for particular jobs and when examined were found to be based on concepts that have nothing to do with a particular job.
It has happened often enough that any "Before ?" standard should be held in extreme doubt until proven beyond all question.
In Industry we had a need for people of various physical types to do the work necessary. The concept that "Only" those of certain limited physical ability should be allowed in was quickly put to rout the first time you see the hulking 6' 6" fellow carry the tools and parts to the little bitty hole where the little bitty female was crammed in so that the job could be done. Seems he couldn't handle the job but she could.
By the same token, when working heavy things, unless the female had been trained properly, the female could not handle the job.
As for the information of females in other militaries at other times I would like to compare with my observations from Industry. First and most important is the number of males and females who cannot make the distinction between the job that they are doing and their urge to breed cause a lot of the problems. When people put more in to "sniffing" around the opposite sex instead of working you will have problems.
If you sit and look at what is said a number of these posts about the problems caused by sex/gender it really looks like most are related to "Need to Breed" and knee jerk reactions to that particular activity.
Foolishness is not recognizing and addressing that point.
IF there are objective standards then those who meet them should be allowed the job. The problem comes from the definition of "Objective Standard".
To foolishly think that the standards from "Before ?" were actually objective is to display a bit of naivety(sic). A large number of standards were actually written to narrowly limit those who could qualify for particular jobs and when examined were found to be based on concepts that have nothing to do with a particular job.
It has happened often enough that any "Before ?" standard should be held in extreme doubt until proven beyond all question.
In Industry we had a need for people of various physical types to do the work necessary. The concept that "Only" those of certain limited physical ability should be allowed in was quickly put to rout the first time you see the hulking 6' 6" fellow carry the tools and parts to the little bitty hole where the little bitty female was crammed in so that the job could be done. Seems he couldn't handle the job but she could.
By the same token, when working heavy things, unless the female had been trained properly, the female could not handle the job.
As for the information of females in other militaries at other times I would like to compare with my observations from Industry. First and most important is the number of males and females who cannot make the distinction between the job that they are doing and their urge to breed cause a lot of the problems. When people put more in to "sniffing" around the opposite sex instead of working you will have problems.
If you sit and look at what is said a number of these posts about the problems caused by sex/gender it really looks like most are related to "Need to Breed" and knee jerk reactions to that particular activity.
Foolishness is not recognizing and addressing that point.
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