It’s probably true that now that women can qualify to fight in all combat situations that there isn’t much of an argument against requiring them to register for the draft. If that makes mothers and fathers all across this land a little less likely to casually advocate the use of military force anywhere in the world where someone makes us remotely uncomfortable, it’s probably a good thing.
There are certainly arguments against having women in combat. We’ve all heard them. Maybe you are convinced by them. However, the decision has been made. It’s a little late to be debating the topic as if the policy was still under discussion.
Of course, the military can make mistakes, but they wouldn’t have signed off on this policy change if they agreed with Kathleen Parker that it will cause a massive erosion in unit cohesion. I think she ought to be a little more circumspect in relying on her intuition as a better guide than all the studies that have been conducted by the Pentagon.
What I find most objectionable, however, isn’t that Parker disagrees with the Pentagon. What I find appalling is her cowardice.
For now, as America is focused on the Islamic State and the presidential election, women in combat will just happen one day sometime in the not-distant future. Eventually, we’ll avert our eyes from footage of a young woman’s tortured body — someone’s wife, mother, daughter, sister or lover — as she is crucified, burned or beheaded in the name of God knows what.
That will be a day no civilized nation should have invited upon itself.
It’s a stretch to talk about a “civilized nation” when husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers are being crucified, burned, and beheaded. But if the enemy is worth fighting and that’s what they do to those they capture, then that’s the risk we ask our soldiers to take. The hope is that our soldiers are more civilized than their opponents.
If you feel the need to avert your eyes when one of our own is tortured and dismembered, by all means, avert your eyes. No one wants to watch such things. But I don’t see why they are tolerable when they happen to our young men but not our young women.
What makes war justifiable, if anything, is the barbarousness of the enemy, not their adherence to human rights. If they need killing, then we have to accept that we’ll suffer casualties and horrors of all types.
And, again, if the prospect of having some of our daughters suffer the same fate as our sons makes people less likely to risk the lives and well-being of either, I count that as a good thing.
Squeamishness is a useless personality trait in war. Moral scruple is important. Cowardice is not.
Because in Kathleen Parker’s 19th-century world women are delicate, helpless little things who must be taken care of and can’t take responsibility? Not what she’d say, obviously, but these conservative women who embrace what feminism has given them, like a gig at the Washington Post that’s not on the women’s page, but reject the parts they don’t want for themselves, are basically wishing that on the rest of women. Like she doesn’t want to get an abortion, so that shouldn’t be a feminist issue.
The tell when it comes to military service is that appeal to “unit cohesion” which always comes out in any talk of integration, whether it’s by race or by sexual orientation or gender itself. It’s such bullshit. Put people in a tough situation and the unit cohesion comes of itself if the people can believe in what they’re doing.
“unit cohesion” really means “the troops are prejudiced”. When it is challenged it usually fails because “the troops” are young men less prejudiced than the older senior officers (and senior non-coms) who raised the objections. (And far more adaptable when they are prejudiced)
There is also a hidden prejudice when the proponents of change propose that requirements be lowered to accept the group they are pushing. By implication they are agreeing with the old guard that the new people cannot compete fairly. Rarely do we hear an argument that the requirements were originally placed to exclude rarely than require. In those cases, of course the requirement should be lowered. As a hypothetical case, there is (or was) a requirement that first enlistees be under 30 years of age. This is obviously discriminatory to seniors! Why should I, as a 70 year old man, be prevented from serving my country. That weight limit on the pack, reduce that to ten pounds. I can’t run a mile in any amount of time, so make that run 50 yards in a minute. Obviously, it’s ridiculous. OTOH, soldiers need not be Olympians. Physical requirements should be reviewed for common sense and if they can be changed by restructuring. By that I mean that I once read that British packs were double the weight of American packs (the lowest weight in NATO). The Brits were proud of this and regarded Americans as “Candy Ass”, but then the British military had a lot of archaic and obsolete rules and customs.
That’s a brilliant point about the seniors.
The physical requirements issue is bullshit too. Soldiers aren’t grunts any more, they’re technicians. There’s reason we no longer call them “private” but “specialist”. You may want some people in a particular unit who can carry 150 pounds like you want some people who can do fancy navigation, but you really need a bunch of different skills. That too annoys the sergeants and lieutenants who prefer all the underlings to be identical.
Soldiers carrying 150 pound packs is why the British Army rose from their Somme trenches and had 60% casualties before they almost reached the (uncut) German barbed wire.
I guess wimminz lives should only be put at risk for forced childbirth.
Well, we are not in a draft situation and women are not only requesting active combat duty, they’ve lobbied hard for it. Just because Kathleen Parker is a woman who can’t stomach the thought of women in combat doesn’t mean all women should be denied the right to do so. Shut up, Kathleen.
Women realize that in the US, you only get equality after you fight in a war. Oh, wait a minute, that didn’t work for African-Americans did it, unless your name is Allen West and you get cashiered for mistreatment of prisoners.
Moving toward universal service and universal draft certainly undermines all the feminizing slurs that men hurl at each other.
I’m moving toward insisting on an end to standing armies after the end of a war and full mobilization and universal draft on declaration of a war. Something other than the full collapse of the United States of America has to be what transforms the national security institutions that Harry Truman put in place 68 years ago.
I wonder what service Kathleen Parker would select should she enlist to show our leadership how you fight ISIS.
Well, it’s not the 18th century any more. In the event of war, there isn’t time to relearn how an army works.
OTOH, when was the last “event of war” for the US?
According to von Clausewitz the US is at war in Syria as we speak.
Not speaking of “at war” — that’s been a constant for the US since 1941 — but “event of war.”
Assuming you mean an attack, Dec 7 1941. Some would say Sep 11 2001, but that is asymmetrical war. Assuming the conventional definition, attack by a governmental army not an NGO, Dec 7 1941. Korea, VietNam, Grenada, Gulf Wars I & II, Afghanistan, Syria are all wars of choice. Correct me if I’m wring, but also all with no Congressional declaration of war and Syria even without an AUMF (not sure of Grenada either, but maybe it was covered by the {something or other law} that requires the President to go to Congress retroactively 30 or maybe 60 days.
Agree. To those that say 9/11, I would say why didn’t we respond with the force of the US military? For the amount of money we spend in it, it may not be all that good, but I refuse to buy into that notion that al Qaeda in Afghanistan couldn’t have been decimated. Despite Afghanistan’s reputation as the place where empires to to die.
Argue on the basis of 2nd and 3rd Amendments!
Preparedness need not be an issue; Switzerland with universal (male) service has no standing army but is totally prepared.
Yes, totally prepared by having a bunch of folks with rifles all over the country and many potential attackers’ gold hostage in their banks 🙂
Good Christ, that column is offensive in its presumptions. Parker presumes that the exclusive weaknesses of men would be exposed by being in combat situations with women. This ignores the undeniable fact that women feel sexual attraction and have sexual autonomy as well. Such delicate flowers, these combat soldiers Kathleen conjures up in her mind. She’s read too many romance novels, it appears.
Unfortunately, she also conjures up the explicit pornographic images of a female soldier being raped by the enemy in front of a male soldier. This is presented as uniquely upsetting and offensive, even though another undeniable fact is that the enemy could just as easily rape a male soldier in the same scenario. Would that be less upsetting and coercive? Parker fails to consider it in her column, but it’s a safe guess that her answer to that question would be “yes”.
And, of course, the main offense this column commits is an offense to logic. Combat soldiers are occupied by their combat actions, have little time to feel sexual desire for another soldier, and no time to take action on any desire they do feel. If soldiers were so undisciplined that they strayed in this way, those soldiers have problems which are far greater than the Tarzan and Jane scenario painted by Kathleen here.
I work in a profession which has me frequently working with women; many of them are sexually attractive. I am nowhere near running into problems related to that. Moment by moment, I’m rarely even feeling attached to my sexual desires while I’m working. How? Why? Because I’m a professional, and I’m trained to be respectful.
That Kathleen Parker believes that a company of combat soldiers would not be professional and would not be responsive to their training tells us much about her and nothing about the soldiers and the military she presumes to know.
Really, the problems occur in stateside garrisons, not in combat zones. And most of the situations that occur are in training and not all of them are rape. Some women are accustomed to using their bodies to get what they want from men.
Well, you had me until the last sentence, when your rhetorical train rumbled off the tracks in a spectacular crash with many casualties.
Perhaps the women you are imagining here would not find the military the best career to use their bodies in that way you say?
see my reply to Marie3 immediately below.
Seriously Voice? What women did you have in mind with that comment?
The female recruits who testified that they offered sex to their drill instructor in exchange for an easier time or privileges. No I don’t have a link. It was in the news a few years back. All were cashiered and the instructor’s wife filed for divorce. I believe he got a DD. The investigation started when the other recruits complained to their company commander about the situation. It happens. Women don’t have any moral superiority, nor do men.
And to make it clear, IMHO the very worst offender was the Sergeant who was in dereliction of his duty. Who failed in his duty to the service and the recruits not favored AND to the recruits who he favored as they didn’t get their proper military training and he set a very bad example.
The scenarios you claim here are, if true, proof positive that the military is a uniquely inhospitable place for women who want to “use their bodies to get what they want”. It’s a peculiar thing to focus on when there is a much bigger problem in the military with men in non-combat situations taking non-consensual sexual actions with female soldiers and getting away with it without suitable punishment:
http://usawc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=582097&sid=4798134
This is also true of the subcontractors who provide supplemental services to the military as well. Here’s some of the excellent work Senator Franken has done to respond to this violent criminality. The video is particularly worthwhile:
https:/www.franken.senate.gov?p=issue&id=211
“It’s a peculiar thing to focus on…”
I’m not focusing on it. You and Marie3 are.
To me it was just a throwaway line for balance.
What you said is that “women use their bodies to get what they want.” What you cite as evidence says no such thing. The claim that women offered sexual favors for a passing grade because they weren’t up to the physical demands of the training isn’t supported either.
Do you not know how sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment operates? These men held real and significant power over the lives of these women. The power to cause them to fail even if they were cutting it.
“some” women and didn’t that particular case claim that it was initiated by the women.
I’ll antagonize you more by claiming that some women sleep their way to the top in business. I have no evidence, but I suspect Carly Fiorina is one. How else does a women with no talent and no brains get to be CEO?
Even in the postal service I’ve seen women go from “dating” manager to higher manager as they progress up the chain. OTOH, I have seen women with brains and skill advance. Jealous men call them “dykes”(sic?). My apologies for the ugly direct quote.
You mean like Ambassador Pamela Harriman? Or if one “sleeps” his/her way to marriage that takes one to the top, does that not count?
Some men and women kiss a lot of butt moving up the corporate ladder — does it matter if in some cases it’s more actual than rhetorical?
I’m sure that far more men and women try to “sleep their way to the top” than those that succeed. Also, more rumors of such career advancement activities than actually exist.
The problem with throwing this into the discussion is that when such people don’t succeed, they rarely file sexual complaints against the boss that didn’t promote them and when they do, almost impossible to get them to stick.
I never said they weren’t up to the physical demands of the job? How did you read that?
Implied in this: The female recruits who testified that they offered sex to their drill instructor in exchange for an easier time or privileges. However, absent a credible link, not willing to accept your recollection that any female recruits made any such testimony. Sound like what a defendant would claim.
Obviously you have never been in basic training. I’m sure they could meet the physical demands, but everyone would like to get out of them unless they are a masochist.
As we don’t know that any of the women even said that, all you’re saying is that given the opportunity to trade sexual favors for a lightened basic training routine, some (you?) would go for it.
It might have been this guy . “Aberdeen” and “Simpson” sound familiar, except maybe I’m just thinking about “Homer Simpson”. I didn’t think the case was that long ago, but the article I read might have been a review of cases.
In any case, I don’t think “some” implies “all” or even “many”.
Women have always been the victims of war, fgs. She appears to like it that way.
Actual experience with the woman army of Dahomey, the Kurdish militia Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, and in the Red Army in WW 2 says women can be just as effective, or superior, in combat as men.
Margaret Mead:
Fairly on topic, this rotten Camille Paglia column has been getting attention on the internet tubes.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-takes-taylor-swift-845827
My vote for most amusing claim:
“Girl squads ought to be about mentoring, exchanging advice and experience and launching exciting and innovative joint projects. Women need to study the immensely productive dynamic of male bonding in history. With their results-oriented teamwork, men largely have escaped the sexual jealousy, emotionalism and spiteful turf wars that sometimes dog women.“
Paglia isn’t accounting for everything that groups of men have done with the empowerment they claim with this male bonding thing. Some of those “results” have been awful. Oh, and men have largely escaped being reactive to “sexual jealousy, emotionalism and spiteful turf wars”? Does Camille actually know any men? If not, maybe she should read the newspapers and learn how very very wrong she is.
Good to see that Camille’s status is diminishing, though. It used to be that her offensive bullshit were seen on the pages of august literary publications. She had to go to the Hollywood Reporter to peddle this latest cow pie.
I’ve known lots of men that got their emotional confirmation by being toadies to men of power.
Men aren’t all cooperative and team spirited. Nor are women all jealous of their sisters. But the tendencies are there. And men’s cooperation is not team work. It’s more like a wolf pack and they are destroyed mercilessly if the pack turns against them.