Kathleen Parker asks a good question: Why does a once-great power such as Britain send mothers of toddlers to fight its battles?
Why indeed? Is the West in the throes of some great insanity that it must argue against all common sense and logic because some (can we legitimately call it "crazed"?) movement thinks it a good idea to erase all differences between men and women?
It is, of course, madness. And it doesn't help the image of the West to have, as Kathleen Parker put it, "a dangerous, lying, Holocaust-denying, Jew-hating cutthroat thug" point that out to us.
Parker rues the propaganda value to Ahmadinejad of the Faye Turney episode.
In the eyes of Iran and other Muslim nations, we're wimps. While the West puts mothers in boats with rough men, Islamic men "rescue'' women and drape them in floral hijabs.
We can debate whether they're right until all our boys wear aprons, but it won't change the
way we're perceived. The propaganda value Iran gained from its lone female hostage, the mother of a 3-year-old, was incalculable.
But what about the whole idea of women in combat? She goes on to say:
It is not fashionable these days to suggest that women don't belong in or near combat -- or that children need their mothers. Yes, they need their fathers, too, but children in their tender years are dependent on their mothers in unique ways.
There's not enough space here to go into all the ways that this is true, but children (and good parents) know the difference even if some adults are too dim, brainwashed or ideologically driven to see what's obvious.
Why the West has seen it necessary to diminish motherhood so that women can pretend to be men remains a mystery to sane adults. It should be unnecessary to say that the military is not a proper vehicle for social experimentation, but a machine dedicated to fighting and, if necessary, killing.
Women may be able to push buttons as well as men, but the door-to-door combat in Fallujah proved the irrelevance of that argument. Meanwhile, no one can look at photos of the 15 British marines and sailors and argue convincingly that the British Navy is stronger for the presence of Leading Seaman Faye Turney -- no matter how lovely and brave she may be. (more)
Also this:
Col Bob Stewart, who was the first British commander of UN forces in Bosnia, yesterday said that he was against women being close to combat as their deaths or injuries had a debilitating effect on male soldiers. "It's disquieting for a lot of people in this country when women are put into the front line because when they are wounded or killed, the men around them find it very difficult to operate," he said.
Col Stewart, who commanded the Cheshire Regiment, said he had twice been present when women soldiers died.
"One was in my arms after a bomb in Northern Ireland and I was inconsolable afterwards. I could not operate. (HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez)