Equality can be a bitch

[seahooker]

I wonder how most young women feel about this:

The push for gender equality in the military just moved one step closer. The House Armed Services Committee approved a measure Wednesday that would require women to register for the military draft.
The current law dictates that all men aged 18 to 26 are required to register for the draft with the Selective Service System. The decision to exclude women dates back to 1981, when the Supreme Court ruled that women would not take part in the draft since they were left out of combat roles as well.
In a strange twist of events, the author of the bill actually voted against the measure, The Associated Press reported. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said he introduced the measure in February to prompt a more focused conversation in Congress about women in the military — even though he also opposed the Defense Department’s decision to open up combat roles to women.
But he wants Congress to decide these kinds of measures, not the executive branch.
“If this administration wants to send 18- to 20-year-old women into combat, to serve and fight on the front lines, then the American people deserve to have this discussion through their elected representatives,” he said in a statement.
Hunter warned that he was considering voting against the bill.
“It’s unfortunate that a bill like this even needs to be introduced,” he added. “And it’s legislation that I might very well vote against should it be considered during the annual defense authorization process.”      
Hunter used graphic war imagery on Wednesday in an effort to try and prove that combat roles are unfit for women.
“A draft is there to put bodies on the front lines to take the hill,” he said. “The draft is there to get more people to rip the enemies’ throats out and kill them.”
Several Republicans joined Democrats in voting in favor of the bill.

[DaBoz]

If a woman kills an Islamic , he will not go to meet allah.

[gwboolean]

Well Hooker, I have always thought that it should be this way.  I was pissed off (1968) when I could be drafted (and would have been had I not joined) and girls my age could not.  I have always thought that everyone should have to serve their country.  I also believe that it really shows how both the country and the people benefit from this.  And certainly, since mandatory service has been eliminated, it shows how the country and the people lose by not having it.

[sweetwater5s9]

Worth reading from this female Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School:

Every sentient adult knows what happens when you mix healthy young men and women together in small groups for extended periods of time. Just look at any workplace. Couples form. At some point, how couples interact – sexually, emotionally, happily and/or unhappily – makes life uncomfortable for those around them. Factor in intense, intimate conditions and you can forget about adults being able to stay professional 24/7.

Proponents love to invoke desegregation and the demise of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Their intent in doing so is to suggest that all three are of a piece: Blacks now serve in combat units, as do (at least in theory) openly homosexual soldiers, and there have been no untoward effects. It is therefore past time to let women be all that they can be as well. Except that attraction between the sexes is nothing like the denigration of another race or the disinterest (or disgust) heterosexual men feel when it comes to the idea of one man pursuing another.

Indeed, racism and bigotry lie at the opposite end of the spectrum from attraction. Lumping all three together is a canard.

There is no clearer way to put it than this: Heterosexual men like women. They also compete for their attention. This is best captured by the Darwinist aphorism: male-male competition and female choice. Or, try: no female has to leave a bar alone if she doesn’t want to, whereas at ‘last call’ lots of men do.

Cast back through history or just look cross-culturally: Men’s abiding interest in women (and women’s interest in having men be interested) creates limitless potential for friction. Is this really what we want to inflict on combat units?

Introduce something over which members are bound to compete, that the winner won’t share, and you inject a dangerous dynamic. Worse, introduce the possibility of exclusivity between two individuals and you will have automatically killed cohesion.

No question, women are a boon for certain types of missions, especially certain special operations missions.   But there is a world of difference between women participating on certain missions and women serving alongside men as permanent members of ground combat units.

This difference has everything to do with why combat units exist – they exist to be sent into harm’s way.

The prospect of attrition requires that the military treat individuals not as individuals, but as interchangeable pieces of a complex system. Not only does every combat soldier need to be capable of accomplishing the same essential tasks as every other combat soldier (according to rank, MOS etc.), but every potential replacement has to be able to easily fit into an already-stressed group. This introduces the equivalent of a Goldilocks challenge: Groups must be flexible enough to quickly absorb new members, while new members need to be sufficiently similar to both old members and surviving members that they readily fit.

Unfortunately, the services aren’t likely to use their sexual assault data to make the case that injecting women into hard-charging, all-male units isn’t a sound idea. But surely other statistics exist. For instance, how much time do command staffs already spend on boy-girl troubles? Anecdotally, fraternization and related issues eat up way too much time. Is this really what Washington should now saddle combat units and commanders with as they fight ISIS or whomever else in the future?

Or what about combat soldiers’ spouses, who already have more than enough worries? Why don’t their concerns count? This is a question that leads to a cascade of others for anyone who truly cares about equity. Whose equity should most matter? And who should get to determine this?

The irony is that combat units are ‘it’ when it comes to protecting all the other equities we Americans value. That is inconvenient truth number one. We have no other front-line/behind-the-lines first responders. Why would we want to do anything that jeopardizes their cohesiveness and integrity?

Inconvenient truth number two is that men and women have been each other’s most consistent distraction since the beginning of time. To pretend that we don’t know what will happen when men and women are thrown together for prolonged periods in emotionally intense situations defies common sense. Being overly academic and insufficiently adult about adult behavior isn’t just irresponsible but imperiling, and belies the deadly seriousness with which we should want combat units to perform.

Anna Simons is a Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. 

[darkflower]

How is slavery in which you must murder to make some fat cat rich the same as serving your country? Most wars have nothing to do with serving any country, only serving the rich elite. It is bad enough that the government is allowed to trick impressionable young people into joining without letting them force people against their will to be cannon fodder for a bunch of god damned rich people who put profit over human life.

Equality should be going in the other direction, ending selective service not expanding it. Slavery is not a move toward equality but away from it.

[seahooker]

ms. darkflower, there is could, would, should and what is!

[darkflower]

And there is what idiots are trying to push.

And since when does anyone say "roll over" for a corrupt system because that is "what is" rather than at least point out it is wrong?

[darkflower]

And here is what is: the draft has not been used since Vietnam. Time to end it for good, not expand it.

[warrenpees]

My dad couldn't get me into the National Guard either, bool.

[DaBoz]

The National Guard flew missions in Nam..Or are you just hate mongering.

http://www.ngef.org/press_release/museum-amplifies-guards-vietnam-role/

[warrenpees]

Unless your daddy got you into a unit that trained on, and flew an obsolete aircraft.

[DaBoz]

Conspiracy theories are a sign of a weak mind.

What stands out as a more serious crime against America,,, Serving in the National guard or Going to Moscow to avoid the Draft.