women in combat

The last few years have been tough on Elaine Donnelly, as the Phyllis Schlafly protégé appears to have lost the battle over her group’s two main priorities: maintaining the ban on openly gay service members and excluding women from combat positions. Donnelly, the head of the Center for Military Readiness, appeared on Secure Freedom Radio last week with Frank Gaffney to demand that Congress intervene and block the Obama administration from permitting women to serve in combat.

She predicted that “lives are lost” if women have the opportunity to serve in such units, which she arged would make the military’s mission “more difficult [and] more dangerous.” “This is the political agenda of the President,” Donnelly said, “we see the outgoing Secretary of Defense planting on the Pentagon the flag of feminism right next to the LGBT gay activist flag.”

Gaffney: What does it mean for the war fighting capabilities of the United States that we are relaxing the standards or we are enabling people who will not be able to meet them to get access to and become part of the military cadre?

Donnelly: When you complicate matters in infantry battalions you make life and missions there more difficult, more dangerous, bottom line: lives are lost. There is no excuse for doing this. We know that women are promoted at rates equal to or faster than men and it’s been that way for decades. This is the political agenda of the President that is being imposed on the one institution or the one organization that he can order as Commander-in-Chief and everybody has to salute and make it work. That includes the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they are going along with this even though they have not disclosed the results of the marine tests. Now if the marine tests supported the goal of women being in the infantry, don’t you think we would’ve heard about it by now? Instead, we see the outgoing Secretary of Defense planting on the Pentagon the flag of feminism right next to the LGBT gay activist flag. These people are in charge of the Pentagon unless Congress intervenes and Congress has the responsibility to intervene. Under the Constitution, Congress makes policy, not the President, not the Joint Chiefs and certainly the field commanders who will have to implement these diversity metrics in order to get promoted.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is now recycling the exact same talking points against allowing women the opportunity to serve in combat that he used opposing the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT).

While none of the dire predictions Fischer warned about regarding the end of DADT ever materialized, Fischer made similar warnings while speaking yesterday with Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness. Like with the DADT’s repeal, Fischer predicted that the policy will undermine readiness, cohesion, security and performance, possibly leading “to a reinstatement of the draft.”

While Donnelly avoided Fischer’s question about reinstating the draft, she claimed that women will now have to register in the selective service system and said the policy will “harm women, men, infantry battalions and the national security of the United States.”

Donnelly said that sexual assaults may increase because male soldiers will resent the easier “double standards” for women, warning that now the whole military will “fall apart.”

Fischer: There’s also the issue of sexual tension and sexual misconduct, the potential for that is going to be introduced.

Donnelly: If you want to make that even worse than what we’re seeing now, and the rates keep going up and up it’s getting worse and worse, put women into direct combat units, adjust the standards to make it work and then just sit back and watch everything fall apart because double standards are so corrosive to morale. It increases resentment, resentment leads to sexual harassment, assaults or worse, this is a poisonous kind of atmosphere.

Later, Fischer warned of a “complete sexual meltdown” occurring due to “predatory women” trying to sleep with officers, citing CIA head David Petraeus’s affair with a reporter.

But a caller insisted that maybe the Obama administration decided to end prohibitions on women and openly gay service members so they can share foxholes together, an idea Fischer loved: “Just put your predatory females in the same foxhole with a flaming homosexual and nothing is going to happen.”

Fischer: I just think having women in uniform is just a bad idea and here we are seeing one of the reasons. You have got subordinates serving powerful supervisors, you’ve got predatory women, it’s just a recipe for complete sexual meltdown and that’s why we are seeing General Petreaus being a key example of that.

Let’s go to Lee, Bluefield, Virginia.

Caller: I’m gonna have to do something I thought I would never do. I am going to have to give President Obama credit for having a long-range strategy because I just realized why he wanted soldiers to be able to serve in the military and be openly gay, because when it comes time to share a foxhole he will put the openly gay soldiers in the foxhole with the women and that way they’ll both be safe.

Fischer: So Lee’s saying this is a brilliant strategy on the part of President Obama to eliminate sexual tension in the military. Just put your predatory females in the same foxhole with a flaming homosexual and nothing is going to happen. There won’t be any sexual misconduct. That’s President Obama thinking outside the box.

While the Religious Right reacted with apoplectic rage following the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the lifting of the ban on women in combat has brought dejected but relatively subdued responses from conservatives.

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer, who in December spoke out in favor of the ban by lying about the Israeli military’s policy on women in combat, tweeted that the decision was part of Obama’s plan to “feminize and weaken the U.S. military.”

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness said that “lives could be lost unnecessarily” by the new policy, which “will harm men and the mission of the infantry as a whole.” “The administration has a pattern of irresponsible actions like this using the military to advance a social agenda,” she said, “This kind of a social experiment is a dangerous one.”

Faith and Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed maintained that the Obama administration is “putting women in combat situations is the latest in a series of moves where political correctness and liberal social policy have trumped sound military practice.”

Richard Viguerie’s group claimed that “Obama’s plan to introduce women into frontline combat roles in the U.S. military is a dangerous and irresponsible social experiment, not an opportunity for women to serve their country and advance in their chosen profession.”

Radio talk show host Janet Mefferd on her Facebook page wrote that the move is further proof that the Obama administration is “intent upon undoing this great country” and will “stop at nothing to achieve it.”

Family Research Council vice president Jerry Boykin, who was reprimanded by President Bush after he made anti-Muslim and political speeches while in uniform, called the decision “another social experiment”:

The people making this decision are doing so as part of another social experiment, and they have never lived nor fought with an infantry or Special Forces unit. These units have the mission of closing with and destroying the enemy, sometimes in close hand-to-hand combat. They are often in sustained operations for extended periods, during which they have no base of operations nor facilities. Their living conditions are primal in many situations with no privacy for personal hygiene or normal functions. Commanders are burdened with a very heavy responsibility for succeeding in their mission and for protecting their troops.

This decision to integrate the genders in these units places additional and unnecessary burdens on leaders at all levels. While their focus must remain on winning the battles and protecting their troops, they will now have the distraction of having to provide some separation of the genders during fast moving and deadly situations. Is the social experiment worth placing this burden on small unit leaders? I think not.

Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America said that the “majority of women” don’t care about the ban or want its elimination:

News of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's intent to lift the long-standing ban on women serving in direct combat is further proof that this administration simply does not care about the issues about which the majority of women care. Once again, their interest on women issues is driven by special interest groups. The point of the military is to protect our country. Anything that distracts from that is detrimental. Our military cannot continue to choose social experimentation and political correctness over combat readiness. While this decision is not unexpected from this administration, it is still disappointing. Concerned Women for America (CWA) and its more than half-a-million members around the country will continue to do all we can to see that our men and women in uniform are governed with the respect and resources needed to do the hard task of fighting for and protecting our freedoms.

“God help us,” lamented Denny Burk of the Southern Baptist Convention, who seemed to suggest that women shouldn’t be in the armed forces at all:

Are the fortunes of women in our country really enhanced by sending them to be ground up in the discipline of a combat unit and possibly to be killed or maimed in war? Is there a father in America who would under any circumstance risk having his daughter shot or killed in battle? Is there a single husband in this country who thinks it okay for his wife to risk being captured by our enemies? To risk becoming a prisoner of war? Is this the kind of people we want to be? Perhaps this is the kind of people we already are. I would sooner cut off my arm than allow such a thing with my own wife and daughters. Why would I ever support allowing someone else’s to do the same? Why would anyone?

What kind of a society puts its women on the front lines to risk what only men should be called on to risk? In countries ravaged by war, we consider it a tragedy when the battle comes to the backyards of women and children. Why would we thrust our own wives and daughters into that horror? My own instinct is to keep them as far from it as possible. Perhaps this move makes sense with an all volunteer force, but what if the draft is ever reinstituted? Are we really going to be the kind of people who press our wives and daughters to fight in combat?

…

Everyone in America ought to be scandalized by this news, but I’m wondering if it will even register on the radar of anyone’s conscience. To the extent that it doesn’t, we reveal just how far gone we are as a people. God help us.

Aaron Ahlert of FrontPageMag said the move is “sure to have deadly consequences” and represents the Obama administration “forcing gender radicalism down America’s throat.”

It didn’t take long for the Obama administration to advance a pernicious piece of its promised radical agenda. Two days after the president laid out his far-left vision during the inauguration, senior defense officials announced that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will lift the military’s ban on women serving in combat. The move overturns a 1994 provision that prohibited them from being assigned to ground combat units. Panetta has given the various service branches until 2016 to come up with exemptions, and/or make any arguments about what roles should still reman closed to women. Thus, another bit of gender radicalism has been shoved down the nation’s throat through executive fiat — and this one is sure to have deadly consequences.

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It stretches the bounds of credulity to believe that sexual tension, regardless of the legitimate or illegitimate motivation behind it, would be lessened under front line, life-threatening combat conditions. Nor is it inconceivable to think that close personal relationships of a sexual nature would make some soldiers take the kind of unnecessary risks to save a lover that might not only endanger themselves, but their entire unit.

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Once again, elections have consequences. Barack Obama has made it clear that part of his progressive agenda includes forcing gender radicalism down America’s throat, absent any input from Congress. Once, the United States military was all about projecting lethal power around the globe to protect America’s interests. Now, it is all about promoting diversity, inclusion and equality of outcome, irrespective of military readiness and cohesion. For progressives, who have elevated political correctness above all else–national security included–such radical egalitarianism is cause for celebration. For Donnelly and countless other Americans, it is anything but. “No one’s injured son should have to die on the streets of a future Fallujah because the only soldier near enough to carry him to safety was a five-foot-two 110-pound woman,” she contends.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association today dedicated his radio show to railing against the American Civil Liberties Union for filing a lawsuit against the ban on women in combat. He got most heated in responding to the claims from ban opponents who point to Israel’s policy towards women, arguing that Israel actually excludes women from combat roles and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

Don’t let people lie to you that the Israelis use women in combat, they do not. They tried it for three weeks in 1948, they scrapped it, it doesn’t work and they’ve never done it again. Now women still serve in the Israeli military, they serve as secretaries, clerks, communications specialists, nurses, teachers and army social workers. They do not serve in combat. They don’t serve as pilots, they don’t serve on ships, they don’t pump gas, they don’t even drive trucks. Now they do receive a minimal amount of weapons training but they receive no training in how to use weapons in combat and they don’t even practice shooting at combats. In fact the only time, and this is what perpetuates the myth, the only time that Israeli female soldiers carry weapons is on parade.

However, this is simply not the case.

“Women have served in combat roles in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) since the mid-1990s,” the BBC reports. “During the 2006 Lebanon conflict, women fired artillery, served on warships, and piloted aircraft.”

Apparently Fischer doesn’t believe the IDF’s own website which clearly states that women in “some of the most combative, extreme roles” in the military.

Everywhere in the IDF, women play a vital role in all positions, both combat and administrative. In the Air Force, Navy, and Ground Forces- these women man some of the most combative, extreme roles in the IDF.

Today, over 90% of all IDF jobs are available for female soldiers, including a variety of elite positions. Over the last decade, IDF women completed pilot’s course, became naval officers and took on a variety of infantry positions.

The following women fight alongside men, contributing to the security of the State of Israel and proving their immense toughness

The IDF says women serve as weapons instructors, pilots in the air force and soldiers in combat, K-9, field intelligence and engineering units.

There is even an entire page about combat options for Israeli female service members.

But Fischer doesn’t have any interest in doing even elementary research into this issue and is much more content with spewing baseless statements that fly in the face of reality.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness talked to James Dobson today on Family Talk about the expansion of the roles of women service members and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which they warned will have horrific ramifications. Donnelly, who has warned that allowing women in combat roles and gays to serve openly will lead to the military’s downfall, told Dobson that the culture of the military is in grave jeopardy due to the “process of diversifying and imposing LGBT agendas,” maintaining that “the civil rights movement is being co-opted by the advocates of diversity, by advocates of the LGBT equality group.”

The new concept of inclusion is a radical departure from the military’s honorable tradition of recognizing individual merit. In fact the armed forces were way ahead of the civilian world in recognizing individual merit regardless of race, regardless of gender even, but the way we’re going now, the civil rights movement is being co-opted by the advocates of diversity, by advocates of the LGBT equality group. There are a lot of influences under the current president who unfortunately are in the driver seat in the Pentagon and they are making some serious problems here. Can it change? Yes, the military is resilient, but right now people have got to become aware, first of all, of what’s happening and secondly, figure out a way to do something about it.

I think every major conservative cause there is has taken a beating in the last several years, whether it’s health care, whether it’s the economy, our banking system, all kinds of things have been seriously harmed in the last three years. So are we going to give up on all of that? No, I certainly hope not, not as Americans. But the military is different because it’s the only military we have. If you cause problems in education, you can always homeschool; you can go to a different school system, if you don’t like your state you can move to another state; but if something is wrong with the culture of the military—Reagan had an easy job with it, all he had to do was rebuild the ships and the planes and the hardware—but rebuilding the culture of the military after we go through this process of diversifying and imposing LGBT agendas and lowering standards to accommodate it all, this is going to be more difficult.

The Center for Military Readiness’s Elaine Donnelly has been making the rounds this week to discuss what she alleges is the Pentagon’s attempted cover-up of a marked increase in violent sexual assaults in the Army since 2006. The increase in sexual assaults was reported [pdf] by the Army in January and Defense Secretary Leon Pannetta immediately called the trend “unacceptable” and vowed to take steps to stop it. This week, a federal judge ordered the Army to release more detailed records on the assaults, at the request of the ACLU and the Service Women’s Action Network.

Donnelly, however, asserts that the Pentagon has been trying to cover up the increase in sexual assaults in order to cover for a new policy allowing women to officially serve in combat positions.

Speaking with Frank Gaffney on Secure Freedom Radio yesterday, Donnelly said that adding “social burdens” to the military – like allowing women to serve in combat and gays to serve openly – will eventually topple institution like a tower of Jenga blocks. Donnelly has previously claimed that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military would  "break the all-volunteer force."

Gaffney: Are we at risk, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, of breaking the all-volunteer force with all of this?

Donnelly: Yes, yes we are. And what we’re heading toward is what I call the Jenga block military. If you’ve ever played that game with wooden blocks, you know you take the blocks out of the bottom, and you load more burdens on the top. Eventually, the tower becomes so unstable it collapses. And it’s a fun game to play on your kitchen table. But if you take things away from our military, and you keep adding social burdens on top, what you do is make a weakened force, you make that tower unstable. You, in essence, weaken the infrastructure of the culture of the military.

And let’s face it, it isn’t just about the weapons and the planes and ships and all of those hardware things, it’s the people who defend the military – the all-volunteer force. If we are doing great harm to both men and women in the military, if sexual assaults become so demoralizing, so conducive to indiscipline, what we’re doing is weakening the finest military in the world, we’re doing it gradually and according to this Army report, the progression is relentless. And it’s going in the wrong direction, it’s getting worse. And we certainly should not make it even worse than that by placing female soldiers into direct ground combat infantry battalions.

Somebody’s got to blow the whistle on this. Social engineers never are held accountable for their handiwork. Instead, the Pentagon invites them in to do more mischief, to create more problems. They don’t know what they’re doing. This report indicates that we need to really analyze this thing, and frankly Congress needs to intervene before it is too late.

Donnelly also dropped by the Janet Mefferd Show yesterday, where she claimed the Pentagon is “pretend[ing] there’s no problem” and mocked the Defense Department’s hiring of Sexual Assault Response Coordinators as a “jobs program” boondoggle:

Donnelly: You can understand why the Army did not want to trumpet these findings: they don’t fit the template. Well, now we’re going to put women into land combat battalions, the ones that are all male, the tip of the spear. They just pretend there’s no problem, and if theirs is a problem, well the problem is a myth. So, we’ll just do more training, we’ll hire more, what do they call it, ‘sexual assault response coordinators.’

Mefferd: Oh, good grief.

Donnelly: Starts to make a pretty good salary. You’re talking about a jobs program here.