Jim Hanson guest hosts Secure Freedom Radio and discusses the legality of targeted killings and drones. Jim discuses the role of women in combat with Genevieve Chase, founder of American Women Veterans. Spencer Ackerman and Jim diverge views on military commissions and Peter Pham provides insight into al-Qaeda infiltration in Africa and Iran’s influence in Africa via the United Nations.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
If Geneieve Chase wants the top best to do the job. Then bring it on. There would be no women in combat arms units. Not fit enough, not strong enough, not tough enough. Unless you bend the rules.
The military should not be a social experiment. How many football teams above the age of 10 years old have female players? Zero.
I have seen women that can run. But if I did not know a thing about either particiapant in a race of 5km that featured a knife fight to the death at the end, and one was male and the other female. I would pick the male every time. And that is all that counts. How many scum bags can we kill so they don’t kill us.
D. W. Shupe, Jr.
LtCol USMC (RET)
Genevieve Chase talks about the need to re-evalute current policy on women in the military and, as Jim put it, to have “regulations catch up with reality.” That makes sense. Some of her other comments, however, merely gloss over the issues.
She says that if someone is qualified to serve in the military (and I guess she includes combat roles) then she doesn’t care what color, gender, etc. they are, they should be able to serve. If the only required criteria for military service is meeting certain physical qualifications plus the desire to serve, then what Ms. Chase says might make sense. But the military doesn’t exist to answer to the desires and career goals of individual members of society. The military is an institution that has a range of responsibilities and it should accept or reject people on the basis of how well people fulfill the interests and responsibilities of the organization. Not vice versa.
Toward the end of the interview Ms. Chase acknowledges that with women and men serving together (esp. in combat roles), “relationships” and “stuff like that” is going to happen. She seems to think this “stuff” is fine as long as we still have a strong and exceptional military. I’m probably old enough to be Ms. Chase’s mother, but, sorry, she sounds hopelessly naive on this point. You can’t have it both ways. Ms. Chase probably prefers the word “stuff” to just plainly stating that once you have men and women serving together, you’ll have plenty of sexual activity (not to mention all the emotional “stuff” that goes along with that) as well as pregnancies and then the inevitable sexual harrassment suits (most likely launched by the females I bet).
While the evaluation of current policy that Chase is suggesting makes sense, ultimately, the role of women in the military should be evaluated in terms of what’s best for the military, not what’s best for women.