Britain’s proud poster girl for women in the military

Howard Sutherland continues his comments from the previous entry:

This is a good example of the new modus operandi. The Tuskegee Airmen were a worthy group of men, and their achievement is real, which makes anyone (like me) who criticizes their being singled out for a medal look like a scrooge at best and a racist at worst. Nevertheless, singling them out over 60 years after the fact while simply ignoring all the other groups, many of which achieved far more, is pandering and propagandistic.

As for military stories, have you been following the Iranians’ kidnapping of those Royal Marines and Royal Navy sailors? The tragedy is that the Royal Navy, which 25 years ago was capable of mounting a task force to boot the Argentines out of the Falklands, no longer has any credible ability to retrieve its people or retaliate. (And would the Moslems the British have so stupidly let in riot if Great Britain took military action against Iran?) I must say, the captured sailorette is a poster-girl for why women should not be in anything remotely resembling a combat role. The Iranians got a “confession” from her in no time flat, and in recent pictures she is wearing a Moslem headscarf – over her Royal Navy uniform! To such depths has one of the greatest navies of history sunk. I see today that the Iranians have secured another “confession” from a British sailor – who does not appear to have been physically mistreated at all.

I suppose I should be happy that none of the Marines has cracked yet…

- end of initial entry -

David B. writes:

I just saw Howard Sutherland’s post regarding the Tuskegee Airmen. Their record was indeed good, but it didn’t stand out that much at the time. I agree with Mr. Sutherland, and would add that three other groups based in Italy (Source: “Air Aces” 1983, by Christopher Shores) had over 500 air victories each. They were the 31st, 325th, and 82nd. Is a Congressional Gold Medal going to any of these fighter groups? I assume that the 332nd did not face as much air opposition as the other three.

I would not be surprised if most people today could not name any American WWII fighter group besides the Tuskegee Airmen. I once asked someone this question and found this to be the case.

RG writes:

With respect to Howard Sutherland’s comments on women in combat roles in the armed forces, I too think it’s silly and wasteful of resources.

I believe the U.S. armed forces restricts women from direct (ground) combat thankfully but women have crept onto Navy warships and even as Air Force pilots since the early 1990s—I’m not sure if they are allowed to be fighter pilots or not.

Of course women can serve in many useful roles in the military and that’s a good thing but denying basic common sense knowledge of the physical and even temperamental differences between the sexes is just foolish and yet another example how political correctness really means telling white lies as not to hurt other’s feelings.

LA replies:

I don’t think that what drives this is “political correctness,” a phrase that implies something extreme or extraneous to normal, mainstream politics. I think that what drives this is the basic belief in equality to which virtually everyone in the modern world, including conservatives, subscribes and which no one in the modern world, including conservatives, dares publicly oppose. The proof that conservatives don’t dare oppose it is that they keep calling it something else, like “political correctness.”

I’m not singling out RG for criticism here. Most conservatives do this. Just as they refer to devout Muslims as “Islamic fascists,” to avoid criticizing Islam, they refer to the liberal belief in equality as “political correctness,” to avoid criticizing the liberal belief in equality.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 30, 2007 11:38 AM | Send