Combat Women.

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breeder

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I an trying to remember the last time I heard someone describe a woman with that term. I am fairly certain it was a skinhead.

I have reviewed your posts on this subject and determined through careful analysis of your speech paterns, your mypoic understanding of Arab culture, your self-satisifed demeanor and your complete inability to see past your predetermined a priori assumptions that you are what is commonly reffered to as an idiot.

PS: Breeder, as commonly used in the gay community is a derogatory term.

1.('80s - n.) A heterosexual man or woman.
2.Derogatory term for a bisexual, or a gay or lesbian who wishes to have children.

[url=http://andrejkoymasky.com/lou/dic/b.html]From here: Gay Slang.[/url]

[ 02 April 2003: Message edited by: Moredreads ]

*plank*

About rape.

If POWs are in the custody of a responsible, Geneva-abiding commander, then rape is rather rare. You might see the statistical similiarity to the civilian world.

However, in situations where POWs are not respected, such as in Vietnam, then rape is frequent. And it has nothing to do with sex, but with 'shaming' the enemy. This particularly includes men.

Men are raped as POWs. Of course, you don't hear about it. The stigma against male-rape is even greater than against rape against women.

You should be, pax. It takes a pretty connected guy to name-drop in such a fashion. I mean, he used their [i]first names[/i]. He must really be someone important.

I've been thinking about how to respond to this thread for much of the morning.

Let me start with this: I have an apology to make.

FSB, I should not have told you to kiss my ass. I shouldn't have allowed my temper to get the best of me. It is one of my greatest flaws, and it gets away on me sometimes. I apologize.

I do, however, expect an apology in return for being called a derogatory term. I won't ever apologize to anybody for being a mother. It's an integral part of who I am, and has been a proving ground for me in just how physically strong and resilient a woman's body naturally is. I am not insisting that you agree with me, but you do not have the right to denigrate my experience. Especially not in this forum.

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Zoot, stop posting in this thread. You are out of your league.

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What league would that be, exactly? The one where everybody agrees with you? Last I checked, audra was the arbiter of who posts or not in this or any other thread on this forum. If she asks me to bow out, I'll do so. But you? Well, who do you think you are, anyway?

I still stand by my statement that women physiologically have certain advantages over men in terms of endurance and function better when sleep-deprived. Men and women are strong in different ways, but it evens out. You haven't actually posted anything to refute this, nor have you responded to the information posted by paximillion and xrcrguy that show that your assumptions about the necessary lifting capacity in an infantry role are inflated.

So instead of insults, let's see some substance in your arguments. Or is that out of [i]your[/i] league?

61.

Is that counting all these witty variations on the word plonk?

Hey FSB, can you plonk me now just to get it over with? I'm not in your league either.

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Ransbury says, "Women do better at air combat than men. I don't know if it's because their stomach muscles are stronger and can better withstand G forces, if they are less prone to nausea, or just more comfortable functioning in a three dimensional environment. The men who convince their wives to fly generally get their butts kicked."

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This is from a website about flight instruction. Ransbury, acc to the website, is a fighter pilot himself.
[url=http://www.veteransenterprise.com/pages/mag_articles/spr01_fighterpilot.... isn't the point of the website, but I thought it was useful for argument's sake [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] [/url]

And yes, Ransbury is a man (I don't know too many women whose first name is Paul)

[ 02 April 2003: Message edited by: googlymoogly ]

[ 02 April 2003: Message edited by: googlymoogly ]

Ok. I think *that* is over the top.

Just my opinion is all. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Replying to Zoot and Kindred...
1)pilots: It happens that I am a pilot myself (commercial, coastal/floats, not military). Happily, Transport Canada's flight examiners care not an atom about the test candidate's gender. Because of that, we can all be be assured as passengers that whoever is sitting left-seat got there because of competence, not affirmative action. That said, men outnumber women in aviation by about 8:1. This is not to say that all men are one way, and all women another: It is correct however, to observe that the sort of cognitive/spatial/motion awareness skills required for flying are found above the utility threshold more often in men than women. (Similarly, a 3-D recall of lots of static detail seems found significantly more present in women.) To the point, I am indifferent to the gender of whomever has demonstrated the competence to handle the aircraft.
Military aviation, however, requires a caveat. There is status attached to attack/fighter pilots. This is not my opinion; it is fact, observable in that strike pilot applicants outnumber recruits by vast margins. Thus, ambitious women might well, and do, aspire to the cachet that attaches to military flying. I was in infantry/armour battle school, training for platoon and company command at a time when women were first being considered for strike aviation. Understand that on the ground, when you call in tactical air, your needs are simple--to save lives of your soldiers, you want flame and steel on the enemy position. Strike pilots kill people. It's the job description. In the officers' mess one evening, I overheard two women at the next table discussing their applications to flight training. They were optimistic, but the gist was, "...but you know, I don't know if I could ever bring myself to actually shoot at somebody.." Doubtless, an admirable, humanistic sentiment. But if you hold it, you shouldn't apply for the job. If a ground commander calls in a strike and the pilot has a conscience spasm-induced miss, his men on the ground will die. So long as the strike pilot has been vetted by the military equivalent of Transport Canada's indifference to gender; so long as (s)he can effectively deliver fire, I'd have no concerns whatever about the genitals in the cockpit. If there are women who can fly the equipment, and bore in for the strike, more power and my support. Given, however, that Canada has a track record of inept social engineering, here is yet another reason that I wouldn't want my infantry kid's safety depending on the last-minute second thoughts of an affirmative-action-recruited attack pilot.
2) a)The presence of young women affects the work of young men.
b)Several countries within living memory (USSR, Israel, etc) have used women in battle. It didn't work well. They stopped. To my knowledge there is no example in human history of women prevailing in battle. To the degree that my information is incomplete, I further note that if there have been any instances (examples, anybody? Respondents name three, please), they are stastically insignificant.
c) Given that battle is--by definition--a life-or-death affair, and that it is near-exclusive enterprise of men, and that the presence of women is at best, a distraction, consider a thought-experiment: I recognize that anyone reading this thread is unlikely to have a 19-year-old child in uniform, in battle for what you both accounted a cause worthwhile, but suppose you did? Do you imagine he and his mates' attention-to-task, their survival, is helped or hindered by young women nearby?
d)By way of analogy, my experience with sled dogs is modest, but I am confident that hitching to the team's(however strong and disciplined) traces a breeding-phase female (however, strong, athletic, confident, self-assured, etc,) would not help your sled's efficiency.
D

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d)By way of analogy, my experience with sled dogs is modest, but I am confident that hitching to the team's(however strong and disciplined) traces a breeding-phase female (however, strong, athletic, confident, self-assured, etc,) would not help your sled's efficiency.

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So what you're saying here is: Men are dogs.

Like we didn't already know [i]that[/i]!

[img]biggrin.gif" border="0[/img]

Dear Skadie, Wei-Chi, Zoot, xrcrguy:
Skadie:
1) "Fatherly", in the sense of caring, supportive, demanding, stern; yes and absolutely. A commander of any unit incorporates all of these traits. You use the adjective in derision. RSVP then, how is this view not sexist bigotry?
2)Webbing is dropped (save water and ammunition) for close engagement. Otherwise the fighting load must be carried. Thanks to Federal policy, most Canadian soldiers do not have carriers or helicopters to carry it. They carry it on their backs.
3) You find it "scary" that I have been a soldier and officer. I am supposing that you are a child of the seventies, else you would know that at the end of WW2 Canada had the third largest navy, and the fifth-largest army on the planet. Virtually every man you have ever met who is over 75 now was either a soldier, sailor or officer. It is a construct of surrender activists that defence of one's homeland is cause for fear. If you think otherwise, do expound on how the Iraqi army is scary.
4)For some reason, when I incorporate paragraph structure into my correspondence, the indents to not appear on the website.

Dear Wei-Chi:
It is the case that trained infantry also have reservations the first time they lay their sights on a chest. I don't know how much history you care for, but the majority of men in recent wars either do not fire at all, fire into the air, or fire to miss. Laudable humanism, doubtless, but the result (until recent training modifications) was that some 15% of the riflemen did 80 % of the killing. My point is that if you are going to be in a killing trade--whichever your gender--you should accept that fact before your last-second reservations put your comrades' lives at risk. If you don't think people should kill at all, that is a worthwhile perspective; but given that the discussion is about participation in the armed forces--by institutional definition, a killing enterprise--it is at best, a sidebar.
If you interpreted that I believe that women should not be military pilots either you are wrong, or I was unclear. For clarification, I believe that strike pilots--regardless of their skins' shape, colour, or area--should be competent to handle the machine, and disposed to strike an enemy. If they don't want to do that, they shouldn't take up the space of those who will.
I find your preference for an armed force (equal, educated, egalitarian, heterosexism-free, vegetarian, environmentally sensitive...just kidding) curious. I have reason to believe my physician is a socialist nutbar. He is, however, competent at his craft, which is keeping me healthy. My accountant is a religious fundamentalist, but she keeps my taxes straight. It is a Stalinist sort of orthodoxy that supposes that a service provider must be in a state of informed consent to all the client's viewpoints. The role of an armed force is to destroy an enemy's will to resist, by killing people and breaking things. (Are you scared yet? Skadie was). History has found that it works best if the officers are broadly-educated liberals (in the John Stuart Mill sense), the Other Ranks curious, alert and athletic, and the whole ready--for the few years of their service to the nation--to subscribe to a violent, patriarchal, heirarchical, meritocracy. Countries that don't believe that have an armed force that is ineffective and a foreign policy that is irrelevant.
Best regards. D

Dear Zoot;
Analogies are by definition fraught with flaw. To briefly clarify my point, I account almost all military jobs to be within the perview of women, with the exception of infantry, (and perhaps armour). The vanishingly few women who can do the job are probably not worth the degradation of combat power that attends their presence.
I was an infantry soldier, and my daughter is now. I have therefore a credible professional and personal view of the issue. Should you take issue with my viewpoint, do so, if you please, by stating your own, and listing your qualifications, and not by indulging the sexist bigotry ("men are dogs,...We already knew that" I believe was the theme,) of your last post.
Sincerely, D

I do not wish to "muddy the waters" on this topic, but let us take the issue of killing one step further. I will discuss this by way of a true story.

During Operation Desert Storm, an American Special Forces Unit was dropped well into Iraqi territory. There job was to gather intelligence on troop movements. They were instructed to avoid combat unless forced to do so. After several days of covert observation they were discovered by a sheperd who ran to report their position to a nearby Iraqi army unit. Needless to say this US unit was forced to engage the enemy. In the ensuing battle, several Iraqi soldiers were killed. As the battle continued, several civilians, a women and a pre-teenaged boy, attempted to retrieve the weapons of the dead soldiers and return them to the Iraqi unit. They were immediately shot.

I believe the rules of engagement are clear. Any person who assists the enemy automatically becomes a combatant. In war, you cannot choose your enemy. In this light, killing now takes on a whole new dimension.

[ 02 April 2003: Message edited by: Aviator ]

[ 02 April 2003: Message edited by: Aviator ]

Ahem, while some of your points have [i]some[/i]validity. Men cant keep their mind on business when there are women around .. Which is what makes women so much more powerful ..

I wish to point out that not so many years ago people were horrified at the idea of a man being a nurse. A man in nursing was gay, or would take advantage of their female patients - hence perverts. They lacked the gentleness and caring that were clearly female traits. Their motives were beyond questionable - they were outrageous. [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img] They would hurt people, the big oafs dropping patients and crushing little bones in their ungainly masculine paws --

Needless to say neathderthal thinking evolved to the point of where we can understand and accept men as nurses without feeling threatened or horrified, and in fact my favourite ER nurse is a man. He's damn good at what he does.

Clearly none of the "old way of thinking" applies to you, so if thinking can involve in terms of suitable occupations for men, why arent they keeping pace with occupations for women?

I thought the Geneva convention didnt apply in this war, seeing as both sides are displaying pictures of POWS among other things.

I'm certain you're being sarcastic but:

They'll always apply to who ever signs on, no matter how often they break them, and we'll never let them forget that.

But this has been a bit of a thread drift soooo:

The Old Guard has made it clear that they are out of touch with the current realities of modern warfare and attitudes of the fighting troops.

There is no distraction factor. If there is, the person being distracted would have a hard time in any workforce.
The "torture" arguement holds no weight, just ask Abner Louima.
Mental suitability is a non-starter. The so-called "killer instinct" is cultivated at a group level and doesn't just apply to guys.;

I wouldn't know about dropping webbing in combat, but I would theorize that the purpose of "shoot straps" on some of the older rucksacks is to enable infantry to respond to an ambush.....

xrcrguy is right. The web belt has the canteen, the ammo pouch, and other 'combat essentials'.

SamL: Yeah, the rucks have quick release precisely for that reason.

On a side note, many of the grrl troops seem to prefer the old Airborne rucksacks, as do a few of the guys. I think it has something to do with ergonomics.

Dear David,

Dear Wei-Chi:

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...It is the case that trained infantry also have reservations the first time they lay their sights on a chest...etc

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No, I agree, generally with your point that people in whatever position, particularly in a life-and-death one, should be qualified. That means people in the military should be prepared to kill. But, as you point out, many men in combat don't. And it has little to do with the combat effeciency of women.

I see no evidence that precludes women from performing effectively on the battlefield.

Arguments about 'distraction' et al have been applied in some form to black people and other minorities as well. They are not valid.

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I find your preference for an armed force (equal, educated, egalitarian, heterosexism-free, vegetarian, environmentally sensitive...just kidding) curious.

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I'm glad. Let me explain further.
I believe that if us citizens truely believe in our state, and its democratic actions, then we should be prepared to fight for it. This shouldn't mean dragging out all the unemployed, hicks, criminals, and inbreeders from society and plunking a university-educated officer ontop of a platoon of them and sending them into battle. No, we should be prepared to send our best into battle.

I don't think education or ethics negates subscribing to a rigid command structure or efficient killing.

With a highly informed public, the mistakes of the military become quickly known. This reduces favour of the military, and will prevent them from acting effectively in the future (budget cuts, political interfence in operational tactics). So it behooves the military to employ smart, ethical soldiers who will make fewer tactical and MORAL mistakes on the battlefield.

If a democracy's army cannot conduct ethical and LEGAL warfare, this will undermine its legitimacy. (See Vietnam)

In Canada the army is small, and it is becoming heavily specialist and technologically dependant. We are in a unique position to create an army of 60,000 of 'the best'.