#GOPDebate Feedback: Women In Combat Is A Progressive Position

[Draggingtree]

The Other McCain: #GOPDebate Feedback: Women In Combat Is A Progressive Position

Posted on | February 7, 2016 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

 

The GOP debate in New Hampshire was relatively well done, once everyone got onto the stage. The one curve ball is the topic of this blog post. Sorry, Governor Christie, there is no “natural right” to serve in the military, and the overall swellness of any individual aspiration to serve is not a basis for policy or military strategy.

 

The proper basis for any actual veteran (that is, non-careerist, brown-lipstick-wearing senior brass tools in the Pentagon) is this: combat power of the military unit.

[Valin]

Zinke: WH Should Focus on Fighting, Not Feminism
SEAL vet says co-ed infantry, draft motivated by identity politics
Bill McMorris
February 10, 2016

The only Navy SEAL in Congress says that the Obama administration’s push to put women into the infantry imperils the effectiveness of the military.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R., Mont.), a retired Navy commander, had harsh words for the White House’s plan to integrate women into combat roles, saying that it ignored empirical evidence provided by the Marine Corps, which spent millions on the most extensive experiment of female infantry. The results of that experiment prompted Marine leaders to ask for an exemption for infantry units, while opening up artillery roles to women. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus rejected that request.

“The Marine’s study did the best of the services and it was thrown out to satisfy Ray Mabus’ agenda,” Zinke said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. “Mabus went out there and talked equal opportunity—OK, valid. He never said anything about mission effectiveness.”

The Marine study found that women were more than twice as likely to suffer injuries than their male counterparts and all-male units outperformed co-ed ones on nearly every metric. Zinke said the Pentagon should prioritize effectiveness above all else when evaluating such a vast cultural shift.

“I’m a mission-first guy. You have to have the right team, and everyone has a role to play,” he said. “You need the right people in the right roles. Victory should be the top priority.”

 

(Snip)