Despite pressure, Bush vows 'no women in combat'

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050111-101005-5277r.htm

President Bush's policy on women in ground combat takes just four words to articulate: "No women in combat."

Despite extended tours of duties in Iraq for soldiers and an Army examination of women's roles, the president told editors and reporters of The Washington Times yesterday in an interview in the Oval Office that he has no intention of sending women into ground combat, a mission for which they are banned under Pentagon policy.

Some retired generals and commentators have called on the president to increase significantly the 150,000 troops in Iraq. Mr. Bush said he is relying on his generals — not the pundits — to dictate the makeup of the force.

"The troop size in Iraq is not driven here in the White House," he said. "It is driven by the decisions and the recommendations — the recommendations of John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey . And it's really important that that's how a war be fought, that — and I would hope it brings great comfort to you as a concerned citizen — the commander in chief makes the military decisions based upon the recommendations from the field."

[jpgray]

1. "The troop size in Iraq is not driven here in the White House," Bullshit

That's why an unguarded Bremer said he repeatedly clamored for more troops? The press is so pathetic here.

[LizW]

5. Yeah, just ask General Shinseki

Troop size is not driven by the White House. No siree.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. It's still a sexist policy.

Women should be in combat just like men.

It's also sexist that women don't have to register for the draft.

[jdj]

16. Is Lori Piestewa already forgotten?

[bonemachine]

17. I'm with you on that

But good luck; plenty of people still think sexism only happens to women.

[prayin4rain]

54. Well, the only reason I disagree is because we would be fighting

men. I think if we want to fight men we can. But, it doesn't seem fair to MAKE us fight men. The average man really is quite a bit stronger than the average woman. If there were women armies in other countries we could fight, fine we would register for the draft.

[rooboy]

3. No women until the US runs out of Mexicans, Colombians and kids. n/t

[Downtown Hound]

4. So he doesn't think women should be in combat

but he has no problem with making up stories about Jessica Lynch gunning down bushels of enemy soldiers while wounded. Hmmm...

[Erika]

10. Many women have died in combat

Is the inexperienced idiotic Bush so stupid as to think opposing forces form battle lines and charge each other? This is guerilla warfare and all participants are exposed to danger.

For PR purposes, he can claim whatever, but truth is truth. He knows women are dying.

[Megawatt]

37. According to this website

31 women have died in Iraq.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/DeRooij_Iraq-Coalition-Toll.htm

That is 2.7% of the total deaths reported at the web site (1220).

So even though women are certainly facing combat situations even in support units, the policy of keeping them out of direct combat units does appear to contributing to keeping women safer. The latest figure I could find for women in the Army stated that 15% of the Army was women - this was late 90s.

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1380/MR1380.ch2.pdf#search='per%20centage%20of%20women%20in%20the%20Army'

(Table 2.1)

Thus it would appear that current policies are exposing men to a 5 times as great of risk of dieing in Iraqnam as women.

Of course every death over there is a needless monument to the hubris of the chickenhawk neo cons.:(

[Straight Shooter]

6. Wow. That's big of him.

:eyes:

[MADem]

7. It's all bullshit, or should we say, bushit

When you are doing forward combat support operations, you are in the fucking mix. The enemy doesn't sit there and go, "Oh, hey, dude, that's a chick over there, ya can't shoot her, she's only here in a combat support capacity."

The reason we had Jessicas and Shoshanas getting captured is because they were hauling ass with their support gear right behind the primary forces, without sufficient battlefield training to properly defend themselves if things got real hairy, and fer-shit equipment, because they were "just" a combat support unit. What they ought to do is set a real standard, stick to it, and let whosoever qualifies and wishes to engage in that sort of work do the goddamn job.

He's gonna have a real "separate but equal" problem if he starts up a draft and does not include females. The lawsuits will fly thick and fast....as they should.

[Benhurst]

8. Aren't women breeders who are supposed to stay home

and supply the state with a super race of warriors? Oh, no. My mistake. That was in the Third Reich, not the Fourth.

[Osamasux]

9. "Hey, go pour a bag of sand out in the White House parking lot

so the President can draw a line in it."

[TahitiNut]

11. Misogynistic f*ck!

That's one of the most asinine, archaic, misogynistic attitudes of all. I never saw a job in 'Nam that a woman couldn't do just as well as a man. I get so f*cking tired of this crap I could shit nickels.

[NYC]

12. A recent National Guard unit deployed to Iraq was 5/8 women.

Is a mechanic combat? A friend's brother is a mechanic in the National Guard. He is definitely in danger, even if he is not "combat".

[Hekate]

13. Then how come so many US women have died in Iraq?

That man is such an *hole I can hardly stand it. The way troop deployments are configured in this new style of war, there IS NO front line. Everywhere is a front line. Women and men who signed up to be cooks or engineers are finding themselves sent on ahead of the troops at times -- what does the our Chickenhawk in Chief call that?

Hekate
:argh:

[daleo]

18. He figures those are just accidents with knitting needles

While they are darning "combat soldiers" socks, while safe in the rear (in a guerrilla war).

[NYC]

30. I think if they are not classified as combat

there is a difference in benefits.

[mcscajun]

52. Exactly right!

A friend of mine in California wrote me early last year about her neighbor's husband, who was killed in Iraq. I don't recall all the details, but it was (wrongly! and narrowly!) classified as an 'accident', not a combat death, so they could give the widow less in benefits.

Bastards.

[mike_c]

14. "the commander-in-chief makes the military decisions...."

That's the scariest thing I've read all day.

[LynnTheDem]

15. So all the US WOMEN IN COMBAT in Iraq & Afghanistan RIGHT NOW are...

non-existant??? And all the dead US military women killed in Iraq never died???

Hmmm...guess we better take their names back down from the ICC then!

[Erika]

20. Sick. isn't it?

I saw on TV the one Iraq woman vet who had been a star basketball player who had her arm shot off in Iraq. I guess she didn't really exist.

Bush is in there doing "his job" at protecting women.

[RamboLiberal]

26. There are two women basketball players who lost arms in Iraq

The one you spoke of I believe is a white woman who played for Army at West Point. I believe she is:

Captain Dawn Halfaker joined the Army's military police, after graduating from West Point in 2001. She was assigned to train the Iraqi police during the transition period after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. While serving in Iraq Capt. Halfaker and a fellow soldier sustained serious injures after a rocket grenade exploded into the military truck they were riding. Military doctors had to amputate her right arm after infection set in. She was then sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where doctors were forced to put her in a drug-induced coma to fight off the swelling in her lungs and infection from her wounds. Captain Halfaker is now in rehab and was well enough to go home on leave recently.

Other wounded women's stories here as well. http://coelacanth.aug.com/captbarb/survivor.html

Another is an African-American, Danielle Green of Notre Dame. She spoke out against the war.

Coach, you know how you were always on me about working on my right hand dribble. Well, I'm going to start."

With this line delivered amid laughter and tears, former Notre Dame southpaw basketball standout Danielle "D-Smooth" Green told her ex-Fighting Irish Coach Muffet McGraw, the horrifying news. A grenade blew off army MP Green's left hand while she patrolled a Baghdad police station.

Like the late NFL safety turned Army Ranger Pat Tillman, Green could easily be used as a symbol of patriotic resolve. She would far neatly into potent place where athletics meets war. Yet unlike Tillman, who cannot speak for himself, D-Smooth has chosen not be treated like an icon but to speak out against what she sees from first hand experience, as an unjust war.

From her hospital bed, Green told the New York Times, "They just don't want us there. I personally don't think we should have gone into Iraq. Not the way things have turned out. A lot more people are going to get hurt, and for what?"

Secretary of State Colin Powell confronted with her words on Meet the Press could only mutter, "I hope she will see in time that her sacrifice was worth it." Green respectfully disagrees. "I'm not going to lie, I didn't understand the mission, the purpose. If you understand what you're fighting for, then you've got something to hang on to. But we didn't even have that. I think if I hadn't lost my arm, I would have lost my mind. It was enough to drive you insane, and I think that's where I might have been headed."

http://counterpunch.org/zirin06182004.html

[saigon68]

33. Colon Bowel is a lackey and the Chimp's house servant

He is so obsessed with his position, he is blind to the exploitation of people of Colour for the Halliburton Crminals.

[saigon68]

34. Colon Bowel is a lackey and the Chimp's house servant

He is so obsessed with his position, he is blind to the exploitation of people of Colour for the Halliburton Crminals.

[Whoa_Nelly]

19. Anybody on DU know any women now in combat in the ME?

If you do, post it here.

Time to refute this crap. Our party won't speak out for us, so we have to keep doing it. We are the party, and here on DU is more than just the democratic party. We're a group of many voices, supporting each other in our differences to create community, not divisiveness.

I don't keep a huge media list, but promise to send every woman's name posted here to the media outlets and my representatives in congress and senate, both state and federal, to debunk this.

If it's repeated enough, it becomes truth. And isn't that what we really want?

Time to get the truth out.

[Erika]

21. Let's look at this site

www.icasualties.org. It tells the true story. Maybe we can peace (psychological slip for piece) together the women injured and killed in Bush's Iraq war.

[Whoa_Nelly]

23. In for a penny

In for a pound.

I see what you mean, Erika.
If by reading through the news releases at www.icasualties.org , we could identify many of the women, but how to state categorically and undeniable that they were in "combat"...although I actually believe that any troop in Iraq is a troop in combat.

Can this be done?

[RamboLiberal]

28. In October it was 24 women killed in Iraq

This was CBS story from back then:

The Army has lost nearly 800 soldiers to hostile fire in Iraq - 24 of them women.

Pamela Osborne, a mother of three, was killed in a rocket attack two weeks ago.A roadside bomb hit Jessica Cawvey's convoy. Kimberly Hampton was piloting a scout helicopter for the 82nd Airborne when she was shot down.

It may not be official yet, but women are serving in combat.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/22/eveningnews/main650979.shtml

And this site has some stories of the wounded women.

http://coelacanth.aug.com/captbarb/survivor.html

[Hekate]

32. What's Randi Rhodes saying about this?

Wasn't she in the military at one time? I'll bet her comments would blister Bush's ears.

Hekate

[darkism]

22. "No women in combat..."

"...until we draft all the men!"

[JI7]

24. how about Jessica Lynch, Shoshanna Johnson,Lori Piestewa ?

and Lori Piestewa ended up getting killed. Johnson was a POW .

and there have been other women killed in the war also. remember those 3 sisters ? one of the sisters ended up getting killed in the war.

[Sleepless In NY]

25. Think he's talking about his daughters only

and maybe his neices.

[Whoa_Nelly]

27. YES! You are both correct!

Am crafting letter now!

Time to stop this Bush Bullshit!

[tanyev]

40. No women in combat...

until the twins are well past draft age.

[jhain]

46. right- Save The Twins! n/t

[UCLA Dem]

29. such sexist bullshit.

[Solly Mack]

31. Someone buy that man a clue. Women already die in combat

But I guess those women don't count to him.

[StaggerLee]

43. errr

grumblegrumblegrumble focus group grumblegrumblegrumble


:mad:

[Solly Mack]

47. and you're grumbling because?

[StaggerLee]

48. I just wouldn't put it past *

to refer to the dead female troops as some sort of focus group.

Their limits seem to know no bottom...

[Solly Mack]

55. Too true!

[The Backlash Cometh]

35. Well, that covers his family. Screw everybody else's.

[Darth_Kitten]

36. He's afraid mere women will show up the cowardly republican men....

who talk big about war but never serve. :)

[PA Democrat]

38. What a stupid statement to make when the entire country of Iraq is a war

zone. Any soldier male or female is at risk. The roads aren't safe, the Green zone is no longer safe, for God's sake even mess halls within bases aren't safe.

Of course, we all know that Bush doesn't want to hear any facts which might distort his warped sense of reality.

[no_hypocrisy]

39. Does that mean women will be honored with washing out jockstraps?

[grumpy old fart]

41. Just protecting his girls when the draft comes.....eom

[coffeenap]

53. this is the way they can get a FEMALE draft by the people--

by stating women will not go into combat, the public will allow women to be registered and/or drafted since they will be "safe" behind the lines.
(Safe as they are now--sarcasm)

[ausiedownunderground]

42. I think take this seriously! US females will Die brutally in Iraq!

People, this is serious. US Females will die of "Horrific" injuries ,just like US males! Both US sexes are dieing horrible deaths in Iraq! Whether you like it or not? Iraqi males and females die! So do US males and females - Just the same! The US is at "War" with Iraq!! - That's what you get. The "Rest of the world'S" male's and female's are just waiting to "pick up the pieces" when "The American Bushco" nightmare is finally over in January 2008! God Help us!

[DrZeeLit]

44. Ridiculous. Women are already there.

What does he think they do? Hold up the bombing so we can remove our women and then... bomb the hell out of Iraqi women?

[DrZeeLit]

45. But we can kill Iraqi women -- right? n/t

[Demeter]

49. Okkay, Now We Know What The Plan Is

Kiss your wives, sisters, daughters and mothers good-bye, folks. They are toast.

[JI7]

50. is this meant to make people think women are not dying in the war ?

[UdoKier]

51. Why not?

I believe in total equality, even when it's equality in grisly deaths in an unnecessary and illegal mercenary war.