Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Candidates Push Co-Ed Combat [Elaine Donnelly]
It should raise eyebrows when Democratic presidential candidates, and particularly Sen. Hillary Clinton, say that 18-year-old girls should have to register with Selective Service. When the question came up during Monday’s “YouTube” debate on CNN, all of the candidates who answered—Sen. Christopher Dodd, Sen. Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Mike Gravel—said that they opposed the draft, but if there were one, women should be part of it.
Hillary Clinton’s answer was particularly ironic, since her husband Bill Clinton famously avoided military service in the Vietnam era. I am not aware that young Chelsea Clinton, or the daughters of Pres. George W. Bush, for that matter, have done volunteer work for the military or other good causes. But the issue goes beyond the personal choices of presidents’ daughters. We’re talking about lethal combat here—on a co-ed basis. Perhaps we should give this idea a try with non-lethal combat first—starting with the Army/Navy football game. Which team wants to make political brownie points by going first?
Historically, no American has been drafted unless there was an unfulfilled need for “combat replacements” to directly engage the enemy with deliberate offensive action. In that environment (think Fallujah in November 2004), female soldiers do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive. Actual warfare is not “fair” or “equal.” It is not even civilized.
And yet, here we have a privileged woman expressing her intent to force other women’s daughters into combat on an equal basis. Hillary and her friends should not get away with that. Nor should they be allowed to change the subject to “national service,” or some sort of tax-funded “public service academy” established to train activists for liberal causes. I hope that it is never necessary to reinstate the draft—a last resort in time of national peril. But if that day ever comes, the needs of the military and national security—not feminist egalitarianism—ought to come first.07/25 03:39 PM
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