This makes clear the moral logic behind the few politicians who were trying to reinstate a draft in 2003 and 2004. Today we don't have a draft, we have nobody who wants to join the army, and as a result the people already in the army are basically being kidnapped by the army before they can go home and forced to serve for longer and in worse conditions than they ever thought possible.
These troops are more apt to get killed over there, thus avoiding the whole Walter Reed problem in the first instance (no need to give them shitty medical care if they're dead).
More apt to get killed, but nowhere near as apt as in previous wars—because of advances in field medical care and armor (however spotty), we have a lot fewer dead troops and a lot more amputees, etc. I don't know if that's been part of Walter Reed's excuse, or if they are just going with the tried and true everything is run by monkeys.
Stories like this I always hope first that it's just not true, that the reporter found a couple of screw-ups and saw a pattern where there wasn't one. But if it is true, why do the doctors changing these people's medical evaluation go along with it? I understand the pressure coming down from the top: it's be easy for someone in charge to say that "Hrmpf hrrmpf. Need more soldiers. Goddam malingerers hanging around being useless. Make it clear to medical evaluators that malingering will not be tolerated -- anyone healthy enough to fight is going on the books as healthy enough to fight," without facing up to the idea that they're probably going to end up pressuring unfit people back into combat.
But at the bottom end, where someone's making decisions about individual soldiers who have injuries that mean they can't wear helmets ferchrissake, what kind of incentive do you have to give that guy to say they're healthy enough to go fight?
2: As opposed to those times when we had a draft, and people who didn't volunteer for the military were kidnapped and shipped off to distant lands to serve in worse conditions than they ever thought possible.
If we had a draft, the assholes in charge would have already expanded this senseless war into Iran.
If we had a draft, there might actually be major protests in the street and the war would actually get wrapped up in short order.
But at the bottom end, where someone's making decisions about individual soldiers who have injuries that mean they can't wear helmets ferchrissake, what kind of incentive do you have to give that guy to say they're healthy enough to go fight?
Unless the decision to make them deployable means that further examination has lead a doctor to believe that such a restriction no longer was warranted, in which case the incentive is just doing their job. (yes, because none of us have all the facts, this could be evidence of gross misconduct and mistreatment; but it also could be people complaining about the fact that upon further examination, they were found to be fit to deploy, notwithstanding prior findings that they were not deployable).
Oh good, street protests, something to give the easily-fainting middle class fucks something to point to as evidence of other people not living up to their duty. No thanks.
Sure. Maybe it didn't happen, and the reporter just ran into a bunch of soldiers grousing about nothing, or as I suggested before, a couple of bad decisions that don't form a pattern. If they are systematically calling people deployable who are too badly injured to wear protective gear, on the other hand, that's really messed up.
This makes clear the moral logic behind the few politicians who were trying to reinstate a draft in 2003 and 2004.
Charlie Rangel, the Congressman who was most visibly supportive of a draft and who introduced legislation, was more or less in line with Chopper in 7 on this one. He represents a "majority-minority" district and pushed his draft proposal as a way of calling attention to the fact that for poor whites and minorities, there already was a defacto draft.
"Those who love this country have a patriotic obligation to defend this country," Rangel said. "For those who say the poor fight better, I say give the rich a chance."
Not well enough to return to war? Reminds me of a story:
"I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."
If they are systematically calling people deployable who are too badly injured to wear protective gear, on the other hand, that's really messed up.
Agreed, of course.
7: Because protests have such a great success record at wrapping up wars "in short order". American troops were in Vietnam from 1965-1973, if memory serves.
What would you have suggested, Zadfrack? The alternative was to sit and watch the war. The Vietnam war was a Democratic war, which was why it was so difficult to oppose, and why opposition was so futile.
15: Oh, I'm not saying the protests were the wrong thing to do, or denying that they played a role in ultimately ending the Vietnam war.
I'm just countering Chopper's claims that (a) mass protests would bring this particular senseless war to an end "in short order", and that (b) the increased likelihood of protests if a draft were in place would be a strong enough force to prevent future senseless wars.
We've already been here with the psychologists and the lawyers: if this is true, than we're looking at yet another profession whose values have been corrupted, where people have been found to do the bidding of superiors in spite of professional duty and oath. And if so, then there should be disciplinary action on the part of the profession.
14: When were the first mass protests against the war? The Moratorium wasn't until 1969. The VVAW protests weren't until 1971. By that time the pullout had already begun. It wasn't until the end of the 1960s that the war had taken over from civil rights as the main cause of the left.
The corruption of psychologists was recently documented by the Washinton Monthly, specifically with regard to torture at Guantanamo. Military psychologists ar epresumably equally corrupt. (What I did not know: psychology got a lot of prestige from its use within the military during WWII).
14: American troops were in Vietnam from 1965-1973, if memory serves.
Sorry to nitpick, but that should be more like 1960 - 1975. The start date depends on one's definition of advisors vs. soldiers. Nixon was elected on an end-the-war plank in 1968. I remember a mass protest in San Francisco in the spring of 1968
14: When were the first mass protests against the war? The Moratorium wasn't until 1969. The VVAW protests weren't until 1971. By that time the pullout had already begun. It wasn't until the end of the 1960s that the war had taken over from civil rights as the main cause of the left.
This is not the way I remember it. But they say if you can remember the '60's you were not there, so . . .
No doubt, protests got larger as the war progressed, but people were already protesting by 1967, or maybe earlier. The protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention are just one example.
18: Therefore, the draft failed to mobilize mass protests in time to get our Vietnam misadventure "wrapped up in short order." I don't see why anyone would think a draft would have a better effect on our Middle East misadventure.
The "mass protests" thing is probably not the right point. If there was a draft, the people making decisions about the war would have to actually face the sacrifice that it would entail. They would be unable to ignore it. Their friends' children would be getting drafted. The war would probably not have expanded beyond Afghanistan, and if it did, a lot of congressmen of both parties would have gotten mad at Bush/Cheney on a personal level, and we certainly wouldn't have the current "We plan to pull them out roughly infinite years into the future, as soon as the Iraqis become a liberal democracy, ha ha ha, which is to say we have no particular plans to end the war because it doesn't make any difference to us except so far as it affects our election prospects" attitudedemagoguery.
I don't know why "demagoguery" is in there. Remove it.
Of course, as a Northern California hippie child, you probably saw the anti-war movement from the front end. Your neighbors were probably protesting years before middle America had any idea.
Well, they signed up for the Army. They knew what they were getting into.
Seriously, though, why would someone retain doubt about a story like this? With all the stuff about bullshitting about WMDs, Walter Reed, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, cutting veteran's benefits, multiple deployments, lowballing veteran's disabilities, and such, isn't it kind of the intellectual equivalent of criminal negligence to retain one's skepticism about this kind of stuff?
20: Yes, I used 1965 as the beginning date to avoid making any difficult distinctions between "advisors" and "soldiers." Operation Starlight took place in August of 1965.
23 should include a comparison of the current situation to Vietnam. I think that far more of our leaders 40 years ago were actually convinced that the Vietnam War was an imperative matter for our nation's security than our leaders are today about Iraq. If the Iraq War was going to require a draft, we would have gone into the Iraq War with an actual full-assed plan, based on non-fraudulent intelligence, or not gone in at all, in my opinion. And since non-fraudulent intelligence would destroy any case for war other than the Inigo Montoya card, then there you go.
If there was a draft, the people making decisions about the war would have to actually face the sacrifice that it would entail. They would be unable to ignore it. Their friends' children would be getting drafted.
Bzzt, nonsense. Cheney's buddies' kids wouldn't be getting drafted, and if they were, he wouldn't give a rat's ass.
OTOH, a draft might well have meant that Kerry, not Bush, would have won the last election.
Your neighbors were probably protesting years before middle America had any idea
No doubt. But as noted in 20, by 1968, protests were already big, newsworthy things. I remember being at a protest in San Francisco in 1969 where there were, if memory serves, a hundred thousand protesters, maybe more.
isn't it kind of the intellectual equivalent of criminal negligence to retain one's skepticism about this kind of stuff
Right. Much better to accept with examination or qualification anything that suits your world view.
Oh, I don't know anything about the timeline. I was just taking the opportunity to call you a hippie. Hippie.
As I've mentioned before, my parents are both psychologists. I asked my mother about the APA supporting torture and told her about the reaction people I know have had about it and she said that the whole thing just made her sick. I asked if there was a counter-movement within the APA to pressure them to change their stance and she said that members seem really silent about the issue. When she goes to the state conferences, it's not even discussed or brought up as a topic. It's like nobody even cares.
23: And I'm saying that history belies your claim about what would have happened in 2003 if we had a draft in place.
Bush is every bit the fool that Lyndon Johnson was, and the 108th Republican Congress would have rolled over for the administrations just like the 90th Democratic Congress.
In 1965-6 opposition to the Vietnam War was pretty fringe. In 1967-8 it became mainstream.
Nixon ran both as the prowar and the anti-war candidate in 1968. Basically he changed the nature of the war to reduce the American death toll -- Vietnamization + lots of bombs. He kept the war going so that he could do a version of the same thing in 1972. By fighting an extra 7 years he gained nothing but re-election.
As I said, the fact that it was a Democratic war made the anti-war cause hopeless. In my (frequent) bad moments I think that the War Party has had total control of this country since 1941, and that the military-intelligence-foreign policy hotshots will always be able to do whatever they feel like doing.
Hmm, Idealist remembers a big San Francisco protest as '69, I remember it as '68, and Wikipedia says "On April 15, [1967] 400,000 people marched to the UN building in New York City to protest the war, where they were addressed by critics of the war such as Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King, and Jan Barry Crumb, a veteran of the conflict. On the same date 100,000 marched in San Francisco."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War
I think I'm wrong, I'm going to go with the Wiki answer
That put the time between big protests and withdrawal at 8 years.
The use of draftees absolutely motivated opposition to the war. The opposition was ineffectual. The volunteer army gives the President a politically-low-cost army since most people aren't personally affected.
I'd like to see a study, but I suspect that most military come from conservative families who tend to support wars. This makes it lower-cost yet, and it has the added benefit of splitting the American people, with the families paying a price hating the anti-war liberals who don't serve.
I have also seen pro-war families refuse to listen to their own anti-war veteran relatives. A lot of the stigma against Vietnam Vets comes from the fact that a fair proportion of them returned opposed to the war.
Charlie Rangel is just flat out wrong about who is serving in the military. It is the middle class and the folks from the sticks. The urban poor won't qualify if they have not graduated from high school, have criminal records, etc. A draft would be more likely to include those urban poor who are not currently serving. There are not enough rich to worry about. Further, what is really necessary is for Congress to authorize two more combat divisions (per Shinsheki). Staffing those divisions would take time, but so would brining draftees up to speed. Lastly, as a policy matter I don't understand why we are repeating one obvious mistake of Viet Nam, which is to rotate units in one year deployments. Stay until the job is finished.
38: Presumably you mean "without."
Look, this stuff doesn't suit my world view. I honestly don't think that the military is filled with cartoon generals who see troops as just plastic pieces to be moved around on maps, and I'm pretty sure I've said as much. I tend to be pretty skeptical about paranoid conspiracy theories. But the record of the administration in this war is absolutely fucking appalling, and they've clearly demonstrated that if the rules don't suit them, they either rewrite or find someone who'll ignore the rules. I mean, shit, these are the guys who sent soldiers to war without fucking body armor or armored vehicles.
I haven't seen this administration demonstrate any concern for the troops. I therefore think it's important to believe the troops until and unless the administration can demonstrate that x or y *are* isolated incidents *and* that they've done something to correc them. I suspect, though, that we'll get rationalization, accusations that these soldiers are lying or malingering, arguments that "well, even if it *is* true, it doesn't prove . . ." and bureaucratic stalling instead.
Whatever. The configuration of the country is nothing like it was in the sixties. If people want to get their protest on so they can break out the tie-dye, fine. What, precisely the point of the sixties' reminiscence is beyond that remains unclear. And I think it would be much harder for the well-off, if not the elite, to avoid a draft this time around, contra B's claim.
The urban poor won't qualify if they have not graduated from high school, have criminal records, etc.
Not true anymore, IIRC.
Idealist remembers a big San Francisco protest as '69
I do not think our memories are incompatible. I was recounting the biggest protest *I* was ever in. I was only 11 years old in April 1967, so I certainly was not at that one (indeed, I was able to go in 1969 only by suffering the abject humiliation of having to go with another family that was going, my father having taken the entirely unreasonable (in my teenage view) position that his thirteen year old child was not going to take a bus to San Francisco by himself to attend a war protest). Both Wikipedia and what you remember make sense. There certainly were multiple big marches in San Francisco.
There are not enough rich to worry about.
There are in terms of power. You're right, so far as I know, that the military is made up more of middle class than very poor kids. But there aren't a lot of people joining up from the professional class -- the odds that my kids, for example, would join the military is pretty small, and that's a function of my socioeconomic status more than my politics: the odds are equally low for conservative coworkers of mine.
In a draft, people like me and those better off and more powerful than I am would be stuck either sending our kids to war, finding a way to weasel them out of the draft, or doing something to stop the war. It's not that we're any significant portion of the population numerically, but we're a significant portion of the political influence.
I think 31 is unfair.
As far as I can see, what bitchphd is pointing out (without trying to speak for her, of course) is that this particular administration has such a lousy record with this sort of thing (and being truthful about what they are up to in general) that it changes your initial reaction to such a story. At least it should, if you have been paying any attention.
When you read something like this, you really don't wan't it to be true. In previous times, you'd probably think that some reporter had dug up a couple of malcontents. Now, it is entirely plausible that this is common practice, and just not being talked about. That doesnt' mean it *is*, but id doesn't mean you start off with the assumption that this reporter is trying to score points by selective sampling.
This is a sad thing but pretty unavoidable, again if you have been paying attention.
In Oregon where I was, opposition to the war quickly became mainstream because of Senator Mark Hatfield, a Republican dove who defeated a Democratic hawk in 1966.
That really shows the whole hopelessness of the anti-war movement -- before 1968 only Republicans could profit from antiwar views, but most of them were pro-war. (Oregon's anti-war Democrat, Wayne Morse, was defeated in 1968 by the odious Robert Packwood).
A draft without exemptions would force a lot of people to realize how serious the war is. The burden is very unevenly spread now, but I think that it's mostly lower middle class. College benefits are heavily used to sell military service, and upper middle class people don't need military help to go to school.
37: But a draftee army is much easier on the budget, since you don't have to pay draftees the wages that would be necessary to induce them to volunteer. Hell, that's always been the point of conscription! War on the cheap!
Would the higher political cost of a draftee army be sufficient to overcome the lower economic cost? History does not provide any evidence for this thesis.
A draft without exemptions would force a lot of people to realize how serious the war is.
That's what it would be. The inequity of the prior system is pretty widely acknowledged--I don't know of anyone who supports it or supports anything like it. Maybe some Yellow Elephants out there, but that's it.
47: Are wages really that big a line item during active combat service? Or are these huge bills being run up more due to expensive consumables?
49: Good question. I expect the proportion of the war-waging budget has gone down over the years, even though wages for the individual soldier have risen.
Still, the amount of money they'd have to pay to get my professional ass to volunteer would be substantial.
50 should say "proportion of the war-waging budget that goes to wages."
43. There are more than you realize LB. Maybe not in your circle, but I know several in mine, including a KIA. One way to solve the problem of under representation of "the ruling class" is to allow ROTC back in to the hallowed halls of the Ivy League. The guys (and gals) I know who served after attending those august institutions had to really go out of there way to join.
A draft without exemptions would force a lot of people to realize how serious the war is.
It would *make* it serious, whereas now it's a theoretical exercise in "winning", "losing", and "wasting" for most people and can be forgotten as soon as the channel is changed.
52: I'm sure there are quite a few. On the other hand, I could swear I read an article in the last few years talking about the changing demographics (more minorities, lower income families, in summary) but I can't find it anywhere.
One way to solve the problem of under representation of "the ruling class" is to allow ROTC back in to the hallowed halls of the Ivy League.
Totally, completely, inordinately support that. Dems should be out there making the case to the top schools; they'll roll over if Dems push hard enough.
The schools will have to let the ROTC back in if the military changes its discriminatory policy towards gay people.
52: Oh, there's my cousin Timmy too. It's still not common.
56: Those schools will let ROTC back in even for a military that headspikes cute little children just for the sheer joy of it if Dems push hard enough. And Dems should do so, independent of "ask, don't tell."
48
I am opposed to a draft period but if one is enacted I would definitely prefer one that is easy for my relatives to avoid.
Slightly OT: one of the weird things about the Walter Reed scandal is that it grows directly from Bush's cheesy political slogan: "Support the troops".
Traditionally troops were admired, but they were mostly expected to follow orders and accept whatever happened without complaining. The respect they got was conditional on obedience. And when the chips were down, they were expendable. For example, if the goal was to attack point A, troops would be sent to point B as a feint, with no intention of actually attacking B. But a lot of them would still get killed. Or underequipped troops would be sent into battle and told to do the best they could. Or an officer would make some little mistake, and a few dozen men would die. "It comes with the territory, suck up your guys and shut up".
But now that The Troops have been pumped up really big so that Dubya can hide behind them, all of a sudden we're supposed to care about their needs.
Some of the wingnut sites are taking the old attitude: "What did they expect from war? I saw a lot worse back in Nam". And seemingly the Army brass feel the same way. But Bush can't get away with that (even though he's been pushing the budget-cutting).
58.---I really am not convinced of that, SCMTim. The law schools, at least, have made a very public, very principled stand on that issue. The undergraduate schools have rallied support around that issue. And the university presidents who would have liked the whole controversy to go away have bowed before the nondiscriminatory argument. It's also the only power the universities have to force the change, and they're not going to give it up easily.
Yes, there are a fair number of faculty who remember fondly booting the ROTC off campus during the Vietnam era, but their arguments would be fairly marginal were it not for the general university principle of not allowing recruiters or organisations that discriminate onto campus.
A lot of the smaller, public universities would like to be able to tell the military to boil its collective discriminating head, but they rely on public funds, so they can't. The rich Ivy League universities really regard this fight as their duty to the others.
SCMT: alternatively, a military short of good officer material could fix it's discrimination problem.... better overall solution.
of course 63 applies more generally than just to gays.
But the law schools lost at the SC. They can't bar military recruiters.
On the ROTC thing, Phillip Carter had a nice piece about how the system avoids the NE. Some of the follow-on comments are good. Some are off the wall. Worth reading the main time and a scan of the comments.
Am I the only one assuming that DADT dies a natural death when the next Democratic president is inagurated? Acceptance of gays has moved so much since even the early 90's, and the resistance seems so political these days, that it seems like it'll be an effortless change once we have someone in office who wants to do it again.
Or am I living in another fantasy world?
Minor threadjack, but Zell Miller blames the military's manpower shortage on abortion.
Women, it's your patriotic duty to have babies and support the Great War Machine!
SCMT: alternatively, a military short of good officer material could fix it's discrimination problem.... better overall solution.
I don't think that a military short of good officers believes that it is short of good officers. But the belief driving my position is that it's important to reintegrate the military into both the Democratic Party and the "elite" world. Right now, people swing too much between an anti-military attitude and a too reverent attitude.
Am I the only one assuming that DADT dies a natural death when the next Democratic president is inagurated?
I don't know if it goes away under the next Dem president, but I think it goes away within a decade or two, regardless of the President's party.
You know you live in a fantasy world, Lizard.
Even if the military stopped drumming people out for being gay, I don't imagine it would become a really gay-friendly workplace. The best we can hope for really is that the system of formal discrimination will be dropped and replaced with informal discrimination and a total absence of formal policy.
The ROTC issue is a red herring. When people talk about the poor serving disproportionately, they're not talking about _as officers_.
There had been a draft almost continuously from 1940 to 1973, so most baby boomers grew up with it as a live possibility. If they reinstated the draft now (very unlikely), you wouldn't see protests. You'd see the overthrow of the government.
DADT will change and 25 years from now gays in the services will be barely remarkable.
After the Indonesian tsunami the USN diverted an amphipibious task force to assist in the recovery. From reading a few articles, and one was slightly fluffy so it had more human interest stuff, it became clear that the commander of the task force was an African-American woman. It had been only 25 years since the USN was all up in arms about even letting women into the boat school. Most men in the navy at the time wouldn't have said that within the time of a single career that a minority woman could rise through the surface line to command multiple warships. Yet, today the USN accepts it as normal.
73: But it's hardly like integration of women is a done deal either. I mean, it's unremarkable to the general population to see women in the services. But we have to counteract that with things like requirements that women don't go to the latrines alone at night, because there is a high rape risk from fellow servicemen.
73: Yes. In the seventies, I remember an op-ed by General Ira Eaker, one of the founding fathers of the Air Force, who had lived a storied life, and must then have been in his eighties. He predicted as much with complete confidence, which was very unusual in the spirit of the times, full of essentialist dread. But he was a man who hadn't merely served in military institutions, but had created them, and he was right.
74. I agree it isn't a done deal. Shoot, you could say that the occasional outbursts of racist violence shows the military hasn't finished integrating non-whites. But, no onefew argues that minorities don't belong in all parts of the military. Women in the service is still a tougher sell. Yet even people like Elaine Donnelly have retrenched to opposing women in combat arms and not in the services per se.
Given that is has already been discovered [and recorded on hidden cameras] that military recruiters are actively lying to would-be recruits ["Oh, no, you won't be sent to Iraq, we aren't sending any more people to Iraq."] and, having heard from at least one friend whose son was stationed in Germany and was told that if he didn't re-up immediately - two months before his current hitch ended - he'd be sent directly to the "worst" part of the Iraqi fighting for those two months, I have little problem believing these stories. It's all about the numbers, keep those numbers up...
I remember participating in anti-war protests as far back as 1966 [tho' I was at university in Canada at that point, so that may skew things]. I certainly remember them in '67, when I was back in the States. However, it wasn't till '68 that I first experienced the lovely effects of tear-gas. Ah, the joys of youth.
76: right, it's an ongoing process, and probably won't be near finished until all of the current crop die off. Like most fundamental changes.
Some people thing that gender integration of the military has been achieved because wome can sign up, in much the same way that some people think racial equality has been achieved in the general population because the Jim Crow laws were annulled. These are risible beliefs, but there are people who hold them.
anti-war protests as far back as 1966
There were some minor ones on campus in NYC as far back as 1960 protesting ROTC.
Well, in that I'm a (late) Boomer I'm part of the current crop. I view my impending death as a bad thing. I'm sure others look at it as clearing out the deadwood, but I can't bring myself to that selfless view quite yet.
80: But are you in the services? What I meant by that is that many fundamental changes can only happen by the progression of generations. This is true in all areas (see Einstein and QM, for example); people can only move so far on average. So for this change in the military, I suspect some of the structure just has to retire and be replaced with people who came up in an integrated system.
Large-scale protests were very rare in Ohio in the sixties, and the huge march on the pentagon in '67 was middle-class and multi-aged and peaceful—it looked just like the kind we've had in recent years.
It was the invasion of Cambodia in the spring of '70 that brought people into the streets at ordinary campuses, like (famously) Kent State and Ohio State, where I sniffed that vapor for the first time.
The structure of scientific revolutions meets the military condition, how do you do.
So for this change in the military, I suspect some of the structure just has to retire and be replaced with people who came up in an integrated system.
Mmm. I think that's true to an extent, as you say, for all big changes in culture. But I think "gay" is much less fundamental than "female" for many people, and I think reforming attitudes about gay military, and integrating openly gay personnel into the larger whole, will proceed at a much faster pace than it has or will for women. People, even old people, are more plastic than we think.
83. I agree. I was just having some fun. Complete cultural changes will take longer than even the passing of the last generation who knew life the way things used to be. But on the scale of history, if not my personal timescale, these changes can be swift. 25 years, 100 years, even 150 years are not very long for deep changes to be made. And I think many of the changes are underway.
I'm not in the service (although I work with DoD) and when I tried to join in the early 80s after graduating from Oberlin (that freaked people right out), I was unable to join because of vision issues. I tried two services and even debated the issue with the medical boards. I believed then and believe now that the military should be representative of the nation.
86: Agreed. In particular, I think integration of women fundamentaly changes the difficulties of (officially) integrating gays.
86: To expand a bit: I think people are both more plastic and less than we might expect, on different issues. When my grandmother was a little girl, nobody had cars. Or televisions. On the other hand, people can dogmatically hold onto things that seem small, from the outside. I think it comes down to issues that touch on self identity. If for example you have a misogynist strain in a subculture (e.g. the military) it will produce some people that, at some level, self-identify with this. When you ask (or tell) them to change, this will threaten their identity. They will resist this far more (and in more subtle ways) than other, perhaps seemingly larger, changes.
Yeah. I also think integrating gays is going to be easier because of the "Surprise!" factor -- if DADT goes away, gays aren't going to need to work up through the ranks like women did. There are plenty in place who can simply start talking about what they do on the weekends without geting fired. I figure it's going to be hard, once the rules have changed, for there to be too much cultural resistance to working with Bob and Lisa, both of whom happen to be gay, given that they've been in their jobs for years without incident beforehand.
My own hyper-liberal opinion is that there should be strong affirmative action, and for the next million years only women and gay men should be allowed to serve in the military. Let them get themselves blown up if they want to so damn bad. And men should have to prove they're relly gay, too, not just x a box on a form.
. If for example you have a misogynist strain in a subculture (e.g. the military)
I'm not sure I'd describe it exactly that way, though I'm not sure how, precisely, I'd describe it.
I was recounting the biggest protest *I* was ever in.
It's true, isn't it? Idealist is really John Buckner.
94: Ok, that probably isn't the right term. I think it's a correlate, though. How about ``If for example you have rigid gender roles in a subculture...''
96: I don't think you were that far off. The military is misogynistic, and a related subtext that is perpetuated includes the idea that gay=feminine. [I, personally, would love to see your average drill sergeant say "sissy boy" to a large gay leather biker, but that's just me...]
97: sure, the military is misogynistic, which is what I meant by the corellate; I was conceding that the ossified idea of gender roles might be more the issue w.r.t change. Agree it's not that far off.
The general consensus among those who look at these things is that the military racially integrated long before and to a much greater degree than the rest of society. I predict that the integration of gays will follow more or less the same pattern, if only because the strict hierarchy lends itself to the "I don't care if you don't like it, you're going to deal with it, soldier." approach.
I was also somewhat unimpressed with the law school's position in the Solomon Amendment cases.
Unimpressed because there's a very long history of using federal funding to compel entities to do things that the federal government can't legally compel them to do, and also because it was very contemporaneous with the whole "Boy Scouts can't use government facilities" bit.
96: I don't think you were that far off. The military is misogynistic, and a related subtext that is perpetuated includes the idea that gay=feminine.
I guess I want to quibble with "military" because I'm not so sure how much of the misogyny is related to something that is specifically military. In my experience, group made up solely of young men have a tendency towards a Lord of the Flies ethic. When people in those groups are isolated from competing social bonds, by distance, or the nature of the allegiance to the group, or even deniability, the tendency gets much worse. And, for some reason, misogyny, at least at the level of contempt for the feminine, is a big part of that ethic. I don't know why there is this tendency, I don't know whether there is a way to structure things so that the tendency isn't followed. But that's why I think addressing the issues of treating women properly in the military is going to be more difficult than integrating the openly gay.
101: oh, but that was merely an instance, not meant to be the *only* subgroup with misogynist tendencies.
Right. I'm suggesting that the set of relevant groups is actually described as "socially isolated groups of young men" (though I wouldn't want to bet my life that I'm right). I wonder if the problem is structural, and, if so, I wonder how easily the military can address the problem, given the nature of its duties. (I'm not saying that they can't, just that if that's the problem, I don't know how you go about solving the problem.)
In my experience, group made up solely of young men have a tendency towards a Lord of the Flies ethic. When people in those groups are isolated from competing social bonds, by distance, or the nature of the allegiance to the group, or even deniability, the tendency gets much worse. And, for some reason, misogyny, at least at the level of contempt for the feminine, is a big part of that ethic.
Does this work with respect to the military? Fraternities, sure -- if you take a group of 18-22 year old men and form a cohesive social group out of them, there's a fair shot (not universal, but pretty likely) that they'll go that way. But the military has always had a leavening of older men (older meaning over 25 or so) who generally run the place, and now has a not insignificant number of women.
I'm not sure how misogynistic military culture is -- my first-hand experience with it is nil -- but if it is, doesn't it have to be more actively embraced rather than just the natural outgrowth of an all-young-male environment?
104: I don't have first hand experience either; but have heard some pretty disturbing things from women who were in the service. Some from military families, who in some sense must have had a better idea of what they were getting into. I have no idea how widespread serious problems are/were, though.
But the military has always had a leavening of older men (older meaning over 25 or so) who generally run the place, and now has a not insignificant number of women.
I don't know. First, older guys aren't immune to the tendency. Second, I don't have any experience with the military, either, (other than making fun of Ideal and TLL, which I think counts for both of us), and I don't know how leavened any one hierarchical level is. Third, the way that one of the women described it--something like, "sending three women to live in a fraternity"--made it sound like the number of women was an issue.
I've got a good friend who's a JAG, who hasn't mentioned it as a problem at all, but she's an officer, and a lawyer, so not really in the Army mainstream, and she's also congentially optimistic and glass-half-full-ish, so she'd be likely to overlook or ignore problems if at all possible. But I don't know a thing firsthand.
106: Come to think of it, combat assignments are still all male, so that's going to give you big chunks of the military that are single-sex. Okay, maybe you're right.
well, there are things like this that make you wonder how badly out of whack some units are. (that isn't the original article I saw on the testimony, but I couldn't find the other one quickly).
I've been told personal anectdotes that gel with that testimony, too. No idea how widespread these sorts of problems are.
I have no more idea than you about the treatment of women, since I served so long ago there were none in my unit. I have the impression that the profile of conservative Christianity is much higher today than it was then, but I'm sure that and much else is subject to local conditions and personalities, as it always has been.
The article in you link has been debunked so many times I'm surprised you linked it. As per misogony in the service, there was some when I served, but in a "how can a woman be a true warrior?" way. Once competence is demonstrated, the misogony evaporates. There was also alot of resentment from the "crack troops" about the girly-girls who would bat their eyes to get out of work detail. It becomes a supervision thing.
Yeah, I had seen that before. There's something about the difference between an awfully high rate of violent crime, which is going to be a feature of any overwhelmingly young male group (just because young men account for a large percentage of all the violent crime in society) and whether there's anything fundamentally misogynist about the group exclusive of the criminal behavior.
I'm not even sure if I have a point.
112: Really? as I said it wasn't the article I was actually looking for. Can you provide cites though ? As far as I knew that particular testamony stood, which is why I linked it. Anyway, it isn't out of line with personal experience of people I've met.
Notably, though, the problems they had were not with the people they worked most closely with; that gels more with what you say about competence. In other words, a bit of what might technically be termed sexual harassment at first, but that died down after you worked together a bit.
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/007899.html
Karpinsky debunk
There was also alot of resentment from the "crack troops" about the girly-girls who would bat their eyes to get out of work detail.
This sort of thing annoys me -- if 'batting your eyes to get out of work detail' works, then that's not a problem with the soldiers doing it, it's a problem with the people running things. If you set up a system where stereotypical behavior is rewarded, you're going to get stereotypical behavior.
115: The link says bad things about Karpinsky generally, but I don't see it addressing the subject matter of soubzriquet's link.
116. As I said, it was a supervision thing. Or more acurately, a supervision of the supervisors thing. The "strategic corporal" is still only 22, hormones only stopped raging a little while ago.
click through some of the links, esp. Death before Dishonour and the Taguba report
Ah. Death Before Dishonor it is.
118: But still (and I realize that you're describing rather than endorsing an attitude) that's aiming resentment at the wrong target. If the 'strategic corporal' (whoever exactly that is) has pets because he thinks some of his fellow soldiers are hot, he's a fuckup, and the resentment should be pointed at him, not at the soldiers he's favoring.
116
LB is predictable, everything is always 100% management's fault. So soldiers can't be blamed at all for malingering to get out of work details, is that right?
121. Agreed. By the way, the "strategic corporal" refers to the fact that many of the day to day interactions with the Iraqi populace are handled by the patrol leader, a corporal or sergeant. It is a lot of resposibility for a 22 year old. Oh, "crack troops" is a misogynistic euphemism, so the resentment was single sexed.
People batting their eyelashes to try to get out of work detail is a limited problem with those doing the batting, and will probably be met with social pressure against them. People getting out of work detail by batting their eyelashes is a different and more serious problem with management, and should be treated as such.
122: A system that breaks down when people at the lowest levels of power within it behave imperfectly is a bad system, and the people with the power to fix it are the ones with power in the system. If the problem is that supervisors have pets, you can solve the problem by expecting one supervisor to do his job properly, or by expecting all the subordinates to do theirs perfectly (which doesn't necessarily solve it -- a supervisor can favor a subordinate who isn't encouraging or cooperating in the behavior.)
You fix things at points where you have leverage, and usually that's with the people running things.
125
This is simplistic. The same system which works fine with trustworthy people may break down completely with untrustworthy people. It may be possible to devise a system which works adequately with untrustworthy people but it is unlikely to be as efficient as a system designed for and utilized by trustworthy people.
The military has considerable experience with systems for managing men. These systems may run into problems with mixed personnel. Even if the problems are solvable the resulting organization may be less effective than an all male organization.
In other words the easiest way to fix things (from a pure military effectiveness standpoint) may be to cut down on sex integration in the military.
In other words the easiest way to fix things (from a pure military effectiveness standpoint) may be to cut down on sex integration in the military.
May be true--though I can't see why it would be from your description--but that doesn't answer much. There are other interests at play, and if it's just cash we need to fix it, we have cash.
116: Maybe it's just anecdotal, but one also hears about pregnancy rates spiking when there's a deployment coming up. That's not really something that can be managed out of existence. OTOH it's also something that can be worked around, like many other sorts of non-punishable behavior that's subtly or not-so-subtly discouraged.
115: Thanks for the link, TLL. Looks like I got bit by the too-easily-googleable trap; as noted this was not the article (nor the incident(s)) I was looking for. It was my fuzzy recollection that there was a lot to be said against Kasinsky, but there was corroboration of that incident from an MD, or something. Like I said, fuzzy.
That being said though, some of the statements in your link about the implausibility of sexual assaults really, really don't gel with some things I've been told from personal experiences. It's not worth pursuing; issues of both sampling and privacy.
126: If you try any harder to be contrarian, you'll sprain something. Men and women work together successfully in every other organization in the modern world; surmising that it might be just impractical for them to do so in the military is hardly the likeliest solution to the problem.
128
Compulsory abortions would take care of that particular problem.
JAMES IS A GENIUS
HE FIGURED OUT THAT YOU CAN TURN ANYBODY'S OPINION ABOUT ANYTHING INTO A MORAL DILEMMA BY INSERTING ABORTION INTO THE SCENARIO, OR ANALOGIZING IT TO ABORTION.
I APPLAUD HIS USE OF THIS TACTIC TO COMPLETELY STALL DEBATES, INSTEAD OF THE NORMAL TROLL TECHNIQUE OF BAITING PEOPLE
130
I am not saying they can't work together successfully. I am saying the number of women (relative to the number of men) physically and psychologically suited for certain military roles is small enough that the cost of arranging matters to accommodate them is greater than the benefit (in strictly military terms).
134
If you don't like abortions, giving military women Norplant type implants would also solve the problem. If this is actually a problem it just shows the powers that be don't actually value women in the military.
Surely it would be cheaper to just sew their vaginas shut.
James B. Shearer, I don't get the sense that you like this blog. What keeps drawing you back?
137 138 139
Numerous vaccinations are required for people in the military to keep them medically fit for duty. I don't see why another easily prevented medical problem should be treated any differently, that is if you are actually serious about female soldiers.
You see pregnancy as a medical problem?
Ficke is clearly not serious about female soldiers.
141: Actually, that's pretty much how pregnancy is treated for employment-related purposes. Which doesn't mean that employers get to dictate care, of course. The military is different to the extent of being able to mandate stuff like the anthrax vaccine, but strangely enough they appear to have decided that mandating contraception and/or abortion to keep female soldiers deployment-ready wasn't where they really wanted to spend their political capital.
Think of how many Arab speakers we'd have in the military if Shearer and the gang would get off their asses and get us that homo vaccine.
143
That's because they didn't want female soldiers in the first place.
You know, when my granddad was fighting in double-u double-u two, they had lots of interpersonal problems. And I say, if his unit -- which consisted of Sarge, Mother, Unc, Doc, the Professor, O'Toole, Goldstein, Rizzo, Moose, Jim and Lefty -- could work through all of their myriad personal differences, then it shouldn't be such a big deal for today's soldiers to deal with their gay or female colleagues.
N.B.: Pappas, Tex, Kowalski and stereotypical-Southern-soldier all bought it at Anzio, so they're not talked about much anymore.
Wow! My uncles were both in that same unit. Amazing!
I can't believe you forgot Bubba's name. Did Bubba and his proud Southern heritage mean nothing to you?
Is that from The Naked and the Dead? Or just generic WWII movie?
The military necessity argument and what I'll call citizenship are both in play in the question of who gets to serve. In some sense the question of openly gay soldiers belongs in a series, with blacks and women, of groups not originally allowed to serve, who passed through a process where their inclusion and integration was imposed on a sometimes reluctant army. What was different in those cases was a history of their service, separately, before integration.
Black units were raised and justified on grounds of both citizenship—Fredrick Douglass' argument—and military necessity during the civil war, and were included in the regular army thereafter. By WWII, this separate service included entire ships, fighter groups and divisions, as well as functions usually reserved for black soldiers; the first black general was given that rank on the eve of WWII. So there was a record of success and service before integration beginning in 1947.
Women in uniform began during WWI, although initially words like "auxilliary" and "support" were always prominent in their titles. There was a separate Women's Army Corps.—an Amazon their symbol—, with its own command, led by Texas Republican politician Ovetta Culp Hobby, by WWII. There were always separate lines of command and accomodations for women in the services, although they were detailed to work, usually in offices, in many different commands and headquarters. There were also nurses, who worked alongside other medical personnel. When it came time to integrate women, beginning in the seventies, there was a pattern of service, although unlike blacks this would not have included already performing the full range of military tasks under separate command.
The eventual integration of gays cannot follow this pattern for several reasons. First, there is no history of separate service. The time for that kind of thing is past; it was a foot in the door in its day but separateness permitted the society to go forward without committing to eventual integration. Military neccesity really did play a role in the inclusion of blacks and women in separate units. Besides, the numbers of gays would never justify it: their inclusion will be based on citizenship, fairness, and qualitative military necessity. The translators, etc.
Of course there have always been gay soldiers, usually closeted to some degree, but not always persecuted. An analogy of sorts would be the secret service by women, in many times and conflicts. Faulkner's novella "Unvanquished" has an example of this. But the transitional status, or some analogy to it, which prepared the ground for blacks and women is hard to imagine now.