Memo to Michael Coren from a serving Canadian soldier:
Sir,I have just finished a 7 month tour with an Infantry Coy in Zhari, where I patrolled on foot on a regular basis alongside female medics and on a few occasion a female MP. They did the same job, carried the same kit and weapons, marched the same distances, took the same enemy fire and in all ran the same risks as the men. I never saw them flinch, display fear or weakness, and did their work with the same dedication and level of competence as the men present.
I witnessed, on the occasion of a recent deadly IED blast that took the lives of two Canadians, a female medic who was also caught in the explosion be the first to jump up from the ground and administer aid, organise triage and performe her duties in a superb manner despite her injuries from her close proximity to the blast, and knowing well the two deceased soldiers.
After having been in combat alongside Canadian female soldiers, I have determined for direct experience that the women of today make as good soldiers as men.
You, sir, obviously have no direct combat experience with women, and should keep your condescending, ignorant, archaic opinions that have no basis on facts or reality to yourself and resist the temptation to insult the efforts of Canadian women in uniform.
I'll add my own two cents: I don't give a rat's hindquarters what set of reproductive parts you were issued at birth - if you can hack the profession of arms, and if you want to be a soldier, you should be allowed to serve your country according to your qualifications, not your gender. Period.
So where's all the screaming braided arm pit feminazis on this clear issue of gender discrimination ?
No protests in front of Coren's studio ? No letter writing campaigns to the editors ? Where's the NDP Minister in Waiting for Feminist Victims ?
The world wants to know.
Michael Coren is absolutely right.
I think that Coren is simply showing his bosses how many hits he can get from a single article in the hope that it spare's his job during the first round of lay offs. He gets paid good money to spout his opinion and he's obviously willing to type almost anything to keep that.
Michael Coren is, and always has been an annoying blowhard.
I got the inside scoop from a friend, the reason Blais got killed was because she couldn't handle the heat inside the APC, so they opened the gunners hatch for her so she could be more comfortable. When the IED hit the LAV III rolled over and crushed her.
I think this proves Michael Coren right
If she can carry the GPMG or my big wounded @ss she can be a soldier. Or a fireman. If not, not.
I've met maybe a handful of women who can do that. All of them weighed over 150lbs. Small women are not strong enough for combat. You wouldn't send a 100lb 14 year old boy into combat either.
Or a 52 year old guy like myself. I'm past it. I can't carry the GPMG any more like I did when I was 17. Even then I was no ball of fire.
Michael Coren is absolutely 100% right. Combat is an extreme environment, not everybody can do it.
Just as long as the females are not subject to different physical requirements, and as long as the requirements themselves have not been lowered to accommodate females. Then I agree. If there is any accommodation, whatsoever, to allow females to qualify as soldiers, then I disagree.
Depending on an ancedotal example to support one's theories on life should no more be accepeted here than in any other analysis about the differences between sexes or cultures, for that matter.
Sending women to fight our wars and making special consideration for their physical differences is nothing more than a politically correct travesty.
The day that women can compete against men in the Olympics is the day I will believe that they should be fighting our battles for us against big swarthy men. Until then, I will continue to understand that there are fundamaltal physical differences between the sexes and this female soldier thing will make me very uncomfortable indeed.
I remember in basic a girl who every time she fired her FN A1C1 she would get repelled to the bottom of the hill. she would fire then climb back up to her shooting spot, then repeat. She always hit the target. Just cus she was tiny means she didnt have the right to serve her country? What BS.
Compete against men in the Olympics?
A few years back, the Canadian women's hockey team played an exhibition series in Alberta against a boy's midget all-star team.
One game ended up 13-4, in favour of the boys.
That's why putting women's hockey players in the Hockey Hall of Fame is a joke.
There are differences in physical capacity, just like there are differences in all human beings.
Ask any parent. No matter how many kids they have, they all have different abilities and capacities.
FREE, the FAL doesn't kick that hard, dude. Lots of women shot mine at the range over the years. Never saw anybody fall over from it.
Just because you can shoot doesn't mean you can hump the rifle 20 miles a day. If she was so small she got knocked off her perch from that, front line combat is not where she belonged.
They also serve who only stand and wait.
"you should be allowed to serve your country according to your qualifications, not your gender."
Few if any women meet the qualifications, you're smart enough to know that and you omitted it. They lowered the qualifications like they did for police and firefighters.
It's not about what you or I think, it's about national security. It's our asses on the line, we'll make the call. Very selfish to demand what you want without considering or caring about the consequences.
Have you read a history book? No women in world history have ever fought wars, and all of a sudden it's sexist to suggest they shouldn't?
What we're hearing out of the USA is that there are serious, serious issues with women in the military, women sleeping with their COs, demanding special treatment, lots of rape too.
You're wrong, and selfish, on this one. I just watched my city get run over by terrorists, the fact that the police force now includes five foot two ponytailed midgets has a lot to do with that. Selfish. You'll get us all killed.
"Canadian Soldier" better watch what comes out of his flanhole as long as I am paying his salary, government employees and soldiers do NOT address civilians with such insolence.
"condescending, ignorant, archaic opinions that have no basis on facts or reality" - yeah, whatever drama queen, you sound grounded, did your co-worker Richard W6rman teach you those words?
I have no experience driving across Canada using my feet, doesn't mean I don't know it's a stupid idea.
Yeah, I agree with Coren.
My ancestors were Welsh and I understand that in the early days the single childless women served along side the men in battle. It however, makes my skin crawl to see female soldiers kissing their babys goodbye at an airport. What the hell are we fighting for anyway? I guess I may be a dottering old school Grandfather, but this PC horses*it will be the end of our culture yet.
Coren is an idiot for saying that in today's environment.
It was the same garbage when Women were allowed to be Correctional Officers and RCMP officers/members.
Things turned out well there after a period of adjustment.
The LS from SK said: "Coren is an idiot for saying that in today's environment."
To what "environment" are you referring?
This "environment": Political correctness?
The Origins of Political Correctness
Second, the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness, like economic .... The members of the Frankfurt School are Marxist, they are also, to a man, Jewish. ...
www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html
I believe the rule in Israel is, "everyone over 18 gets to join up".
They haven't lost any arguments because of young girls seeing action... and of the photos I've seen of their army, the fatties seem to be in a minority, I guess training will do that sort of thing. and of course, knowing you're fighting an army of 50% women, and losing badly, must really mess with your idea of jihad ect...
I laugh at the liberals.
Isn't this idea that females can be as good a soldier as men one of those "we are all equal" things? Isn't it the same as believing that all cultures are equal? Isn't it a sort of gender/cultural moral equivalication racket?
Since when did any rational person believe that our genders or ethnicities/cultures were equivalent? Since when was it wrong to see genders and ethnicities as distinct with different capabilities and genetic predispositions?
The day that the genders and ethnicities become equal in our minds will be the day that Orwell's most tragic predictions will have become true.
Coren's absolutely wrong on this one. If the lady met the standards and signed up of her own free will, she had every right to be there God bless her and her family.
Was she a beautiful young lady? Absolutely. Beautiful because of the pride and the courage that shines through in her photograph, the expression of which Coren would have stifled.
Could she have been partying with friends at university instead of rolling through the dust of Afghanistan? Absolutely, as could any of the more than a hundred young men killed over there. But having seen the party crowd at university, I'm at a loss to imagine how their behavior could hold a candle to the bravery discipline and value of the efforts of the troops at the front.
If captured by the Taliban, would she have been treated worse because of her gender? Possibly. But that may be exactly the reason she felt compelled to serve and risk the sacrifice she made so bravely. Did we deny Jews the right to serve in the fight against the National Socialists because of the way they treated Jews? No.
If anything, it's amazing that more women, "feminists" in particular, haven't signed up for this fight against the most blatant suppression of women's rights that exists in the world today. And to the women, I would add gays, who are the ones most threatened by the spread of the radical fundamentalist form of Islam practiced by the Taliban.
If there are gay or lesbian soldiers serving in Afghanistan, good on you. While I may not condone all of your behaviors (and there are many of my own behaviors I don't condone in myself), never the less I respect and appreciate the effort and the sacrifice that you are making.
Michael Coren should do the same. Let women like Karine take on the burdens and the pride in duty well met for which her suffragette foremothers fought so long and hard . He sleeps peacefully tonight because women like Karine stand ready to carry that burden on his behalf.
Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Israel stop women from fighting along side men in battle? As I recall it was because they found that the natural instinct of men to protect women was causing them to take un-necessary chances and was in turn getting them killed.
Maz2 - I think Marc from Calgary answered your question better than I could have.
Today's environment is, of course PC but these old myths have long been disputed, rejected and I thought forgoten.
Apparently not.
My condolences to the Blais family.
marc in calgary @ 8:31 makes a good point: The Israelis do it, and they're not messing around.
Maybe it's a little Monty Python - "Just because you can't have babies doesn't mean you don't have the RIGHT to have babies!" etc. - but not entirely. Evidently some women do serve in the front lines with distinction. A minority, no doubt, but so what? Michael Coren IS "disrespecting" the memory of Karine Blais, who died for her country.
If women aren't even allowed to try, then this equality thing is a fiction, and I haven't given up on it yet.
The reason this brave young woman is dead is because she has been lead to believe that females can be equal to men when it comes to fighting and killing.
For some reason I have always thought that men should fight men. Given that we are fighting men and not women, it pains me to realize that we are sending our females to die at the hands of foreign men.
We send our women, they send their men. Our women die in battle at the hands of their men. And this is war? I'm supposed to feel some sort of pride at our progressiveness? Sorry, but all I feel is shame.
Western Canadian, you are correct sir. Female soldiers do not fight up front with the boys in Israel. It makes the men act funny as you mention, and it is also bad for unit cohesion. The boys compete with each other for the girl's attention instead of forming a fighting unit. It bears mentioning that being around the men makes the women act funny too.
Human nature flatly refuses to alter itself to fit the Marxist ideal. Bummer.
This is a valid job description in today's department of war: "sit in an office for eight hours a day with a monitor and joystick to fly a drone airplane on the other side of the planet and thereby launch missles at the enemy".
Question: Should females be allowed to that job? And realize that, if the answer is not no, then everything else is a matter of degree, not of kind, in which case human dignity demands that the judgement be made on the merit of each individual, not their avolitional collective.
"Question: Should females be allowed to that job? "
You're still asking these questions at your age? We look to you for guidance at this point!
If you're looking for a debate partner, forget it, we're boycotting the libertarian community on account of gross stupidity, we don't have time to explain every consequence of your stupid ideas anymore. You know the drill: you propose the never ever tried anywhere in history idea, you're the one who has to sell it, in detail, using something more than a clumsily woven narrative. Don't be an ass and ask us to justify western civilization.
Ask ANY street cop if they want a female cop, for whom the standards have been lowered, covering their back when they wade in to break up a barroom brawl.
I have and the answers have been unanimous.
Vitruvius, sir, we rarely differ. However.
War is one of those things which has invariably been fought by men, except in cases of dire survival. Throughout the ages it has been so, since prehistoric times. As in, skeletal remains with battle wounds are almost always male. Females are found killed by weapons occasionally, but not with healed combat wounds. Amazons are rare. Three sigmas rare.
On balance, 200,000 years of history vs. 50 years of fashion, I'm comfortable going with the history. If having women fly drones and drive transport frees capable men to go fight, because we -need- those guys to replace casualties, then by all means. But that would be pretty frickin' serious, right? Stalingrad kind of serious.
If we are so hopelessly screwed all we have left is to send women to the front, then we are hopelessly screwed because they are going to fight valiantly and get BEAT.
Wars are fought by people who are trying to win as hard as they can. If having women in the ranks worked, somebody would have been doing it a hell of a long time before now.
Don't give me male chauvinism either. If chicks were up for a fight all male chauvinists would have been killed 100,000 years ago. They'd be bred out by now.
The other side of the argument, show me one culture in history who made this work for more than a couple years. Just one.
Besides, you left out part of the job description: "sit in an office for eight hours a day with a monitor and joystick to fly a drone airplane on the other side of the planet and thereby launch missles at the enemy"... and be able to fight and win when the enemy sneaks a special ops team into your rear area location to knock out your drones.
Because they do stuff like that. It war.
I’m not sure what the hell you said Vit but elbow to elbow no, off in the distance some where, why not. The key here is the elbow to elbow guys, they have to have full confidence in those behind them, man or woman.
Off to see Cohen.
We certainly don't differ in this case, Phantom, since I don't have a position on this policy at this point, so, logically, we can't differ. I think that we agree in terms of the history of the matter. I think that over the next hundred years war technology is going to change the very nature of what we consider war to be (indeed, perhaps it already has). And so, on that basis, I wonder about the future, and consider the possibilites. Because as Voltaire said: "Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers".
Today is always a cusp in the passage time; on any day, some
will look to the past, and some to the future. Both are valuable.
This may be at the moment an exercise in what if's, but if things steadily worsen in our battle for western civilization, we will need all hands on deck.
And that means our women.Simple as that.
As a nation of 30 million in a larger conflict, we will not have the luxury of leaving anyone behind.If it comes down to a fight against populations a hundred times our size and more, you had also better familiarize yourself with the word 'volkssturm' as well....
Mr. Phantom:
Hunting has always been a male pursuit, yet we dig Sarah Palin (and Kate McMillan, come to that) no?
"Hunting has always been a male pursuit, yet we dig Sarah Palin (and Kate McMillan, come to that) no?"
That's a question, and a historically inaccurate one btw, not a reason. Let's see some reasons geniuses. Come on, show us your inner Marxist.
Neanderthals went extinct because women participated in the hunt. I'm not kidding btw, they had less sexual dimophism, so the women hunted too.
"In 2006, anthropologists Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner of the University of Arizona proposed a new explanation for the demise of the Neanderthals.[33] In an article titled "What's a Mother to Do? The Division of Labor among Neanderthals and Modern Humans in Eurasia",[34] they theorise that Neanderthals like Middle paleolithic Homo sapiens did not have a division of labor between the sexes. Both male and female Neanderthals participated in the single main occupation of hunting big game that flourished in Europe in the ice age like bison, deer, gazelles and wild horses. This contrasted with humans who were better able to use the resources of the environment because of a division of labor with the women going after small game and gathering plant foods. In addition because big game hunting was so dangerous this made humans, at least males, more resilient (see also Peter Frost's theory on the origins of European blond hair)."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neandertal_interaction_with_Cro-Magnons#Division_of_labor
I believe the short form of what Vitruvius postulates is, if women are allowed to kill, all bets are off.
What he neglects is the male/female dynamic and how it may affect the ethos of a front line combat unit.
IMO, as far as women flying drones, fill your boots; front line combat, I'm not so sure.
Although I usually find Coren a decent enough read, I think this column is a bit asshatish, much like his nuke Iran column a couple of years ago.
Coren is not the idiot but his critcs certainly are.
I refute the notion that a 100 lb fire-fighter, of any gender, can carry my 200+ lb butt out of danger?
How far will a 100 lb soldier, of any gender, get with a 80-130lb pack?
How far will a 100 lb soldier, of any gender, get trying to be a loader in a tank turret?
Physical requirements are a realistic practice. Small males should serve in capacities commensorate with their size but they are rejected.
Women make excellant pilots, drivers, remote weopon system techies.
re. Mark at April 21, 2009 8:02 PM
There's plenty of gentlemen in the AFG theatre that have been laid low by the heat. You trying to make point other than it's hot over there?
Heh, I refute the notion that any of you candy-a$$ civilians and long-retired dinosaurs have any concept whatsoever of the reality in A'stan, or of today's combat arms. You sound just like the leftards. Sheesh. I'll put any of you against any of the women in my unit on the BFT and in the field and they'll have all of you puking your guts out after the first five klicks. There is one standard in the army, and tell you what, sunshines, plenty of men can't hack it, but all the women I've encountered in the combat arms can. Shake your heads people, you're firing so far out of your lanes it's hilarious.
Michael Michael Michael, This is 2009,not 1955! You are a pigheaded old fart who believes that women should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen! (Like your wife, mother of your four children) What your opinion really reflects is your poor self-esteem. You are attacking the gender of this soldier's death to somehow state that you are more superior. How small of you to attack a woman in such a disrespectful manner. You should be ashamed of yourself, as an individual, as a man, and as a Canadian.
No Broads Abroad @9:58 -
Rhetorical question.
Plus: Oh blah. Nobody knows why the Neanderthals died off. "Sexual Dimorphism", is it? So were there Neanderthal Amazons? And if there were, how would that argue against women soldiers homo sapiens sapiens, exactly?
Anyway, what's it got to do with anything? Hunting hasn't been primarily a male activity since the cliched dawn of history? (Rhetorical question.)
"should keep your condescending, ignorant, archaic opinions that have no basis on facts or reality to yourself "
Canadian Soldier better watch his attitude when addressing civilians who pay his salary. Uppity bureaucrat. It is not the place of either a soldier or a bureaucrat to take that attitude with a Canadian citizen, especially when they wrong.
"You are a pigheaded old fart who believes that women should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen! "
That was really unnecessary. Not offensive, but unnecessary. This is why women aren't allowed in the military, among other reasons, and why I despise women butting into adult conversations with childish outbursts designed to put men on the defensive. I want women in the kitchen more than ever when I hear women talk like Lori - you're creating a brand new generations of chauvinists, probably deliberately too, so the game will continue and you get your quotas.
You feminists are a cancer on western civilization, orders of magnitude more dangerous than Muslims, at least they aren't trying to sabotage the military from the inside.
No Broads abroad:
Calm yourself, dear.
"Rhetorical question."
It's considered a gay/feminist technique to blurt out a never ending serious of questions and we het males don't recognize it as valid; you're no Socrates ma'am and we're having a grown up conversation - beat it.
Coren basically said that women are more important and valuable than men, so the editorial also was sexist against men.
Yes, well, technically, at least for a little while longer, women are more
important than men. That may change sooner than many of you would like.
Shake your heads people, you're firing so far out of your lanes it's hilarious.
I agree with you, Tanker, right up to the "hilarious" part. It ticks me off too much to be funny.
You don't deploy with a Combat Arms unit unless you can hack it, male or female. The discussion about gender is inane: it's about performance, not reproductive parts.
I have to agree with Tanker, having gone through GMT, there is ONE standard.
What is freedom and liberty about if we start selecting by some eugenic standard whom is allowed to make the ultimate sacrifice for this great country.
My condolences to the Blais family.
The problem has more to do with the lowering of requirements for females in order to meet the employment equity quota. This took place within the RCMP and CSC and has not been a success in spite of what the feminists and PC crowd want us to believe.
If a female can meet all the existing requirements the same as a qualified male and that is what she wants to do, then that is fine with me. Based on the Israeli experience I would however suggest all female units made up of truly qualified females rather than mixing the sexes.
"The discussion about gender is inane"
No, Marxist, you are insane. The reasons against women in the military are well documented and nontrivial.
A History Of Warfare, by John Keegan - you *will* read this book, sir, and you *will* like it, am I clear?
Watch your mouth, radical, when addressing the vast majority of people who oppose your Marxism. Don't get uppity, feminist freak, you are the tiny minority. Your idiocy is going to get us killed, fragger.
You're a Newfie, an Obama supporter, and a feminist, that's three strikes pal, maybe go find a Liberal blog to spew your hate.
Boy, this takes me back. When my combat arms unit received its first draft of female soldiers back in 1989-90 under the CREW (Combat Related Employment for Women) programme courtesy dear old Shirley Robinson, we heard exactly the same arguments. And now, 19 years later, we get the repeat performance. I swear, it's like Groundhog Day. Could we please change the record?
For what it's worth, here's how I came to deal with it during my career. I asked two questions:
(1) Do you want to do the job? and
(2) CAN you do the job?
If the answer to both questions is "yes", then guess what - you get to do the job regardless of what you've got in the way of wedding tackle.
Do I like it? No, I do not. Never have. I'm a Guyosaurus. But that is my problem, not anyone else's.
Women fill combat roles. That's the way it is. It's the 21st Century. Deal with it. Which means you'd also better be prepared to deal with dead female soldiers, too, because soldiering is hard, dangerous work.
News flash for NOW, Shirley Robinson, and the rest of the female empowerment crowd: that girl in a flag-draped coffin means you won. Congratulations.
What really annoys me about this whole discussion is that people keep dragging up the same tired old arguments about push-ups and Ralph Kramden bang-zoom chauvanism. Nobody's addressing what to my mind is the real issue, which is that this female soldier was killed providing stability to a country whose parliamentarians are using that stability, bought with our blood, to pass laws giving Afghan women a choice between submitting to marital rape and being starved by their husbands.
How delightful. Canada has now lost more soldiers in Afghanistan alone than we lost during 50 years of international PK and PSO between the end of the Second World War and 9/11 - and this is the result. Dandy.
Instead of asking whether female soldiers can carry a C-6, maybe we should be asking whether they're pointing it at the right folks over there.
Considering women have pretty much decimated western populations through abortion, I say they should be spearheading front-line operations. You want your most prolific killers making first contact with the enemy right?