sorry - long post. you've read it all before.
 

please go back through my previous 3000+ posts and pick out the one where i even HINTED that this might be true. you can't - because i've never believed or said that - but facts be damned when tw's got a lynching in mind.
proof? source? halfassed biased blog? i don't know, because you keep saying it, without providing any source material. i am not aware of this happening. i am in very close contact with quite a few recruiters, and jacked up things like this usually burn their way through the grapevine pretty quickly. it may be true, but how would i know? am i just supposed to accept tw's fair and balanced statement as fact? second verse, same as the first... remember all those posts of mine? did you see any in there to suggest that i revere him or believe he is the best possible choice? if you find that post, please quote it. the problem is that i've never thought or said that was true... but again, accuracy is overrated - tw is out to make a point and git 'im some o' them conservative scalps. what the hell are you talking about? what political agenda am i pushing here? i think my posts here have been about getting the whole story when talking about the issues. actually, i'm pretty sure the US did, and that has proven to be fairly unpopular. so your point was???

see tw, part of the problem here is that you accept what you see on some websites and maybe hear through the grapevine as fact if it fits neatly into your preconceived framework for the world, while discarding the rest. sometimes the info you get is 100% accurate, sometimes it may be less so. but you come to a conclusion, make a statement, repeat the statement, berate anyone who questions the statement, ignore requests for sources for the statement, then make personal attacks upon the person who asked for the source.

over the last year, we have gone 'round and 'round more times than i can count, and more times than the rest of the cellarites wish to remember. why? i suppose it is because i am just dumb and immature enough to get baited into your pissing matches. any discussion with you brings me back to the same conclusion - the problem in america isn't that people are so different or that different ideas are a bad thing. it is just that some people refuse to even consider that their position or idea may be incorrect or less-than-perfect in some way. you are one of those people. you refuse to answer any questions posed of you, choosing instead to insult the person who questions you. are you afraid that looking deeper at your own ideas might make some cracks in your foundational ideas suddenly become visible to you? just consider it. i'm not telling you that you are wrong, only that you will have better, more fruitful discussions if you consider that you might not always be right. you are guilty of the exact same mentality that the limbaugh/hannity clones hold - "if you aren't with me, then you are my enemy."

i have been wrong (more frequently than i even know), and i am aware of that. i try to keep that in mind in any discussion that i have. my perspective and forecast for the future may be incorrect - that is a large part of why i like the cellar so much. there are so many different perspectives to consider from a well informed, diverse group of people. i won't always change my mind, but every little bit of info has to go through the filter and help me organize my beliefs about _____subject. challenge is good.

because i don't know you IRL i don't know if this is really how you approach life, or if this is just your internet persona. as time goes on your facade of the unemotional, just the facts, warrior for justice erodes more and more. at this rate it won't be long before you can be summed up as a simple troll.

Therein lies part of the problem ... you may have noted that the soldier has the same last name as her father, and the baby does not. One might speculate from the information in the article that her baby daddy is/was in Japan? But of course you can't cashier someone for fraternizing and getting knocked up, can you? Maybe dad was of her same rank?

unless it is officer/enlisted relationship it isn't fraternization. that is illegal.

enlisted/enlisted, officer/officer is acceptable as long as they aren't in the same chain of command.

I'm all for women, gays, any orientation voluntarily joining up, trained and equipt well, and serving in any and all capacitites. It will be interesting to see how the recruitment pressures may alter these policies- with the threat of draft potentially looming.

Here's an interesting article about the legislative attempt and legislative backpedal to keep women away from combat. In Iraq, thats not really possible, its all combat.
So is the need for any/all soldiers more than the need to control the public perception of dead young women soldiers and conservative religious views? A little Republican on Republican action.
sexism and hiding the cost of war

When G. Gordon Liddy was uncomfortably sandwiched between Howard Stern and Don and Mike in DC, I'd occasionally tune in. One of his arguments against women in combat was that Americans didn't want to see uteruses scattered around the battlefield.

I gotta say he's right about that, but I'm not much keener to see penises scattered around the battlefield either.

That G. Gordon Liddy attracts anything but laughter and derision baffles me.

from my perspective, the public voices against women in combat operations are just foolishly pounding a drum to a beat they don't understand.

i am not opposed to women in combat. i am opposed to having women shuffled into combat arms positions without volunteering. i am opposed to having a selective service for women.

that being said, there is one major negative to women in combat. they are fully capable of doing the same job as the men are. tiny 5 ft nothing ladies don't volunteer for the airborne so i'm not worried about any physical issues. i am considered about the psychological issue. it was a horrible movie, but GI JANE had one scene that was very accurate. the scene was when Vigo M. said that the problem with women in combat isn't with the women, it is with the men. most men could not handle women being severely wounded, etc.. in their presence. most guys i know have an instinctive expectation that women are to be protected - sometimes that is incompatible with the appropriate actions in a combat situation.

chauvanistic? maybe, but it is true. the men will just have to get over it, if women want to be in a combat role.

I am rather surprised at a pragmatic attitude from lookout123. This issue has mystified me for some time now. From my emotions, I agree with Vigo M's assertions. But then that is also where my racism comes from - first impressions. The logical me has had doubts for some time. Is the problem of 'women on the line' based upon a man's response? Maybe. But where is the research - the necessary facts?

For example, why does the soldier fight? For god and country? Bull - only in a world of extremist liberals and neocons. #1 reason - soldier fights to protect his buddies. They are all just more muddy souls - black or white, man or women, eyes, hair, size, whatever. The bond must be made 'brain to brain' - the bias of external features eliminated. Each has unique strengths and weaknesses. They are all Storm Troopers for the Republic. Good buddies - man or woman - must not matter? When the Storm Trooper in the latest Star Wars movie had a buddy down, what did he do? He stopped fighting and took care of his buddy. Even mindless soldiers called Storm Trooper do that. Why would it matter if it was a man or women? IOW where are the facts so necessary before expressing an opinion?

It’s convenient to have an emotional response. Then one need not perform reading and research. Meanwhile, others demand facts?

Do I express an opinion yes or no? If you think so, then you also have this problem I so often confront. It’s a ternary world. Others unfortunately may assume the world is binary - and ttherefore assume I have expressed an opinion.

I bring one observation to the table. When running volunteer groups, groups with all women (at least at the teenager age) work best. Strength has nothing to do with physical size or testosterone. Mixed groups or groups of all guys don't always work as productively. This is rather a change from the seventies - using my perspective - when the guys did every crap job and never complained. My bias? I came from a circle and community where accomplishment was so 'inbrained' (yes I know it is suppose to be ingrained) that we literally were #1 or #2 in every athletic sport. So maybe I have some unreasonable 1960s bias that distorts my perceptions. But when it comes to getting jobs done today, the worst jobs were performed successfully by groups numerically dominated by women.

It is my perception - an observation - that today's teenage women are tougher than today's teenage men. I never ask anyone to do anything I would not and have not done. And yet some guys will literally give up on what the old man would still do.

Ok. I have stated what was observed. Are women in military combat a problem? My gut feeling is - no definitive answer. Now where are the studies?

Those with a political agenda - those who fear to first learn - would keep women far away from combat? It's called equality verses a quitter’s attitude. Until they can prove this is a problem (logically or pragmatically), then they better damn well prove they don't have some extremist agenda. Currently there is no good reason that some soldiers should be banned from any military duty only based upon sex. Its time to learn what we all can and cannot accomplish. Until we have facts, extremist politicians should button their propaganda holes. Time to first provide real facts (and do the research) rather then let Rush Limbaugh reasoning dominate the issue. The concepts cited in GI Jane are based upon fiction. Many fiction writers fail to first do two years of research. GI Jane only asks a question - and provides no facts. Where are the facts?

Meanwhile, using same speculations, lookout123 also condemns Mark Felt for doing what we now konw was so important in perserving the US Constituion. That too is a fact only made even more obvious by recent releases of the Nixon tapes (which I believe can be listened to in the U of Maryland library). Nixon was so bad that Mark Felt deserves nothing but praise. Facts again in the face of lookout123's emotional attitudes.

once again, tw WTF are you talking about? i don't revere Mark Felt the way you do, so i must be making emotional assumptions? his work in helping bring down a crooked politician is a positive. i still think that he could and should have done it a better way. that's just me though, you are free to think whatever you want - just don't make the assumption that because my thoughts differ from your own that i must be irrational and wrong.

did you even read my post toward the top of the page? or is this just another example of you choosing to ignore something that hits a little close to home?

and about providing proof for male reactions to the presence of female danger on the battlefield - you know as well as anyone that it is unproveable one way or the other. human emotion and reaction to these stresses is unquantifiable. in that area, i will have to go back to my experiences in the military in deployed situations over the last 13 years - i'm the air force so most of our jobs aren't classified as combat (which means we have women in almost every job) and yet, we have been in combat zones frequently. i stand by my earlier post.

The bible does not tell you how to regard whistle blowers. And since whistle blowers are a threat to a lying president, then Mark Felt must be evil. That is clearly what you have posted. You are just trying to be too politically correct to be honest.

"WTF" - clearly there is a devil in you. Or are you just being emotional (angry) again. God may smite you. Be careful what you post.

well, there's a hell of a way to answer questions, i suppose. :crazy:

Just as George Jr stood by claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction? Anyone can use emotions to conclude anything. But if women in combat was such a problem, then the problem can even be quantified. Lookout123 instead would have us believe it cannot be quantified. Rush Limbaugh type propaganda.

No facts exist or prove that women in combat is a problem, just as there are not facts in lookout123's reasoning. He just *feels* it must be true. That is sufficient for him to declare it a fact.

And so we have the same logic that also justifies evolution. "I feel, therefore it must be true".

yep, that is exactly what i said. way to summarize. don't know what the world would do without you,pal. :grouphug:

All problems must be quantifiable or they are not problems? What a binary view of the world.

Your gut feeling? Holy shit, that sounds exactly like something you FEEL. You're such an emotional basket-case tw.

You want emotion?
Deep Throat was a God. I worshipped him with countless bowls of incense.
It was a dark and scary time for anyone that knew what the Nixon White House was doing to this country.
Eroding democracy at a prodigious rate in three ways:

1- Using public office for private enrichment.
Let’s see…damn cobwebs….grain scandal, ITT scandal, several housing scandals, federal Bank Charter scandal, suddenly aborted anti-trust suits. Oh yeah, the milk deal, blatantly blackmailing the Dairy Farmers Assoc for several hundred grand in campaign donations before raising the federal price supports on milk.
There have always been politicians that lined their pockets while in office, but they did so in whispers, clandestinely and if it became public knowledge most of them slithered away or were summarily dismissed.
Tricky Dick & Company, however, were blatantly out in the open with their systematic fouling of the democratic system for personal gain.

2-Secret campaign funds kept offshore.
A large network of spies, burglars, security coordinators and saboteurs, bugging phones, wiring offices, forging documents and carrying guns to intimidate anyone questioning them.
All this with blessings from the very top crook.

3-Usurping constitutional powers by the White House.
Invading Cambodia and bombing Laos on Nixon’s say so, without the advice and consent of Congress.
Instead of vetoing bills he didn’t support and then live with the decision of Congress on an override vote, Nixon ordered an Executive Impoundment of funding for federal programs he didn’t like.
Something like 25 billion dollars worth. (That’s early 1970s dollars)

There was a war going on….and on….and on, with no likely end. It became apparent that winning was out of the question. They weren’t even trying to win just stop the commies from winning.
Besides, war is handy for taking those colored boys, redneck hillbillies, and long haired hippie types and making good citizens out of them. The Army does that you know.
Since Johnson declared we could have “guns and butter,” most middle class and up families weren’t affected too much other than the evening news was not conducive to watching during supper.
Oh they might lose a son here and there but more likely the maid’s son, gardener’s son or car mechanic’s son.

People, like my parents, coming from very humble beginnings and rising with the post WW II prosperity to become the middleclass, were living better that they had hoped to and were making the payments on time.
They still believed in the government and certainly didn’t want to rock their financial boat.
They were scared to death of communism, the bomb and hippies.

Except for a few screams in the night, the only recognition that all this shit was going on and more importantly it was WRONG, was the Washington Post/Woodward/Bernstein/Deep Throat.
To suggest Deep Throat could have gone to Congress or the Press is silly.
IF THEY KNEW WHO HE WAS THEY WOULD NOT HAVE EXAMINED THE FACTS.
They’d have shot the messenger. :(

I’ve made the same plea here in the Cellar. Read the post – evaluate it on its merits – don’t disregard good information because you don’t like or trust the person posting.
Even we idiots are right, sometimes even brilliant, on rare occasions.

Anyway, Deep Throat was a God that shone like a beacon in a dark and stormy night. :notworthy