Two days after the 2nd inauguration of President Obama, another historical decision has been made by his administration that will enshrine him as one of our great presidents.
On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the abolishment of a ban that prohibits women from serving in combat roles. While I am most certainly anti-war, this is a major advancement for women in the military, and will open up thousands of opportunities for the women who serve our country in the Armed Forces.
Details are still sketchy, however:
Defense officials offered few details about Mr. Panetta’s decision but described it as the beginning of a process to allow the branches of the military to put the change into effect. Defense officials said Mr. Panetta had made the decision on the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Women have long chafed under the combat restrictions and have increasingly pressured the Pentagon to catch up with the reality on the battlefield. The move comes as Mr. Panetta is about to step down from his post and would leave him with a major legacy after only 18 months in the job.
The decision clearly fits into the broad and ambitious liberal agenda, especially around matters of equal opportunity, that President Obama laid out this week in his Inaugural Address. But while it had to have been approved by him, and does not require action by Congress, it appeared Wednesday that it was in large part driven by the military itself. Some midlevel White House staff members were caught by surprise by the decision, indicating that it had not gone through an extensive review there.
According to ABC News, the policy change could take effect as early as May:
“We certainly want to see this executed responsibly but in a reasonable time frame, so I would hope that this doesn’t get dragged out,” said former Marine Capt. Zoe Bedell, who joined a recent lawsuit aimed at getting women on the battlefield.
The military services also will have until January 2016 to seek waivers for certain jobs — but those waivers will require a personal approval from the secretary of defense and will have to be based on rationales other than the direct combat exclusion rule.
The move is based on recommendations from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January:
Mr. Panetta’s decision came after he received a Jan. 9 letter from Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stated in strong terms that the armed service chiefs all agreed that “the time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.”
And that strange sloshing sound you hear? Well, that is the sound of the Republican masses few who have soiled their pants with the realization that the age of destructive, discriminatory and sexist conservatism may now truly be at an end, or at least, experiencing its last, lonely death rattle.
About Beth
Fantastic! Another feather in the cap of our Dear Leader. Now both genders can both become the victims of an illegal and hegemonic policy! Along with the passage of the NDAA, the renewal of both The Patriot Act and FISA laws and the constant giveaways to all the big banks, will there ever be a limit to what this administration is capable of “achieving”?!??!.
BRAVO Mr. President! BRAVO!!!
I don’t necessarily disagree with the sentiment of your comment, nick sykes, but from the point of view of equality for women, this is a big deal. Perhaps with more women in leadership roles in the military we can change our policies from the inside out.
Yes of course. Listen to Madelaine Albright’s confession regarding killing children as being “worth it” in our fight against terrorism and justifying it as collateral damage. Hillary doesn’t seem to have any reservations with Barack’s foreign policy as well as the drone attacks continue. Maggie Thatcher was nicknamed “The Iron Lady”.
The kids who are the victims of drone attacks are being slaughtered just as savagely as the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting were yet no prominent political individual of either gender – or party – seems to be making that correlation. Having women participate in the ugliness of war will only harden them till any semblence of humanity they possessed is soon forgotten. Of all the generations of men who have seen the horrors of battle from the inside out one would’ve thought that by now this hideous pursuit would be revealed as the anachronism that it really is; instead, we seem to moving in the opposite direction and making the case for the glorification of war. Justice and tolerance aren’t the exclusive domain of either gender; conversely, neither gender can claim a monopoly as to the antithesis of these same qualities.
C’mon Beth. In allowing women to participate in combat you may take a step forward in the feminist cause but the bigger picture is is that it’s several giant steps backward for the cause of humanity. I don’t think this policy was so much a moral decision as it was a way to increase the number of recruits for a never-ending policy of war. For every moment of glory and perceived virtue gained on the battlefield there is a multi-fold downside in the way of psychological trauma and physical handicaps as a result of engagement.
Let me ask you an honest question: If you tale away the component of the “lip service” this administration has lent to the gay community, is there any endeavor this President has fulfilled that has the semblence of actual positive change? Personally I see it as nothing more than a continuation of the same policies that have been in effect since the Kennedy assasination – the pursuit of all the interests of the Military/Industrial complex in the guise of a charming – yet ineffective – leader of the common man.
Getting savagely punched with a velvet glove is still a savage punch nonetheless. I would suggest that one view these problems through the prism of humanity instead of the sometimes myopic view of what is best for the feminist community.