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Showing posts with label Ralph Peters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ralph Peters. Show all posts

Sergeant Rock-ette


Sergeant rock-ette

By RALPH PETERS
Last Updated:10:57 PM, January 24, 2013
Posted:10:11 PM, January 24, 2013
Listen up, men at arms: Stop whining. You sound like a bunch of girls.
Our military is not going to collapse because more combat-related jobs will be opened to women. I’ve heard instant griping from old vets and talk-show pundits since this story broke, but the fact is that the gals with guns are already in the fight to a far greater extent than yesteryear’s rules foresaw. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s decision largely recognizes existing reality.
Anyway, it’s going to happen, like it or not.
So those of us who care about our military and its combat effectiveness need to stop wailing and start working to make sure the admission of women to more combat-focused military specialties is done right.
Because thereisone serious danger, as well as a number of lesser concerns, that could do real damage if we screw this up.
First, it’sessentialthat physical standards not be lowered to allow women to qualify for point-of-the-bayonet positions. And not all of the women who apply will measure up.
Some of our trigger-pullers hump 120 pounds as they scale those Afghan ridges. You can’t give some soldiers a special dispensation to carry half that weight, or the other members of the squad or team have to lug even more. Want fairness? Start here.
The integration of women into our military to date has been overwhelmingly positive, but there have been undeniable downsides that we should learn from. One example: When the Army integrated basic training a generation ago, physical requirements were lowered for everybody (we pretended otherwise). We now have the chubbiest, tubbiest military since Sgt. Bilko. Physical toughness should be requirement No. 1 foreverysoldier or Marine.
(The gender integration of basic training also destroyed the folk-poetry tradition of magnificently obscene, hilariously inventive marching and running cadences — political correctness killed those wonderful “jodies.”)
On the other hand, the Neanderthals among us have to recognize that more than a few women in uniform have not only participated in combat, but performed heroically. In the Military Police Corps, convoy escort duty often led to ambushes and firefights in Iraq. No-nonsense female NCOs won medals for bravery leading men in combat.
What ultimately matters is who can fight. This can’t be about gender above all. It has to be competence-driven.
Which brings us to another potential problem: Our military already has barely disguised promotion quotas for women and minorities. And while our military should be (and long has been) about equal opportunity, it suffers when used for politically driven affirmative action.
Not only do promotions made for the sake of political correctness cheat competent soldiers, they also cast an unfair shadow over the many first-rate officers and NCOs who just happen to be women or minorities. Nor should we prolong a system in which a male soldier is fired and gone, but a female soldier has recourse to endless protests. That’s not fairness — that’s bigotry.
A last issue is that activists who want the world their way demand impossibly perfect behavior from those in uniform. Sorry: If you put physically rambunctious young people in prolonged intimate proximity to one another during their peak years of sexual energy, the platoon isn’t going to pass for a Baptist seminary. Sexual abuse cannot be tolerated, but we do have to show some understanding for stupidity and oafishness among 19-year-olds.
And the guy isn’t automatically the guilty party.
Back to the first point: Don’t lower standards, physical or ethical. If standards are maintained with rigor, the force will be OK. The services have until 2016 to pound out the details. Senior generals and admirals will have to show some backbone on this issue — and backbone hasn’t been their salient characteristic in recent years.
Who’s going to be disappointed? Some women will measure up, while others will do their best and fail (as men do). But the truly crestfallen are apt to be the activists who expect women to flock to combat-related positions in huge numbers.
They won’t. Surveys of military women show that, although dedicated, they don’t long to join the Infantry.
But to that GI Jane who proves she can hump her own gear plus the mortar base plate: You go, girl.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army enlisted man and officer.
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Bam's Benghazi Lies

By Ralph Peters
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
November 5, 2012


To get to the truth, connect the lies. Do what intel analysts and detectives do: Build a scenario from the facts and watch the lies blink red. And when anyone tells as many lies as this administration has told about its Benghazi debacle, you get a Christmas tree.
A three-act drama emerges from the facts that have leaked out. It starts ugly and turns hideous.
Act One:Our personnel in Libya worried for months about security, repeatedly petitioning the State Department for enhanced protection, especially for Benghazi. Requests denied.
Why? In Iraq, the State Department played tough guy, hiring mercenaries who gunned down innocent locals to “protect their packages” (our diplomats were the least diplomatic people we had in Baghdad). When Secretary Hillary Clinton took over, she moved, to her credit, to dump the psychos.
But the pendulum swung to the other extreme. Security issues became the preserve of soft-power lefties who despise our military. Putting more trust in local gunmen than in the US Marines, they got Ambassador Chris Stevens killed. “Small footprint,” indeed.
The White House bears no blame for this stage. Security for diplomatic posts doesn’t makeanypresident’s briefing calendar. Blame State and Mrs. Clinton.
Act Two:We now know, almost minute by minute, what happened in Benghazi. We know (as the White House knewimmediately) that there was no riot. The attack had nothing to do with that goofball video.
What matters isn’t just what happened in Benghazi, tragic though it was. What matters to our country is what happened in the White HousethisSept. 11: All the president’s men panicked.
Instead of asking themselves what they coulddoin Benghazi, their priority was what they couldsayin Washington.
Obama had campaigned as the great bin Laden-slayer. Now he faced a major terror attack on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. The “tough-on-terror” president had let down the nation’s guard on the one day of every year when an Islamist terror attack is most likely.
His “White House plumbers” didn’t think about the danger over there, but about the election over here. They flailed about for a way to blame the security lapse on anything but their policies. And somebody said,Hey, that Cairo demonstration was about, like, this video thing. Just say the Benghazi stuff was, like, the same and it got out of hand.
The words may not be exact, but I’d bet you a falafel sandwich they nail the essence. And the coverup began, focused not on strategic needs, but on political expediency.
Why no attempt at a military rescue? I don’t think one could have gotten there in time — this was hard — but, jeez, we should havetried. Yet the White House feared escalating the situation and elevating the story (great work, guys!). A Benghazi rescue mission was less important than rescuing the election.
The panicked decision to tell that first big lie precipitated all the other lies that followed (and the media’s disgraceful collusion). That near-sighted, self-absorbed decision to promote an obscure video as the cause of the attack also gave the video global publicity — whichdidlead to widespread rioting and deaths.
The second act ends with that shameless White House whopper: “The video did it.”
Act Three:It’s the old “hubby did something really dumb and lied to the wife about it” scenario. One lie is never enough. Other lies must be told to defend the first lie.
If the strategic shenanigans were inept, this White House showed its Chicago side when it came to shielding the president. The director of National Intelligence and the CIA director may have been pressured to support the lies told to Congress and the American people about the Benghazi debacle.
Let me be clear:Nointelligence professional could have believed that a complex attack with accurate mortar fire, heavy weapons, a detailed scheme of maneuver and well-placed roadblocks popped out of a flash mob.
But the professionals were silenced as intel-community political appointees toed the “blame the video” line until it became clear that the emperor not only lacked clothes, but hadn’t bathed in a while. Now the finger-pointing has begun (note to former four-star generals: You aren’t tough enough for this brand of politics).
This White House has several protective rings. The president fills the innermost ring, defended at all costs. His morning-after remarks (before he flew off to a Las Vegas fund-raiser) were beautifully crafted to commit him to nothing at all. Hillary’s in the second ring, with a few others. She has to be protected, too (at least until Bill does his part for the campaign).
Everybody else is disposable, even Obama pal Susan Rice, our UN ambassador, who was shoved out on the world stage to lie.
The administration ruthlessly pursued two goals: Stonewall until America votes, then drag things out until the story withers. The political hacks have gotten away with the first one.
The lies continue, although they twist and turn as facts emerge — White House spokesman Jay Carney’s so shameless he’s bound to end up with his own reality show. And the president, while refusing to risk a press conference, won’t associate the attack with Islamist extremism (“workplace violence,” perhaps?).
Watergate’s starting to look small-time. Now we’re only waiting for “Son of Deep Throat.” Meanwhile, Congress must put our top intelligence-agency political appointees under oath and ask them, “What did you know and when did you know it?”
Expect a “Saturday Night Massacre” if this president is re-elected. Heads are going to roll. The wrong heads. But as a better president learned, the lies don’t go away when you dump the bodies.
Barack Hussein Nixon?
Ralph Peters is Fox News' Strategic Analyst and a former Military Intelligence officer with tactical and strategic experience.
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