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Emsyth()pinion
Women in the military:
Time to end
inequality
combat on a variety of
grounds, including claims
that women lack the neces
sary strength and stamina
for such assignments and
that their presence in male
units would damage the
vital esprit de corps com
manders depend on to
maintain unit cohesion.
Many of these arguments
echo ones previously used
to justify the exclusion of
African-Americans and
gays from combat.
But in fact, there is no
more evidence to suggest
that integrating women
into previously all-male
units or occupations has
had a negative impact on
military effectiveness in
Iraq and Afghanistan than
there was to support the
segregation of blacks dur
ing World War 11. On the
contrary, the most recent
study by a Defense
Department advisory panel
that examined the issue
found that women serving
in those theaters today
actually had a positive
impact on their units’ abil
ity to accomplish their
missions.
In 2012, the Pentagon
began implementing plans
to officially open 14,325
jobs previously closed to
women as the result of
changes to a 1994 policy
that barred them from
serving in direct ground
combat units below the
brigade level. But they are
still excluded from assign
ments at the platoon and
squad levels that form the
tip of the military spear.
Nor do they get credit for
their combat experience
that would help them to
advance to the higher lev
els of command.
As a matter of fairness,
women ought to have the
same opportunities as men
to achieve high rank if they
are equally qualified. For
the military to cease dis
criminating solely on the
basis of gender ought to be
a logical consequence of
its recognition of the roles
women have been playing
all along in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Even if the military
were completely integrat
ed by gender, many
women still probably
wouldn’t rush to join
combat units. Others
might not be able to meet
the physical requirements
for those posts. But that’s
no reason to exclude those
who can. Ultimately, a
policy based solely on
ability would create a
stronger military that is
more reflective of the s
country’s diversity and
one in which fitness to
serve is based on merit,
not gender.
The following editorial
appeared in the Baltimore
Sunon Jan. 11:
Thousands of military
jobs have opened up to
“women in fecent years, but
not those in the front-line
combat units. That may
soon change, however, as a
result of a lawsuit brought
late last year by four
female veterans of the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars,
including Staff Sgt.
Jennifer Hunt of
Gaithersburg, Md.
Their complaint alleges
.that banning women from
combat roles solely on the
basis of their gender vio
lates the Equal Protection
Clause of the Constitution
and restricts women’s
opportunities for career
advancement and higher
earnings and pensions. It’s
time to end this discrimi
natory policy, which not
only is unfair to military
women who want to serve
their country but also fails
to acknowledge the chang
ing reality of warfare.
Today, women make up
15 percent of America’s
1.4 million active-duty ser
vice members, and some
200,000 have served in the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
More than 130 women
have died in those con
flicts, while an additional
800 were wounded.
In counter-insurgency
campaigns, where the
distinction between front
lines and rear areas are
all but meaningless,
women have frequently
found themselves in situ
ations involving direct
contact with the enemy,
even though they were
formally assigned to
combat support roles.
The Pentagon needs to
face up to the fact that
women are in the direct
line of fire and give them
the credit for their service
they have earned.
At various times in the
past, some women have
deliberately sought combat
assignments, though often
they had to disguise them
selves as men to conceal
their identity; as many as
several hundred women
are thought to have served
this way during the
American Civil War.
Women served in the two
world wars of the last cen
tury in air defense units
that shot down thousands
of enemy fliers, and the
former Soviet Union also
used them as snipers and
as combat pilots. But their
service in these roles was
largely forgotten after
1945.
Since then, the world’s
militaries have justified the
exclusion of women from
CARTOONISTS' VIEWS ONTHE NEWS
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Lee Judge The Kansas City Star
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we say we're serious about ethics reform?”
. Jim Powell for the Forsyth County News
Legislators face choices
There is not an infinite amount
of money in Georgia’s annual
budget. At the most, legislators
will have a little more than sl9
billion in state revenue to spend
on the programs that are funded.
Because there are a limited
number of tax dollars to allocate,
lawmakers have to.make hard
decisions about what they will pay
for and what they will discard.
We have seen that hard choice
being made over the past decade.
The General Assembly and the
governor made the choice to give
dozens of tax breaks to corpora
tions and special interest groups
during that 10-year period, in the
purported belief that these finan
cial incentives would help “create
| Jobs
Legislators are required by the
constitution to adopt a balanced
budget every year. When you
grant that many tax breaks, you
have to pay for them somehow.
Our elected leadership effective
ly paid for those tax breaks by
cutting off state funds to local
school systems. Since Sonny
Perdue became governor in 2003,
Georgia has enacted a series of
“‘austerity cuts” to education that
reduced state funding to local
schools by a combined total of
more than $5 billion.
You can have some enlightening
debates as to whether this was the
best choice we could have made
for the state’s future well-being,
but it was the choice that legisla
tors made.
As the latest session of the
General Assembly gets under way,
lawmakers find themselves with
another interesting choice to make
about their state’s future.
They will be asked to pass a bill
that would allow the Georgia
World Congress Center Authority
to spend S3OO million in hotel
motel tax revenue on a new stadi
um for Arthur Blank and his
Atlanta Falcons football franchise.
Under the deal that is being pri
vately negotiated with Blank’s
attorneys — you don’t get to
[
TOM CRAWFORD
Columnist
‘Legislators are
required by the consti
tution to adopt a bal
anced budget every
year. When you grant
that many tax breaks,
you have to pay for
them somehow.’
watch the negotiations, even
though your tax dollars are at
stake —the Falcons will not only
get that S3OO million to help build
the stadium, they will also retain
all the revenue generated in it.
At the same time they are mull
ing that proposal to give state tax
money to one of the wealthiest
individuals in Georgia, legislators
will also be confronted with a
decision to make about the
Medicaid program that provides
health care services for low
income families.
The legislature adopted a
Medicaid provider fee — also
known as a hospital bed tax — in
2010 to provide additional funds
for the health care program. Each
hospital pays a 1.45 percent tax on
their net patient revenue, and the
money brings in about S4OO mil
lion a year in federal matching
funds that help pay for Medicaid
services.
The provider fee will expire this
year unless the General Assembly
passes and Gov. Nathan Deal
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Kevin Siers The Charlotte Observer
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. chqodcolum and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
signs a bill to extend it. If the tax
is not renewed, the financially |
stressed Medicaid program will be
in deeper trouble and hospitals in
rural areas that depend on ,
Medicaid payments likely will be -
forced to close.
The bed tax is paid by hospitals
and the state’s three major hospi
tal groups are united in their sup
port of it: the Georgia Hospital
Association, the Georgia Alliance
of Community Hospitals and the
rural hospital group Home Town
Health.
Deal and House Speaker David
Ralston also agree that some type
of provider fee will need to be
enacted to keep Medicaid afloat
and allow rural hospitals to con
tinue operating. They are facing
powerful opposition, however,
from anti-tax activist Grover
Norquist, the Washington-based
figure who has persuaded dozens
of elected officials to sign pledges
that they won'’t ever vote to raise
taxes.
“The hospital bed tax is bad
policy for Georgia and bad for our
country,” Norquist said last fall in .
a letter to legislators warning them
not to renew the provider fee. “A
vote in favor of extending the bed
tax is a violation of the Taxpayer .
Protection Pledge.” :
Georgia’s lawmakers.have some
important choices to make. Is a
football stadium for an NFL team
owned by a billionaire more
Important to our citizens than
keeping rural hospitals open? Do
legislators owe their allegiance to
the people who voted to put them |,
in office, or to a political crank in
Washington, D.C.?
The choices they make on these
vital issues will say a lot about the
future prosperity of this state.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia
Report, an internet news service at
gareport.com that reports on govern
ment and politics in Georgia. He can
be reached at tcrawford@gareport.
com.