This morning’s New York Times reports: “At least four women serving in the American military, including three marines, are among the six known dead in a suicide car bombing in Falluja on Thursday. . . . Eleven women were also among the 13 marines wounded in the strike. . . . [that] military officials suspect was carefully planned and might have been aimed at the women.” The Washington Post reports: “According to a Marine statement, female Marines ‘play a vital role providing security at the entry control points’ of Fallujah. ‘They search female Iraqi moving through checkpoints. Female Marines are employed in this role in order to be respectful of Iraqi cultural sensitivities.’”

Why must American cultural sensitivities be demolished in order not to offend Iraqi ones? We obviously aren’t buying a reciprocal respect.

The Pentagon dismisses the unprecedented number of female casualties in Iraq as a consequence of a lethal environment without clear battlelines where our women in uniform are necessarily vulnerable. We’re told that women might as well be deployed on dangerous missions because they’re not entirely safe anywhere near the violent provinces. Yet over 250 contractors have been killed in Iraq and women and children have been indiscriminately targeted, and we’re not resigned to civilians’ being fair game. During the Vietnam War, 11 women in the U.S. military serving in non-combatant positions were killed. We didn’t conclude that women in uniform should therefore serve in forward positions.

About a dozen years ago, although it seems like far longer, when asked whether women should serve in combat, one of the service chiefs said, “I don’t think old men should send young women to war.” A different crop of old men is running things now.