A New Horror of War

FROM the comfortable safety of editorial offices, the capture of Specialist Shoshana Johnson by Iraqi irregulars is heralded as a welcome opportunity for someone else’s daughter to face violent abuse or a horrific death on “equal footing” with the men in her company. In its editorial, “The Pinking of the Armed Forces,” the New York Times laments that even more military women don’t face a lethal threat, because the United States “is simply a laggard on the topic of women in combat.” In a Washington Post op-ed, the normally sensible Anne Applebaum declares that “the argument about women in combat is over,” since two female sailors were killed in the bombing of the USS Cole, women are engaging the enemy in Iraq, and ““American civilization has not collapsed as a result.”

So women soldiers are just like men soldiers, right? Wrong. Some are now arguing that the military—just like law firms and newsrooms—should get with the program and accommodate young mothers by offering generous leaves and sparing them deployments.

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Kate O'Beirne

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FROM the comfortable safety of editorial offices, the capture of Specialist Shoshana Johnson by Iraqi irregulars is heralded as a welcome opportunity for someone else’s daughter to face violent abuse or a horrific death on “equal footing” with the men in her company. In its editorial, “The Pinking of the Armed Forces,” the New York Times laments that even more military women don’t face a lethal threat, because the United States “is simply a laggard on the topic of women in combat.” In a Washington Post op-ed, the normally sensible Anne Applebaum declares that “the argument about women in combat is over,” since two female sailors were killed in the bombing of the USS Cole, women are engaging the enemy in Iraq, and ““American civilization has not collapsed as a result.”

So women soldiers are just like men soldiers, right? Wrong. Some are now arguing that the military—just like law firms and newsrooms—should get with the program and accommodate young mothers by offering generous leaves and sparing them deployments.