RUTHFULLY YOURS

When you’re a Western wimp and your wife and children are safely tucked up in bed, thugs, pillagers, rapists and killers are waiting their opportunity. Happily, warriors are on guard. In suburban areas police are the warriors; at the borders, soldiers; on the high seas, sailors; and in the air, pilots. We need these warriors. Death, degradation and enslavement wait for those silly enough to think they can do without them.

Warriors are not necessarily the nicest of guys in polite company. They sometimes get up to unsavoury things frowned on by society. In the past, in the army, this might have resulted in pack drill, spud-bashing or latrine duty. These days, in our increasingly effeminate culture, it may result in being drummed out of the service.

Another thing, if we need reminding, is that warriors are men, despite Hollywood’s recent infatuation with heroic female leads. In saying this, I acknowledge two things: One, there are exceptions. Two, women are equal with men before God (and men therefore have no right to think otherwise) but women are not the same as men and pretending that they are puts our survival at risk.

I want to contrast two events.

The first is the mass march of Russian troops commemorating seventy years since VE day. It was a potent and intimidatory display. There may have been some women in the march but I didn’t see them.

The second is retiring Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison being interviewed by Leigh Sales (7.30 program) on May 11. My responses follow each of the transcript’s italicised excerpts.

“I think the nation would want its Defence Force reflective of its contemporary society…we’re still at just over 12 per cent of our Army workforce being female. That’s far too low. It makes lousy use of the talent on offer in 51 per cent of Australia’s population, women.” 

The Army is not the place for affirmative action. Of course, women have a role to play but the army is not there to provide them with a career path. The sole and only reason taxpayers’ pay so much to have an army is to fight baddies who, in case anyone is under any misapprehension, will be men.

General Morrison also made this astounding statement:

“I don’t think that there’s a military solution to anything. I think that the use of military force is appropriate where a government decides that that is, you know, the tool of statecraft that they’ll use, but throughout recorded time, there’s been – there’s never been a military solution to anything.”

He obviously forgot about Waterloo; the Second World War; the American Civil War; about the Korean War which kept South Korea free; and about many other conflicts, ask the Israelis, where only war prevented annihilation or tyranny. If war is no solution, maybe women negotiators can be employed to bring ISIS to heel?

And this equally astounding statement  in response Ms Sales reminding the General that he had described the Anzac legend as a double-edged sword:

“Well, I mean, it is one of the great iconic narratives, Anzac, but some of the stories we tell ourselves about Anzac: overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon — if those stories are given an undue emphasis, then how do you attract into today’s ranks men and women who aren’t male, who aren’t Anglo-Saxon, who aren’t rough-hewn country lads…”

I wonder what military campaigns we can hold up as inspirational these days? Presumably, potential recruits will be inspired only if we find a battle where men, women, Aboriginals, the ethnicity of recent arrivals, gays, lesbians and mixed genders were appropriately represented in the front line. It is beyond hooey; nothing more can be said.

Debilitating political correctness is overwhelming common sense. It is bad enough when it invades business life; it is worse when it invades schools and universities; it is absolutely self-destructive when it invades the armed forces.

The enemy will always be male. They will not have one iota of political correctness in their makeup. Women are at most risk. Warrior men are needed to keep them safe; and always will be.

Peter Smith, a frequent Quadrant Online contributor, is the author of Bad Economics