WND EXCLUSIVE
CANDIDATES 'UNSERIOUS, POLITICALLY CORRECT' ABOUT NATIONAL SECURITY
Survey seeks to pinpoint positions on women in combat, religious liberty, more
Bob Unruh
One of the biggest headaches facing the next president, thanks to the current president’s policies, will be to rebuild and restore the American military; but according to a group that advocates for the armed forces, several of the candidates simply are “unserious” and “politically correct” on the issue.
WND reported when survey results first were released by officials with the Center for Military Readiness that it was clear troops wouldn’t “get much help from former Sen. Hillary Clinton, Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, or other Democratic candidates who are on record in support of liberal policies that are doing great harm.”
That left GOP hopefuls, but the first report noted that only Sen. Rick Santorum had responded right away, and he said he would exempt women from direct ground combat and that he believes the military is not place for “social experimentation” by LGBT activists.
“No place should the right to free exercise of religion be more welcomed and encouraged than in our nation’s military. Attempts to infringe or discriminate against faith-based beliefs cannot be tolerated,” he said.
But he’s since dropped out of the race.
Sen. Ted Cruz’s response followed, and he said would review Obama’s social engineering policies, continue to exempt women from the draft and direct combat front lines, keep LGBT activism out of the ranks and support religious liberty.
Specifically, he said, “The Marine Corps request [for exemption to mandatory women-in-combat roles] must be reconsidered. As long as the requirements are fair and universally applied, the military must always place the best person for the job at hand, whether male or female, but we cannot let political correctness compel the military to lower its standards.”
And now, several others have responded – mostly through public statements that can be considered responses to the various questions – but the substance is not what many Americans would desire, reported CMR chief Elaine Donnelly.
“Presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio, Gov. Jeb Bush, and Gov. Chris Christie provided unserious, politically correct answers to questions about Selective Service – a national security issue of critical importance to military personnel and unsuspecting young civilian women,” said Donnelly, in an update of the survey based on recent statements from candidates.
During the Feb. 6 Republican presidential debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, ABC moderator Martha Raddatz asked Rubio and Bush whether they favored registration of women for Selective Service.
“Gov. Chris Christie gratuitously jumped in with comments that appeared to agree with the other candidates’ support for registering women,” Donnelly reported. “Sen. Ted Cruz was not asked to respond to the same question, but in a post-debate speech, Cruz issued a strong challenge to the position of the other three on Selective Service.”
She said, “Exit polls did not explore the reaction with New Hampshire voters, but the narrow finish of Rubio, Bush, and Christie behind Sen. Ted Cruz, who challenged their position as ‘nuts’ in a post-debate speech, apparently shows that these three were not helped, Cruz not hurt, by taking their respective positions on the Selective Service issue.”
She continued, “In providing answers to six questions on the 2016 Quadrennial Center for Military Readiness Presidential Candidate Survey, which began on January 4, Sen. Cruz affirmed that he supports the all-volunteer force and opposes efforts to impose Selective Service obligations on women.”
The survey asks about views on “Obama-era social experimentation; e.g., women in direct ground (infantry) combat, religious liberty, and LGBT events promoting transgenders in the military,” she explained.
Those are military-social issues that impact active-duty personnel all the time.
Gov. John Kasich, Donald J. Trump and Dr. Ben Carlson have not yet responded. Neither has Carly Fiorina, but she suspended her campaign after the New Hampshire vote on Tuesday. Christie also dropped from the race on Wednesday.
Cruz’s challenge to others’ comments about women in the draft was a succinct, “Are you guys nuts?”
He called political correctness in the military “dangerous” and said, “The idea that we would draft our daughters to forcibly bring them into the military and put them in close combat, I think is wrong, it is immoral, and if I am president, we ain’t doing it.”
At the New Hampshire event, Rubio said there are women already “in roles that are like combat,” and said, “I have no problem whatsoever with people of either gender serving in combat so long as the minimum requirements necessary to do the job are not compromised.”
Noted the CMR report, “For starters, Sen. Rubio seems unaware that being ‘in harm’s way’ in a war zone, where women have indeed served with courage, does not fit the definition of being in direct ground (infantry) combat. The latter experience is properly defined as ‘seeking out and attacking the enemy with deliberate offensive action.'”
At the same venue, Bush said, regarding drafting women, “I do [support registration], and I do think that we should not impose any kind of political agenda on the military. There should be – if women can meet the requirements, the minimum requirements for combat service they ought to have the right to do it.”
“Bush … seems unaware that in addition to disregarding the Marine Corps’ request for exceptions to across-the board women-in-land-combat mandates, orders to repeal women’s direct ground combat exemptions, triggering likely obligations to register for [Selective Service] are the most extreme ‘political agenda’ that the Obama administration has imposed,” the CMR report said.
The CMR survey notes the next commander in chief “must take the lead, starting with orders to all appointees and military officials to provide complete and candid information on what has been done to our military during eight years of social experimentation under the Obama administration.”
Then actions can follow, based on evidence, the report said.
Last year, Heritage Foundation national security and foreign policy expert James Carafano spelled out the impact of the Obama administration’s policies on the military, with the Army’s manpower down 10 percent, “aging” naval capabilities, “the smallest and oldest force of combat aircraft in its history and the Marines “running only about two-thirds the number of battalions they have historically needed to meet day-to-day operational demands.”
Carafano said the most “neglected of all U.S. national security elements are our strategic forces,” with Obama reigning in development and deployment of ballistic missile defenses.
The consequences for the next president, he concluded, will be “emboldened adversaries who boast far greater military capabilities than they had when Obama entered the Oval Office.”
And the number-crunching doesn’t even begin to address the impact of Obama’s social agenda on the military, the women-in-combat requirements, the allowance of openly declared homosexuals and other issues that affect cohesion and force effectiveness.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s announcement Dec. 3, 2015, of a decision to open direct combat to women conflicted with the “best professional advice” of Gen. Joseph Dunford, who at the time was the Marine Corp commandant, CMR said.
Carter’s determination, according to Donnelly in the CMR report, came “without a plausible rationale or explanation.”
“Carter also confirmed that minimally qualified women will be assigned to combat arms units on the same involuntary basis as men. Once a woman volunteers to serve her country, she will have no more choice of assignment than men do, but her burdens and risks will be proportionately greater. Surveys have indicated that such mandates will hurt recruiting and retention, but facts don’t seem to matter to the Obama administration.”
It’s already known, the report said, that the Marines’ Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force, which was set up to affirm the assumption gender-mixed groups performed as well as all-male teams, “proved the opposite.”
Also, a University of Pittsburgh study showed “all-male units outperformed gender-mixed groups in 69 percent of tested events, and not a single female volunteer made it through the Marine Infantry Officer Course at Quantico, Virginia.”
Injury rates for women also are estimated to be “six times” the rate of men among trainees at the Infantry Training Battalion course.
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Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/candidates-unserious-politically-correct-about-national-security/#XAEojCqEk4UVW47r.99
My comments: The Real question is: Does America want to Survive or NOT? Women Placed in Combat would be Indicative of that Answer.
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