US Dept. of Defense lifting ban on women in frontline positions

Boom.

This seems like it ought to be a pretty big deal, but otoh I'm unsure why it should be.

pretty much how I feel. on one level it's interesting and indicative of all sorts of things, otoh who cares combat and the military and war is hardly what it used to be

Well yes but then you get reactions like these

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/23/panetta-lifts-pentagon-ban-on-women-serving-in-direct-combat/

i had no idea women didn't see "combat" (whatever this means) before this

surely there are no countries in the world that the right-wingers aspire to be like that let women serve in combat

Exit question for opponents of the Iraq and/or Afghanistan wars: How excited are you to have a giant new pool of soldiers available to make future wars that much more feasible?

hm

women are already serving in support roles. i can't imagine allowing them to serve in combat is going to change the "can we go to war" calculus significantly

pretty clear that we go to war first and figure out where the soldiers come from second these days

pretty sure no one in the Pentagon is thinking "if only we had enough chicks in the army, we could invade Iran!"

war is hardly what it used to be

"combat" (whatever this means)

Even though large set-piece battles with masses of infantry and tanks have been a rarity for quite a few decades, war and combat still exist in the direct, visceral meaning of other people getting up in your face intending to kill you, maim you or otherwise inflict maximum bodily damage upon you, and you are expected to forestall them by getting up in their face with the exact same impersonal, yet very personal, intentions.

fyi, the army still uses infantry and they still go on patrols, wear helmets, carry rifles, shoot bullets, dodge incoming shells and eat some pretty nasty shit. war isn't all rockets fired from drones, yet.

I worry about the persistence of the pathologies depicted in The Invisible War.