PC reform could cripple U.S. military effectiveness

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- No two actions would more powerfully undermine the ability of the U.S. armed forces to recruit the kind of men who want to fight than allowing women into the ground combat arms and open gays into the military.

As I have previously noted, the demands for these two far-reaching and revolutionary reforms come from the gay and feminist lobbies that have established their powerful influence in the U.S. Democratic Party of President-elect Barack Obama. They reflect the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School, commonly known as "Political Correctness." Cultural Marxism sees feminist women and gays as the equivalent of economic Marxism's proletariat -- that is to say, "good" -- and white males as equivalent to the bourgeoisie -- that is to say, "bad."

The former therefore are to be "privileged" over the latter, in what Roger Kimball calls "experiments against reality." We must pretend there are no meaningful differences between men and women, even on a battlefield, and that gays and heterosexual men and women can mix without serious friction, even in very close quarters. Anyone who refuses to play "let's pretend" is to find himself in trouble.

The recruitment of women into the U.S. military already has gone far beyond what military effectiveness would counsel. Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld has written a whole book, "Men, Women and War," arguing that women have essentially no place in a military. Obama would do well to read it before making any hasty decisions.

If ideologically driven policies deprive fighting organizations of their ability to convey that message, men who want to prove they are real men will not join. Instead of men who want to fight and will fight, they will end up recruiting men who join for good pay, or education benefits, or because they can't get a civilian job. Armies like that may fight when they have no other choice, but if they come up against opponents who want to fight, they will be in trouble.

Obama's first national security test after taking office will be, in fact, a test of his honesty. Will he govern as the centrist he presented himself as being during the campaign? If so, he will allow present policies on women and gays in the military to remain in place.

Or, will the 44th president of the United States reveal himself, after he takes the oath of office next month, as a cultural Marxist who deceived the American public in order to get elected and will govern from the left, not the center? If so, we will witness many experiments against reality, with the U.S. armed forces rapidly emerging as the early victims in such reckless and dangerous projects.

Our next president would do well to remember history's verdict on such experiments, a verdict illustrated by the fate of the 20th century's ideological regimes. In the end, reality always wins.

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(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.)