G.I. Jane does Baghdad
Pfc. Lynndie England isn't exactly a Vivid-quality porn star. Even so, word is she put on quite a show there in the squalid surroundings of Abu Ghraib, although some of her audience may not have been in a position to fully appreciate it, considering that they were wearing pillow cases over their heads at the time.
"Almost everybody was naked all the time," said one member of Congress, presumably disapprovingly, although the New York Post was not clear on this. "It was pretty disgusting, not what you'd expect from Americans. There was lots of sexual stuff - not of the Iraqis, but of our troops," said Sen. Norm Coleman, causing observers to wonder if the Minnesota senator had ever encountered either the Internet or cable television at any point in the last decade.
Since the psychological pressures of warfare have already been used to excuse the abuse of prisoners - by reservists who never saw any actual warfare, I might add - I suppose we can expect to see this one chalked up to the Iraqi heat. Perhaps the air-conditioning wasn't working, leaving the poor prison guards no choice but to take their clothes off. Then a bad sound track kicked in with a whocka-whocka-whocka, somebody pulled out a camera and things got a little crazy. Somewhere in California, a producer is thinking: "Hmmm, G.I. Jenna - I can see it!"
Now, I don't think that "Girls Gone Wild" was exactly what George Bush was promising the Iraqi people as the sweet fruits of freedom. But what do you expect when you take a large group of half-trained young men and women and throw them together, in close quarters, in what has to be one of the most boring places in the world? Better yet, add the possibility of danger and sudden death - that'll keep their pants on.
One wonders what the Islamists are going to make of all this. One minute, they're shaking their fists about the danger of Britney Spears and pierced belly buttons, and then they learn that Britney might as well still be a Mousketeer compared to what else we have on offer. This isn't enlightened democracy taking on benighted medievalism, it's pornocracy vs. theocracy. But at least they should be clear on the fact that it's not a Christian crusade.
The truth is that these sort of shenanigans goes on all the time, wherever there are women in the military. Since the average reporter doesn't know anyone actually in the military, they're unaware that military wives absolutely hate their husbands going off on assignment with the co-eds. This is not without reason, as an astonishing percentage of women become pregnant while on assignment, when they're not getting pregnant in order to avoid going on assignment.
A friend of mine was the ombudsman, or civilian liason, for a 350 man-and-woman ship on a six-month tour a few years ago. There were nine pregnancies in all, and seven children were born during the tour. This was nothing compared to the infamous Love Boat, or USS Eisenhower, which had 60 of 492 women become pregnant or miss deployment due to pregnancy. If simply telling people not to have sex didn't work for the far more powerful Catholic Church during medieval times, it's not likely to work for the U.S. military either.
This is not to say that the porn patrol is all the fault of the tempting little minxes in uniform. It takes two to tango, though perhaps in light of Miss England's oeuvre one should say that the activity requires a two-soldier minimum. However, one sex or the other is going to have to stay back home in order to shut this down and I don't see us converting to an all-Amazon force anytime soon.
It's been clear for years that women cannot measure up to the physical requirements of military duty. Now, it's beyond obvious that they completely destroy military discipline and wreak havoc on day-to-day operations. If soldier-porn isn't enough, what is it going to take to end one of the most idiotic social experiments of all time?
I salute those well-meaning women in the military who only want to do their patriotic duty and serve their country to the best of their ability. I strongly suggest they do so by acquiring honorable discharges at the earliest possible opportunity.