William Mandel wrote:
> War a man thing? How about Margaret Thatcher and the slaughter
> of helpless Argentinian seamen in the Falklands War? Golda Meir
> and the endless wars to drive the Palestinians out of their
> homeland (I am Jewish)? Albright's public statement when asked
> whether the tens of thousands of dead Iraqi children due to the
> continuing American embargo on food and medical exports to the
> country was worth it: "yes"? Catherine the Great (since I happen
> to be a Sovietologist) and the slaughter of Russian peasant
> rebels, and of Russian peasant soldiers and of Turks in the
> endless wars with that country? etc., etc., etc.
> Because women have generally been subject to male
> oppression, the number of female rulers responsible for such
> slaughters is very much smaller than the number of men, but it
> does not explain or justify the fact that they acted as rulers,
> not as women.
The issue here is not who gives the orders but who willingly fights the
wars and bonds together while doing so. Clearly, when in power, women
have shown the same disregard for human lives as their male
counterparts, but the willingness to get into the trenches and kill
one's fellow man who has done you no harm, is an entirely different
kind of sickness, which is primarily a male problem (like male-pattern
baldness) and one, that to this point in time, has proven to be beyond
our capacity to eliminate.
Jeff Blankfort
>
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