Role of women in Pacific warfare
Updated
The role of women in the military is again being questioned ahead of this week's 8th Women in the Military Conference in the United States. While questions are being asked about Fiji's continuing role as a contributor to the UN's peackeeping forces, the role of women in the military is also being examined.
Meanwhile, the potential for the abuse of women and children in Guam as it prepares to host 8,000 marines and their families is again dividing opinion in the northern Pacific nation. Former US Colonel and Diplomat, Ann Wright, says the way that wars are fought these days, military personnel, men and women are in as much danger manning a computer as shouldering a weapon on the front line.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Ann Wright, former US Colonel and Diplomat
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WRIGHT: The 8th conference on women in the military is held every two years in Washington DC, and it is an opportunity for various groups and individuals to get together to talk about the various issues that concern women in the military. One of those that I’ve been working on very strongly has been the issue of sexual assault and rape in the military where one in three women are sexually assaulted or raped while they are in the military.
COUTTS: That’s very high and it continues to be so, why does it continue to be so?
WRIGHT: Well because the military is not taking the proper steps to stop it. I mean if you had the commanders of those units where all these rapists are doing their criminal acts and if they were held responsible in some way also, then I would suggest that you probably will have more people, the command influence and leadership would be much stronger if the commanders were held responsible for these criminal acts committed by these men.
COUTTS: Now when it comes to the women in the military another issue that you’re passionate about is one that you’ve talked about recently, and that’s the movement of the troops from Okinawa in Japan to Guam, where you also have similar concerns?
WRIGHT: Well that’s right, the movement of eight-thousand marines from Okinawa plus their support troops, which will ancillary organisations will bring the numbers up to 42-thousand people that’ll be moving from Okinawa to Guam increasing the size of the population of Guam by 25 per cent. And the impact on Guam by that is going to be horrendous, and we are very concerned about it and we’re on a study tour in Guam in July about the effects of such a large movement of military personnel into a small island.
COUTTS: Now Colonel Wright it’s interesting to me and to some that as a former military person yourself you’ve got a somewhat anti-war stance. In fact you’re off to Afghanistan at the end of this week to have your say about that as well, and you’re actually in New York now in the middle of a protest march on the same issue. What turned you around?
WRIGHT: Well the whole issue of what is the purpose of wars and particularly I resigned from the US diplomatic corps in opposition to the war in Iraq, saying at that time six years ago that it was an illegal war, that it met none of the criteria by international law of self-defence or it was not authorised by the UN Security Council. And I am very strong about feeling that the war in Iraq needs to end, even though I was in Afghanistan and helped re-open is in all of this, and secondly, try to accomplish goals through military acts rather than diplomacy and actual dialogue with folks rather than shooting them is something I think we ought to be doing.
COUTTS: Has President Obama actually agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan? I know that the military leaders in the US have asked for them, but I read recently that he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t committing to anything for or against sending them at this stage?
WRIGHT: Well he has sent an extra 21-thousand since he’s been president and now the question is on more needed, and General McChrystal’s recommendation which has not come in officially, but unofficially the reports are that he will request more troops. And the Obama administration is saying that they are now they’re not going to make a quick decision on this, because there is a lot of pushback by people in the government and by definitely citizens in the United States who are saying after eight years you’re going to increase the size of the US military there, I mean what are you doing is the question? And if your goal is to train more Afghan police and more Afghan military, are you going to use all of the 21-thousand to be their trainers, what are the goals and what are the operational techniques that are going to be used on this? A lot of people are very, very uneasy with them.
COUTTS: Well an issue that people are uneasy about here in Australia, there was a call recently to re-visit the proposition that women in the military should be allowed to fight on frontlines. Now as you can imagine in the community the opinion is divided, what’s your attitude to that?
WRIGHT: Well as wars are now conducted everywhere’s the frontline, you can be mortared by being an administrative person on a base just as much as you can be blown up by an IED out on the roadway. There’s your point between an airport and your base. So the fact that women are in the military means that they will be subjected as men are to 360 degree war that’s all around them. And to me it’s the issue of civic responsibility and if citizens of any country say that’s the type of civic duty they want to fulfill then I think women should be able to do that if that’s what they want. I would also encourage them though to think of other ways too, because even though I was in the military myself for 29 years I think a lot of people they minimise the lifelong effects of being in the military and being in a combat environment. Women as well as men need to really think carefully before they choose to go into the military.
