Washington Times op-ed: Karpinski's job safe “because she is a woman”

In a May 21 Washington Times op-ed, titled “Take it like a man,” NewsMax.com pundit Jack Wheeler wrote, “We know conclusively that the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal is as phony as a Bill Clinton sex denial because there are no calls for the resignation of the one individual most responsible for the abuses.” Wheeler identified that individual as Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, “the officer in charge of Abu Ghraib and all U.S. military prisons in Iraq, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade.” Wheeler asked, "[W]hy have there been no calls for her resignation? Let's be honest. It is because she is a woman."

Following are more excerpts from Wheeler's May 21 Washington Times op-ed, which also appeared on the website of To The Point - The Oasis for Rational Conservatives:

Thus the frightening lesson of the abuse scandal: Political correctness trumps national security, even in wartime. ...

It would be expected that if Gen. Karpinski were a man, he would have taken those demands like a man. But Gen. Karpinski is not and so has not. She has taken them like a woman -- whining, making excuses and complaining that it's not her fault, that she's being “scapegoated.” ...

The true scandal of Abu Ghraib is the unwillingness of the female military personnel involved to do a mea culpa. If there is any vast conspiracy on the part of their superior officers, it is not to “scapegoat” them, but to refuse to treat them as men, as accountable and responsible as men.

Mr. Rumsfeld stood straight up to the world and accepted responsibility for Abu Ghraib. He took it like a man. War is not woman's work. It is man's work -- not because men are more brutal or stronger, but because they can endure the stresses of combat and be accountable for the failures those stresses inevitably create. They don't whine, deviously evade, blame others, make up excuses and whimper, “It's not my fault!” If they do, they are despised and looked upon with contempt by their male comrades.

Jack Wheeler is publisher, founder, and editor-in-chief of To The Point, “an online geopolitical analysis service”; is founder and president of the Freedom Research Foundation; and is a NewsMax.com Pundit. According to Wheeler's bio on NewsMax.com and his bio on ToThePointNews.com, "[H]e began in the early 1980s a series of extensive visits to anti-Soviet guerrilla insurgencies in Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Laos, and Afghanistan, and to democracy movements in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, becoming an unofficial liaison between them and the Reagan White House. Based on this, he developed the strategy for dismantling the Soviet Empire adopted by the White House known as the 'Reagan Doctrine.' It worked. The Freedom Research Foundation, founded by Dr. Wheeler in 1984, continues to provide information to a number of Congressional offices on issues regarding political and economic freedom throughout the world and in the United States."