Lifting The Ban On Army Women

  In the article "Sisters In Arms" in upfront magazine by James Dao, he describes how the U.S. military is lifting the ban on women in combat. In 2007, Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall and her unit came under attack. Her unit, including herself, began to fight back. This shows that women can fight in wars just as good as men.

  This article includes quotes from officials who are in charge of how the war goes including Leon Panetta, Greg Jacobs and Captain Jaime Phillips of the Canadian army. One quote that stood out to me was from Panetta who stated, "They're fighting and they're dying together, and the time has come for our policies to reflect that reality." This quote stood out to me because it is a true statement. Even though I don't agree with the idea of war in general, the quote speaks true. If women are dying and fighting just as the men do, the law should be lifted and let women have the right to fight if they want.

  I am neutral about women getting the right to fight in combat. I just don't really know how to react. It is good for women who have been serving the army for years and finally get the chance to fight legally; then I am also not because I believe we cannot have the women die because they are also mothers and without mothers we cannot really have a U.S.

  This article makes me think that if women were already fighting and dying for the army, why wasn't the ban already lifted before now? I understand that they wanted to protect women; which I believe as well; but I also believe we can't hold back different sexes back just because of what we want. Women are strong and can handle things so they should have let them fight from the start. Who knows, maybe women will be the better fighters anyway.

Cyber Attacks: The Up and Coming New Type Of War

  In the article "Cyber Wars" by Patricia Smith, she talk about cyber attacks going on between Iran and the U.S. over via the web. Iran has already issued some attacks on the U.S.. One attack outside of the U.S. that was major, was on the company Saudi Aramco. This line on the attack reads "They knew that last August 15, more than 55,000 Saudi Aramco employees would be at home preparing for a Muslim holiday. So that morning, at 11:08, a computer virus began erasing data on 75% of Aramco's corporate PCs-documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, files-replacing everything with an image of a burning American Flag." This shows that Iran could do some serious damage over a computer.
  The article includes quotes from people of congress, the government, and the white house. One quote that stood out to me was from Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta who stated "An aggressor nation or extremist group could use these kinds of cybertools to gain control of critical switches, they could derail passenger trains or even more dangerous, derail passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals. They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country." This stood out to me because it surprised me that over a computer a country could do so much damage and it could all be done with just one click.
  I think that any kind of war is wrong and that war over the computer seems quite petty really. War to me is just petty in general. Though I'd rather prefer there be no war at all, at least with cyber war, the U.S doesn't have to send out any more of our men and women who have served the country before.
  This article makes me think that countries will fight over the most absurd and petty things just to get their way. Sometimes yes, there could be a serious cause for war. Though I haven't seen any in my short lifetime. There are other ways to go about things other than war. Wasn't the goal of the U.S was to event or keep peace in the world? If so, war is not helping that cause. I hope that in the future, we can all just live in some form of peace with each other and stop these frivolous wars.