The article is unmitigated tripe.

1) Using a plane built in 1963 as a reason for why you need big burly pilots is bullshit. The majority of aircraft flown in the armed forces are fly-by-wire. Besides which, the outcome would have been similar had the crew bailed out of the craft and allowed it to crash.

2) The mean height of a Chinese male is 5'5. The mean height of an American female is - wait for it - 5'4 1/2 - 5'5. If we're talking physical strength, there's a hell of a lot more to it than men are bigger.

3) Admissions standards for the military are not the same as specialist standards for the military. Yeah, a 17-year-old girl needs to be able to do 13 push-ups to enlist. That's very different from being able to do 13 push-ups to be able to join DEVGRU.

4) Yes, men and women respond differently to stress. This is stated as if diversity is a bad thing, or as if women will suddenly get all silly and weepy when being shot at.

5) "A battery of studies cited by Browne confirms the reluctance of men to accept female leadership when the shooting starts." A battery of studies also confirmed the reluctance of white people to Jackie Robinson playing baseball. That means they're prejudiced, not correct.

Take a look at this photo. Take a good look at it:

That's Dr. Ruth, IDF sniper.

"When I was in my routine training for the Israeli army as a teenager, they discovered completely by chance that I was a lethal sniper. I could hit the target smack in the center further away than anyone could believe. Not just that, even though I was tiny and not even much of an athlete, +I was incredibly accurate throwing hand grenades too.+ Even today I can load a Sten automatic rifle in a single minute, blindfolded."

David Frum needs to face up to the fact that women *not* serving in combat is the anomaly, not the norm.

I would actually argue that as a general rule of thumb David Frum needs to STFU but that's too broad for this discussion. This is, after all, Mr. "Axis of Evil."