Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey today expressed his hope that allowing women into combat roles would bring down sexual assault rates in the military.

As of today, the Department of Defense has fully rescinded the 1994 Direct Combat Definition and Assignment Rule that first closed off billets in combat units to women. Speaking at the official announcement of the change, which will open thousands of positions to women for the first time, Dempsey pressed back particularly strongly when challenged on the notion that adding women to these new roles would be a hindrance to the development of the military.

Recalling his days at West Point, Dempsey told reporters that the military academy had become a much higher quality institution after the admission of women. The same transformative property would hopefully be seen in changing the culture of the military regarding sexual assault, according to Dempsey:

DEMPSEY: We’ve had this ongoing issue with sexual harassment, sexual assault. I believe its because we’ve had separate classes of military personnel at some level. Now, its far more complicated than that. But when you have one part of the population that is designated as ‘warriors’ and one part that is designated as something else, that disparity begins to establish a psychology that — in some cases — led to that environment. I have to believe the more we treat people equally, the more likely they are to treat each other equally.

Instead of taking the stance of some commentators that adding women to combat units would diminish their effectiveness or “humiliate” the men serving alongside them, Dempsey rightly focused on the risk of assault that women in the armed services face. Approximately one in three military women have been sexually assaulted, about double the rate of those in civilian life.

In the rest of their conference, Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta clarified many of the details of the shift. New positions are not opening immediately for women, as the military departments now have until May 15 to submit plans on how they’ll implement the changes, with the process of integration to be completed by Jan. 1, 2016.

The new policy also doesn’t mark a change in the Selective Service process, where young males must register for the draft upon reaching the age of eighteen, according to Panetta. Regarding infantry and other ground combat positions, Panetta made clear that the onus is now on the service branches to justify to the Pentagon reasons why women should be barred from certain billets. The move to integrate women will also allow women more options in terms of advancing their career, as combat roles offer officers and enlisted soldiers alike greater ease in obtaining promotions.

“If they can do the job, if they can meet the standards, if they can meet the qualifications that are involved here, there is no reason why they shouldn’t have a chance,” Panetta said. “That’s just a fundamental belief of mine and I think it’s a fundamental belief of the American people.”

An opinion piece published in one of America’s most prestigious newspapers made a curious assertion this morning: women shouldn’t serve in combat because “social norms” would make it “humiliating” for men.

After Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s surprise announcement on Wednesday that women would be free to serve in most or all combat roles by 2016, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by former Marine infantryman Ryan Smith. Smith argued that since soldiers had to “defecate inches from his seated comrade’s face” during his tour in Iraq, women could not be permitted in combat because it would “humiliate” men:

Societal norms are a reality, and their maintenance is important to most members of a society. It is humiliating enough to relieve yourself in front of your male comrades; one can only imagine the humiliation of being forced to relieve yourself in front of the opposite sex.

Despite the professionalism of Marines, it would be distracting and potentially traumatizing to be forced to be naked in front of the opposite sex, particularly when your body has been ravaged by lack of hygiene. In the reverse, it would be painful to witness a member of the opposite sex in such an uncomfortable and awkward position. Combat effectiveness is based in large part on unit cohesion. The relationships among members of a unit can be irreparably harmed by forcing them to violate societal norms.

Smith’s scatological suppositions don’t stand up to scrutiny. As most know, irregular warfare against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan blurred the lines between “combat” and “non-combat” roles, meaning that female soldiers have been fighting in combat in practice for roughly a decade. 292,000 American women served in combat zones during in these two wars, 152 of whom were killed in action. There is no evidence that these women’s bravery damaged “unit cohesion” or in any other fashion worsened the ability of soldiers to do their jobs.

The evidence from foreign militaries suggest the same. Several American allies in Afghanistan allowed women to serve in “frontline roles,” and found that it had no effect on the performance of the unit in question. Israel’s Caracal Batallion, the country’s famous mixed gender combat unit, has performed admirably in combat situations.

If Smith and the Journal were interested in gender problems inside the military, they’d be better served focusing on the growing threat of sexual assault inside the ranks rather than attempting to restrict women’s freedom to choose their career path. One third of military women have been sexually assaulted, roughly twice the civilian figure.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton forcefully pushed back against Republican theatrics during yesterday Capitol Hill hearings on the Benghazi attacks, compelling conservatives and right-wing media to — predictably — demonize her.

But one right-wing pundit saw it a bit differently. Fox News military analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (ret.) — who has certainly not been known for his affection for progressives and liberalism — praised Clinton’s performance. “I came away with deeper respect for Hillary Clinton’s bureaucratic lawyerly brilliance,” Peters said. “I mean she was just tough and good and the Republicans looked like weenies:”

PETERS: Hillary mops floor with congressmen and senators. She was as James Rosen pointed out, she was prepared. She had it down. She had answers — anticipatory answers ready.

And the congressmen and senators didn’t do their homework. They made speeches again as James Rosen pointed out. They — their questions were ill focused. They went down the red herring road with Susan Rice as you pointed out.

Watch the clip: