What happened to "a Soldier"?

Downing Street fails to see the irony:

The Iranian hostage crisis took a sinister turn last night when Tehran withdrew an earlier offer to release one of the 15 captive sailors and marines and issued a second, strangely-worded letter in her name calling for Britain to withdraw from Iraq.

The letter, signed by Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman in the naval crew seized last Friday, was addressed to "representatives of the House of Commons". Although the letter was handwritten, it was stilted and lacked the personal tone of the first letter, sent to her family the day before. The second letter appeared to have been dictated to her...

A No 10 source said: "It is cold and callous to be doing this to a woman at a time when she is being detained in this way."

"To be doing this to a woman"? It's a little late to play the gender card, isn't it?

This is precisely the problem with the politicially-correct pretending that just because women soldiers can (whatever) as well as their male counterparts, it is incumbent upon a free and fair society to put them in the same positions as men.

Can anyone imagine that Downing Street, were the soldier to be black, would say, "it is cold and callous to be doing this to a black guy"? How about bringing up the homosexuality of a gay soldier in these circumstances? Such a complaint would make no sense; in fact, it would be an obvious insult. Yet because the captured soldier is a woman, whom we are assured by the politically correct are no different than male soldiers and ought to be given the same "opportunities," all of a sudden Downing Street is raising the fact of her sex as if it differentiates her from any other soldier and demanding that she receive preferential treatment on that account*.

But in fact Downing Street is correct in this instance. It is fundamentally different, and both cold and callous, to take advantage of a woman in this way. But it might be a good time for us to ask, at the same time we are complaining about her ill-treatment, who precisely it was that put her in harm's way, and perhaps especially for what political purpose it was done.

* Or at least that the Iranians to forego the value her womanhood lends to their propaganda efforts. Fat chance, guys.