Palestinian Women March Into Combat Zone
Moderator's Note
Ten SWJ Blog entries and two small threads have been merged in today, hence this non-USA thread from 2006 appearing first. There is a second parallel thread on 'Women in Conflict', which maybe worth checking:
3 November Associated Press - Palestinian Women March Into Combat Zone by Yakub Ralwah.
Quote:
Hundreds of Palestinian women in robes and head scarves streamed into a Gaza combat zone Friday to help free gunmen besieged by Israeli troops at a mosque. Two women who came under fire were killed and at least 10 wounded, but some gunmen managed to escape.
The women, many with ties to the Islamic militant group Hamas, left their homes after daybreak in response to appeals on the local Hamas radio station or telephone calls from friends and relatives. By nightfall, they were celebrated as heroes, an unusual role in a deeply conservative society that tends to keep women on the sidelines. Until Friday, battling Israeli troops had been men's business in Gaza...
Evolving tactics using western values as weakness
This is but one example of a tactical evolution that uses what we in the west perceive as a moral strength, trying to avoid harming women and children, against us. Since the "enemy" cannot fight us on our terms, they develop other tactics to achieve their objectives. And they evolve these tactics within the context of "their" value system.
It creates a lose-lose situation for the west; if women and children, civilians in general, or civilian-use buildings are used as shields for "fighters", who themselves are often in civilian clothes, we put our own soldiers at risk of death if they do not respond. On the other hand, if our soldiers open fire and civilians are killed, then the enemy can exploit the situation to achieve their political goals via our open press and society.
Even if the killings of civilians are justified in a given situation, ambiguity is created in the minds of the public, at best, or the images and the event, interpreted in isolation, provides fodder for critics and an enemy's supporters.
In the end the development of non-leathal weapons appears to be the best way ahead. This would allow our own forces to protect themselves and perhaps still be able to capture the civilian-clad fighter without the "hot" medium of television galvanizing public perceptions with an image-of-the-moment that shows violence without context.
News alert – very off topic.
Note this high profile article, the lead story in the NY Times Sunday Magazine insert. As you know, the NYT is the lead ship in the US media convoy. It sets the agenda for the major newsmagazines and network news, so we can expect to see many more follow-up stories in the next few months. This could be another Tailhook.
The Women's War
New York Times
March 18, 2007
Prints out at 28 pages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/ma...ne&oref=slogin
Here is the article which I beleive ignited this discussion.
The private war of women soldiers
By Helen Benedict
Salon
March 7, 2007
“Many female soldiers say they are sexually assaulted by their male comrades and can't trust the military to protect them. "The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," says one woman. "It was for the guys on my own side."”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...tml?source=rss
Is it a Small Wars topic?
This is definitely an important topic for our nation, because any mishavior in the ranks will have an effect on the nation's will.
I support equal rights and opportunity, but I also accept the fact that women are women and men are men, and the differences are considerable (far beyond mating mechanics). This creates the friction in values, because most of us support it, but then again we know there are differences, so how do you support it in practice, and not just in principle?
Based on observation of reality (not the way we want it to be) I think placing a woman by herself in a squad or platoon of men is simply asking for trouble unless you have outstanding leadership at that level. It may make a good photo opportunity for those inclined to show how well the system works, most of us know there are serious underlying troubles. Will time solve this like it did for racial integration? I education over time will have some positive effect, but it won't erase the male/female attraction aspect and the subsequent eroding effect this will have on good order and discipline in the ranks.
We have or had problems with sexual harrassment in our military academies, which are generally composed of average intelligence with decent moral values (it is a value focused institution), so what do we expect to have in our enlisted ranks when we are now recruiting more category four soldiers and soldiers with criminal records, who obviously have interest in values? Most of us try to live a good life, and feel bad when we make a mistake (our darker nature prevails at certain times), but a criminal simply doesn't care, and if you put him in a war zone where he thinks he can get away with anything because there are limited safety mechanisms in place what do you expect? There has also been an increase on male on male rape, so what does that indicate?
Part of the problem is the historical biological conflict between the sexes, but the other part is that we're slowly lowering the quality of our recruits and we're begining to feel the effect.
Women bring a lot to the fight in select career fields (to include military policing), but it will always be a tough fit with numerous rough edges. I wonder if the European Armies have done a better job at integration than we have, or if they have the same challenges?
Something I Used to Mull Over...
... when I ran the Urban Operations Journal webpage and it has carried over to here. Both sites attracted / attract serious students and practitioners of urban operations and small wars. So... how come our site visitor demographics and SWC membership are overwhelmingly male? Food for thought or maybe ammunition for a food fight...
Women as strategic thinkers
I honestly did not go searching for this thread--it just happened to be at the top of the list!
As a female officer in the Air Force, I will be the first to admit that my experiences are miles away from an enlisted female in the Army, so I won't even add to that debate. What I did want to comment on is the idea of women as strategic (and I think "military" is implied) thinkers.
All cliches aside, I believe part of the reason that there are so few women who are known as strategic thinkers has more to do with time than anything else. It's only been, what, about 40 years that women have even started to be accepted in military ranks? And as all of you well know, it takes time, experience,and education to grow strategic thinkers.
Some may argue that only those who experience direct combat action qualify to bill themselves as strategic thinkers; however, I think with a little thought we can all identify great writers/historians who fall closer to the category of armchair quarterbacks.
Those are just my thoughts--I'm certainly glad I found this web page! Just as a side note, I found the site while preparing for the Strategic Art lesson I have to teach next week at the staff college where I'm an instructor.
Thanks for the opportunity to respond.
r/Bridget
Can 't compare apples and oranges
You can't compare sexual harassment and intimidation statistics between the civilian and military worlds. Obviously they are serious in both environments, but the effect in the military is much greater.
I also think you underestimate the scale of the problem, but I'll leave it at that, because it is basically a social norm problem that we're faced with it, and a power point class on sexual harassment isn't going to create a paradigm shift in how people treat one another; however, as you eluded to the fear of punishment does create behavior change, and that is the advantage the military has. It will take time to change social norms, and we also want to make sure that we want to change them. There is a difference between equal opportunity and equal in ability across the spectrum. While the only differences I can readily identify that most will agree with is the physical differences. A man is "generally" stronger than a woman, which makes women vulnerable to abuse. I think there are other differences, not so much genetic as Marc stated, but cultural, based on the circles we grew up in (male activities versus female activities). You see a merging of the two gradually, with more and more female sports teams, etc., but it will take a long time to make a significant change.
While I was somewhat joking in a previous post, having sat in on a few planning sessions for different crisises, I have noted that the female officers frequently had a different perspective of the problem, which most of us found useful. I don't think it is genetic, but social, but none the less useful.
120mm, a nuclear war? O.K., I agree, my wife doesn't read this, but when she gets mad, I'm glad she doesn't have access to the little red button (lol).
BPowell welcome, look forward to your insights. I don't agree with your comment on time though, that is strictly an American issue. Women have been involved in conflicts for hundreds of years, and I guess if I looked hard enough perhaps I could find some strategic approaches implemented by women if I look at some of the queens of old Europe? I do concur that the ability to develop strategy has nothing to do with time in combat.
Would more female Marines/Soldiers increase our chances for success in Iraq?
Great discussion. Have been grappling with this topic for the past few months and would appreciate any feedback on some thoughts running through my head...
If the people are the center of gravity in Iraq and in COIN in general, how can we succeed if we almost never interact with the women, who are more than 50% of the Iraqi population? More specifically, if succeeding in COIN has historically taken 10 years or so, who do we need to believe in our and the host nation cause? I think part of the "who" are the children and teenagers, who while maybe age 15 now, will be the 20-25 year olds leading security forces, creating businesses, going into politics, etc. as the COIN campaign continues. How do you influence this group? I think the answer is in large measure through their mothers. I'm not an anthropologist or otherwise cultural expert on Islamic and/or Iraqi culture, but based on leading well over 500 patrols in Iraq, I think Iraqi mothers play just as important a role in raising their kids as do American mothers, IF NOT MORE (most don't work outside the home). For example, I'm a USMC infantry officer that's in the field or in another state training roughly 50% of the year (I'm 3000 miles from my family as I write this). When not in the field, I'm preparing for training, PTing, studying, etc. I'm probably home with my daughter and wife maybe 20-30% of their lives. My wife is with my daughter almost 100% of the time. The same will apply when our son is born within the next 3 weeks. That said, if you want to influence my daughter's views on the world, you'd better convince my wife of your cause. Using a similar train of thought for Iraq, if we're trying to sway 5-20 year old boys not to join the insurgency now or over the next 10 years, not to plant or dig holes for IEDs, not to wear suicide vests, not to serve as look-outs, not to tolerate insurgents, etc. I think we need to convince their mothers that this is a bad idea, or at least not in her family's long-term interest.
So then, how do we do this? Given that my Marines almost never spoke to female Iraqis (same applies for every Marine/Soldier that I know) how do we deal with this significant problem? I think the answer is that during COIN/IW/4GW/Small Wars/Whatever you want to call what we're doing in Iraq now, we need women on our patrols. These women must be specially trained in Iraqi culture, language, understand the role of women in Islam, etc. Their mission should not be to persuade Iraqi women to be like American women. They should simple focus their efforts on why our cause is good for the average Iraqi family. My gut says creating a cadre of women PsyOps Marines/Soldiers for this purpose would definitely help our cause, both short and long term.
I understand this idea opens a whole series of questions about integration in infantry units, training, manpower, etc. That said, if fighting an enemy whose center of gravity is a regiment of T-72s, would we simply ignore 100-150 of these tanks because we ran out of ammo?
Thoughts?
Not Completely As It Appears
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,261400,00.html
"Major mistakes in New York Times story about rape in the military"