Women in Military Service & Combat (not just USA)

[slapout9]

Culpepper, I am not any kind of cultural expert on the middle east by any means, but I think the female population is vulnerable to being converted to a fifth column so to speak because of how Islam treats the female population in general. Using non-lethal weapons was not meant to protect them just to be "nice" but to allow access to a population group in order to influence them and cause a general disruption to the family unit. Problems at home can cause big problems with armed forces, it would give them a constant internal problem (burden) to deal with.

All through history women have been the ultimate "net-workers" and if you get them spreading an idea that the west treats their women(and children) far better then Islam you stand a chance of collapsing or changing the whole movement. I believe in the use of non lethal weapons for this purpose should at least be tried. What do we have to loose?

As for your tactic, it has been done before and has been successful for certain regimes! I don't think the US would support that. At least not until we have another disaster(9-11,nuke,chemical attack,etc.)

anyway time for some more coffee, later.

[Culpeper]

No problem. I happen to be drinking some coffee as I read. This whole thing reminds me of what Col. David Perkins told reporters after the first "Thunder Run" recon by fire into Baghdad when asked about Iraqi soldiers taking off their uniforms and changing into civilian clothes and fighting alongside Saddam Fadayeen, and foreign fighters, all of which were intermingling with civilians along Highway 8.

They [the combatants] are putting their populace at risk by not having a clear delineation between civilians and military. In effect, Saddam has made his civilian populace combatants. If I put my family in a Humvee and drove them into Baghdad, I would be to blame if they got blown away.

As for other "regimes" with success? I don't need to remind you that we burned Germany and Japan cities to the ground for good reason. We used artillery and aerial bombardment to soften targets before we sent our troops on the offensive knowing our enemies were commingling with civilians in all types of areas. WE hold the record. What was the outcome of such outrage? We won our engagements with the enemy and Japan and Germany are our allies today. Italy was the only Axis partner that didn't suffer such a fate because they didn't dare put their civilians in the line of fire as a point of "total war" strategy.

I'm not stating you have a bad idea. It's a good idea. But it is a micromanagement short term solution to an age old problem of bad guys using their women and children as shields and the only thing that has ever worked with success was being forced to the conclusion that the mission is more important than enemy tactics such as these.