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.