Gender equality update: "Rebels Dressed as Women Attack Iraqi Police Station," from the New York Times, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 5 - Insurgent attacks across central Iraq, including one in which the guerrillas disguised themselves as women, left at least 16 dead on Friday as Shiite Arabs across the country began celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.In the deadliest assault, insurgents dressed in women's clothing attacked a police checkpoint in the town of Buhriz, 35 miles north of Baghdad, killing at least 6 police officers and wounding at least 10 others, American and Iraqi officials said. The guerrillas were armed with Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, and pulled up in five cars, an Interior Ministry official said. The police officers killed at least two of the gunmen, he added.
Maj. Steven Warren, a spokesman for the Third Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, which is charged with controlling western Diyala Province, said the insurgents were disguised as women.
Attack of the Mohammedan Transvestites! I wonder what Mohammed would have thought of his followers cross dressing, probably not a lot as he was busy abusing small children (proven in the Koran).
In my fiendish imagination I can visualize some Coalition troops dressed in full hijab, including face coverings. Disguised this way, there's no saying how many places they could infiltrate, how many places they could survey.
But then reality hits my thinking: women in Iraq are restricted by their religion. Any woman venturing into male only territory would be suspect.
This tactic works for the insurgents because they use it to gain easier access to public checkpoints, etc., not to gain access to hidden locations.
But can you imagine the howls of outrage if our troops tried this tactic? I suspect we'd be accused of violating the honour of Iraqi women. I can hear it now, "Have Westerners no shame?"
Terrorists dressing in those awful tents might give our troops the avantage though. They severly limit your peripheral vision. I recall one story in which a poor Afghani woman was run over by a tank, (yes a tank), because she couldn't see it well enough, and it's not like tanks are hard to miss.
What a drag!!!
This is what the French faced in Algeria, fighting the FLN, because Muslims become so irrate if their women are touched or searched by men,especially the kufr, the French let the women proceed through checkpoints untouched, and thus were used as couriers for messages, weapons and ammo.
Arabs can spot a man in a Chador/Abaya/Jelbab in a flash, they can read the posture, gait, body language and even form (shoulders too wide, step too vigorous),not much chance of an ARab in DRAG (if you can call entombing oneself in that god awful piece of black cloth DRAG) avoiding the notice of another Arab, it is only the kufr that are fooled.
Face it Arab males grow up intensely scrutinizing every Darth Vader form they encounter, and men being men will fantasize the body beneath the black tent.
There is only one solution to it, and that is for the Commander of CENTCOM (and that means the approval of the administration) to forgo any concerns about Muslim sensibility and taboo,(subject all women to search, best to use female soldiers though) and that will require them to confront up front the uproar that will ensue, both in the international media and in the politics of Iraq.
"Does this 'bomb belt' make me look fat?"
Do these pigs get 72 gay male virgins in Allah-ville ?
Burqas are coffins
Indeed Satan Lives At Mecca
The best thing for a terrorist dressing like a woman:
If he is being chased, he can squat down at a street corner and disguise himself as a garbage bag.
Perfect disguise since there's already garbage in the bag However I'd still rather see them run over by a tank.