Treating Iraqis Like the Women They Are

I can't imagine that there are any women who did not flinch at the language of this video. This soldier is threatening the Iraqi police he is allegedly training with violence because they are like women. And of course, that is what women deserve.

And I do hope that people realize that this is not the case of one bad apple, one thing that I have heard consistently from "nice" people who aren't related to any soldiers themselves is that if we brought back the draft, then it would make the military a better place, because "nice" people like themselves would be forced to participate, instead of the bad apples like this soldier who volunteer because they are naturally brutal and vulgar. I wish I really hadn't heard such things, but I have,even after I had just spoken about my own son, who was a member of the occupying army in Iraq, one of those who volunteered to serve in the Army.

Anti-woman sentiment is deeply imbedded in the very nature of war, in the culture of the American military, despite the large number of women now serving. It is the nature of occupying armies to become brutal, especially one such as the American occupying force in Iraq, where many of the soldiers have come to see their role as ridiculous and hopeless. Anyone put through military training, then sent to become a soldier in Iraq is likely to develop these same traits, it is hard to fight. Rape and violence towards women are tools of war, always, they are not unrelated side effects.

And yet, this is one of the justifications in the hearts of many for the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the way that Muslims allegedly treat their women. We see here an American soldier expressing what he has learned about women, here, in America, where the "women problem" allegedly has been solved just like the "negro problem" has been solved. Now it is merely hidden, covered up with carefully chosen words, and some women are allowed to participate, in occupying armies and in the leadership that sends them to occupy. But the culture remains the same, that is not change or progress.

If you look at the counterarguments of the Taliban, that is also what they say. It is because they valued women so much that they took measures to protect them, which Western society does not. And women...we are caught in the middle of these things, whether we are in America or Iraq or Afghanistan.

It is not an unrelated side effect that domestic abuse, in which I include not only out right violence but the emotional and verbal abuse which often take a deeper if hidden toll, is skyrocketing in the families of returning soldiers. It is not just something that happens, it is the inevitable result.