Tuesday, November 15, 2005
PONDERING THE MEANING OF THE MUJAHIDAAT
Defense and The National Interest has a fairly regular though anonymous contributer
"Fabius Maximus" who reacted to this report on female suicide bombers by the Jamestown Foundation with this commentary(PDF).
FM has a 4GW analysis on female Islamist suicide-bombers which he ties rather nicely to the unsavory but expedient Gap practice of press-ganging child-soldiery into various rebel armies. FM is treating the phenomenon of the " mujahidaat" as a natural evolution in military practice resulting from the disintegration of the rule-sets that govern such things as wars and nation-states.
Fabius Maximus may be correct in his reading. On the other hand, enlisting women into combat has seldom been the tactic of the winning side in a war - instead it usually keeps the conflict going until the damage to the side employing women becomes irrevocable. The Israeli experiment with female combatants in 1948 was so bad as to have never been repeated. Enlisting the entirety of its population did not save Paraguay in the Paraguayan War of 1864-1870; instead Paraguay lost more than half its total population ( and 98 % of its men) and it never really recovered. The ferocity of Germanic and Gaullish tribesmen -including their women - only inspired the Romans to undetake decimatory pacification campaigns.
Much like Robert E. Lee's 11th hour proposal to free and arm the slaves to replenish the ranks of the Confederacy, that the Islamists are now reaching for female suicide bombers to attack wedding receptions bodes poorly for their cause. ¶ 9:10 PM
Defense and The National Interest has a fairly regular though anonymous contributer
"Fabius Maximus" who reacted to this report on female suicide bombers by the Jamestown Foundation with this commentary(PDF).
FM has a 4GW analysis on female Islamist suicide-bombers which he ties rather nicely to the unsavory but expedient Gap practice of press-ganging child-soldiery into various rebel armies. FM is treating the phenomenon of the " mujahidaat" as a natural evolution in military practice resulting from the disintegration of the rule-sets that govern such things as wars and nation-states.
Fabius Maximus may be correct in his reading. On the other hand, enlisting women into combat has seldom been the tactic of the winning side in a war - instead it usually keeps the conflict going until the damage to the side employing women becomes irrevocable. The Israeli experiment with female combatants in 1948 was so bad as to have never been repeated. Enlisting the entirety of its population did not save Paraguay in the Paraguayan War of 1864-1870; instead Paraguay lost more than half its total population ( and 98 % of its men) and it never really recovered. The ferocity of Germanic and Gaullish tribesmen -including their women - only inspired the Romans to undetake decimatory pacification campaigns.
Much like Robert E. Lee's 11th hour proposal to free and arm the slaves to replenish the ranks of the Confederacy, that the Islamists are now reaching for female suicide bombers to attack wedding receptions bodes poorly for their cause. ¶ 9:10 PM
