“female engagement teams,’’ the military’s name for four- and five-member units that will accompany men on patrols in Helmand Province to try to win over the rural Afghan women"
Yeah, BOMBING THEIR VILLAGES FLAT and KILLING their RELATIVES shouldn't be too much of a barrier.
"The teams... are to.... gather intelligence.... Rural Afghan women, who meet at wells and pass news about the village, often know about a district’s social fabric, power brokers, and militants, all crucial data for US forces. "
Way too build up that trust.
AmeriKa never does anything without serving its self-interested motive, world -- unless it serves Israel.
"US hopes female Marines can win over Afghan women; Military trains new units to join men on patrols" by Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times | March 7, 2010
Figures.
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - The Marines in a recent “cultural awareness’’ class scribbled notes as the instructor coached them on dos and don’ts when talking to villagers in Afghanistan: Don’t start by firing off questions, do break the ice by playing with the children, don’t let your interpreter hijack the conversation.
And one more thing: “If you have a ponytail,’’ said Marina Kielpinski, the instructor, “let it go out the back of your helmet so people can see you’re a woman.’’
These are not your mother’s Marines here in the rugged California chaparral of Camp Pendleton, where 40 young women are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in one of the more forward-leaning experiments of the US military.
Next month they will begin work as members of the first full-time “female engagement teams,’’ the military’s name for four- and five-member units that will accompany men on patrols in Helmand Province to try to win over the rural Afghan women who are culturally off limits to outside men.
The teams, which are to meet with the Afghan women in their homes, assess their need for aid, and gather intelligence, are part of General Stanley A. McChrystal’s campaign for Afghan hearts and minds. His officers say that you cannot gain the trust of the Afghan population if you only talk to half of it.
Do they say anything about BOMBING and KILLING them?
“We know we can make a difference,’’ said Captain Emily Naslund, 26, the team’s executive officer. Like the other 39 women, Naslund volunteered for the program and radiates exuberance, but she is not naive about the frustrations and dangers ahead. Half of the women have been deployed before, most to Iraq....
As envisioned, the teams will work like US politicians who campaign door to door and learn what voters care about.
Is that one of the most deluded sentences you have ever read, Amricans?
Yeah, the politicians are doing what us voters want here in AmeriKa, right!!
Then WTF are we STILL DOING in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN, hanh?
Oh, and if they are basing the success of the program on the U.S. political system, this thing has already failed before it starts.
Better off going back to a loya jirga, Afghans.
A team will arrive in a village, seek permission from the male elder to speak with the women, settle into a compound, hand out school supplies and medicine, drink tea, make conversation, and, ideally, get information about the village, local grievances, and the Taliban.
Next to the grave sites of loved ones killed by us, right?
Whatever the outcome, the teams reflect how much the military has adapted over nine years of war, not only in the way it fights but to the shifting gender roles within its ranks.
Yup, it's ALL a HUGE SUCCESS for WOMEN, isn't it?
Never mind all those DEAD ONES lying around from the AIR STRIKES!
Women make up 6 percent of the Marine Corps, which cultivates an image as the most testosterone-fueled service, and they are officially barred from combat branches like the infantry.
But in a bureaucratic sleight of hand, used by the Army and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan when women have been needed for critical jobs like bomb disposal or intelligence, the female engagement teams are to be “attached’’ to all-male infantry units within the First Marine Expeditionary Force - a source of pride and excitement for them....
Yeah, we will find ANY WAY WE CAN to FIGHT WARS here in AmeriKa!
Who cares if the rest of the nation is going to hell?
The idea for the teams grew out of the “Lioness’’ program in Iraq, which used female Marines to search Iraqi women at checkpoints. Over the past year in Afghanistan, the Army and Marines have assembled ad hoc female engagement teams, but the women were hastily pulled from work as cooks or engineers. The women at Pendleton are among the first to be trained exclusively for the mission....
Yup, you have arrived and achieved equality, ladies. Now see if you can stay alive.
The women said they were not looking for combat and would work in areas largely cleared of militants. But in a war with no front lines, and to be prepared for ambushes and snipers, they have taken a combat-training refresher course.
Can they really be that stoo-pid and naive?
No wonder America is going right down the shitter.
On patrols, the women will carry M-4 rifles, which are shorter and more maneuverable than the military’s standard M-16s, but once inside an Afghan compound, and with Marine guards posted outside, they have been instructed, assuming they feel safe, to remove their rifles and take off their intimidating “battle rattle’’ of helmets and body armor.
The liberator's uniform?
They have also been told to be sensitive to local custom and to wear head scarves under their helmets or, if that is too hot and unwieldy, to keep the scarves around their necks and use them to cover their heads once their helmets are off inside.
Exactly why are we over there, readers?
Oh, right, to LIBERATE THEM -- as you OPPRESS YOURSELF, American G.I. Jane!
Oh, sorry, wrong service.
Marines who have worked with the ad hoc teams in Afghanistan said that rural Afghan women, rarely seen by outsiders, had more influence in their villages than male commanders might think, and that the Afghan women’s good will could make Afghans, both men and women, less suspicious of US troops....
How about stopping the bombing and killing to engender good will, how about that.
As for the POWER of WOMEN in Taliban-dominated society, stop it.
The propaganda I've been given for so many years says the exact opposite, so stop it, NYT!
Rural Afghan women, who meet at wells and pass news about the village, often know about a district’s social fabric, power brokers, and militants, all crucial data for US forces.
Yeah, when they aren't locked inside their homes and getting whipped by the husband.
How would they know all that stuff when they are so oppressed, dear readers?
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