By Debbie Schlussel
After American spent gazillions of your tax dollars in training Iraqi women to use guns and patrol the streets as police officers, the extremist Shi’ite government of Iraq decided to make that spending yet another complete waste.
Last month, the Iraqi government–you know the one that Bush claimed, in his silly, fatal democracy experiment, would treat women with respect and restore human rights–ordered all women serving in its police forces to turn over their guns for redistribution to men and reassigned all of these women to desk duty. Hmmm . . . so why did we waste all of this money training them to shoot and patrol streets? Judging from the picture in the news story, I’m not so sure this is the kind of police force–in the full ninja Islamic chick outfit–that we had in mind. But still, this is yet more proof that giving the Iraq sector of Greater Barbaria “democracy” was yet another exercise in HAMASHezbollahMuslimBrotherhoodKhomeiniSadr idiocy.
And–surprise!–not a peep from the Gloria Steinems, Martha Burks, and assorted other looks-challenged feministas in the angry American chicks crowd. How long ’til it becomes a Shi’ite replica of Saudia Arabia where women can’t drive? Counting the seconds.
Allahu Akbar:
The Iraqi government has ordered all policewomen to hand in their guns for redistribution to men or face having their pay withheld, thwarting a U.S. initiative to bring women into the nation’s police force.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, issued the order late last month, according to ministry documents, U.S. officials and several of the women. It affects all officers who have earned the title “policewoman” by graduating from the police academy. It does not apply to men in the same type of jobs.
Critics say the move is the latest sign of the religious and cultural conservatism that has taken hold in Iraq since Saddam Hussein’s ouster ushered in a government dominated by Shiite Muslims. Now, that tendency is hampering efforts to bring stability to Iraq by driving women from the force, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who has led the effort to recruit female officers.
“We nursed it along,” he said last week, referring to the recruiting effort. . . . Without policewomen, Phillips said, there will be no officers to give pat-down searches to female suspects, even though women have joined the ranks of suicide bombers in Iraq. Last week, a female bomber killed at least 16 people north of Baghdad, at least the fifth such attack in Iraq this year.
Another U.S. advisor noted that forcing out female officers will hamper investigation of crimes such as rape, which stigmatizes women in Iraq, because few victims feel comfortable reporting it to policemen.
Policewomen say the decree also will leave them unable to protect themselves at work or off duty. Scores of police employees, both officers and administrative workers, have been killed by insurgents. Men and women have traditionally been allowed to carry their Glock pistols with them after hours for security.
“We are considered policewomen. We face kidnapping. We could be assassinated. If anyone knew where we worked, of course they would try to do something to us,” said a 27-year-old interviewed Sunday.
“How can I be a policewoman without a weapon?” she asked incredulously as three female colleagues nodded in agreement. [DS: I ask the same thing about those silly people in strange uniforms in England. Clubs and night sticks don’t get it done.]
They, and Phillips, said the pistol recall was the latest in a series of moves that has limited most policewomen to desk jobs. The few who have worked on the streets have been reassigned to administrative tasks.
Iraqi law still prevents policewomen from advancing to commanding-officer levels. Phillips said women have complained to him about limited opportunities and harassment by male colleagues.
U.S. trainers began recruiting women in early 2004 and were so swamped with applicants that they had to turn many away. By the end of that year, about 1,000 women had graduated. Since U.S. authorities handed over responsibility for police recruitment and training to Iraqi authorities in February 2006, Phillips said, the number of female recruits has dropped to virtually zero.
A handful of policewomen are working in western Al Anbar province after graduating from the academy in October, but Phillips said they were recruited, trained and paid with U.S. funds under a program not recognized by the Iraqi government.
“When we stop paying, they stop getting paid,” Phillips said.
How much did we waste on this? What’s the dollar figure?
Phillips, who works closely with Interior Ministry officials, said he got wind of the latest move to rein in female officers last month. When he questioned the plan, Phillips said, he was told by one ministry official: “Females are taken care of by men in this country. They are not out there being police officers.”
Yes, they are, indeed, “taken care of.” Honor killings, forced honor “suicides,” female terrorists and homicide bombers, jihadi soldier baby-making factories, muta’aeen [temporary marriages for sex, the women get nothing after instant divorce; it’s a shi’ite practice that was outlawed under Saddam and is now all the rage], human punching bags, one of four wives, etc. Yup, taken car of.
The ministry has been “whittling away step by step” at the initiative launched by U.S. troops in late 2003, Phillips said.
Attempts to get a ministry official to explain the weapons order were unsuccessful. The official spokesman did not respond to telephone messages. . . .
Men who hold office jobs at the ministry are being allowed to keep their weapons, the women added.
There are more than 8,600 Glock pistols, the standard police-issued sidearm, in the main weapons warehouse in Baghdad, he said. An additional 120,000 are due to arrive in the coming months, he said.
Gee, who’s paying for those Glocks? Let me guess. Take out your wallets, my fellow Americans.
The impact of the growing religious influence on Iraqi women has manifested itself in other ways as well. In the southern city of Basra, police say religious militants this year have killed dozens of women who did not cover their hair or dress modestly. In Baghdad, once a secular metropolis, it is rare to see women without scarves covering their hair. Women’s activists say the new constitution clears the way for Islamic rule by guaranteeing individuals the right to decide domestic and family issues according to religious traditions.
The U.S. attempt to recruit female police officers faced hurdles from the start. Phillips said that although hundreds of women have gone through the police academy and performed as well as, if not better than, men, few have been given assignments outside the office.
Your tax dollars at work, er . . . desk duty.
Despite the ministry order, the women said they would not hand in their weapons. If their pay is withheld at the end of the month, they plan to stage a protest.
They added that they were counting on U.S. authorities to back them up and force the ministry to back off.
Phillips, though, said U.S. officials have limited options.
“It’s a sovereign nation. We turned over the running of their own police force to them,” he said. “We don’t have a veto.”
Yes, so sovereign, they need us to endlessly bankroll them and keep “order” on their streets. Otherwise, it is total chaos. After everything we’ve done for these people, that we don’t have a “veto” over this BS is absurd. Think that’ll change in 20 years of us being there? Think again–you don’t know Islam.
On the lighter side, this whole idea wouldn’t even be a good idea at the highest levels of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the U.S. ICE’s incompetent female “leadership” of Julie L. Myers and Marcy Forman-Friedman are basically at full-time desk duty (killing more than their fair share of trees issuing repeated puff press releases), anyway, and they never use guns–they just make life miserable for those in their agency who do.
Anyway, I’ve been repeatedly screaming that handing democracy to the religion of headchoppers simply will never work in our favor. It will only solidify extremism.
And this is yet more proof. But no surprise.
Did I support going into Iraq? Yes. Did I support staying there and giving them “democracy”? Hell, no. I supported getting in, removing Saddam, turning over the country to a Shah-esque, pro-U.S. dictator and getting out. Had we done that, Bush would be a hero. Barbarians cannot handle democracy. It only hurts America when they get it.
But instead of facing this fact, Bush–as we know–is into this whole “Islam is peace” and needs democracy BS. And that’s why we have stories like this.
