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Are U.S Servicewomen Trading the Safety of the Helmet for the Hijab?
American Thinker ^ | February 04, 2011 | Margaret Calhoun Hemenway

Posted on 02/06/2011 1:14:11 PM PST by george76

Recent pictures in Stars and Stripes feature female U.S. service members wearing the Islamic headscarf, also known as a hijab. These women are part of a new initiative, Female Engagement Teams, being deployed in Afghanistan.

Aside from questions about whether the safety of these women deployed into harm's way is jeopardized by trading the helmet for the hijab, the photos invoke memories of a policy fight in Congress less than a decade ago. In 2002, the Senate overturned a DoD mandate requiring female American service members stationed in Saudi Arabia to wear the Saudi version of the burqa, known as an abaya. Similarly, in the House of Representatives, an amendment was enacted to end the "abaya" mandate. Women in Saudi Arabia (or in Afghanistan under the brutal reign of the primitive Taliban) are subject to beatings by religious police (in Saudi Arabia known as muttawa), if they expose, even inadvertently, a wrist or ankle...

a headscarf is no protection against a sniper or IED...

...

Congress needs to ensure that the spirit of the legislation repealing the "abaya" mandate is extended to protect female service members who may be pressured by superiors to forego the safety of the helmet for the hijab and compelled to disrespect their First Amendment-protected religious beliefs.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: abaya; abayamandate; afghanistan; bds; hijab; notbushsfault; obama; presidentbush; saudiarabia; taliban; women
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1 posted on 02/06/2011 1:14:17 PM PST by george76
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To: george76


2 posted on 02/06/2011 1:25:12 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet (Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. ~Lincoln)
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To: george76

3 posted on 02/06/2011 1:28:30 PM PST by icwhatudo ("laws requiring compulsory abortion could be sustained under the constitution"-Obama official)
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To: icwhatudo

That is utterly crazy.


4 posted on 02/06/2011 1:30:05 PM PST by livius
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To: george76

What. The. Hell.

Why are we over there fighting? This is utter nonsense. Was this started under Bush?


5 posted on 02/06/2011 1:33:43 PM PST by mockingbyrd (We remembered in November.)
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To: george76

Yet if you told a woman she was only worth that of half of a man you’d end up with charges.


6 posted on 02/06/2011 1:33:43 PM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: george76

Brought to you by the same DOD higher-ups who thought it was a good idea to have unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood.


7 posted on 02/06/2011 1:34:21 PM PST by 6SJ7 (atlasShruggedInd = TRUE)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Not. Enough. Coverage.


8 posted on 02/06/2011 1:34:31 PM PST by RichInOC (Palin 2012: BOOM. Taste My Cluebat!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; george76; icwhatudo; The Comedian

Not only insanity.

It is First Degree Murder.

I see people saying Assange and Wikileaks should be prosecuted.

That what they they are doing MAY, MAY put people in harm’s way.

The policies and ROE’s our military are being subjected to are getting people MURDERED AS WE SIT HERE AND TALK ABOUT IT.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.


9 posted on 02/06/2011 1:36:38 PM PST by bigheadfred (THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE HAS BEGUN)
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To: george76

Well, see, there was Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Rome, Attila the Hun, Napolean, Wellington, all the others, etc.... then WWII. War meant taking care of business to survive.

After that... well... see that’s the thing with a slippery slope, they’re funny that way. It’s hard to stop sliding when you’re halfway down the slope.

Ok ladies and gentlemen, as you were.


10 posted on 02/06/2011 1:36:49 PM PST by PieterCasparzen (Huguenot)
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To: george76

Is putting a hijab on a female soldier going to somehow make fundamentalist Muslim Afghans forget that she is a foreign woman bearing arms in their country? Somehow, I don’t think lack of head covering is what most offends Muslim Afghans about female soldiers.


11 posted on 02/06/2011 1:38:16 PM PST by The Pack Knight (Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and the world laughs at you.)
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To: icwhatudo

Oh, my God. This must be part of our strategy to make our enemies laugh themselves to death.


12 posted on 02/06/2011 1:41:22 PM PST by The Pack Knight (Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and the world laughs at you.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
@#!#^$#$@#$@!!!##$%$

The most infuriating picture I've ever seen is that picture of Nazi Pelosi, second in line to the Presidency of the United States, wearing a scarf in order to avoid offending the sensitivies of a bunch of reprobates who are stuck in the 7th century.

13 posted on 02/06/2011 1:41:52 PM PST by Hardastarboard (Bringing children to America without immigration documents is child abuse. Let's end it.)
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To: livius

Read the Stars and Stripes article. The American Thinker article is very misleading, intentionally so it would appear.


14 posted on 02/06/2011 1:42:54 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated)
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To: The Pack Knight
"...Somehow, I don’t think lack of head covering is what most offends Muslim Afghans about female soldiers..." This is soooooo sad.....we are missing so many opportunities in Afghanistan. Civ supply distribution
15 posted on 02/06/2011 1:43:21 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (...even more American than a French bikini and a Russian AK-47.)
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To: george76

This isn’t a big deal. You appeal to the people in the environment in which you operate. SF types have been doing this for decades. These women have a lot of firepower backing them up.


16 posted on 02/06/2011 1:43:44 PM PST by Future Snake Eater ("Get out of the boat and walk on the water with us!”--Sen. Joe Biden)
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To: icwhatudo

So now the enemy knows who to keep alive long enough to gang rape. Nice going. \sarc


17 posted on 02/06/2011 1:44:05 PM PST by MissMack99 (Mitt Romney is a FRAUD, he RUINED Mass. Don't let him finish Obama's job.)
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To: george76; All

Serious questions..is it possible to wear one OVER a helmet..or put the helmet on OVER the hijab?


18 posted on 02/06/2011 1:45:43 PM PST by ken5050 (Palin/Bachman 2012 - FOUR boobs are better than the two we have now!)
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To: george76
I had a conversation with some men fresh from deployment in Afghanistan circa 2003. Normally, whenever being shot at, it was from someone hiding in the rocks with an AK at 1000 meters and barely amounted to harassing fire.

One day while on patrol, one man wasn't wearing his helmet and took a round in the head. He was the unit's only combat casualty of the deployment.

19 posted on 02/06/2011 1:47:10 PM PST by fso301
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To: mockingbyrd

“...Was this started under Bush?...”

Hell yes!!!...it was started under Bush. His religion of Peace rhetoric went in to the creation of Iraq’s constitution and Afghanistan’s constitution which made Sharia the highest law of the land. America could have guided those CONQUERED countries to any constitution and we chose, under Bush, a non-Western one. This backwardness is blessed by America.


20 posted on 02/06/2011 1:49:53 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (...even more American than a French bikini and a Russian AK-47.)
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