Posted on 06/28/2003 7:00:46 AM PDT by blam
Iraqis alarmed over troops' feminine frisking
June 27 2003 at 06:04PM
Baghdad - United States security concerns have clashed with Iraq's traditional culture in a potentially volatile flap over American men frisking Iraqi women.
The practice is not widespread, and the Americans say they use it only as a last resort. But tales of such incidents - and television footage of a male American soldier patting down a chador-clad Iraqi woman - have sparked outrage in Iraq.
The issue is being talked about throughout the country - in homes and cafes and during sermons by religious readers at Friday prayers.
"There's no doubt that unrelated men even touching Muslim women is not allowed in our religion," said Sheikh Muhammad Mahmoud al-Samarayee, a cleric at Baghdad's Imam al-Adham seminary.
'For some people it is the equivalent of being raped' "If they really want to respect the Muslim people, they have to use female soldiers to search women."
The US military is engaged in a massive campaign to track down insurgents who have been increasing their attacks on American soldiers. The troops are trying to carry out their mission without offending Muslim sensibilities or breaking the religious taboo on men touching unrelated women.
At the al-Rahman mosque in southern Iraq, worshippers recently held a demonstration protesting alleged searches of Iraqi women by male soldiers. When asked about the issue, however, protesters admitted that they had never actually seen an American man patting down an Iraqi woman.
Responding to the concern, the US Central Command issued a June 4 statement acknowledging the "cultural sensitivities" raised by frisking women for weapons.
"When female civilians must be searched, US forces make every effort to have female service members conduct these searches," said the statement.
"Although there are times when male service members are required to search female civilians, every effort is made to ensure these searches are conducted in a professional manner with dignity and respect for the individual being searched."
But William Beeman, an anthropologist who heads Middle East studies at Brown University, condemned any searches of women by men as "extraordinarily ignorant and offensive" to Muslims, who may view the searches as a violation of a woman's honour.
"The matter is so serious that for some very conservative people it is the equivalent of being raped, and may render the women, if they are not married, unmarriageable," he said. Rather than preventing violence, the practice could spark more clashes, said Juan Cole, a history professor and Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan.
"Many riots have been set off in colonial history by heavy-handed Western interventions in private life," said Cole. - Sapa-AP
After all these years, there are no words in the English language adequate to express just how sick and tired I am of Muslim "concern" and Muslim "outrage". After years of being pandered to by the Western media, they have come to believe, like all spoiled children, that their opinions are paramount throughout the world.
They hide guns and bombs under their womens skirts, then express "outrage" that over rumors their women might be searched by unrelated men. They climb electric poles and cut the wires to sell the copper, loot their own power plants...then whine that they have no electric to run their air conditioners. They claim our soldiers have fought and died thousands of miles from home just to (somehow) look up the skirts of their wimmen with noght vosion goggles, as if the chopped up booty of Muslim women is somehow better or more fascinating that the whole and unmutilated nether regions of Western women.
They've expressed their "concerns" and "outrage" daily for the past 40 years. How many times will these people be allowed to cry wolf?
We're all sick of them acting like spoiled-rotten 10 year-olds, demanding that their slander, blood lust and obsession with genitalia and toilet humor in the name religion be respected and rewarded. They MUST begin to take responsibility for their actions and begin acting like ADULTS.
And to think a few months ago they were begging to be freed. Amazing how such an allegedly well educated population should have such short attention spans, be so willing to destroy their own infrastructure and be so susceptable to really ridiculous rumors, isn't it?
Shut up, or we'll shoot you.
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