reasoned audacity: The Stuffed Animal Raid

Speaking of women serving in Iraq (see "Mother's call gets son in hot water"), Charmaine Yoest has several posts on women in the military. The latest includes this:

So "cultural sensitivities" now justify violating Department of Defense regulations against taking women into combat and the law which requires Congressional notification before doing so?

The problem with this vignette explodes in several directions. The article uses female suicide bombers to explain why we need to be searching Iraqi women.

That's a real problem. But let us get this straight: because terrorists encourage their women to blow themselves up, we have to send our women into harm's way? To respect "cultural sensitivities?"

UPDATE, May 11, 2005. I've just been on the One Hand Clapping blog and notice that folks over there have taken Yoest to task for some of her other posts on women in the military. And, on closer look, I see that Yoest has launched salvos back. Neither side advocates women in combat, but they are having some disagreements, obviously, over the details. I don't know enough to be able to take sides on this, but I thought it only fair to warn you that I seem to have accidently walked into something like crossfire here.