An article in this morning’s paper caught my eye. I give it the A.E. Neuman award for this month. The Army utilizes women (usually NCOs) as an interface in situations where they enter villages. The old program was  labeled Lioness wherein a female soldier accompanied search teams in when they tossed a house. The “Lioness” was used to calm female locals while their residences were searched for weapons and explosives. She was also utilized to search women for weapons. The lioness model was, and is, probably vital if you’re going to engage in behaviour that is guaranteed to alienate you from those you are attempting to Westernize. If you hope to eliminate violence against our troops, you have to employ a kinder, gentler form of coercion. Either that or a ham-handed iron fist that brooks no resistance. You certainly don’t need women soldiers for the latter model.

The newer Female Engagement Teams (FETs) are another one of these touchy, feely attempts to “interface”. The soldiers assigned to it described their mission as attempting to find out what the local women want from their government. That would be the Afghan government. We already know what they want from us -to leave. Since when did we get in the business (in the midst of a conflict) of trying to ascertain what that je ne sais quoi was that we weren’t getting as we trundle through these little  burgs?

During the Vietnam War, we attempted to throw mass quantities of funds, farming implements and modernization at villages. too. It was called the Pacification program. We hoped to bribe the South Vietnamese villagers into supporting the corrupt central government in Saigon with cash and other inducements. The counterfoil to this was the Viet Cong. Any villagers who sided with the American/RVN pacification program were assassinated, tortured or never heard from again. This had the undesirable effect of  alienating the populace against us. We couldn’t be everywhere at once to defend them. We became inured to the subtle rejection and started a new “pacification” procedure. If you weren’t with us, then you were against. Any munitions or tunnel systems indicating Charlie’s activities in a village was a legitimate reason for burning it to the ground. This didn’t win friends or influence the natives either. In fact, it drove them into the arms of the enemy in record numbers. In the end, the Pacification program involved rounding up those souls who still desired to be part of the “democratic” system into fenced, guarded compounds and feeding them. Farming for sustenance was  optional.

What does the Army hope to gain from FETs? Well, according to those at the forefront, they’ll be in touch with the hopes and desires of the Afghan women. Young girls will look up to these female warriors and be emboldened to “be all they can be”. In fact, this will instill independence and bravado into these young girls and enable them to overcome insurmountable odds in the coming decades. Not.

When we bail out in 2014, these young girls will be re-educated in the Muslim ways of being seen and not heard. They will speak when spoken to and memories of gender equality will evaporate or be a fond memory. I find it odd that the Army has to go through this painful learning process again. Pacification programs are all well and fine but you cannot entice a people or a nation to become educationally self-sufficient just by role models. Building schools and digging wells does not placate an ignorant, suspicious populace. Nothing but time does that if you’re lucky. If the women are lucky, they will forget they ever heard or felt these new emotions. It will be pounded out of them soon enough anyway by the enlightened Taliban and their tribal elders.

As a last comment, I rate FETs right up there with striking a medal and awarding it to troops who refrain from shooting the enemy and try to interface with them.  Imagine if they constructed the medal like one of those new Hallmark greeting cards. You touch it and it plays Kumbaya, my Lord-Kumbaya. Now we’re getting somewhere…

It is hoped that being assigned to a FET will not become a precursor for PTSD. Simply commingling with young Afghan women shouldn’t be traumatic on its face but wait until 2014 when their progeny are being stoned for these new, instilled notions. War is ugly. Putting lipstick on it doesn’t improve the outcome.