Straying into the Field

I am sure you are all familiar with Sally Field's Emmy acceptance which raised a bit of a hue & cry because of the bit of censorship involved:

"Let's face it, if mothers ruled the world, there would be no God damn wars in the first place."

Getting that from the Baltimore Sun of 18 SEP 2007. Sally Field appears to believe that women like Lucrezia Borgia, by mere fact of being a mother, would insulate themselves from rather nasty things in the way of statecraft. Yes if all nice, sweet moms were running things, why cars would never go faster than 20 mph, you would have government mandate to keep a clean pair of underwear with you at all times, and you would get stiff fines for not finishing off your vegetables at dinner *first*. Luckily the good Dr. Helen has taken on this sort of thing so I don't have to!

Instead, I would like to point out something that came to my attention a bit ago while reading Michael Totten. During one of his posts from his experiences in Iraq, he did point out that mothers, in particular, have a special role in Iraqi society. And this is something that we here, in the US, have overlooked completely, which could help immensely in bringing some peace to Iraq and helping folks settle down a bit. The post is that of 27 AUG 2007 and the following is the lead-in to it:

MUSHADAH, IRAQ – “Al Qaeda terrifies locals,” said Major Mike Garcia from Canyon, Texas, before he put me in a convoy of Humvees with 18 American Military Police on their way to the small town of Mushadah just north of Baghdad. “The only people Iraqis may be more afraid of is their mothers. When we arrest or detain people and threaten to call up their mom, they completely freak out. Please, no, don’t tell my mother they say. Women are quiet outside the house, but they severely smack down their bad kids inside the house. When your Iraqi mother tells you to knock something off, you knock it off.”

The American military has slowly figured out how to leverage Iraq’s culture to its advantage, but it only works to an extent. Locating, killing, capturing, and interrogating terrorists and insurgents is the easy part. The hard part is training Iraqis to do it themselves.

Now this may just be a bit centralized to Mushadah, but, from what I've read from Bill Ardolino, Michael Yon, Bill Roggio and others... well... this does appear to be a bit more wide-spread if less often talked about. I mean, how can you be a brave jihadi if you are worried your mother will find out? Hard to do that without the other jihadis ragging on you incessently. And now that some restoration of order is coming about, maybe it is time to change the approach with the Iraqi Police, just a bit.

I am sure we are all familiar with the 'Desk Sergeant' from multiple police/crime dramas: the poor man sitting at the Front Desk to book people and sort things out. Usually an older veteran of the force, doing the hard job of making sure things are kept orderly, that procedure is followed, that you eat all your vegetables *first*.... that would have its only, practical level of terror upon those suspected of crimes, wouldn't it? Instead of a man doing that job, recruit women for it. And not young women, either. In point of fact, you would want mothers with *sons* in that sort of position. Actually, outside of the violent perps, the job, itself, is pretty much administrative and functionary, with only the need to direct traffic, call in support when needed and otherwise browbeat individuals as they enter the station.

Sounds like the *perfect* job for an Iraqi mom!

Not one of those Western moms... no... none of that 'just talk it out' sort of thing. Iraqi moms seem to have a better handle on this concept of 'civilizing the boys' than our culture has at this point in time. And no matter how old you are, you would remember you mother, and not want to get one sitting in initial judgement of you upset. You never know *what* she might do... like talk to YOUR MOTHER about you lacks as a son. It wouldn't get the uncouth men to behave, but it just might get those with a conscience and respect for their mothers to really think about what they are doing.

And act civilized like your mother told you to do.