Women standing in the breach

It’s not really surprising when an American woman earns a Silver Star – heroic, yes (most men have never earned a Silver Star) but not really surprising. Americans have always had women willing to pick up arms to defend their homes and families – it’s part of our national character, the character of a traditional liberal society. But now other women are taking up the job that their men can’t always do.

From Grim at Blackfive, Iraqi women are giving coalition forces information on the people who are terrorizing their neighborhood and they’re organizing. The Sisters of Fallujah are bringing down desperate terrorists in that city and saving lives;

It has become desperate times for the insurgents in the al Anbar province. Backed up against the ropes and badly beaten, they are trying to resort to any dirty trick that they can come up with… even if it means sneaking bomb-making material with women and children past the Coalition and Iraqi forces’ security.

These tactics have proven to be futile thanks to the brave women known as the Sisters of Fallujah who selflessly help protect their city and stop any insurgents’ attempt to harm their community.

The Sisters of Fallujah, a program which started Dec. 15, has local women working along-side Marines and Iraqi Police at each Entry Control Point, which allows inbound traffic and people into the city. They are at the forefront of their community’s defense where every woman, child and their belongings are searched by them.

As are the Daughters of Iraq;

Officials late Friday announced that some 30 Iraqi women would comprise the first “Daughters of Iraq” group to be formed in areas south of Baghdad. The U.S. military had dubbed the armed groups — which include nearly 100,000 members throughout the country — as the “Sons of Iraq.”

While mainly Shiite, some of the groups are Sunni-led. The U.S. military says they are instrumental in guarding their neighborhoods, setting up checkpoints and finding roadside bombs.

Officials with the 3rd Infantry Division, which commands U.S. troops south of Baghdad, called the formation of the first women’s group within the so-called “Sons of Iraq” a “bold step in its evolution.”

Halfway around the world, the Damas de Blanco (The Ladies in White) are standing up to the Castro regime in Cuba (h/t Babalu Blog). 9 were arrested yesterday (Christian Science Monitor link);

When Laura Pollán’s husband, a journalist, hosted his colleagues at their house in Havana, she busied herself in the kitchen making coffee. When their talk turned “too political,” she left.

But since his imprisonment, the former high school teacher is now at the center of discussions, prayers, fasting – and a rare, impromptu street protest Monday. Ms. Pollán is a leader of the “Damas de Blanco” (Ladies in White), a group of wives, mothers, and sisters of 75 dissidents, many of them reporters, jailed after a sudden sweep of arrests nationwide in March 2003.

On Monday morning, Pollán and nine other Damas were roughed up by a mob and arrested near the offices of President Raúl Castro. “We are here to demand the release of our husbands and won’t leave until they are free or they arrest us. We have waited long enough, we want to talk to the new president,” Pollán said, according to Reuters.

Moments later, a bus pulled up and about 20 female corrections officers tried to arrest the women, who sat on the sidewalk, clasped arms, and refused to move. A mob of about 100 Cuban government supporters, mainly women from nearby government buildings, joined the fray, picking the Damas up, throwing them into the waiting bus, and yelling insults, Reuters reported.

A video of the Damas de Blanco;

I know that in my house, when the women get defiant men should stand aside and do their bidding. The world’s tyrants and oppressors can, from this moment forward, never say I didn’t warn them.

Category: Society