Stalingrad: The Battle that Turned WWII. And Women in War. Meet the Night Witches.

 Stalingrad.  And the Distaff Side At Work.

An Angle You Might Have Missed.

Meet the Soviet female bomber pilot regiment, the Night Witches, for example.

First, the context of Stalingrad as an example of a war event. Then see the role of Women at Stalingrad, as the Soviets are first to allow women to fire back; as a Part II of the issue begun at Women In War. Among other sources, we find an anchor for individual examples of women in war in Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-43, by Antony Beevor; a work including information about the women fighting at Stalingrad, including material from German and Russian military reports.

Female and male armor, medieval, Thun Castle, Switzerland. Women in war as part of history, later suppressed, east and west.

Stalingrad was Tsarnitsyn until 1925, when its name changed to Stalingrad.  It is now Volgograd, thanks to Khrushchev's efforts to dissociate from the Stalin era purges.  During World War II, the city was Stalingrad. Keep any city's various names in mind for research. Different results from each. Check all the spellings, metamorphoses.

Stalingrad: As to pivot points in WWII, many scholars see the horrific Battle of Stalingrad, in the early years of 1942-43, in the Eastern Front, as the real turning point, and not the later Normandy landings. See this school-student-oriented site first, then dig deeper: ://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/battle_of_stalingrad.htm/. See FN 1. They also note that women at Stalingrad, and in the Soviet military, carried out the same kinds of missions against the enemy as men, and - in medical rescue - filled in the gaps where wounded men were disposable as far as military strategy was concerned.  They were heroic in saving wounded when the military hierarchy wrote them off.  Women in Russian culture, as elsewhere (if we look) have a long history in warfare - strength, stamina and skill.

Stalingrad as a setting offers those and other perspectives. Find other resources about Stalingrad's siege and defense in book and film, at FN 2.  Stalingrad more important than Normandy, without Stalingrad there could have been no success at Normandy? Vet the issues. Consider.

The focus on Stalingrad, and what it teaches here:

1.  Leadership, both sides. Blunders and egos.  Plus ca change.  Did petty rivalries and bullheadedness of heads of state here (Hitler and Stalin) drive strategy, more than a realistic assessment of the chance for success.  Should the focus have remained on Stalingrad specifically, for so long. Neither side's leader would let their forces give up. And Stalingrad's civilians held the line.

2.  Resources uses. The role of women.  Russia permitted women to fight back, pilots of bombers. Some in tanks. Military as well as civilian women under siege did what had to be done.  Don't think spinning wheels here. Basic reference:  Defending Leningrad: Women Behind Enemy Lines / On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman Machine Gunner, by Christopher Ward, Canadian Slavonic Papers, at://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200009/ai_n8910839/ (herein "Defending Leningrad")

3.  What can be learned from Stalingrad. Are we educating our kids adequately about the past: leaders need to be kept in objective check.  And are we handicapping ourselves in the west, by excluding because of cultural prejudice and male ego, half the population from participating in the military fully.

Finally: Read about Ana Yegorova, one of the Night Witches, a bomber pilot in the Soviet air force, who served with valor but unfortunately survived her crash landing and was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps for five years.  What do we learn of her fate:  when finally freed, her own government's SMERSH then interrogated her for a prolonged period, with torture, saying she could only have survived if she went over to the German side.  Can you imagine? Would that have ever have been inflicted on a man?  That assumption? It nearly destroyed her, in ways that the experience in the camps did not.  Look at the inability of the men to accept strength and ability in the female. Is that so? Perhaps not.  You go vet.

From conversations with students, we see high schools and colleges turning more toward a study of post-war population movements and social change following major wars.  Where is the study of generals, strategies, human failures, heroisms, mistakes, brilliances, suffering and lessons from slaughter. Is the focus on sociology a wise change? Have we given up learning from the past, or did we never do so anyway.
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1.  Blunders and Egos.

Why did Hitler want the area at all?  And then stay to fight on when conquest did not come. Why did Stalin force the fight when reasonable retreats, or permitting escape, could have saved hundreds of thousands.

Personal and strategic motivations, apparently. It became too late to turn back; and Hitler forbad retreat.  Plus, there were resources there.  Oil in the Caucasus. To win would mean disruption of the Communications hub for the Russians. To win would mean taking Materiel.  Manufacturing facilities. Why did the Germans keep at it.  Hitler's orders.

Why did the Russians fight so hard - morale? Tradition? Or sound strategy, knowing the stakes if they caved.  Stalin pushed for the city named for him, and it stood for so much Russian.  And the NKVD had taken over the river craft for the military, so civilians could not escape over the Volga. The idea was to motivate the Russian soldiers to fight harder, since families and civilians were there (see Beevor site, below, at 106).

Result:  a tragedy of death unimaginable to us living our lives elsewhere so many decades later. Do an Images search for Stalingrad.

2. The women of Stalingrad. 

Women in the Red Army

There was cler  fighting prowess in the women, either acquired before, or rapidly learned.  They were tenacious and heroic at this place.  Why at this place. Why did they fight out front. Was it all necessity, or was it also affinity.

Read "Stalingrad, The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943" by Antony Beevor, Viking Press 1998.  Ours is an advance uncorrected proof, obtained at a block book sale, but should be close to the one sold commercially, see ://search.barnesandnoble.com/Stalingrad-The-Fateful-Siege-1942-1943/Antony-Beevor/e/9780140284584/.

Here is what we found as to women in the Red Army:  Page references are to the Beevor site book; other references are fully identified.
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66  At the Barvenkovo Salient, 250,000 Russian troops had been compressed in by Germans.

THE BANDIT BATTALION

"According to a senior (German) NCO in the 389th Infantry Division , his grenadier regiment found itself in a merciless battle with what he described as a 'bandit battalion ' of women soldiers, commanded by a redhead. 'The fighting methods of these female beasts showed itself in treacherous and dangerous ways.  They lie concealed in heaps of straw, and shoot us in the back when we pass by.' "

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87   The NKVD, set up by Beria in 1939 was known for executions of German prisoners of war, but a side task was its interrogation of Germans to gain information as to morale, what approaches might work to turn Axis soldiers to the Russian side.  There was little luck with the Germans, but more with the Romanians captured, who resented their country's perceived capitulation to Axis power control.

LIEUTENANT LEPINSKAYA.

Here is the interrogator as to one Panzer Division:

"Every member of a small detachment from the 29th Motorized Division of Fourth Panzer Army was interrogated by Lieutenant Lepinskaya from the political department of South-Western Front headquarters."

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91  The Russian 62nd Army was under attack at the Don River. Officers shot themselves, there was little food, ammunition running out, corpses, carts and camels to transport the wounded at night, high casualties, getting worse.

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GALYA.

Here is one woman's response, she an interpreter, to a German soldier seeking to surrender:

"One man took a leaflet out of his pocket and started walking toward the Germans. Galya, a woman interpreter on our staff, shosuted: 'Look at him! The snake is going to surrender!", and she shot him with her pistol."

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106-08  Women womanned anti-aircraft batteries at the Volga.  Richthofen (who had bombed Guernica, in Spain) was sending carpet-bombers over in relays:

"One German pilot, after his aircraft was hit by one of the women's anti-aircraft batteries, managed to bale out, but when his piarachute opened, he drifted straight down into a blaze."

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The 16th Panzer Division faces fierce resistance:

THE GIRLS AT THE GUNS,

"FIRST PAGE OF THE STALINGRAD DEFENCE".

"While Richthofen's bombers pounded Stalingrad, the (Panzers) had advanced virtually unopposed the steppe for nearly twenty-five miles. 'Around Gumrak", the division recorded, 'enemy resistance became stronger and anti-aircraft guns began firing wildly at our armoured vehicles from the north-west corner of Stalingrad.

"This resistance came from the batteries operated by young women volunteers, barely out of high school.  Few had fired the guns before, owing to the shortage of ammunition, and none of them had been trained to take on targets on the ground.  They had switched targets from the bombers over the city on sighting the panzers, whose crews  'seemed to think they were on a Sunday promenade.' The young gun crews furiously wound the handles, depressing the barrels to zero elevation....

[As the Germans recovered from surprise, and stukas arrived to take out the guns, this happened:] "Every time the anti-aircraft guns fell silent, Sarkisian (captain, commander of the soviet heavy-mortar battalion) exclaimed:' Oh, they're finished now! They've been wiped out!" But each time, after a pause, the guns started to fire again. 'This", declared Grossman (a writer, to whom Sarkisian related the events) 'was the first page of the Stalingrad defence.' "

MASHA

"The anti-aircraft battery crews were astonishingly resilient. According to Captain Sarkisyan, 'the girls refused to go down into the bunkers.' One of them, called Masha, is said to have 'stayed at her post for four days without being relieved', and was credited with nine hits.  Even if that figure is an exaggeration, like many at the time, the 16th Panzer Division's report casts no dounbts on their bravery. 'Right until the late afternoon', sated one account, 'we had to fight, shot for shot, against thirty seven-enemy anti-aircraft positions, manned by tenacious fighting women, until they were all destroyed.'

Female warrior goddess, Graz Armory facade, Austria

"The panzer troops were horrified when they found that they had been firing at women * [*Few members of the Sixth Army seem to have heard about the Sarmatae of the lower Volga - an interbreed of Scythians and Amazons, according to Herodotus - who allowed their women to take part in war.]" (emphasis added)

[As German cultural illusions of chivalry fell apart, a German commented:] " 'It is completely wrong to describe Russian women as "soldiers in skirts", wrote one of them later. 'The Russian woman has long been fully prepared for combat duties and to fill any post of which a woman might be capable. Russian soldiers treat such women with great wariness.' " (emphasis added_

• Comment:  Allowed their women to take part in war?  Allowed? Those were female dominant societies.  No asking. Participate as an autonomous person - not by asking permission of anyone male.  Where is the citation for assuming an amazon had to ask a man if she could go to war? Ridiculous scholarship, so it seems. 

• And that declaration of preparation does not gibe with the other reports of girls just out of high school undertaking military tasks without any training, and succeeding; but it fits the man's needing to show why it was so hard for men to subdue them. They must have been trained, those girls, because he is so formidable they could not have withstood the onslaught so long.

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MASHA KOVAL

Do a search for "Masha Stalingrad" and find another Masha, Masha Koval, who survived to tell her story, see The Voice of Russia, at ://www.vor.ru/55/Stalingrad/History_6_eng.html/ At eighteen, she kept crawling under the fire at Mamayev Hill to bring back the wounded while a blizzard blew,  ultimately found two who had already died, and in the cold, lay down to sleep between them, being then picked up as though dead by others - who found she was still alive, and brought her back to a dug-out, and she lived.

Mamayev Kurgan, or Mamayev Hill, is also noted with narrative of events and people at Andrea Smith, The Courage of a People: The Russians in World War II, at ://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/History/Online_Narrative_History/ONHJ09/Stalingrad.pdf/

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LILYA LITVAK

The White Rose of Stalingrad

Meet a fighter pilot who began flying solo at age 15.  During World War II, she was posted to male units because of her skill, see Dariusz Tyminski's WW II Aces at  ://209.157.64.200/focus/f-vetscor/1656761/posts/  Many names of other WWII women ACES are included there. She was finally killed in 1943, after 168 missions of different kinds, and 12 enemy planes shot down, plus 3 in concert with another pilot.  Read her record, specific sorties. Gorbachev posthumously awarded her as Hero of the Soviet Union.

The nickname:  She painted a lily on her plane fuselage, a YaK-1, it was confused with a rose.  It is said that the Germans avoided her YaK-1, identified from the flower.  It took eight German planes to down her.

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THE NIGHT WITCHES

"The Night Witches" - nickname first for the 588th Women's Night Bomber Regiment, then for other Night Bombers, including the 46th Night Bombers Guards Regiment.  See ://mysite.pratt.edu/~rsilva/sovwomen.htm/  Read the numbers of women serving, and the branches of service. The photographs show - you go look. At that site.  The BBC did a documentary, see ://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2009/11/091102_night_witches.shtml/ (watch all 23 minutes). There, meet:

 NADEZDA POPOVA

"Nadezhda Popova, now a great grandmother, was a pilot in the 46th Night Bombers Guards Regiment. 'The Germans called us Night Witches because we never let them get any sleep", she says. "They spread a rumour that we had been injected with some unknown chemicals that enabled us to see so clearly in the pitch black.!' "

Find more about the Night Witches, and photos of them, at Tale of Two Night Witches, at ://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/02/tale-of-two-night-witches/  Many were teenagers at the time. They were called "Night" witches, it says here, because they idled their engines to glide silently over the target cities at night.

ANA YEGOROVA

This Night Witch was captured after crash-landing, and spent five years in Nazi concentration camps. Upon liberation, SMERSH counterintelligence accused her of crossing to the German side, tortured her: She says,

" 'They swore at me, said I was the scum of the earth, that i switched sides and joined the Germans; they treated me like an animal and called me a fascist bitch’, she recalls. When, after more than 20 years, she was formally rehabilitated and named a Hero of the Soviet Union,  she remembers, “I felt burnt out, I felt no joy or satisfaction. It felt numb. After the SMERSH tortured me, something within me died. God save anyone from such treatment'."

Tale of Two Night Witches, at://russia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/11/02/tale-of-two-night-witches/  The site continues to note that the Soviet Union authorized these women to fire back, and they did, and did it well: then the Soviets tried to shut the female squadrons down after the war.  They were too successful. Is that so?
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109f  The woman battalion commissar.

THE WOMAN MECHANIC AS COMMISSAR

"The teaching staff (from the bombed technical university) helped form the nucleus of a local defence 'destroyer batallion'.  One of the professors was a company commander.  The batallion commissar was a young woman mechanic from the tractor plant, which had been converted to build T-34s."

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154  Women as medical orderlies, signallers.

"The 'garrisons' holding the fortified buildings ... included young women medical orderlies or signallers, [who] suffered great privations when cut off for days at a time.  They had to endure dust, smoke, hunger, and worst of all, thirst.  The city had been without fresh water since the pumping station was destroyed in the August raids [so soldiers shot at drainpipes to try to get a few drops]."

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157-58  BATTLEFIELD MEDICAL SERVICES

"The medical services in the Red Army were seldom regarded as a high priority by commanders.  A seriously woulded soldier was out of the battle, and senior officers were more concerned with replacing him.  Yet this attitude did not deter the very bravest figures on the Stalingrad battlefield, mainly female female students of high-school graduates with only the most basic first-aid training.

ZINAIDA GEORGEVNA GAVRIELOVA

"The commander of 62nd Army's hundred-strong sanitary company Zinaida Georgevna Gavrielova, was an eighteen-year-old medical student, who had received the job on the basis of a strong recommendation from the cavalry regiment in which she had just served. Her medical orderlies, few of them much older than herself, had to conquer their terror and crawl forward, often under heavy fire, to reach the wounded.  They then dragged them out of the way, until it was safe to carry them on their backs. They ahde to be both 'physicfally and spiritually sstrong', as their commander put it."

Read further at that section about these:

GULYA KOROLOVA (or KOROLEVA)

She was a 20-year old mother who brought back over a hundred wounded, and killed 15 fascists on her own. We are looking for corroboration, or other accounts, and so far find none.  Ah - here is one, linking her with Natalya Kachnevskaya.  See The Courage of a People: The Russians in World War II, by Andrea Smith 2009, at ://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/History/Online_Narrative_History/ONHJ09/Stalingrad.pdf/ (herein Smith, Courage of a People).  The spelling there is Koroleva. The site credits her with pulling hundreds, not just a hundred, wounded.

NATALYA KACHNEVSKAYA -

Nurse with a Guards Rifle Regiment, formerly a student of theater, rescued 20 soldiers in one day and threw grenades at the Germans. She is included at the Smith, Courage of a People site, with Gulya Koroleva, saving hundreds of wounded.  The spelling is variously given as  KOCHNEVSKAYA, or is that a different person? - at the 157-158 page range, this spelling is for someone carrying 20 wounded out of a firing zone in one day, but adding that she was was wounded twice and kept on bandaging and carrying.

KLAVDIA STERMAN -

A former maternity nurse.  She found, with others in her ground-crew staff, thousands of wounded left at the side of the Volga, and, after doing what they could, decided to transfer to the front lines in a medical unit.

YEKATERINA PETLYUK:

She was a member of a tank crew, although few women so served. She is also named as fighting on the ground, see Smith, Courage of a Nation, http://www.lourdes.edu/Portals/0/Files/History/Online_Narrative_History/ONHJ09/Stalingrad.pdf/ at p.8. She is named along with:

GALINA ALEXEYEVA

She was sixteen, began doing gopher-type tasks, then became a communications officer, with an armored battalion. She was allowed to fight within the city of Stalingrad ultimately.  Courage of a Nation at 9.

MARINA RASKOVA:

She was an aviator who led a women's bomber regiment.   Killed.  The Soviet Earhart. From review of Reina Pennington's narrative book, Wings, Women and War, see ://www.amazon.com/Wings-Women-War-Airwomen-Studies/dp/0700615547/ref=pd_sim_b_4/, Marina Raskova was the Soviet counterpart to Amelia Earhart, the one in 1941 to persuade Stalin to establish the female regiments.  The 46th Guards, Night Bomber Aviation Regiment was staffed throughout the war with women, as pilots, navigators, commanding officers, and mechanics. They flew about 5-15 sorties per night, slept 2-4 hours a day for 4 years, flew a total of over 24,000 missions, dropped 23,000 tons of bombs, and received 23 Hero of the Soviet Union Awards.  Of the 800,000 to a million in the military, over 200,000 received honors. In an integrated regiment, the 125th Guards, Dive Bombers, there were integrated tail-gunners, ground-personnel, and a male commander.  Inclusion of women was not for propaganda or because men were scarce.  Their service commenced at a time when Russia had a shortage of planes, not pilots. Not all women were noble.  See references to the sisters Kazarinova, using their power for personal vengeance, apparently (not read that book).

160  Women from surviving gun crews were reassigned to other batteries.

207  A German wrote home:

"...[t]he time has come for every sensible man in Germany to curse the madness of this war. It's impossible to describe what is happening here. Everyone in Stalingrad who still possesses a head and hands, women as well as men, carries on fighting."

224  To be continued.

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105:  Domestic heroism, stamina.

VICTOR GONCHAROV'S WIFE;

AND GONCHAROVA.  

"One mother, caught in the open with a daughter whose legs froze in shell-shock, 'literally had to drag her home' through the bombing.  No driver would attempt the journey. With virtually all the fathers away at the front, or now mobilized, women were left to cope with the appalling aftermath.  Viktor Goncharov's wife, helped by her eleven-year-old son, Nikolay, buried her father's corpse in the yard of their apartment block, which had received a direct hit. 'Before filling in the grave,' the son remembered, 'we searched for his head, but could not find it.' Her mother-in law, Goncharova, the wife of the Cossack veteran, was lost in the chaos.  Somehow the old woman managed ot live through the battle to comme, surviving for just over five months in a bunker.  They did not find each other again until the end of the year, nearly three years later."

 Then:  Memoirs of the defense of Stalingrad, by these women, source: Defending Leningrad at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200009/ai_n8910839/.  Look to that Defending Leningrad source also for the full citations to works referenced here.  For the magnitude of women's contribution, note that 800,000 women served in the Soviet military.  Of them, or on their behalf, we have these, as examples:

Diaries or memoirs: either those in actual combat, or as a soldier, or engaged in partisan activities behind lines, or other; and translators and editors of personal journals

• Elena Skriabina, Siege and Survival: The Odyssey of a Leningrader; and After Leningrad: From the Caucasus to the Rhine (she did not engage in actual combat)
  

• Nina Kosterina:  The Diary of Nina Kosterina (she did not engage in actual combat)
• Zoya Matveyevna Smirnova Medvedeva (any relation, Medvedev?), On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman machine Gunner, translator Kazimiera Cottam, see ://www.amazon.com/Road-Stalingrad-Memoirs-Machine-Gunner/dp/0968270204
  

• Kazimiera J. Cottam - translator and editor of personal journals of two women, a partisan and a soldier; also translated and edited Soviet Airwomen in Combat in World War II, and The Golden-Tressed Soldier, and Women In Air War: The Eastern Front 0f World War II;  see also Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers, at ://www.amazon.com/Women-War-Resistance-Selected-Biographies/dp/1585101605/ref=pd_sim_b_5
• Reina Pennington, Wings, Women and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat, at ://www.amazon.com/Wings-Women-War-Airwomen-Studies/dp/0700615547/ref=pd_sim_b_4/ Of particular interest from the review - the Soviets were first to allow female pilots. There were three all-women units, one as dive-bomber pilot, one as fighter pilot, one as night bomber; as well as those serving with men.  Women were also navigators, mechanics, bomb-loaders and others.
  

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FN 1  Most of us in the West are enamored of the Western Front.  Is that so? All noisy on the western front. All the PR, the  correspondents,  photographs, narrators speaking our own languages (European), multiple branches of everybody's military, naval and air services, water landings, liberations.  And we take for granted that women do not fight out front.  Never did, never should.  Our cultural blinders? Do we really know our own history?
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FN 2.  Keep going.

Read Stalingrad, novel by Theodor Plievier, see ://www.amazon.com/Stalingrad-Theodore-Plievier/dp/0881841080/.

See the film, Stalingrad, based upon it at http://www99.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu-1072969/mvie-review-FE2-A99B421-38AC6718-prod6/

Shipping Battlefield. World's Merchant Seamen. Civilian Resources, in Peace and War. Pan-Earth, All-Cuisines Restaurant.

The Mariners: Civilian Resources

US Merchant Marine, Europe's Merchant Navy,
Merchant Sailors, Merchant Seamen

A. In War;

B. At Peace;

C. In Literature

We think we know the merchant marine.  They load and unload, move around the seas, port to port, lots of people who may look different, hover around the docks, set off again.

Wrong.  They enter battle zones, require human connections including food, contact with home, healthcare and support. Our global prosperitye depends on those who move product, including military. Go to a dock. Watch.

Better, walk some, and eat there.  Meet the Pan-Earth All Cuisines Restaurant in Antwerp, at the dock.  They serve whoever appears, and offer the dishes from home.

• Antwerp: The Bonaparte docks. Find world cuisine for merchant sailors here, at the Pan Earth All Cuisines Restaurant, with a skilled chef serving whatever someone asks for, within reason; and the basics of most nationality favorites. Fufu, dishes from India, the Pacific Islands, Africa, China, all available. Ours was first rate. Someone go there and have this fine owner-operator (we can't find his name).  Ask him to write a cookbook.

Pan Earth All Cuisines, Bonaparte Dock, Antwerp; Dan Widing and owner-chef, name unknown to us. He is much admired. Artists pay tribute on his walls.

Carol Widing, Dan Widing, and hostess, Pan Earth All Cuisines, Bonaparte Dock, Antwerp

Artists' tribute to owner-chef, Dan and Chef-owner, , Pan Earth All Cuisines, Bonaparte Dock, Antwerp

Look deeper, farther, who are the clientele, besides us.

6. Training. US. The United States can boast an excellent Academy for training its Merchant Marine officers - the US Merchant Marine Academy, a New York institution, listed as one of the top 371 colleges in the country for academic program. This coveted ranking is from the Princeton Review, an annual survey of colleges and universities. See ://www.usmma.edu/The US Department of Transportation runs it. Go, government.

Uses of and roles for civilian Seamen in war; as well as peace. US Merchant Marine. A labor and service force, in the US the Merchant Marine is an adjunct to the Navy (not uniformed) and available to the Navy in war, thus enabling military activity as well as commercial shipping, cargo and passenger, around the globe. First target of the U-boats, WWI. Since 1936, they have been considered military. Although they enabled the Normandy landings in WWII, and participated under fire in battle areas, mariners who served in war were not recognized as veterans for purposes of benefits until 1988. Overview, of course, for preliminary purposes at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine

Foreign merchant marine: Merchant Navies, a common term in English speaking countries. See the BBC account of the British Merchant Navy activity in WWII at ://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/79/a2152379.shtml/ "Sailor" - term with a long history, obviously rooted in sailing ships, now applicable to any locomotion-type vessel, see ://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Sailor/ Some US ports restrict access to shore for foreign crews, a 9/11 concern but making life even more difficult for the workers, see Life at Sea section at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_transport/ and the union for US merchant workers at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_of_Masters,_Mates_%26_Pilots/

Purely commercial shipping, under flags of some third-world countries (owned elsewhere) may provide substandard conditions on board. After discussion here of wartime service of merchant navies, see what assistance is given and by whom to peacetime transport workers. Legal, counseling, and social-spiritual help at the ports. For foreign ships, a lonely business. US: more protections. In 1908, however, see the push for outsourcing - shippers in US ask for "open door" policy to hire foreign crews so the shippers can pay less and better compete globally, see ://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F0DE7D91739E333A25754C0A9649D946997D6CF

A. Wartime: Conflicts

1. Roles. Historically, the Merchant Marine has had a foot in peace and a foot in war. See ://www.usmm.org/faq.html/ In WWII, they were subject to the draft if they took more than 30 days' shore leave. See://www.usmm.org/faq.html/

Although heavily involved in warfare, they were not recognized as veterans until 1988, and legislation is pending regarding payment for their service during WWII, see issues at ://www.theheraldbulletin.com/local/local_story_224233003.html

Mulberry Harbor, Normandy, WWII, Avranches area. Merchant Marine were there to transport materiel, make the docks.

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2. The Wartime Mariners. Merchant marines' battlefield: on their own ships. Carrying materiel in World War II, for example, the Atlantic convoys came under repeated attack, see ://www.usmm.org/ww2.html/. Military efforts on the ground in Europe depended on what could get there. For these sealifts, the number of Mariners increased from 55,000 in peacetime, to 215,000 during WWII. One in 26 died at sea, a far greater percentage than ground troops. In 1942, 33 Allied ships (not just US) were being sunk per week. Seventeen Allied merchant ships (5 US) were sunk at Bari, Italy in WWII; 1000 Mariners killed. That is called the Second Pearl Harbor. Of those, hundreds died when one of the ships, carrying its secret cargo of mustard gas bombs, exploded, and the gas killed those around - and many civilians. Crew and officers on the SS Nicolet were massacred after capture by the Japanese near Sri Lanka. Of the 100+, after a rescue effort began, only 23 survived. See also ://www.armed-guard.com/index.html/

The Battle for the Atlantic (WWII) was not for area, it was for control of shipping lanes.

Look back to WWI: the German U-boats were highly successful in destroying merchant ships. Read about specific battles, both wars, South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Pacific, every invasion, at the American Merchant Marine site at ://www.usmm.org/ww2.html/ Anzio, Normandy. These were not all Naval Academy ships - 2700 at Normandy were Merchant Marine. They landed the troops and the equipment, all under fire.
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How could the Army get over there, if it were not for the Merchant Marine. Army Uncle Sam recruiting poster WWI. Merchant Marine ferried troops to landings and battlefields.

A thousand US Mariners brought and sunk obsolete Blockships to create the artificial harbors at Normandy, known as Mulberry - also at Utah and Omaha beaches. Merchant ships ferried troops, material, airplanes, bombs, fuel. This poster is on display at Montreal's miitary engineers' museum.

3. News. Piracy and Seamen. They are in the news recently because they have been and are being highjacked especially around the East coast of Africa, some thwarted, see http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Pirates+hijack+Turkish+ship+Gulf+Aden/1771690/story.html; some successful, some still evolving, see ://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jAue5-tyv2whwH27bBcykL1vYqyA/; and now, a ransom request as to the Arctic Sea ship, highjacked apparently, but no details, see Voice of America News at ://www.voanews.com/english/2009-08-15-voa23.cfm/.

In any event, highjacked or other reason, with long time no word; the Mariners are at risk. Their occupation alone is risky - injury, illness, overwork, long periods from home. Adding highjacking? Pay attention, world.

4. Global - Mariners by numbers and country. How to read the figures? China is first at 1,822? Sounds too low. US has 422? That puts us 12th. Again, sounds very low. What is the multiple, if any. No idea. See ://www.globalfirepower.com/merchant-marine-strength-by-country.asp/.

You can also look up comparative military personnel numbers at that site. If we do that, and do nothing to multiple up the figures, China the global number one and has 2,255,000 active military; and the US comes in a global second at 1,285,122.

5. The value of merchant navies in wartime: all these are not the domain of the merchant marine, some may be privately owned and operated, but show the kinds of vessels they may be staffing, depending:  see the variety of vessels available. So: navies developed to protect nations' merchant ships; and now the merchant ships fill in for the navies - to varying degrees.

• bulk carriers for ore or foodstuffs,
• container ships, 
• ferries for people and vehicles, 
• reefer ships with temperature controls, 
• coastal traders with shallow hulls, 
• roll-off roll-on ships, 
• tankers for fluids,
• cruise ships, 
• cable layers laying cables, 
• tugboats, 
• dredgers, 
• barges, then a new one for us - 
• the "semi submersible heavy lift" ships or OHGC for open hatch general cargo. 

 See photos at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_transport/. Then go down to the Chesapeake and name them as they pass on their way to the port of Philadelphia.

In some countries the merchant fleet is sufficient to slide over into the military.  In the United States, not so.  The Navy must still do its own, see The Navy as a Fighting Machine, by Bradley Fiske, online at ://www.gutenberg.org/files/17547/17547-h/17547-h.htm/  Do a find for merchant marine. Germany, for example, had a large merchant fleet available; and has such now.  Japan's merchant ships are also numerous. Do not underestimate the resource of merchant ships for wartime, the book suggests. The law of self-protection, shown in having this secondary asset pool? 

B. Worldwide community of seamen on merchant ships.

1. People not in the glory light. People doing hard work while others get recognition for the end result. The merchant marine. In many cases, the forgotten laborers responsible for our standards of living. We are dependent on them. In peace and war. Is that so?

2. Volunteers and agencies. In some ports, there is help when the merchant sailors come ashore. Look for that. Arrive in any port city, go to the docks, and in most parts of the world, find the Seamen's Church Institute (we have no connection to it, but it deserves applause and support).

Seaman's Institute: an organization dedicated to the full-spectrum well-being of merchant seamen around the world, including advocating as they may be able for better work conditions, reaching out and providing, and laws (US), and in the US, even adult education for captains and pilots inland, see ://www.sciphiladelphia.org/, and a slideshow about the Philadelphia port agency work including secular-need oriented ship visitors at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkfyF7SK1Q. Beacon place. Or its equivalent with information and a welcome, for places to bunk, even solve a problem, onshore contacts. FN 1

3. History, risks, weather, what it is like, see this collection of articles at ://www.experiencefestival.com/merchant_marine/ Longshoremen at sea for many.

There are legal protections for United States mariners, see ://www.careeroverview.com/water-transportation-careers.html; and The Merchant Marine Act, 1920, see://www.answers.com/topic/merchant-marine-act-of-1920-1the regulations for bringing an action re unfavorable conditions, see http://www.fmc.gov/home/550RegulationstoadjustormeetconditionsunfavorabletoshippingintheforeigntradeoftheUnitedStates.asp?PRINT=Y#550.601%20Actions%20to%20correct%20unfavorable%20conditions./

4. For many merchant sailors in the world, a hard life, away for a career, in some countries, for minimal pay. Dangerous work, poor health treatment, food handling iffy.

5. Explore a little of the places by the ports. Walk the docks. See how humans stay human, or try to as merchant sailors who are far from home, low pay, hardship for health and comfort, hard work. Needs - to socialize (yes, overnight) and get in some recreation before returning to work. Just walk in, have a seat. Soon you will find if it is a place for you - some do not serve food at all, as in some storefront places in Antwerp - but you will get friendly waves, and we felt perfectly safe on those docks.

C. In Literature

1. Famous! Jack Kerouac, Beatnik generation novelist, writer, painter, discharged from the Navy for "angel tendencies" (schizophrenia, apparently) was also a Mariner, see ://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/14/DD8J193T9B.DTL/ and swapped his sweater for a harpoon, transaction with an Eskimo while Kerouac was stationed in Greenland/

For a long list of ex-mariners, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine. Find John Paul Jones, Jim Thorpe, Allen Ginsberg, Carroll O'Connor, Peter Falk, and our favorite, Popeye 1933, the sailor man (merchant marine early in his career, later identified as navy), and see and hear the song at Youtube - ://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=popeye+the+sailor+man+song&qs=AS&docid=1121365262348&mid=F7493F07215AE0FAF91BF7493F07215AE0FAF91B&FORM=VIVR20/ "Strong to the finish 'cause I eats my spinach...." and see Brutus, Betty Boop and Olive Oyl and an Aargh or two.


2. Reread "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Read it aloud at ://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html/ No fair quitting before you are done, so get comfortable. Have room for gestures. Practice elocution and volume and tone. Go.

3. The Shipping News, novel by Annie Proulx, see ://www.curledup.com/shipping.htm; and 2001 film same name, at ://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120824/ - Newfoundland.

Routine shipping news today in Duluth at ://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/127896/ Find a bridge and watch.

...................................
FN 1 Needs of the merchant sailors in our and global ports. Who cares? Some do.

Some organizations are worth careful looks and appreciation, whether secular or religious. The Seamen's Institute is a religious organization doing secular and ecumenical work as a social service arm, a pragmatic place. It was begun in 1834 - with actual floating chapels - and is an ecumenical effort, begun by Episcopal Church and extended to all forms of care, meeting needs, and now including treatment for the effects of piracy. Amazing. No other worldwide group has stepped up to do anything like it. It is a fully volunteer agency. See ://www.seamenschurch.org/474.asp/ Here is an archive slide show, at ://www.seamenschurch.org/775.asp/ Apparently 80% of the seamen never get off the ships, and can be on board for 10 months at a time, even longer. That from the Youtube film.

Opinion Implants in News Slots. Fact-Check as Peacemaker.

News is no longer reliable.
Turn to a fact-checker to foster peace.
Would that work?

Do We Need Some Version of a Fairness Doctrine Again?
A "certified" news presenter category?

The pipedream of world peace - it takes reliable dissemination of fact.

Scratch that. Too many facts involved. Inter-ethnic peace. No, won't work. Nobody will value other ethnicities. Regional peace. No, that's out. Facts will be spun to suit the powerful. Inter-religious system peace. That's worse. They want belief, not facts to challenge it.

What would help? Is war the only ultimate settler. What to rechannel? Is it reliable dissemination and discussion of fact, the content in an issue? Opportunity to explore options, as we do with sibling rivalries? Perhaps. But even that takes a calming down first.
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Is there any way to instill a discipline, to get facts and explore options, before forming firm opinions? Won't work. There is money in forcing opinions without spending time and cash on gathering and presenting information. Besides, with informataion, your personal interest may not prevail. Can't have that.
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So: What do we have instead:

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1. Distract the people with entertainment: Opinion-Churning. Present a battle of opinions. The new media blood sport.

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News via Talk Show; unknown information impersonator

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2. Poll the people before they are offered the facts.

3. Control the Information Flow;

4. Promote Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt - FUD - Before They Have the Facts..

5-6. Who has the money and dedication

to counter the marketing, perception management that run our democracy.

Could discussion of facts before commitment avoid wars?

1. Distract with Entertainment

A. Opinion- churning:
.

It works like porn in marketing --
Add some opinions, make them spicey, and you get people's attention.

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Watch with us. How exactly are we distracted from the main business at hand. Start here:

This is the news! Background music revs up, visuals pan around, headlines pop. Big event here, and another there! Just look at that!
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Fact-finding mission, China. Who focuses on the nice fact to the right there, with all those Opinions behind.

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And there is a vital fact, over there, at the bottom right.

If that fact goes unnoticed, the whole story, the whole significance of the issue fails. And yet - is anyone paying attention? No!

Nobody is paying attention because there are Opinions back there, big Opinions! and nobody is paying attention to the linchpin fact over there.

How is it done through the hearing? And watch the weasel words, the unattributable statistics, the vague, "some people say", that papers the walls of CNN, MSNBC, Fox. Weasel words in places where facts, attributable, verifiable facts, are vitally needed for this democracy.

Skip the words. We got visuals. Oh, my - get an eyeful of those Opinions.

Instant gratification of the senses even in politics wins in the attention department. Thinking function? Step aside while these nice people distract you from other things that matter.

• For the purveyor, satisfy the imagination, and reality diminishes in importance. Is that so?
• For the immediate, subject consumer, all those Opinion Implants in the news slots can look good, but over time, watch the sagaway. FN 2. Does anyone tell the high school seniors who get them as graduation gifts about that?.

While they hold up, the opinions can be great fun, titillating indeed, entertaining, marketing opportunities, Compare them to somebody else's opinions, and before you know it, your life is gone -- just like the hour-long ersatz news show that had no news to add to the debate in it.

We agree this is a bit much. The implant image is not a friendly one when looked at more closely, in another context. The whole analogy may be a bit much, but the principles remain the same: window-dressing serves lots of egos at the time, sells for the short term, but does not get the real job done. What is correlation between the window-dressing and vital decisions to be made. And we just love it anyway. Lead me astray, please.

The parallel to TV? They say this is a news segment, but all you get is commentary. Is that it? Back to the polls. Ask the people polled what basis in fact they use. We bet the stares will be blank ones. Ask them whose opinion they heard and relied on, and you will get clear answers. Opinions of regular people are based on opinions they hear on TV or read in the news slants. Is that so?

Got to grab their attention and sell what we got because this is a market - and regardless of the real issue. Like the girls draped over the hoods of the old cars. Glitz up the news with the hate about it on one side, and the gush on the other. Forget the car - we got the ladies and the band. This celebrity. That talking head. That hoary legislator in the bubble.

Who can remember the issue with all that excitement going on. Barnum would love it.

Car show, Kosice, Slovakia

But look at the consequences. We are whisked away because we got ourselves swayed by Opinions, into a war or other persuasion mentality.

B. Present Opinion-Churning as a Blood Sport for the news industry.

Drawing blood draws an audience, so surely we can pollute news with opinions so we can see the match-ups. In our nice home colisseums.

.

Opinion Fight. Old print.

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Shows pit one Opinion, turn of a phrase, against another. "Ooooh!" goes the audience, impressed, and waiting for more. Show a fight, violence, verbal catfights, a mudwrestle, political or religious Survivor fighting political or religious Survivor, cannonading Opinions to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, volley and you know. Thunder. Get out the nearly nude roller derbies of competing Editorializing, and you got sport, man, you got sport.

What was the fight about? Who cares. We got ourselves a fight. Pop the can, edge in closer to Watch.

2. Polling Shmolling
.

Poll numbers come in.

Ten minutes of an evening news show stems from reporting on the poll; but the question asked leaves so many loose ends, so many qualifiers are hovering out there, that the answer depends on how the pollee filled in the gaps himself or herself.

Ten minutes lost from reporting the content of the latest policy initiative, the content of opposition policy initiatives (if any), content that we could use for analysis.

Then another ten minutes panning from opinionator to opinionator churning other peoples opinions on the stuff we aren't getting the facts about. Look at the weasel words - ://www.answers.com/topic/weasel-word/; ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word/, a site that itself warns the reader about weasel words in it. Even the contributors use them.

.

Polls. Opinion tracking.

What are they good for when we get opinions instead of news in the media and papers. So long as people get more "opinion" than "news" on TV and in the papers, the poll results reflect people's opinions -- that the people themseles arrived at, from being exposed to a hundred media celebrity opinions.
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Opinions On The Move. Old print.
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Who knows what facts the celebrity - political, religious, talk show - used or rejected. Somebody will assume it is grounded.
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None of that gets vetted. We train people to follow celebrity and to demand "entertainment" - so the news uses entertainment marketing techniques, inserts opinions and opinion wars into the news, and soon there is no time left for the news. And celebrity views - political, religious, showtime celebrities - become more important than the facts. Is that so?

Why not ask what is important:

• What facts do you understand about this issue or that issue.
• Where did you get your facts.
• Do you have a computer? Do you ever use a fact check?
  
• How much time do you spend watching opinion shows.
• How much time do you spend watching or seeking out hard facts about news.
• Whose opinions do you value most.
• How much time do you spend listening to the opinionator's opposition

Political celebrities, religious celebrities, media celebrities, all with a shtick, all tools for propaganda. Persuasion, not information. Is that what we watch when we see all those opinions instead of "news." Shall we teach children how to spot it?
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3. Control the Information Flow
.

Governments and markets know that free communications, more information, can be dangerous, because they may lead to less support for a cause or a drug, not more. The more people know, the more they may exercise independent judgment. Therefore, enforce opacity - not transparency - and the troops muster faster. Is that so? Catch their emotions before they have the facts? See Fear of Fog: Emoticon Dominance.

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Conflict requires dedicated opponents, each with a single-minded viewpoint. How to get that. How to get the citizens to come down on your side.
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a. Woodrow Wilson. Committee on Public Information.

As to government efforts on the force side, see Woodrow Wilson and the Espionage Act of 1917, that allowed us to imprison those people criticizing the WWI effort, interfering with the draft. See ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1344.html/ It was amended by the Sedition Act of 1918.

False statements. False reports.

Those were crimes then when we were at war. Hello, Dick. What about today? See ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1345.html/ Schenck v. United States - Supreme Court upheld restrictions on speech.

That was the great Oliver Wendell Holmes.

b. Fairness Doctrine. The medicine worked but the patient died.

Look back at the 1941 Mayflower Ruling - not a law, just FCC policy, but it established The Fairness Doctrine, later judicially upheld in 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC, so that the FCC could deny a broadcast license if the person or group did not serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity."
.

Read about those in the google book Propaganda and Mass Persuasion, by Cull, Culbert and Welch, at page 410 ff (long URL) at ://books.google.com/books?id=Byzv7rf6gL8C&pg=PA410&lpg=PA410&dq=Woodrow+Wilson+war+persuasion&source=bl&ots=Wk2aooy31Z&sig=Tqg-2XwfONISnzIWBlzzWDB09vc&hl=en&ei=YkM4SqbQIM-_twe4k_njDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6/. Read there as well:

"The United States is the largest consumer and disseminator of propaganda and persuasion in history."

The fear of oppositional propaganda leads to a strong government response - a) muzzle the media, while using its opportunities to reach more people, more effectively, where they cannot defend, and the history of how to do that is frightening. Or b) fake the news: plant the plants. See The Fodder Site: Any Propaganda Today;. World War I was not the beginning. Read our efforts back to colonial times.

The Fairness Doctrine. is there something left there, to slide us away from the polarization, the vitriol, the killing by abortion vigilantes and other extremists, that comes from long-steeping in one sided, manipulated information. Is it time to reconsider, to offer an immediate, visible other source.
.

When there was scarcity in the bandwidths or whatever, the Fairness Doctrine was useful. The FCC could require steps in the public interest: balanced productions of news: seek out community affairs, offer counter-statements to opinion. See Fairness Doctrine, about U.S. Broadcasting Policy, by Val E. Limburg at ://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm/.
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Can it return where there is not that scarcity, on grounds that there is no effective place to turn any more for the public interest information. All the "bandwidths" are taken up by the spewers. We have different kinds of fact checks, or public media; but too many people don't even have computers. The idea was that there is no longer that scarcity, so the function of the Fairness Doctrine is not useful, and it may even have led reporters to shy away from difficult stories because of the obligation to show other sides. But it didn't work. The marketers simply took over.
.

So the Fairness Doctrine fell away, both as FCC policy and legislation, by the time of the Reagan era, and revival legislation was vetoed by President Bush in his time.

• So what happened? "News" is virtually gone. With editorializing now fully open season, that is all we get. Facts, actual information to add to the debate, zip. We've cut the Hartford Courant and moved to the New York Times, and perhaps a few good national papers could do the job after all. Let the locals slip in a section for state news. But that only addresses the few of us who are left who like a morning paper.

News time slots are overwhelmed by Opinion and Churning Opinions, offered without the needed underlying facts so we an evaluate the Opinion. Chatterers pit one Opinion against another like a blood sport. A fact here? Quick - cut to Opinion. More facts? Skip it. All the real excitement, to get the adrenalin running, entertain and gratify the viewer, use the soundbite, the flasher technique, on Opinions. Sell them first. Market everything.

c. J. Edgar Hoover. Easy to get a foothold, my dear.

Then fast forward to the post WWI era and the social issues of immigration, then the Red Scare, who followed whom and the rise of J. Edgar Hoover - see ://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1343.html/ We just have more ways to do it now. Is this part of our children's education, our own history? The human hard-wired idea, get what you want any way you can, pound the facts like bread dough and see what rises, is not new.
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d. Edward Bernays over it all. All the world's a market.
.

Flower market, Croatia

Selling ideas like little blossoms.

How does this lack of news, and just sales talk for whatever idea someone will buy, impact upon the drive to war and polarization.

Lack of news, or carefully chosen, spun news. For the master of the skill of manipulating opinion, see Edward Bernays, 20th Century market, propagandist, American, at ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edward_Bernays/

He would be proud of the current technique of opinion implants in news programs. Opinions Gone Wild. Mesmerizing! Getting nothing but opinions also pushes people to positions of extremes in viewpoint, since the facts behind the opinion are seldom vetted. Unbridled opinionating is a prerequisite to war or any conflict.
.

What if the facts, if known or discussed, would not support the person's or the group's or the government position.

Suppress it; or distract from it.

If you were president, you could establish a Committee on Public Information. Woodrow Wilson did, see ://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Committee_on_Public_Information/.

Promote polarization for the cause. Against the defined enemy. What time do we dedicate in media to getting facts out. Test it. Turn on your gadget. Time the time given to Opinion and churning opinions, and the time given to objective facts about the event or issue itself, to edify the debate. FN 1
.

Bewailing, identifying issues and warning are not enough, however. We expect that power in commerce, politics and religion will manage the information, control the flow.
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4. Promote Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt;

Not an Alternative Substantive Plan

What does all this marketing of opinion do? It dumbs us down. Maybe we are too far gone. Maybe Sam Zell is right - the readers want puppies and entertainment.

It skews the polls. We don't have the facts we need to form our own opinions. We parrot people we like to identify with, like celebrities in politics or religion..

It opens us to fear, uncertainty and doubt about what is on the table, without the mongers putting out their own alternative substantive plan. Opinions are not a measure of the merit or substance of the issue. Opinions, when people have no immediate access to a full fact source, are stagecraft.

Polls reflect the measure of FUD - the fear, uncertainty and doubt the opinionators raise who have no substantive alternative in policy or agenda. Ask Gene Amdahl and IBM. Nothing new here. Identify with the opinionator, not with an analysis. The train wreck of business-interested media influencing policy continues.
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5. Who has the money to change anything.

Is there a way to jumpstart anything without money?

News gathering and presentation is expensive, and takes wits.

Churning opinions about news that somebody else reports, and on part of a topic, is cheap, and takes no wits.

So what do we see on TV and in the papers? Politicians, ex and current; with party lines out their ears like clotheslines. Adding no facts to the debate. Just whether people should like this or like that. Lots of O-Pin-Ion. Opinion wars are not news.

Nonetheless opinion wars are what we get, with people who used to be journalists and newscasters at the helm. Pit this against that.

Smackdown between Cheney's latest fantasy and whoever. Insert something for the imagination, even verging on the prurient by use of words and imagery, dominance and power, and watch the dozer's attention focus. Facts? Everybody sleep. Might even disagree.What have we lost in civility, in intelligent inquiry about issues, what could we gain by reinstating a form of fairness doctrine.

Is polarizing good for democracy, communicating with intent to polarize, not inform..

We expect fancy advertising and psycho-skews to titillate the faithful. Gain the converts. Get attention. Sell. Sell. Buy. Buy. Any special interest will engage in news manipulation. And even where the control is not feasible - as in Iran currently, because of cell phone capabilities and internet and other immediate outlets - the government has another additional advantage. Consider the opportunities for eavesdropping, monitoring who is saying what.
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Daniel Widing and The Presidents, Madame Tussaud's. Real and fake information sources, intermingled.

P.S. Trust Dan.

Do we need certified news presenters.

People who swear to uphold truth, full and balanced, un-agenda'ed information presented to the people.

The conflict: government hiding some or all of its activities, people demanding transparency.

So we have these warring camps. In many areas - religion, politics, culture. And all from the extremes going nonstop, with no reliable, convenient, fast source to check on what is being said, what other viewpoints may be. Step back a moment.

Editorials and opinions alone are not the problem.

It is the squeezing off the stage of the factual underpinnings. That was not anticipated when the Fairness Doctrine was trashed. Look at the result of our preoccupation with opinion and slant, rather than analysis. Do we have extremists of our own to rival any elsewhere in mayhem? Yes. Why? Guess. A partial, contributory factor at least.

Did you keep reading in hopes of getting some more opinions? Here you go.

Oops. Camera slipped. Darn. Now we've lost you.

Do we really need all this entertainment? Guess so. So much for the public interest. Skip a role for reasoned analysis in war and conflict decisions. Let the poison waft over the airwaves whether it increases or decreases information, or instead steers toward the likelihood of war and conflict on any issue.

Who gets to decide. Does an election mean that the voters vote out their own rights to information and assessment, in favor of those matters concentrating in secret halls of the winner's government. Does an election mean that the airwaves and other means can spew at will, with people not getting it as to opposing views, but revving higher and higher in the decibels until someone or some group explodes. There are no lone wolves.

6. Conclusion so far,
and a small rant.
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The most visible sign of voter exclusion from decisionmaking, from necessary facts, is the premature polarization of views. The camera cuts from the event it briefly covered, to hordes of Opinion about the few facts revealed. Whether pulp paper on the driveway, or broadcast, cable or internet..

We get Opinion before we even get or can find the facts. What are these Opinions based on? The facts fade in air-time as Opinion takes over. Wars of opinions. Churning Opinions instead of news.

Churned Opinion is not news. What this puppet thinks is not news. What that puppet thinks is not news. What you or I think is not news. News is information, objective facts about events, persons involved, who, what, why, where, when. History, Background. Actual provisions.

Hear instead five words from the President about a new policy framework, and immediately cut to the opposition's Opinion. Then someone else disagreeing with the opposition's opinion and more opinions. Where is the factual underpinning, the real framework?

Rant. We have learned nothing from the Iraq debacle. Persuading people to go to war there was not a matter of the merits of the issue - it is who wons by opinion. To believe in this and not that. To support a cause. To hate this person, but believe this one is divine. Believe WMD's are there.

Real news about any topic, real time for the Inspectors, background on informants, where someone has a stake in the outcome, has always been suspect. When the goal is persuasion, war is marketing, not necessity.
Does our news morphing into tirade contribute to our ignorant polarization, the ease with which people are led to follow. The demise of the fairness doctrine, while failing to provide any comprehensive, objective news source, parallels the rise in rabble-rousing. Is that so?

Suspending opinion, until facts are in, is a discipline that we neither practice nor preach. Can we couch a fairness doctrine in those terms - first get the facts out, and if that is not feasible because it impinges on someone's right not to give the facts, provide a place where everyone can go immediately for the facts, and then let the implants loose. Fine.

But opinion only after the facts, not before. Or where the facts are immediately available. Then again, if you want warring people, then just sling the opinions around. 24/7/ There. Done.
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FN 1 Test the theory. What time on "news" shows is expended on finding and sharing fact, and what time is expended on Opinion. Mislabeling of the entire show? Consumer, beware. There is no obligation to list the ingredients on the label. Not even the place of origin of the views spewed.

Test it out. Take your newspaper and circle in red every slanted word, every choice that tilts your response to favor or disfavor.

Non-news. Searching for facts and there are none; but it sure is entertaining

• Take out your stopwatch when you turn on a half-hour news program. Or get one. Make columns on a piece of notebook paper. First column: factual statements of news. Second column: opinion voiced by a media host or guest. Third column, video of somebody else's opinion. At the beginning of every thirty seconds, put a stroke in one of the columns. Slash, slash, slash, slash, cross-slash.

Consider and reconsider the ramifications. Keep the objective facts off to the side, because with facts, people think. Instead, bring on Opinion, Editorializing, and overwhelm with that before people have facts for thinking. With Opinions, people react. Immediately. From the gut. Reacting is Good. Thinking, and the tools to do that, is Bad. For the polarizer. Is that so?


Successful propaganda requires reaction, not thought, so we get Opinion before we have time to think about the facts. It used to be that there were public interest safeguards so we as voters and the ones most affected got information from a variety of perspectives. We could think before deciding Those safeguards fell away for a variety of reasons - like the Fairness Doctrine. And Opinion took over.

Is this use of Opinion in the news time like using porn in ads, and blood sports. Opinion and editorializing with flashbangs is the way to get people watching, so you then can sell something to them. It may be time to look at the revived need to serve the public interest by ensuring equal access to facts in our "news programs", if not in that same form.
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FN 2 Think further. The analogy gets worse. Much needed information is not given out before the the commitment is made and the operating room readied. No facts to hold the opinions up for long. Consider the weight. That is not an area where muscle is, is it? Droop as facts change and the premature opinion moots itself out. In time. And the purveyors do not have a great history of reliability: infection and leaks, folks, from botched jobs. Check out the scars in the locker room. Better yet, don't. You've been warned.
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And when it comes to function, how about the effect of the implant on an important non-ego purpose, the wee babe - where are the studies on the impact of implants on young women who later want to provide the Top Drawer Diet. Who counsels the girls on that. Medicine, where are you? Off to the bank. Mothers? Oh, you got some, too. Lemon-lime or perhaps apples and oranges or maybe a nice set of cantaloupes? All in the catalogue. Opinions taking place of news on news programs, other implants, six of one.

The implant technique on TV is a not-so-cheap temporary fix, uses up time for the lazy or not too bright talker (the host can have coffee while the camera cuts to the legislature, the man on the street, or another talk show), while the opportunity to pass on hard, complete, objective information needed for a real debate falls away.

No time for facts hello goodbye, we're late, we're late, we're late. Alice. Wake up.

What is the danger of all the conclusory statements, views, opinions, and re-churns of opinions we get in the media? The time gets used up, without delivering on content, on information, on facts for the debate. The debate instead becomes a joust of opinions, based on entertainment, or what "stuck" from what the opinionators said. The debate loses its grounding in fact. And Chris Matthews and the rest just laugh and laugh as they churn some more opinions instead of discussing facts, factual bases for all those opining heads. All the way to the bank.

First, You Plan. Genghis Khan, Basil Liddell Hart. War Strategies.

War Strategy.

Plan, but Prepare to Regroup.

Defer Confrontation. No Loss of Honor.

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A. Genghis Khan.

Eastern warfare tactics include leaving the field. Take time to regroup.
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No Loss of Honor in melting away. The strategic withdrawal is not quitting the field. It is deferring the confrontation until more favorable conditions may develop. Highly efficient.
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Western warfare says stand up and fight. Now.

Even the cowardly Lion knew the posture to take, fists up, feet dancing, put-em-up. See ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxTy3JK_qgA/ Even if down we go, put up your dukes. Confrontation, immediate contest. That is the fast time-line to determine who won, who lost. Zero sum. Whatever thing you win, means I lose that thing, and that is it. Win and lose are quantifiable. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum

Eastern warfare: This is a different approach. Defer the confrontation. There is no loss of honor in that. Eastern warfare often provides a different result from Western thinking. If you see that you are outnumbered, and probably will fail, or may, just disperse, preserve your numbers, and regroup later. That is a long timeline. No "arena." Wait out your enemy, take your time. Use indirection.

The East is creative. No rigid mindsets. An example, from the Mongols, shows some of the most effective fighters in history. But they were flexible thinkers, not following some lockstep chivalry notions of the time. No code said that this group wore red, that group wore blue.

They used big or small groups as needed, faked withdrawals, set ruses, ambushed, and raided. See Medieval Warfare, Mongol tactics, at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warfare#Mongols_in_the_West/.

So, Who is Civilized.

Go back to "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" review at://anthropology.net/user/kambiz_kamrani/reviews/genghis_khan_and_the_making_of_the_modern_world/

Learn how Genghis Khan won by following the basics: He

a) prepared and then
c) engaged, and then
c) followed-up.

See also://www.mongolianculture.com/Excerpts%20Jack%20Weatherford.htm.

Genghis Khan looks more civilized than we do, in terms of the planning, the use of good people in the subject peoples, having his own people ready to move in where the slots so required.

How does that apply to us?

Our world is different, and the same, at once.

• Mongols: They were wise beyond our willingness to acknowledge, because they were invaders who won, and we want to downplay that. They are not religious extremists plotting against us, however, and we are not Medievals, or European Kings' armies limited by ideologies and behavior mindsets trapping our heads. We do have our own extremists in many areas, but the lessons for today escape the bounds of our usual mindset and strategy.

• Genghis Kahn and others did not succeed for so long for nothing. Eastern warfare tactics. Eastern military strategy. Pragmatic, sensible, and it works. Don't waste your time on macho. Redefine strategy. Get what you want - no question. But you are permitted to bide your time. It is valid strategy, not weakness.

Torture.

And, the Mongols killed-slaughtered many, in gross ways; but they did not torture. Kill but no torture.

"The Mongols did not torture, mutilate or maim, but their enemies did." See://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h11mon.htm/ quoting from "Genghis Khan and the Mongols."

Do a "find" search for torture and the portion is there. We and our current adversaries are less honorable than the Mongols? FN1. People were killed brutally, in great masses. But the individual, tortured by another individual? No. Amazing. Read the book.

The culture: This site notes that the Mongols felt that God gave them the world, and that their intention was to be a colonizer of Europe, the barbarians.

Mongols introduced the concept of freedom of religion to Europe, and taxed the conquered people - the 10% looks like a tithe. The people retained rights, however. The Mongols were their overlords, but the people continued in place.

Later, the Roman church would initiate the tithe; but they held that unbelievers, heretics have no rights, and that set the stage for the Inquisition. See European History 1220-1289 at //www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/euro53.htm. That approach to the conquered, to declare them anathema, was foreign to the Mongols who would rather use their economic contributions than beat them down. Is that so?



B. Basil Liddell Hart


A British soldier in World War I. Developed theories of indirection in warfare, for infantry tactics. See ://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWliddel.htm/


Lessons:

• Direct attacks do not work.
• Use indirection.
• Upset the enemy's equilibrium.

See biography at://www.spiritus-temporis.com/basil-liddell-hart/


These ideas from Genghis Khan and Basil Liddell Hart have been with us for centuries, and then decades. Shall we try them?

Women in War: Capability, Combat , Culture. See Hind, the Warrior; Become Hinda. the Monster

Women in Combat.
Good at it, thank you.

Prevented by ideology, not lack of ability to do a job.


From Hind to Hinda
From Renown as a Warrior, Cast as Demon as Time Passes

Meet Others: From Battlefield to Folktale

Part I of Women in War,
Part II at Stalingrad, WWII and Women in the Red Army


"Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. At that command, will and can women respond?  See the history of the phrase at ://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600.html/.
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Overview
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A.  Women in War
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In American History, Amazons, Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic cultures, women were warriors.

That happened in a variety of ways:  from disguise as men, and continuing until discovery;  to remaining overtly female as some cultures did permit' or fighting with men because circumstances allowed a zoning variance, but often the warrior life ended with the end of the emergency requiring their killing services.

• Some could join some military groups in history, by cultural acceptance.  Some could learn the skills, wear men's clothing but be known as a women, and go to battle with approval. Prove yourself. 
• Some dress in woman's peacetime dress, but conceal the warrior weapon beneath - the burqa and the female suicide bomber.
  
• Others had to disguise their gender; dress as a man, pretend to be one, and in days where outdoor plumbing was the rule and not group showers, be prudent.  
• Others we might call today cross-dressers - raised as a girl, but sensing the self to be a man, in the body of a woman that felt alien; and dressing as a man as soon as could, because you knew you really were a man.  Others lived their entire lives as men,  not really denying anything - just doing what came naturally.  A choice of behavior.  Lesbian? Transgender?  Cross-dressing? These general areas come to mind, but who knows or cares which applies - the idea is the female body but not the cultural female in action.
• Others knew they were "women" and stayed in women's clothing, but their bravery denied the culture's insistence on dependency and weakness for women, either as a lifestyle, or for the occasion. 
• Others were nurtured by their culture to be warriors, or strong and assertive, and able to do what was required. See not only the Amazons; but also individual girls and women in our original folktales and myth, showing qualities later suppressed: aggression, superiority to the male even, resourcefulness, doing the bloody when needed, and shirking at none of it.

Does the frequency of the success of women, who sought out warfare, make hollow the later claims that keep them down and out.
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B.  When the Rules Change - Turn Hind the heroine, into Hinda the unspeakable.
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C.  The Chemistry of War - Controlling havoc.
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 A.  Women in War

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1. American History.  

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Some Americans defied culture and went to war, as "men". Look at the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War, for starters.

Resources American History. 

For an overview from the 1700's through WWI, try "Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed As Men In Pursuit of Life, Liberty, Happiness", by Julie Wheelwright, at ://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/261429/used/Amazons%20and%20military%20maids%20:%20women%20who%20dressed%20as%20men%20in%20the%20pursuit%20of%20life,%20liberty%20and%20happiness/>Amazons and Military Maids.
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Here are names - and circumstances:

• Frances Clayton, Civil War: at Women Soldiers of the Civil War, by DeAnne Blanton 1993; ://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-1.html/
  
• Here is a soldier's discharge papers - discharged for "sextual incompatibility" at ://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-2.html/
  
• Others are cited as having enlisted as a man, later found to be a woman.
  
• Charles Freeman / Mary Scaberry;
  
• John Williams / Mrs. S. M. Blaylock; then
  
• Sarah Emma Edmonds Seelye (the name as a man not given) who served the entire Civil War, as did Albert Cashier (the name as a woman not given).
  

See the discussion of why their roles, and of so many others, have been trivialized, although they were known at the time; and find that four women fought at Antietam at the same time. See ://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-3.html/li>Read about women in the Revolutionary War, Deborah Sampson Gannett / Robert Shurtleff, at ://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=2513

2.  Amazons
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There were two cultures of women warriors.
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Where. There were two such groups:

• one, some time before the time of the Trojan War, in what is now Libya; and
  
• another in Asia Minor, perhaps part of Turkey, in the vicinity of the Caucasus, at the Thermidon River, active at the time of the Trojan War.
  

See Amazons, Ancient world: See ://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa032703a.htm/. Both were military cultures, all women, except for the times needed for men to father children, see://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/AMAZONS.html/. Cities tradition says were founded by the Amazons: Smyrna, Ephesus, Cime and Myrene. Same site. Read the roll call there of Amazon cities. Need to find out more.
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3. Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Women Warriors
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Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic cultures, at the time of the Islamic expansion beginning with Mohammad some especially in Bedouin or desert areas (is that so? that is the impression so far)  permitted women to choose warfare, and as women. See many here who excelled in bravery and skill, and earned the respect of the Prophet. Read and put your head around the images here, and the men who are not threatened by it at all - even appreciative, and supporting. What have we lost in taming the strong, autonomous Bedouin woman of those early days, or the early Islamic woman.  There is also evidence that Islamic women participated in the era of Europe's Crusades, although we just saw "Kingdom of Heaven," and Hollywood showed none.
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Individuals and Sources:

Where we refer to the Prophet here, please add the PBUH for peace be unto him, as a sign of respect for the religion, even if it is not yours. In some sources you will see (PBUH) added each time the "Prophet" is in the text. For an overview on women warriors in our 18th Century west, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_warfare_(1750_-_1799)/.

• This resource is of particular interest:  The Nawal El Sadaawi Reader.
  

Outsiders researching Early Eastern, Middle Eastern cultures:  Dicey. There are few reference points. Always open to revision if a source turns out to be unreliable.

Here, note that spellings of names vary, but meet the women here, at the Nawal El Sadaawi Reader, by Nawal El Sadaawi, at pages 77-79 at ://books.google.com/books?id=r9SPVEG3cv0C&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=pregnant+belly+Muhammad&source=bl&ots=6-MOAkKJXL&sig=3RxXZY93-4oJZa0SzOfoJdz793Q&hl=en&ei=geHiSfqVLujqlQef4cDgDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1/

Individuals:

Take time to read at the Nawal El Sadaawi Reader about each one. Some summaries here.

• Khadija - the first wife of Muhammad, and his only wife until her death at age 65, see ://www.islamfortoday.com/khadijah.htm; and the first Muslim; see this in the Qur'an at ://mohammad.islamway.com/?lang=eng/

Note that the Qur'an cannot be translated.  It remains one text, in Arabic. The best (we have heard) of the English versions, the Meaning of the Qur'an,  is the one by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, who died in the 1930's, see "The Meaning of the Glorious Koran" at ://sacred-texts.com/isl/pick/index.htm

• Aisha, youngest wife of the prophet after the death of Khadijah, when he took multiple wives; and their skills, intellectual independence, and medical and other knowledge. Go to this next site: find that she "joined the forces of the earliest followers of Muhammad in the disastrous Came Battle. Seehttp://www.amazon.com/Women-Islam-Medieval-Modern-Times/dp/1558760539

Then focus on the warfare of the women:

• Nessiba Bint Ka'ab
  

She "fought with her sword by the side of Muhammad at the battle of Uhud, and did not abandon the fight until she had been wounded thirteen times," see google book The Nawal El Sadaawi Reader at page 78, The section continues: "Muhammad held her in great respect, and said, 'The position due her is higher than that of men.' (Ibn Sa'ad 1970: p.302/" Ibn Sa'ad was a companion of Muhammad himself, see http://wapedia.mobi/en/Bashir_ibn_Sa%27ad Bin/Who knows Arabic to see what he said firsthand?

• Um Sulayn Bint Malhan. Unforgettable image here - she "tied a dagger above her pregnant belly and fought in the ranks of Muhammad and his followers." Sadaawi at page 78.

• Hind Bint Rabi'a - on the other side, opposing the Muslims, in the battle of Uhud - "She wore armor and a warrior's mask in the battle of Uhud, and brandished her sword before plunging it with a mortal thrust into enemy after enemy (Sharkawi, 1967: p. 217). Here come followup sources for figuring out information, URL's for Google Books are long. 

From Hind to Hinda:  Look what happened to her story, as centuries went by and roles of women had to be reined in to meet demands of ideology. A later (modern ideological?) source recasts and demonizes Hind instead as an unscrupulous cannibal, to deter any from following in her steps.

She is called Hinda in that later source, and depicted as chewing on the liver of the Prophet's brother. See ://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Articles/companion/13_ali_bin_talib.htm/ at Sassafras Tree, Natural Pragmatism, Hind Bint Rabi'a. That cannibalism is not found in the earlier sources we find so far. In any culture: recent fabrications to fit later ideological demands. 

Sources again:

The Qur'an of course will have passages from these early times, see especially the site with particularly easy navigating, at ://mohammad.islamway.com/?lang=eng/  We were looking up how the Quraysh were set forth.

Is that Sharkawi named as a source for the Sadaawi Reader the writer and political figure Abdel Raham Sharkawi, see obituary at http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/11/obituaries/abdel-sharkawi-67-egyptian-leftist-writer.html/
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Or is it Shayk Al-Sha'rawi, see his egalitarianism at "Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology", edited by Haideh Moghissi, at ://books.google.com/books?id=6ln19FcDV7wC&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=Al+Sharawi+research+Islam&source=bl&ots=p88fp9miNq&sig=e2DJ0bDRk9aykhx4B6M0GZD1Hjo&hl=en&ei=BqfkSYXVFqTtlQful8HgDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3/ See Sadaawi at page 78.

Find Shayk Al-Shar'awi at ://www.sunnah.org/history/Scholars/Shaarawi.html/
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Read more at "Islam, Gender and Social Change," at http://books.google.com/books?id=RkbZWrU4UfUC&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92&dq=Shayk+Al-Sha%27rawi+women+in+islam&source=bl&ots=4k-Sr2g5WS&sig=GLpa9SIokbST6viyLbgu4Yf1cP4&hl=en&ei=BqrkSdvtDIbglQeX4dDgDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA93,M1/
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Hind's father's support for his daughter's desire for independence, "So it shall be", has a source listed also as Ibn Sa'ad, the companion to Muhammad. Ibn Sa'ad's name is also given as Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqqas, see ://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Sa%60ad_ibn_Abi_Waqqas

• Umm Omara - Here is another woman fighter - "lost a hand in battle", see ://www.amazon.com/Women-Islam-Medieval-Modern-Times/dp/1558760539/
  

See Umm Omara also at Islamic Forum at ://www.gawaher.com/lofiversion/index.php/t16654.html, the name spelled Om Omara. Motheiba Bint Kaab. She was the only woman, among 20 men, who remained with Muhammad at the Battle of Uhud, there spelled Ohud. That battle was the Muslims' first defeat.

As with our own religious and historic traditions and sources, details and even substantive accounts vary. That Gawaher.com source does not state that Umm Omara lost her hand, but the sword wound to her shoulder was so deep her son could put his hand in it, and she gushed blood.

Still, when she saw that the Prophet was alone and exposed, she said noone would get to him except over her dead body, and she sought to return to "save the Prophet." Read the details. The Prophet said she would be with him in paradise. More details, of course; including that the Arab tradition was not to kill women.

"Bint" in the name; or "Umm" "Bint" means "daughter, one who has yet to bear a child." See Worldwide Words at ://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bin1.htm/

Yet the British turned it into disparaging slang for woman or girl, adding a low-class and offensive element. See same site. But this site notes that "Umm" means mother of - so how is that in the same name as the "Bint?" Need to find out more. See ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_name/ That site, however, defines "Bint" merely as "daughter." So, no inconsistency.

•  The suicide bomber - female, in burqa.  Or otherwise concealing the warrior status and intent.  See Female Suicide Bombers, at ://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB408.pdf/. and On the Cusp -The Next Wave - Suicide Bombers at ://www.stratfor.com/cusp_next_wave_female_suicide_bombers/  Women as suicide bombers apparently first surfaced in Lebanon in the 1980's, then India in 1991, Kurdistan later in the 1990's, in Chechnya in the early 2000's, Palestine 2002 or so, Iraq 2005 or so. That On the Cusp site notes that "the idea of women martyrs is supported by the Koran" and names the first martyr for Islam as the woman Somaiya. It also finds a possible connection - a woman under the shame of a pregnancy when unmarried, or an affair, attains forgiveness of sins and entry to paradise through martyrdom.  Is that so?  There is a full discussion of the effectiveness of the strategy, and why.
  

 
Sources and Researching.

For those of us unfamiliar with Arabic, the varieties of western spellings, given for the same individual, mean research is difficult. We are doing our best here - and we are not authority. Both Sharkawi and Sadaawi appear to be left of center, in Islamic governments-cultures. Does that in itself make the scholarship suspect. If you know ancient Arabic, please check for us.

Meanwhile, find the Sadaawi Reader book reference at Google Books, bookmark it, return often. Read the words of the women, the anecdotal accounts of conversations with Muhammad, and even about Hind's father - Hind stated she would be her own person, and he said, so be it - roughly. Go read.

Discuss: these women lived at the time of the Prophet, it appears, in pre-Islamic cultures both sides, as we think of "Islam" today. They were there with the Idea, before the System took over the Idea and altered it for its own needs, see "Isaac's Torah," at Bogomilia, Rabbi Shmuel Ben David of 'Isaac's Torah
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4.  European History
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Women leading men into war
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Bodiam Castle, England

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In the Middle Ages, this was knwn, despite Church insistence that women's status was to be inferior.   See Castle Learning Center, Medieval Women, Britain at ://www.castles-of-britain.com/castlezb.htm/.  Unmarried women landholders had the same rights as men.  Upon marriage in the Church, however, she forfeit those, and her lands, to her husband.  When the husband died, she got back 1/3 so she could support herself.  In work, they were paid less than men.


Women as Knights.
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Islamic sources appear clear that western women participated armed as knights - see Science Direct at ://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC1-3SWSJV5-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=eecbb76310438add5b9acb7aef381beb/ Whose agenda creates which version, and which is so? This pertains particularly to the Third Crusade.

 
Fighting Openly as Women Among Men, or as Leader of the Men.  See the Women Warriors site at ://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women.html/.  It is difficult to tell in some cases who fought openly, and who merely entered the battle undiscovered..
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Specifically well known: Joan of Arc. Openly a woman, dressed as she had to to get the job done.

Joan of Arc, Rheims, France

See this broad site, "Women Warriors Throughout History," at http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women.html/ Find sections by century; as well as by culture (Celtics, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Prehistory, Ancient World, as well as lists of laws forbidding women from fighting - would not have been necessary had they shown no skill or interest? There is a special section on women warriors in Scotland.

Glen, Scotland. Where are your women warriors now?
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Become little lassies, have they? Like everywhere?
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5.  Folktales
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Look at Red Riding Hood, the little dear. Red Riding Hood is the one who, when the wolf was caught, and participated in the vivisection and soon Granny was out and safe once again.

Grimm - Red Riding Hood, our old volume

,

Then it was Little Red who gathered lots of rocks and stuffed the wolf full of them (must have taken some time), then sewed up the wolf. No wonder her hood was always red. Saved on the laundry if she did this often, and she did seem to know what she was doing. See Migratory Patterns of Cultural Tales, Red Riding Hood

That vengeance and punishment part of the story morphed into the usual treacle, shrinking violet approach deemed more suitable for modern young women. Our girls are not taught the real Red Riding Hood. Culture hidden is culture lost. Is that the idea? 
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Rapunzel. The Witch climbs up. Our old Grimm.

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See Rapunzel. The one in the tower, where the prince climbed up her braids until the witch found out. He was cast out, falling in the briars, blinded, then wandering in the wilderness. She was banished to the wilderness, but there she had twins. Gift of the prince. She bore them alone, cared for them and herself out there, and finally found the prince in his section of the wilderness, still blinded, and healed his eyes with her tears. Strong lady. Gutsy. Rises to the occasion. Migratory Patterns of Cultural Tales, Rapunzel Our girls are not taught that. More culture hidden, more culture lost.
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Go back to our earliest folktales, shaping what girls can think of themselves and their abilities, in our western culture. Role models offered then.  And altered to pablum now.  Part of our cultural and physical heritage; filtered out to meet other culturally approved agendas.
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Upbringing and vulnerability. 

Denial of overt role models in controlled assertion leaves girls to the more indirect kill, the deniable, the predatory behavior, see "Claims 'torture squad' harassed Tatum Bass at Miss Porter's School for Girls," reported even overseas at ://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24873000-401,00.html?from=public_rss/
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Lack of physical outlets.  We hope Title IX helps here. Without it, training in the passive prepares them for exploitation and rape in the culture, by removing assertive and even violent role models. Turn the female's aggressive behavior into the indirect: the gossip, the clique, the bullying. The Miss Porter's, the Oprichniki at Farmington, see ://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Student-at-Elite-Boarding-School-Files-Lawsuit---.html?corder=&pg=1/.
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Why the military keeps women back. It affects male-female relationships both on and off the battlefield. Self-defense must become reflex. For women, learn to use the knee. Do they teach the knee? Genoux 101? Maybe so. Easily? Nice girls don't do that to their friends. So who pays attention to sexual assault even in the army there?
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Not many. Rule of tough, as with any assault.

Assaults condoned. One woman in ten reports sexual assault in the military, see ://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/31/military.sexabuse/index.html/ How many civil situations. So do we teach the knee? Genou 101. All together now: Genoux 102. New uses. Take nothing for granted. What do we teach our daughters? Should we? Why would some stop that. Unlawful interference? All a game. To some. Ladies in the military - For boosters: Tradition says plant substances give testosterone a boost, see Sassafras and History, Sassafras Remedies, at Sassafras and History, Remedies. Have some tea.
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B.  When the Rules Change; Why the Need for the New Rules

Rules arise when something must be put down because it is working. Women must have been good at fighting, in order to require laws against it by those who felt threatened. The role of rules in shaping people. Warrior women proved so "natural" that the powers had to pass laws to prohibit it - see  ://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women.html#laws/

See the emperors and popes at work in 200 AD, 590 AD, no crusading women allowed in 1189, and kings - no wearing men's clothing in 1644, no attending political meetings in 1795 if more than 5 people were present, and no women in the front lines of the Israeli army as of 1950, the last leaving in the 1960's
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C. The Chemistry of war.
Cry Havoc. How to Control Havoc.

1.  Premise.  Violence increases with increases in testosterone

• China and testosterone.

China - give it credit for acknowledging the role of testosterone in violence. We knew that, but who could dethrone god testosterone?

the god testosterone

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China has expressed alarm at its large and growing numbers in gender gap, and the role that all that testosterone will likely play in increasing violence in that country, unstemmed. See China has 32 million more boys than girls, at ://article.wn.com/view/2009/04/10/China_has_32_million_more_boys_than_girls/?section=TopStoriesWorldwide&template=worldnews%2Findex.txt/ Some testosterone gets deflected into martial arts skills that become an art form in themselves. That does not make it less deadly.
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Martial Arts, China

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2.  Premise.  Violence increases with crowding

The more of it is put together, the worse in the sense of violence it makes people, and the less the incarceration deters. Prisons.

We are the land of the what? We put more people in the pokey than mostanybody else. And their behavior there is fierce. See your local TV reality show about "the yard." If they weren't violent going in, they will be violent coming out. And see The Fodder Site, Jail "Em.

Our culture feeds on violence, puts it in huge petri dishes then profits by the pictures of it on TV. Does it? Our prisons house more men than women. Are women less violent? Could they be made more so by being in prison, as men are? That disparity in incarceration either reflects a lesser tendency to break the law, or a lesser tendency to prosecute (less risk with less testosterone?), and has an effect in furthering social norms, not necessarily the nature of the offense. We don't know which is which. See Nancy Kurshan's Women and Imprisonment at ://www.prisonactivist.org/archive/women/women-and-imprisonment.html/
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Newgate Prison, Granby CT

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Even our colonial prisons did not incarcerate for long. Just long enough to get the other person paid, feeling satisfied, then the bad guy could go back to being productive. Did they? Who has statistics on whether colonial "felon-equivalents" adjusted their lives more productively?

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And blacks overall more than whites, but the blacks cope with it better, fewer psychiatric problems, see ://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pressparliament/pressreleasearchive/pr386.aspx/ Too much to analyze here, but early cultural adversity (as in a hostile enviroment for blacks) might mean some practice in getting through. Is there anything to that? That we are products of conditioning, to a greater degree than the cultures acknowledge.
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Isolation by gender in anything is a bad idea, where violence is bound to escalate.
 
3.  Premise.  Testosterone once roused will not be doused.

The "righteous war" - the role of testosterone.  Try to define a righteous war - is there ever such. If there is, do we need as many people as possible regardless of gender, to use all the testosterone they can muster,in order to prevail. Who can and will rise to the occasion. In wars that sit - people at consoles - is the same chemistry needed as is needed for the knight?
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The righteous war also needs people who can set the reflexes and learning aside when the need abates. That often cannot be done - post traumatic stress recurrences.

A "righteous war" without the tempering effect of those with perhaps less testosterone, will soon become as abusive as all the rest of the wars.
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4.  Premise:  Testosterone and its effects on behavior is not a new issue
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See Sassafras Tree, Natural Pragmatism, Testosterone Marching. Currently: Women in 2007 made up about 10% of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, see National Public Radio at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14964676; and at NPR at ://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=women+in+combat&btnG=Google+Search/ There used to be restrictions, those started in 1994, and women were not allowed in ground combat units, but the line between front-line and rear areas blurs. More and more they find themselves in combat. The prohibition remains, as "reasonable and relevant." The issue is not new. But the need to control it, for our survival, is.

De-hormoning. A problem is that one side cannot stop fostering testerone behavior without everyone else, like disarmament, de-hormoning is not likely to meet with much support. Perhaps simply evening out the numbers of women and men might. Or might not, if the other side is all men. So what to do? We didn't promise you a solution, just horizons. Now, to check on that diet.... could be a military weapon, that.....hmmm... seed clouds with testosteronediluters

More sites: Medieval Women and War, at ://libraryautomation.com/valerieeads/medievalwomeninwar.html/ The Crusades: European sources are ambiguous about women participating directly - but the Islamic sources are not. See Women on the Third Crusade at ://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC1-3SWSJV5-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=eecbb76310438add5b9acb7aef381beb/

We know women have the qualities, can develop the skills. What we have not tried, is woman as the balancer of the excess testosterone in the men.
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FN 1 Physiology supporting idea that no woman should serve in aggression positions.

• overall a lesser muscle mass, possibly a product of breeding "out" that trait over millennia. And
  
• a tendon weakness connected to hormones, see http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/1/R119/.
  

Those still are an individual matters however, that can be screened out or treated or compensated for otherwise, not necessarily applicable as limitation to all. Is that so? Enough to rethink how we use our human resources? How many men have failed in other ways, not related to physical strength, but in impulse control or psychological. Are we looking at human issues, not just gender.