The XX Factor: What women really think.

Women and Children Killing Women and Children

There's been a spate of recent female suicide bombers in Iraq, most recently a woman—who is suspected to be a Sunni linked to al-Qaida in Mesopotamia—who killed 30 Shiite pilgrims today in the village of Abu Jasim. According to the New York Times, the upswing in female bombers is becuase of adjusted tactics by aggressive insurgents wanting to avoid detection:

Cultural mores here generally mean women are subject to less intrusive searches, while their loose robes  more easily hide explosive vests or belts. Iraq’s police and military have responded by trying to hire more women as security officers to search women at checkpoints.

Anne Applebaum wrote about the strategic advantages of female suicide bombers for Slate in 2002, focusing on Palestinian women who chose to blow themselves up for their cause. But Anne's points are applicable to this most recent explosion, since today's Iraqi bomber targeted tents of women and children:

Yet the use of women—young women—isn't entirely a matter of terrorist tactics either. There is a public relations game at work, too. By sending someone like Akhras into a supermarket to set off a bomb, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade—or its backers—are knowingly breaking down whatever frail, lingering barriers remain between combatants and noncombatants, terrorists and innocent civilians in the Middle East. The war has come to this: Women and children are now killing women and children.

Obviously in the seven intervening years since Anne wrote this piece, things have changed, and the situation in Iraq is not identical to the one in Israel, but her point about the barriers between combatants and noncombatants is still a relevant one. If you want to know what's in it for these female martyrs, since they don't get the 70 virgins promised to male bombers, Michelle Tsai did an excellent "Explainer" on the rewards awaiting female suicide bombers in heaven. 

Barefoot for Bush

When Will Bush Go To Prison?

Last weekend, I finally got the chance to finish watching Frontline's excellent two-part, four-hour series, "Bush's War," which recounts in excruciating detail the events leading up to the Iraq war and the events of the war itself. I'm sure some will dismiss the series as radical, far-left propaganda.

But can someone please remind me why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the lot of them aren't in prison?

What Michelle Meant To Say ...

The more scandalous quote, if we took it at all seriously, would be the one from Cindy McCain, about how she has always been and always will be proud of her country. I'm sure she did not mean that Abu Ghraib or water-boarding or cherry-picking intel to justify the wrong war have filled her with pride; and honestly, under her husband, I don't think any of those occasions for shame would have occurred. But, apparently, you can never go wrong saying things that everyone knows not to take too literally. Which may be why Hillary carries on giving victory speeches.

The Audacity of Hopelessness, Part 2

Dahlia, your post about McCain's powerful message of hopelessness cracked me up and reminded me of this great spoof of Obama's "Yes We Can" video: You might call it McCain's "No, We Can't." Check out the actors' expressions toward the end.

That said, I have a grain of admiration for McCain's willingness to take a politically unpopular position during the season of high political posturing. I cringe when McCain argues that we could be in Iraq for 10,000 years, and should be, if that's what it takes. But then I also cringe after watching the Oscar-nominated Iraq documentary No End in Sight, as I did last night, and realize that an early withdrawal from Iraq could leave not only America but Iraq much worse off in terms of security. I'd love to believe in the message of hope but it needs to be anchored by some pragmatic foreign policy, and sometimes I wonder just how pragmatic these pull-out-of-Iraq plans are. We don't want to bolster America's terrible (i.e., nonexistent) postwar strategy with a terrible withdrawal strategy.

Meanwhile, anyone who hasn't seen it yet should check out No End in Sight. It's not exactly a Valentine's Day treat, though.

McCain, Galileo, and the High Price of Getting Off a Good One

Ellen, that is how I felt after I read an interview with The Sopranos' creator David Chase way back when, explaining that every word out of every character's mouth was a lie. (Up until then, I'd spent the whole hour going, "Well, that's not true ... and that's not either.'' So with that off my shoulders, well, I was freed up for whole other levels of viewing enjoyment. Sad, really.) And yes, Rachael, you are our rightful Elisabeth—even if I'm guessing it would take more than a congratulatory note on the birth of your baby to get you to reconsider Hillary Clinton. So now that your guy John McCain has the nomination, he knows he needs to make nice with Republicans well to your right, as he did yesterday at CPAC. But I think I finally get their McCain hatred after hearing an interview with the American Conservative Union's David Keene on Diane Rehm the other day. (And no, it is not the same as Hillary hatred on the left, over policy disappointments, political hedging, and Iraq, Iraq, Iraq.)

Keene was explaining that sure, some of the conservative anger toward McCain is over the issues—campaign finance, for instance, and initially opposing the Bush tax cuts as a ridiculously good deal for rich people. But a lot of it, Keene said, is only personal, because McCain is the kind of guy who can't seem to resist poking his finger in your eye, especially if you're someone he really ought to be sucking up to. (Sort of how Galileo's real sin was not as much his maverick views on Copernicus as his glee in making an ass of his pal Pope Urban in print. There he was, so enjoying his own bon mots, right up until the Inquisition arrived.) Unlike Hillary Clinton, in other words, McCain is the opposite of ingratiating. Suddenly, listening to Keene, I realized why I like this guy with whom I agree on so little. And why folks who do agree with him but have often felt his elbow in their ribs—hey, what was that for?—can go to pieces at the sound of his name. Keene said he personally is working on getting past some of the old slights, and I'm sure the GOP knows it can't wait 300 years to forgive him.

Yet Another Legal Black Hole