Recently in War Category

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Finkel has written a truly heart breaking book about the war that just won't end in Iraq. In The Good Soldiers, he follows the 2-16, a battalion of army infantry soldiers nicknamed the Rangers, as they head into "the surge" in January of 2007. He follows them as they say goodbye to their girlfriends and two-year-olds, as they arrive at the base and face the football field-sized trash pit that surrounds them (especially disconcerting in a war where IEDs are so rampant), as they grow anxious and bored, as they get injured and killed, as the lucky ones return home. The Good Soldiers is truly in a class with Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a vivid, nonpartisan portrayl of what real soldiers are facing in this war.

Much of the fifteen-month narrative is built around Ralph Kauzlarich, a U.S. Army Liutenant Colonel who is known for his catch phrase, "It's all good." Well, of course, it's not "all good" in Iraq circa 2007. Insurgents are planting IEDs in trash heaps on the side of the road so powerful that they rip through vehicles and tear off limbs. The moral force of the war feels lost on most of the soldiers. Attempts to do nation-building within Iraq--schools, a sewage system, build up the local police force--are all slow at best and impossible at worst.

I have never understood the war so well, despite reading quite a bit about it. The Good Soldiers paints a living, breathing picture of what the 19-year-old kids who put on the American army uniform actually face, and in turn, gives the reader a sense of her own responsibility like nothing else. It's not all good. And we're all to blame.

The UN recently released a report on "Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism" by Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin that focuses on gender. The report (which can be accessed in pdf form here) is mostly about human rights abuses experienced by "women," by which it seems the author means cis women. However, it takes a broad approach to gender, looking at intersections of race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity:

Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women's and men's roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood. This report will therefore identify the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures both on women and men, as well as the rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. As a social construct, gender is also informed by, and intersects with, various other means by which roles, functions and responsibilities are perceived and practiced, such as race, ethnicity, culture, religion and class. Consequently, gender is not static; it is changeable over time and across contexts.Understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps to identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counterterrorism measures; to understand the underlying causes of these violations; and to design strategies for countering terrorism that are truly non-discriminatory and inclusive of all actors.

The report includes some discussion of how security measures negatively impact transgender folks:

Counter-terrorism measures disproportionately affect women and transgender asylum-seekers, refugees and immigrants in specific ways. For example, enhanced immigration controls that focus attention on male bombers who may be dressing as females to avoid scrutiny make transgender persons susceptible to increased harassment and suspicion. Similarly, counter-terrorism measures that involve increased travel document security, such as stricter procedures for issuing, changing and verifying identity documents, risk unduly penalizing transgender persons whose personal appearance and data are subject to change.

I have written previously about the dangers of travel document security measures for trans folks. I am very happy to see the UN acknowledging this reality.

Lately I have been mulling over military moms who, upon notification of deployment, scramble to find childcare for their children. I can't help but wring my hands and ask: where are all the fathers? And I am not talking marriage here or even money. I am talking about mutual parental involvement. Women are expected to step up when their husbands go off to war. We should expect the same of men whose wives are deployed.

My heart goes out to army moms, women who are practically invisible in war coverage. This piece stumbles on so many kernels of truth about the societal discrimination women face. For me, this narrative is particularly revealing:

Sergeant McFadden, who holds only an associate's degree, wanted to hold on to her career. "It matters what I do," Sergeant McFadden said. "I love helping people. It's for our country. My dad was a Vietnam vet. I feel like I owe it to him."

It hit me like a ton of bricks: McFadden is expressing something afforded to men that we haven't quite gotten around to prioritizing for women. The plain truth is that boys and men grow up in a culture where their careers matter. Many employers insist on policies that make it impossible to reconcile the role of parent and with the role of wage-earner. McFadden, and the many other women who are torn about deployment because of motherhood, reveal how we lose out as a country when we don't give both men and women equal opportunity to be employed in a profession where they can work to their fullest potential. 

This is about so much more than military moms in heterosexual relationships. What about single moms and gay and lesbian parents who are being discriminated against by the military? What about women of color who are the least likely to be in positions where they can rely on child care? What about the rights of queer women and women of color to have non-normative paths to motherhood? All of these people have the right to express their service to country by enlisting in the military, but our country's policies and prejudices work against them.

Much ado was made about the President's back-to-school speech, but not nearly enough folks have made the connection between the potential of today's students and work/family balance. In this speech, President Obama said: "What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future." When girls grow up to have equal access to reaching their professional potential, only then can we truly have the best and the brightest in our military and at all levels of public service.

H/T to Smita Satiani Huff Po blogger who referred me to this article and wrestled with these issues with me.

A couple weeks ago The New York Times published a compelling and far too brief article titled Afghan Youths Seek a New Life in Europe. The focus is on "Afghan boys" immigrating to France.

Thousands of lone Afghan boys are making their way across Europe, a trend that has accelerated in the past two years as conditions for Afghan refugees become more difficult in countries like Iran and Pakistan. Although some are as young as 12, most are teenagers seeking an education and a future that is not possible in their own country, which is still struggling with poverty and violence eight years after the end of Taliban rule.

The boys pose a challenge for European countries, many of which have sent troops to fight in Afghanistan but whose publics question the rationale for the war. Though each country has an obligation under national and international law to provide for them, the cost of doing so is yet another problem for a continent already grappling with tens of thousands of migrants.

European nations have a much greater obligation than that created by national and international law. The article frames poverty and violence in Afghanistan as existing despite the war. In reality aggression from countries including the U.S. and European nations is productive of increased instability and refugee populations. The article discusses the experiences of "Afghan boys" now living in France but hardly addresses their reasons for leaving home in the first place.

Age and gender are obvious features of the population discussed in this article so it's strange they are not addressed directly. I am particularly interested in young men immigrating to France as a result of war given the country's history of gendered immigration.

I want to discuss the history of immigration to France from North Africa as I see a lot of potential parallels and think it will provide context. Knowledge of North African immigration should show how important it is to explore the reasons for young male immigration, why it is this particular part of the population that is moving to France and how this might impact individuals, families, and communities. It can give us hints as to how the country may treat this population and the potential for more people from Afghanistan to follow. France's history with immigrants who are understood as Muslim is a history of exploitation and marginalization that has led to extreme social and political exclusion and violence. So this current moment when similar or related patterns could occur deserves a historical perspective.

North Africa and Afghanistan are very different places, but both have populations understood as Muslim. I am interested in how these populations may be understood as similar, not claiming any inherent similarity or spreading the idea of the so-called Muslim World.

Ruthie Ackerman has written a lot of amazing work about Liberia--both past and present--as well as Liberian immigrants in the U.S. I had the good fortune of having coffee with her a month or two ago and was so struck by what a committed, courageous journalist she is, but even more, a truly incredible person. In her bio she explains:

It was following my second trip to Africa that I decided I had to do something. I could no longer just write and photograph people in communities far away from my own and then slip back into my comfortable life as if nothing ever happened. There had to be a way to show the world what I had seen, and that is when I made the decision to pursue a career in journalism. After one year in Cape Maclear and countless stories of adventures and hardships traveling in the region, I applied to New York University's Master's program in journalism and received a full scholarship. But before I left I promised myself that I would return to Cape Maclear someday to write stories that mattered about the women and people I encountered.

Ruthie has a sophisticated understanding of the complexity of telling others' stories (she and I hashed this out at length), and a real commitment to vivid reporting that reveals something about human nature, war, gender etc. She's actually in the process of working on a book about a group of Liberian immigrants in Staten Island, and meanwhile, is managing a really interesting blogging project that involves those folks--as well as a whole crew still in Liberia--to create their own content, use their own voices, tell their own stories. It's called Ceasefire Liberia.

It's exciting to see a forum where Liberians are speaking on their own behalf, instead of having their stories told through the lens of a white, Western journalist. I appreciate that while Ruthie is working on her own version of this story, she's inspiring her subjects to develop their own work as well. It's the kind of model I'm interested in following as journalism, as a field, starts to acknowledge the fallacy of objectivity and the intimacy (for so many) between writing or documentary work and activism.

A group of women gather at the National Stadium, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke at a rally in Kabul. Photo by Nikki Kahn - The Washington Post

Tomorrow, Afghanistan goes to the polls -- and many people are questioning whether it's even possible to hold a "legitimate" election given the potential for low turnout due to recent threats of violence by the Taliban.

But, as Jeanne Brooks reminds us at Women's eNews, it's not just violence that threatens democracy in Afghanistan -- it's the disenfranchisement of women. President Hamid Karzai recently signed a law that severely restricts women's rights. Among many other appalling provisions, it prevents Shia women from casting a vote without their husband's permission.

As Rachel Reid writes in the Washington Post,

Things got much worse recently when President Hamid Karzai officially promulgated legislation that would make the Taliban proud. Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern: As Karzai's government has grown weaker he has increasingly turned to some of society's most conservative elements for support.

In other words, Karzai has shored up his own power at the expense of women. Among Afghans who are risking their lives to vote, he is seen by many to be the only "real choice" in tomorrow's election.

We've got a feminist Secretary of State who has professed her commitment to keeping women's rights central to her agenda. And yet, Brooks points out, the U.S. and British governments decided not to raise a political uproar about the latest restrictions on women's rights "out of fear of disrupting the election." But if women's voting rights are restricted, the election is already disrupted and illegitimate -- violating several articles of the Afghan constitution and international treaties that Afghanistan has signed.

MADRE (an international women's rights group) has created a survival fund that "supports an underground rescue network of women committed to providing shelter and secret transport to women who have been targeted because they dare to speak out for human rights." Click here to donate to the fund.

Related:
Alternatives to Military Escalation in Afghanistan
An On the Ground Perspective on Afghanistan
What do the Women of Afghanistan Want?
The military's disingenuous talking points on women's rights

The recession is driving up recruitment rates for the U.S. Armed Forces. When men and women are laid off, they frequently turn to the one agency that is always hiring: the Army. But women, increasingly seeking out the Army for employment, are being turned away because of the struggles of the Army to accommodate their mentally and physically wounded. One woman I know who enlisted in January had her basic training canceled, while 2009 ROTC graduates in America's colleges have to wait until well into 2010 to take Officer Basic Courses, their first step towards deployment after graduation. This is not unique to women who attempt to enlist, but disproportionately affects women because of the recession.

Back in July, a U.S. fighter plane called the F-22 was essentially discontinued by the Senate, because Secretary of Defense Gates deduced that the U.S. owns enough. He proposed using the saved money to expand the Army by 22,000 troops. This was approved.

My knee-jerk reaction was "No more troops." The Army is requesting additional troops because, on paper only, it has bumped up against its Congressionally-mandated end strength (maximum size) of 547,000 soldiers. The Army is "full."

Active duty soldiers sustaining mental or physical injuries are classified as Wounded Warriors. There are 55-60,000 Wounded Warriors in the lengthy process of medical evaluation under the Department of Defense, but not yet discharged into the Department of Veterans Affairs. In limbo, these 55-60,000 are unable to deploy, while their numbers count against the Army's limit. The Army is 10% smaller than we think it is.

Recent updates about the photos taken at Abu Ghraib (and being withheld by President Obama) including sexual assault of the detainees is incredibly upsetting, infuriating and fills me with deep shame for being a citizen of a nation whose (previous) administration sanctioned this kind of inhumanity and violence. And these truths are ones that I along with so many others feel must be exposed. Author Tara McKelvey, whose book has accounts from female prisoners of Abu Ghraib, takes on the issue at TAPPED, saying that without the photos it's almost as if the crimes didn't exist:

While reporting my book, Monstering, I heard about an interpreter who had worked at the prison and allegedly raped a 14-year-old boy, and that there was a video or a photograph of the crime that had been recorded by a female soldier. (It wasn't Lynndie England -- I asked her about it.) Military investigators looked into the alleged crime against the boy - but half-heartedly -- and the investigation was eventually dropped. Since there was no photo or video that had been released to the public, it was not a priority.

At the same time, Mark Goldberg at UN Dispatch notes that not a lot of folks are talking in depth about the privacy rights of the detainees who were so brutally assaulted:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for refocusing "public attention on the torture, humiliation and abuse of prisoners sanctioned by senior Bush administration officials" as Daphne Evitar says. But scanning memeorandum, no one seems to be balancing the rights of victims of sexual abuse with the need to air the previous administration's dirty laundry. (Emphasis mine)

It's so difficult to decide what's "right" in this situation as so many of us are advocates for survivors' rights but also feel that openness is the only way to wake Americans up to the realities of our Iraq policies. I have to say that amidst our horror of these atrocities, my gut feels it would be deeply problematic to ignore the rights of the individuals that these atrocities were perpetrated against.

After everything they have endured, shouldn't detainees be able to decide whether these pictures go public or not? If their privacy rights were violated by these photos being released "for the good of the country," aren't we relying under the same argument pro-torture folks might make for committing these crimes against them?

Check out Jonathan Torgovnik's amazing collection of photographs of the children of rape victims in the Congo. I became aware of his work because of a devastating photo essay in this month's Mother Jones Magazine, which you should all check out if you get a chance (it's not available online).

A bunch o' peace organizations have created a coalition to push a nationwide day of reflection on and renunciation of military escalation in Afghanistan. I'm totally sympathetic to their cause, and always a fan of stepping back and considering non-military solutions, but also feel confused on this issue. As I've written previously in this space, I'm most concerned with what the nonviolent citizens of Afghanistan, especially women, want the U.S. to do.

Contrary to the tired old rhetoric about the U.S. soldiers swooping in and and "saving" poor, repressed Afghan women, there is a vital movement of Afghan women working to change their own communities and cultures. It is these women that I want to hear from, these women whose opinions I trust the most. And yet, it's hard to figure out--all the way over here in my little Brooklyn hovel--who these women are and if there is any sort of consensus on what it is that they want from the U.S. When I was at the Code Pink Mother's Day Vigil, an Afghani woman spoke about the horrific conditions that so many Afghan women are facing. After she left the stage, an interesting discussion took place between her and some of the Code Pink members in which she asserted that, contrary to the peace movement's assumptions, Afghan women want the U.S. military to stay in Afghanistan. "They don't feel safe," she said. "The international presence makes them feel safer."

Of course, she was just one woman. It would be reductive to expect all U.S. women to think unilaterally on such a complex issue (think presidential election 2008 and all the ridiculous "THE women vote" talk), so why would Afghani women be any different? This video, produced by Code Pink, features a dynamic woman who opposes military escalation:

So here I am, paralyzed by all the complexity. Anyone have bright ideas or trusted sources to contribute? If you're convinced that military escalation is wrong, here are some things you can do about it.

I had the total honor of attending a Congressional meeting yesterday called "The Growing Needs of Women Veterans: Is the VA Ready?" It was hosted by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs and widely attended by a variety of women veterans' groups who each had a chance to testify about what they see as the growing and unique needs for women veterans (who are currently about 15% of our military).

I plan on writing extensively about some of the issues that were brought up (including childcare, VA climate, cultural shifts, and of course, sexual assault), but what I really wanted to emphasize here at feministing was how inspired I was by the presence of young, fearless women activists yesterday. The stand outs were Anuradha K. Bhagwati, Executive Director of the Service Women's Action Network (which I've written about before), Kayla Williams, author of Love My Rifle More Than You, and Dawn Halfaker (pictured here), of Wounded Warriors.

They each spoke with such passion, clarity, and authenticity at the hearing. As the various leaders and ED's of organizations made their remarks, I was thrilled to hear these young women's voices, which truly stood out as professional, but also unequivocally real. They didn't let the official nature of the meeting or the onslaught of statistics overshadow the fact that women are suffering unimaginable pain because of sexual harassment and assault experiences, inadequate access to reproductive and mental health care at the VA centers through out the nation, and a sense of invisibility in a country that still assumes women don't see combat or get PTSD. Though the day was overwhelming, and the sense of glacial movement in our legislative branch palpable, I left with this rock solid confidence that this generation of women vet activists are going to make things right. They're too strong and bold and eloquent and convicted not to.

P.S. SWAN's site went live today, so be sure to go over and check it out.

Whatever you might think about Code Pink or direct action, you can't argue with how incredible this quilt is. Thousands of women from over 11 countries sent in these little cozies to be stitched together--the resulting quilt reads "I will not raise my child to kill another mother's child." It's an enormous, gorgeous spectacle if there ever was one. I'm just wondering which museum is going to snap it up.

I'm headed to DC this weekend for Code Pink's Mother's Day slumber party on the White House lawn for peace. I'm following one of their organizers for my book. The protest is inspired by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe's bad ass Mother's Day Proclamation, which I thought I'd post here in case folks hadn't seen it:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Check out the video of famous ladies reading parts of it:

Check out this fascinating blog, Tang Dunand, by a female AP reporter living in Afghanistan. With all the important developments there this week--ridiculous, misogynist law, courageous protests--it's nice to read the perspective of someone on the ground and see more varied photographs of women there in their own space. After taking a little friend to the emergency room she writes:

I worry that she lost too much blood. I worry that in a country like Afghanistan, the operation will go awry. I worry that she will not heal well in this war-torn, impoverished country and will be handicapped forever.

I only knew Basmina from our brief encounters, but today I felt so intricately linked to her. In the longed-for before, I saw a bright and happy young girl with the possibility, no matter how dim, of a decent future. Later, as I tried to keep up her spirits in the hospital, her tiny little frame on the hospital gurney, I grieved deeply. Basmina was the drop that made me overflow.

As these events tossed about my head all day, I learned that Basmina means "fragrance." I don't have any pictures of her. I took for granted that her freckles and smile would be there to greet me tomorrow.

Thanks to J. Courtney Sullivan for the heads up.

My friend Ben Brown has been on a very unique road trip. Essentially he is traveling around the country with a bombed out car from Iraq, parking it, and recording folks' reactions. Here's the summary from the site:

He [artist Jeremy Deller] will travel aboard an RV with Esam Pasha, artist and formerly a translator for the Chief Advisor in the British Embassy of Baghdad and for American forces around Iraq; and Jonathan Harvey, a veteran of the Iraq war and recently demobilized PSYOP specialist. They will park in public sites to hold conversations about Iraq. Visitors are encouraged to bring objects related to Iraq, and to participate in conversations with Pasha and Harvey.

Esam Pasha and Jonathan Harvey were selected by the artist, Creative Time, and the New Museum from a wide pool of applicants interested in the project. The destroyed car on view during the project's installation at the New Museum will be placed on a flatbed trailer and hitched to the RV. As an artist who consistently privileges the concerns of social history, Deller is interested in providing a platform for discussion. The car on view in New York and on the road will be a visual aid to prompt open dialog and unrestricted conversation. When the project arrives in Los Angeles, it will be on view at the Hammer Museum until mid-May.

Here's a video that Ben made along the way:

They're nearing the end of their adventure, so be sure to check out the work. It's an amazing and, in a lot of ways, overwhelming model of bringing many different art mediums, community dialogue, and documentary work together. It's got my feminist wheels churning...what would it be like to do a similar road trip with an artifact from a bombed abortion clinic or a giant container of the 13,000 rape kits still untested in LA County?

Women in South Darfur. Pic via.

Last week, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with "playing an 'essential role' in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur." (One ex-soldier said his orders were to "Rape the women, kill the children. Leave nothing.") Many observers have hailed this as a good step toward accountability.

But the ICC has no way of actually enforcing the warrant -- for that, it will rely on other countries and, perhaps on the United Nations. And in the meantime, the Sudanese government has retaliated by ejecting NGOs and aid groups from Darfur.

The UN estimates that the expulsions would leave 1.1 million people without food, 1.5 million without health care and at least one million without drinking water.

As Mark Goldberg wrote recently, the NGO crackdown was expected.

This, however, is no reason to shy away from the court's intervention in Darfur. Rather, the arrest warrant provides critical leverage over the government of Sudan, which the Obama administration can use to coerce it into cooperating more fulsomely in a credible peace process. Under the ICC's statute, the Security Council has the authority to suspend proceedings should it decide that doing so is in the interest of peace. This is the carrot to the proverbial stick of an arrest warrant.

Problem is, the Obama administration hasn't yet really stepped up to use that leverage. And even if this plan manages to bring Bashir to the negotiating table, it's clear that holding Sudanese leaders accountable comes at a price for civilians who are already suffering.

Further reading... UN Dispatch has a round-up of reactions to the Bashir warrant. And check out Richard Just's thorough essay on "everything we know about Darfur" in The New Republic, which also has a roundtable on Obama and Darfur.

On a related note, Women's eNews calls for more women UN peacekeepers

President Obama has announced that he will send an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next few months in an effort to curb the increase in violence. But he's not focusing on military solutions alone. He told journalist Peter Mansbridge, of the CBC:

I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means. We're going to have to use diplomacy. We're going to have to use development.

I'm heartened to hear that he's going to take a multi-dimensional approach, but I wish we could hear more about what "diplomacy" and "development" really mean here. They are both words that are thrown around to the point of becoming almost meaningless unless they are pinned down with some specifics. What will this diplomacy look like? Will Clinton be in charge of the talks? What kind of development are we really talking about--educational expansion, food relief, work programs?

And what are the implications of all of this for the women of Afghanistan? A long time ago I saw activist Malai Joya speak. At age 29, she was the youngest person to become a member of the Afghan Parliament, one of 68 women elected to the 249-seat National Assembly, or Wolesi Jirga, in 2005. But after she spoke out against the fundamentalists and former warlords in parliament, her life was threatened and she was suspended.

When I heard her speak shortly after her suspension, I was so moved by her insistence that the best thing for the people of Afghanistan was to have American troops out ASAP. But with the violence escalating, 40% more this year than last, and girls being doused with acid just for trying to go to school, would she still prefer that U.S. troops stay out? RAWA, the organization Joya is connected to, still hasn't put out any sort of formal reaction to Obama's announcement.

Women involved in prostitution during the 60s and 70s are demanding that the U.S. and South Korean governments own their role. Previously both governments were eager to heap all the blame on the Japanese government. An excerpt:

While the women have made no claims that they were coerced into prostitution by South Korean or American officials during those years, they accuse successive Korean governments of hypocrisy in calling for reparations from Japan while refusing to take a hard look at South Korea's own history.

"Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military," one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview.

Scholars on the issue say that the South Korean government was motivated in part by fears that the American military would leave, and that it wanted to do whatever it could to prevent that.

But the women suggest that the government also viewed them as commodities to be used to shore up the country's struggling economy in the decades after the Korean War.

Read more here.

Attacks on Gaza are in their fifth day, with nearly 400 dead and many more wounded. There's so much to say, but in situations like this words tend to fail. So please look to the women's voices below, and add yours in comments.

Writes Like She Talks has a round-up of links, as does Kim Pearson at Blogher. Cara weighed in, and La Macha at Bitch magazine's blog wrote a post that led to a comments conversation about why this absolutely is a feminist issue.

PeaceWoman has a comprehensive list of resources - UN and NGO reports and statements, statistics, and papers from women worldwide - on gender and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Barnard's Scholar and Feminist Online has an excerpt from an issue of Bridges: A Journal for Jewish Feminists and Our Friends dedicated to women's voices on peace: Sustaining Hope in the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict.

Sister organizations Bat Shalom and the Jerusalem Center for Women have yet to issue statements, but they're good places to go to for a feminist perspective.

I'd also recommend following Global Voices Online and their coverage - the site has aggregated posts, pictures and videos from blogs in the region, and also explains how you can follow and talk about the events in Gaza through Twitter.

For a background on the importance of women's role in peacekeeping, check out this primer on UN Resolution 1325.

Feel free to leave links to more feminist coverage in comments. I'm going to go read some Cynthia Enloe...

The New York Times reports that eighteen female insurgents turned themselves in to American-led forces in Iraq in accordance with a new amnesty plan. The women, said to have been signed over to Al Qaeda by father and mullahs, are asked to sign their allegiance to the formal political process, disavow violence, and in exchange, they will receive protection. (They will still face criminal charges.)

Wouldn't it have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall as these women discussed and planned their communal surrender?