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| Billboard in L.A. for anti-snoring product |
From AdWeek:
Sleep Aid Defends Billboard Featuring U.S. Soldier With a Muslim Wife
'There are couples like this'
Are there?
White American with veiled wife?
I imagine there are a few, but a very few.
One of the many drags of America's endless efforts to win the hearts and minds of Muslims by blowing them up is that taking their women is almost completely off-limits. You can blow them up, but you can't marry them.
In contrast, the Germans, Italians, and even Japanese were pretty good sports about G.I.'s marrying their womenfolk. For example, in the later 1970s through 1990s in the San Fernando Valley, about half of my mom's social circle of bridge ladies were a half-dozen old German warbrides of high degrees of gemütlichkeit. She was booked to go with them on a return visit to Germany and Austria, when illness forced her to drop out, which is too bad because the trip sounded like it would have been a blast for her.
That's not a marine. Its an army soldier.
ReplyDeleteThe way the army does operations now involves making alot of effort to reduce contact between the soldiers and the local civilian population. This was tried in World War 2 as well, but the regulations couldn't stick with a conscript army. The army relies on professional active duty and reservist soliders now, after going through the near-mutiny with the conscript army in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that the particular culture of the Middle East makes war brides unlikely to begin with, you have to factor in changes the way the Americans do things on top of that. And I agree that historically relations (when they were more or less consensual) between occupying soldiers and the local women did seem to make occupations go down easier.
Gee, Steve, you think the Muslims would be "good sports" about Americans marrying (or otherwise availing themselves) of their women if only we weren't "blowing them up"? Pretty naive.
ReplyDeleteI know - you're thinking that the Muslims would let us marry their women if only we stopped supporting Israel! Yes, the whole world would be a warm bath of love and compassion if it weren't for those damn Israelis. Right.
have you SEEN Iraqi and Afghani women? It's not just the rules keeping them apart. LOL.
ReplyDelete--Hale
This is the world of "Gay Girl in Damascus", "Mississippi Masala", and other fish-out-of-cultural-backwater fantasies.
ReplyDeleteI've taught dozens of kids in the South who are the kids and grandkids of military-Korean/Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese girl marriages, but I've never seen it actually portrayed anywhere.
Anonymous 11/4/13, 1:03 PM said...
ReplyDelete"Gee, Steve, you think the Muslims would be "good sports" about Americans marrying (or otherwise availing themselves) of their women if only we weren't "blowing them up"? Pretty naive.
I know - you're thinking that the Muslims would let us marry their women if only we stopped supporting Israel! Yes, the whole world would be a warm bath of love and compassion if it weren't for those damn Israelis. Right."
Steve said nothing of the kind. Boy, the dual-loyalists are getting testy around here. I guess not getting their way in Syria recently has them all mashugana.
fredyetagain
I know - you're thinking that the Muslims would let us marry their women if only we stopped supporting Israel! Yes, the whole world would be a warm bath of love and compassion if it weren't for those damn Israelis. Right.
ReplyDeleteYeah, no reason for the Afghans to get upset out US occupying their country for 12 years. That must be Israeli logic.
Two American GIs actually converted to Islam to marry Iraqi gals back in 2003. Here is another article with photos.
ReplyDeleteAnon on 11/4/13, 1:03 PM
ReplyDelete"I know - you're thinking that the Muslims would let us marry their women if only we stopped supporting Israel! Yes, the whole world would be a warm bath of love and compassion if it weren't for those damn Israelis. Right."
It's peculiar how Steve said absolutely nothing whatsoever about Israel, yet you just had to bring it up anyway. In any case actually he didn't claim that "Muslims would be good sports about Americans marrying their women if only we weren't blowing them up"; try rereading that sentence again, calmly this time.
elvisd:
"This is the world of "Gay Girl in Damascus", "Mississippi Masala", and other fish-out-of-cultural-backwater fantasies."
Actually, just about every second small town in the United States and Canada will have a Gujarati motel owner or two; even in rural New Mexico and West Texas in the late 1980's it seemed as if around a solid third or so of the motel owners were South Asians.
Guys, please stop responding to an obvious troll.
ReplyDeleteThere's such a couple two blocks from me, in the multicultural paradise (really!) of Daly City. But they're not the ones who painted their house purple. That's the AA guy.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just the Muslims, you know. A few years ago in Berkeley I met a Latina grad student from Delano who was morose about the dearth of men from her tribe around campus. My friend the florist asked her why she didn't just date a white guy. Her answer was, "I have the sickness." We asked what she meant, and she stated that Chicano culture exerts pressure for separation from whites.
ReplyDelete"The way the army does operations now involves making alot of effort to reduce contact between the soldiers and the local civilian population.”
ReplyDeleteYeah, even in Bosnia (sure, ‘Muslim’ but not really you know, Muslim) troops were either on patrol or on base. There ain’t no ‘me so horny’ in today’s military ops, for good or ill.
She doesn't look Middle Eastern. He doesn't look heterosexual. Advertising makes strange bedfellows.
ReplyDeleteActually, this looks like an example of a popular trend among couples going out on Halloween--the ironic juxtaposition. For example, my son went out as Justin Bieber and his girlfriend as Anne Frank.
ReplyDeleteThere isn't nearly as much whining from either side if the man is Muslim, and the woman WASP.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm not getting something, but this strikes me as a sterling example of the "diversity makes you stupid" phenomenon. Imagine the psychological pressure a diversity-booster would be under to not raise the obvious objection that the veil completely distracts attention from the product being advertised. "What are you suggesting? That an American soldier with his veiled muslim partner would strike the average person as anything but completely unremarkable?!?"
ReplyDeleteWe should be tapping that, but that involves a victory centric military. We don't do Victory.
ReplyDeleteThe younger ones were signalling, when they weren't scared to death - with reason.
It's a popular meme among military couples - for costume role playing. Mmm. Ahem.
Speaking of which I think the male as Justin Bieber and the female as Anne Frank about sums things up.
"White American with veiled wife?
ReplyDeleteI imagine there are a few, but a very few."
Grover Norquist?
Who remembers the story about the GI who brought back an Iraqi wife who was working as a stripper and then got in trouble for beating their kid?
ReplyDeleteI had a friend who was an exchange student in Turkey and he had several (non-veiled) lady friends. It would have been fine to marry her and it was ok for them to hang out, but sleeping with her would have been out of the question. In fact, kissing was verboten.
ReplyDelete" Imagine the psychological pressure a diversity-booster would be under to not raise the obvious objection that the veil completely distracts attention from the product being advertised."
ReplyDeleteIt's clearly a deliberately provocative/humorous picture designed to attract attention and controversy, therefore getting a bunch of free advertising for the product.
That's how advertising and publicity works these days. Think Miley Cyrus.
Can nobody else see the humor in the picture (that the only thing keeping the GI and a veiled wife apart is snoring)? Really?
It's the kind of ad that backfires because no one will remember the name of the product, only the visuals.
ReplyDelete"Can nobody else see the humor in the picture (that the only thing keeping the GI and a veiled wife apart is snoring)? Really?"
ReplyDeleteI can "see" it, but it's too intellectual; and as advertising, my fear is it would be ineffective. Course, I could be dead wrong and they really are experts.
Anyway, the larger point stands: it'd take a lot of guts to object in those circles to object to something being "too PC."
anony-mouse,
ReplyDeleteGet real. "HBDers" are unified by no more than a realist attitude towards human differences. That hardly translates to a requirement that a HBDer cheer on his ethnic or racial demise.
I don't get it. Are Muslim women known for being big snorers? Guess you learn something every day.
ReplyDelete"This is the world of "Gay Girl in Damascus", "Mississippi Masala", and other fish-out-of-cultural-backwater fantasies."
ReplyDeleteActually, just about every second small town in the United States and Canada will have a Gujarati motel owner or two; even in rural New Mexico and West Texas in the late 1980's it seemed as if around a solid third or so of the motel owners were South Asians.
Gotcha. Grew up with plenty of them in my small cotton farming town. Somehow I don't recall any of them going out with one of the local bruthas and dancing around in folk costumes delighting in each other's diversity.
Apparently it happens but mostly between GI's and 'terps.
ReplyDelete"Yeah, even in Bosnia (sure, ‘Muslim’ but not really you know, Muslim) troops were either on patrol or on base. There ain’t no ‘me so horny’ in today’s military ops, for good or ill."
ReplyDeleteGotta be sent to Rammstein or Okinawa for that.
Ha ha. When I was a kid, one of my best friends down the street had a mom who had been an East Prussian refugee. She married an American fighter ace and ended up in small town Georgia. She loved it. My parents and their friends were sort of hard partiers. She fit right in. She was incredibly blunt however. She would say things to people who were simply rambling on about whatever, "That's the stupidest thing. Why to you talk about that?" They liked her anyway. She was very good at herding large numbers of male children without getting upset.
ReplyDeleteDon't rush to conclusions. The photo depicts gay marriage between a soldier and a ninja.
ReplyDeleteThere is (or was--it's probably smaller now) a pretty good sized Christian community in Iraq. I wonder if the rate of marriage between GIs and Iraqi Christians is higher than between GIs and Iraqi Muslims. The regional liking of cousin marriage would probably still be there, along with the cultural differences, but at least the religious objections would be a lot smaller.
ReplyDelete"Actually, just about every second small town in the United States and Canada will have a Gujarati motel owner or two; even in rural New Mexico and West Texas in the late 1980's it seemed as if around a solid third or so of the motel owners were South Asians."
ReplyDeleteI have been thru many a small town in my travels, and even the smallest BF town in central Montana has an Indian-owned motel or (especially) a Chinese restaurant.
AFAIK, their kids don't mate with the locals; they move to a big city ASAP and become doctors and engineers.
These hook ups did occur, but not too often and at great career risk for the soldier. There was a guy in our unit who was planning to marry one of our 'terps in Jordan after his deployment was up. Problem was she couldn't keep her mouth shut and started blabbing all about it, which attracted the attention of the brass, who put a stop to it. I went to the Green Zone once on business and an attractive female Iraqi secretary was flirting with me the whole time. I'm guessing there was a strong desire among the women to hook with a GI and move to the US, but Iraqi men would react violently if this became a thing.
ReplyDeleteGeez, Jobs wasn't Iranian, you idiot.
ReplyDeleteGotta wonder about the ISteve commenteriat..
I know white soldiers who went to Iraq, witnessed the killing of Muslim children, then went BATSHIT crazy, turned against their white childhood friends...and Did In Fact Take Muslim (or whores trying to escape their country) wives and converted to Islam.
ReplyDeleteSo....scary ad, but they do exist.
And yes, they girls are not very good looking but when you are trying to alleviate guilt and mental illness...then an ugly muslim wife fits the bill!
The women don't wear headscarves though...certainly not burqas
"Gotta wonder about the ISteve commenteriat.."
ReplyDeleteYou're a harsh judge. Iranian, Syrian, it's ballpark. And his larger point stands. Anyway, name just one blog where every comment is perfect.
Maybe the level of acceptance among Germans and Japanese of American GI's taking "war brides" compared to Iraqis has something to do with the fact that we utterly destroyed Germany and Japan. Perhaps after they looked at Dresden and Hiroshima and Tokyo and Berlin they said, "You'd like some of our womenfolk? By all means..." It might also have to do with the fact that American IQ levels were then comparable to those of the Axis nations.
ReplyDeleteSteve Jobs was half-Iranian/half-white American and he looked white. He was literally passing. Of course, his father was the Iranian one and his mother was the white Caucasoid one.
ReplyDeleteSince when are either Syrians or Iranians non-whites? (The Iranians are even Aryans, which should make the Nazis happy.) Was Eddie Albert's character in "Oklahoma!", Ali Hakim, not supposed to be white? What about Danny Thomas white? (And when his character went to Mayberry, North Carolina, where he was arrested by Sheriff Andy Taylor, was he treated as "colored" rather than white?) Is Ralph Nader non-white? Former Senators James Abourezk and John Sununu? The late Senator George Mitchell? Helen Thomas? William Baroody (head of the American Enterprise Institute between 1962 and 1978)? Najeeb Halaby (head of the FAA under Kennedy; father of Queen Noor of Jordan)?
Many Syrians and Iranians fall into the "white" category (a few even look northern European with blonde hair, blue eyes, etc.) and lots have a vaguely "Mediterranean" look similar to Greeks or Southern Italians) but some (especially Iranians as you go further east) begin to look more brownish and/or Asiatic and couldn't pass as "white European".
ReplyDeleteNon-fundie North Africans are fine with their daughters marrying Westerners. They look the other way and pretend the groom has converted as long as they cash the dowry.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteWar is often associated with rape or concubinage of the women of the defeated
Hence the many Japanese and German wives of returning troops after WWII
Russians women lost their chastity and self worth(rape by proxy) after their proxy defeat in the Cold War
Now the wars in the Middle East were designed to be less of war and more social service.Ironically this guarantees a never ending war.
In the meantime,such wars entail that the victor kowtow to the defeated.Hence you have U.S generals observing Ramadhan fasts and walking on eggshells to not offend Muslim sensibilities
I know quite a few American women who enlisted in the U.S army as well working in as prominent defense contractors ,of which I was once an employee, who ended up dating or marrying Iraqi men.
Rather than vice versa
Thats because again this is not a war like that fought against Germany and Japan. A very perverse touchy feely war where you give your women to the defeated enemy in the hope that he will like you.
A shame because Iraqi women can indeed be very pretty.They have a very alluring old world quality with their 70s style wavy hair,wide smoky eyes,chiselled features and coquettish yet demure appeal.
have you SEEN Iraqi and Afghani women? It's not just the rules keeping them apart. LOL.
ReplyDeleteArab and other Muslim-heritage women may not be the best lookers, but they make fantastic wives and mothers. Loving, caring, loyal, empathic, pro-family, and resistant to feminist subversion. It makes sense that Arab men (Christian as well as Muslim) are so jealous and possessive of their women.
Unlike Mountain Maven, my first thought was "a burqa helps you stop snoring?".
ReplyDeleteRE; Middle Eastern/Iranian women. I have a white friend who never dates white women, and being a guy who makes excellent coin as well as being handsome and athletic, he has his pick. At one point he was seeing an Iranian girl who was a cheerleader for the local pro football team, and on Roissy's scale she was about a 14. Just an incredibly gorgeous woman.
ReplyDeleteSo there may be something under that veil beside hummus breath!
have you SEEN Iraqi and Afghani women?
ReplyDeleteSome very attractive ones, actually. I'd say I find the hottest Middle Eastern women more attractive than the hottest East Asians.
They don't all have to be gorgeous; if even 1% of them are good-looking, and American soldiers start skimming them off the top, that's going to upset the locals. Can't have that, when your military goal is winning hearts and minds.