For two millennia, the image of the Madonna and Child has been the icon of the eternal tenderness of motherhood. Not this Christmastide! This Madonna has stashed her child and, instead of "gay apparel," she has donned the garb of combat. Arming herself to the teeth, she then sets forth to injure many and send to the kingdom of the mysterious spirit that impregnated her more than a dozen unsuspecting souls.
More than merely spoil the mystique of the Madonna figure, the phenomenon of a murdering mom forces us to reassess our whole defensive posture against those whom we may consider to be dangerous intruders upon our national scene. Just recently, an IFZ article quoted the director of a San Diego refugee organization. In response to a question by a local radio talk show host, as to the possibility of Jihadees inserting themselves among Syrian refugees, he said that most of them were women and children. The obvious implication is, "Ergo, why worry?" Our Iron Madonna has turned that assumption on its head.
This leaves us in a quandary of perplexing reassessment. In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, we are flooded with heretofore underplayed reports of the large number and importance of women in the Jihadi Movement. Apparently, there is a so-called, "Red Mosque" that is notorious for radicalizing women. Rather than run the risk of its men being distracted by doting wives, it is reported that ISIS takes great pains to match up its operatives with pre-radicalized women. It appears that San Bernardino is the putative, effective model of that practice.
As we are thinking the gender connection to Jihad, should anti-NRA types reconsider their stand? Since it appears that the Congress is implacably set against any move that touches against the Second Amendment to the Constitution, and since guns already and irretrievably have proliferated throughout the U.S., should we not then go along with suggestions emanating from some radical Right Wing corners? We have now learned that a male, U.S.-born and reared citizen with a clean record, living with a female, born and bred in the Middle East, with family living or traipsing about the house, can go undetected while collecting firearms and building bombs. Under our current laws, there is no protection against this type of preparation for domestic warfare against us. Should we now resort to everyone carrying firearms for protection anywhere, at a moment's notice?
Concurrent with the stark revelation of our national nakedness to perfidy and instant death by someone effecting the pose of a Madonna and Child, the announcement is made that, unequivocally, all positions within the U.S. armed forces are open to women. Just in time!
***** ***** *****
It used to be that Mom and Babe
At Christmastime were thoughts to save.
This year, that ain't true –
Has something to do
With actions leading to the grave.
Comments