Word: conscript
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...reassuring dress codes broke down first. Masquerading as passersby and taxi drivers, Iraqi soldiers brought a grim new meaning to the old term "theater of war." Surrendering conscript or armed militia member? Distressed pregnant woman or canny suicide bomber? The difference between combatants and noncombatants was in the eye of the beholder, suddenly. For a coalition sentry manning a checkpoint, the penalty for guessing wrong was death--his own death if he failed to fire in time or that of an innocent if he fired too hastily...
...Around 11 a.m., just over a small rise out of sight from Shorish, another DSHK let loose in long streams for almost a minute. A young Iraqi conscript had attempted to desert and was cut down by his own men. It was the third deserter killed this way since Monday after months of almost free passage for fleeing soldiers. "The ones the other day were torn up and the Iraqis took one of their bodies away in a blanket. This one will not be different," said Sajit...
...Older brother Latif was an Iraqi army conscript sent to Kuwait in 1990. He, with the rest of his battalion, surrendered to U.S. forces at the first opportunity. "Our senior officer told us before the war not to fight and to surrender, and after sixteen hours of the war that's exactly what we did," he says, insisting the conscripts overlooking his town would be looking to do the same thing this time. He worries though that hardline intelligence and secret police officers have been put into the units to ensure the men stay and try to weather...
...Critically, Japan's new conscript armies were made accountable only to the Emperor, who was cast in the role of a living deity who would reign but not rule. Starting in the 1930s, Buruma writes, this "militarist monster" lurched from Manchuria to Pearl Harbor as factions of courtiers, generals and bureaucrats jostled for power, their decisions often driven by fanatical subordinates in the field...
However, the court’s argument is undermined by the success of women in the current American military and in the armed forces of other countries—particularly in Israel, the first country ever to conscript women. Since the country’s independence in 1948, the Israeli armed forces have drafted both men and women without any hindrance to their ability to fight and win wars—wars that, in fact, could not possibly have been won without women. For decades, Israeli women have served their country by working in technology, intelligence and other behind...