Jordan, U.S Military Join Forces For “Women’s Leadership Engagement”

In a bizarre waste of U.S. military resources, a National Guard unit has teamed up with a Middle Eastern country’s armed forces for “women’s leadership engagement” workshops featuring “trust activities.”

Most Americans may not know it, but a Colorado unit of the U.S. National Guard and Jordan’s Armed Forces have a longtime and ongoing partnership to address all sorts of women’s issues. They do it through a variety of rather interesting activities outlined this month in the National Guard’s online news publication.

Since 2009 Jordan and The U.S. have joined forces to hold eight women’s engagement events, according to the story, which is written by an Air Force Major. The piece focuses on the latest, which was held this month. The event covered communication styles, deployment preparations, sexual assault prevention, balancing work and home life and overall challenges faced by women in the military.

Her Royal Highness Princess Aisha bint Al Hussein, Jordan’s defense, military, naval and air attaché attended the workshops along with a delegation of female JAG soldiers, including Jordan’s director of military women’s affairs. The story includes a picture of the women in military uniforms, the Jordanians sporting hijabs used by Muslim females to cover their head.

The women participated in “leadership and trust” activities at the U.S. Air Force Academy High Ropes course and trained on the Colorado Army National Guard’s Humvee Egress Assistance Trainer and Virtual Combat Operations Trainer. Then they bonded in a roundtable discussion on “women’s issues.” It was an excellent forum to share the challenges facing women in the world today, according to the Colorado Guard’s assistant adjutant general for the Army.

Terrorism remains a huge threat in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the State Department warns against traveling to the Middle Eastern country that it diplomatically describes as having “traditional Islamic ideals and beliefs” which “provide a conservative foundation for the country’s customs, laws and practices.” Travelers should be cognizant of the fact that al-Qaeda in Iraq affiliates have carried out terrorist activities against U.S. targets, the State Department warns.

A few years ago a major U.S. newspaper exposed how Jordan’s government shielded the country’s largest bank from several lawsuits involving funding terrorist operations. The civil suits, filed in New York federal court, accused Arab Bank PLC of knowingly routing compensation payments from Saudi donors to suicide bombers’ families and financing groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.    

Jordan took the rare step of filing a court brief backing Arab Bank’s refusal to disclose client records that could, either exonerate it or prove it did indeed support terrorism. The federal judge hearing the case determined that the missing documents would likely substantiate the plaintiffs’ claims and ruled that a jury would be free to infer, from the bank’s refusal to produce the records, that it knowingly provided financial services to terrorists.