A question/observation about war brides in Iraq.

I don't know why this hasn't occurred to me in the past two and a half years, but has anyone else noticed that American troops aren't exactly rushing to get hitched in Iraq?

In the 20th Century, an inseparable part of American deployment overseas was fraternization with the locals, no matter where they were deployed. "Overpaid, oversexed and over here," that was a common observation about American troops wherever they arrived, but it wasn't a terribly bitter observation, as the 300,000 American soldiers' marriages to European and Asian women between 1944 and 1950 attest. Today, many of my friends are of partial Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean descent or are first and second generation Americans from those countries who came here by virtue of the marriage of a close relative to an American.

I suspect that fraternization was also an excellent way of solidifying relations on the ground in whatever country American troops were stationed. If it wasn't exactly encouraged by our armed forces, it certainly wasn't controlled.

Yet when I decided to find examples of marriage between Americans and Iraqis (we now have the possibility of Iraqi grooms as well), I found only one obvious example, from 2003. Two American soldiers married Iraqi women, only to have the National Guard prevent those troops from seeing their wives.

That seemed like an unusual response, but now I think I've found the answer, http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_774.html">here.

"Iraqi Laws and Procedures
The Iraqi Social Status (civil) Law follows the Islamic Sharia (Islamic legislation). Under Islamic law, an Iraqi Muslim female may not marry a non Muslim male. However an Iraqi Muslim male may marry a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish female."

That's sad. And, I fear, it's one more reason why we're going to lose this war, because so long as chauvinism is inextricable from the religion which is irrevocably tied to the function of government itself, the Iraqi people will have no real freedom. And we, the United States, seem to be okay with that.

Anyway, I don't really know what the point of all this is. I just sort of wanted to mention it. Have a nice day.

but the state dept. refused to let him.

I don't have a link, but this was in the news last year . . .

I think the US has discouraged fraternization, to the point of not allowing brides and grooms to see each other. I read somewhere about some soldiers converting to Islam and then being transferred out or shunned. Frankly, I think it is US policy rather than Iraqi civil law that is the main barrier to marriage. As for women only allowed to marry Muslims-well, the Iraqi Americans I know don't agree with that.