The public relations narrative at the time was to push the plight of girls and women. Period.

Not much different than the oldest credo of why men fight: to protect our women...not our boys.

Second, as flawed and simplistic if not moronic, the US military, and its NATO allies, probably actually believed in, and missed in the irony in the old axiom: Adversity makes strange bedfellows.

Thanks for writing this.