Poetic Justice Delivered Via Fighter Jet...

I'm not usually pro anything when it comes to violence, or news about war and political unrest. It's always sad, frustrating, depressing...and I, like many I would imagine, feel helpless to do anything but watch it unfold.

So, I found myself a little surprised that I was actually slightly giddy about one of the items that came across my news feed.

It seems that The United Arab Emerates has their first female fighter jet pilot. It also seems that she drew the assignment of bombing the crap out of some ISIS targets in Syria,

It was her job, and I'm sure that it wasn't personal...right? But, there is a certain poetic justice involved in the fact that this obviously extremely competent and driven female soldier, from an Arab country, was firing missiles at men who would stone her to death if she inadvertently revealed her ankle at the bottom of her Burka...at men who would deny her access to education...at men who would punish her severely for failing to walk behind them in the street...at men who might actually kill her if she dared give voice to any contradictory opinion...

This woman not only participated in the bombing raids. She led them. And she was apparently disowned by her family for doing it.

I admittedly don't understand all of the cultural and religious complexities over there, and I admittedly use my western sensibilities as a yardstick by which to measure the "rightness" or "wrongness" of things...and this is biased and only partially informed.

As much as I am aware of this, however, I can't seem to overcome the impulse to jump up and down and fist pump the air over this story.

I know that sometimes crews on bombing missions would paint names on the sides of their bombs. I've always thought they should put female names on them...and I guess sometimes they do.

Then give them to Maj. Mariam Al Monsouri, and send her up in her F-16,

BOOM!