The Invisible War (Military Rape) & The Violence Against Women Act
Notice how commonly known amongst ex-soldiers the military's tradition of rape is under our current line of Generals/Ceasars; (read all the way to the end)
WEB EXTRA: Rape in the military:
By Mick Krever, CNN - It is not every day that the man in charge of all of America’s Air Force calls a modest sergeant. Which is why Jennifer Smith was so surprised to get General Mark Welsh’s call.
Sgt. Smith had filed a formal complaint alleging sexual assault and harassment, which she said had gone on for years. When she finally revealed the assault to her superior officers, after years of keeping it a secret, she expected the Air Force to act.
“I was so caught off-guard by the fact that he called me, and considering who he is, and I know my place, I said, ‘Yes, sir. Well thank you for calling me.’”
“He just said that he was going to do the best that he could,” Smith told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.
But as far as Sgt. Smith is concerned, the phone call, and all the conversations with her superior officers that led up to it, have amounted to nothing.
“They know the case,” she said, “but as far as I’m concerned, nothing has been done.”
The fact that Smith reported the assault, one of several she suffered, was in itself a rarity.
According to the recent documentary “The Invisible War,” about rape in the military, 33% of sexual assaults are not reported because the victim’s superior officers is a friend of the assailant. And 25% are not reported because the superior officer is himself the assailant.
“I kind of didn’t tell anyone,” Sgt. Smith said. “I came back, went to work the next day like nothing happened, and buried it.”
Sgt. Smith said she knew many people who were assaulted. But for many like Smith, who is a 17-year-veteran of the Air Force, they feel like they have invested too much in their careers to jeopardize it by reporting assault.
Often, the harassment comes in a seemingly more benign, but just as destructive, form.
Sgt. Smith was compiling a report from files on a shared server when she came across a songbook with explicitly pornographic lyrics.
The page read, “F*** songs and Trash Tunes.”
“The reason that I didn’t come forward was because of stuff like this,” she said. “I just didn’t think that it would be taken care of or taken seriously.”
The pornography seemed like it was almost de rigueur for the Air Force.
But the event that truly changed Sgt. Smith happened while she was stationed in Balad, Iraq.
“I was assaulted by an Army personnel and he basically just grabbed and threw me up against the wall,” she said. “When I came back from Iraq I was different. That time was very different because it was so aggressive and it was so hostile.”
After some time back in the U.S., her husband convinced her that she needed to seek medical help, and come forward to her Air Force superiors. She was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Regarding her complaint she said, “I started at the lowest level of the chain, and went all the way to the top.”
Sgt. Smith is a 17-year veteran of the Air Force, and has come forward with her story just a few years shy of being able to retire with full pension and benefits.
“My father was in Vietnam,” Sgt. Smith told Amanpour. “And I remember coming home when I was a junior in high school and saying, ‘Dad, I think I want to join the army or the Marine Corps.’ And he said, ‘No, honey, we’re going to take you down to the Air Force recruiter, because you’ll be safe there.’”
Amanpour: Combating sexual assault in the military
Here is the GOP's response:
1. "From denying abortion to military rape victims, to aiming for total bans in the states, the GOP's assault continues"
2. Article: "Raped in the military, then raped by Congress"
3. "Legitimate rape" stops pregnancy because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," says McKaskill's GOP opponent
4. From Mother Jones: "Under Ryan's pro-life bill, a rapist could go to court and prevent his victim from getting an abortion."
Articles related to this;
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — The Army general at the center of a sexual misconduct case that put the military justice system itself on trial was spared prison Thursday and sentenced to a reprimand and a $20,000 fine — a punishment legal experts, a women's group and members of Congress decried as shockingly light.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, 51, immediately announced his retirement, capping a humiliating fall for the battle-tested commander once regarded as a rising star in the Army. A disciplinary board could still bust him in rank and severely reduce his pension.
"The system worked. I've always been proud of my Army," Sinclair said outside court after reacting to his sentence with a smile and an embrace of his lawyers. "All I want to do now is go north and hug my kids and my wife."
Why Won’t the Military Take Troop-on-Troop Rape Seriously?
Ever since the Navy’s Tailhook scandal in 1991, the Pentagon has declared a “zero tolerance” approach to sexual assault and rape by troops. But as “The Invisible War,” a powerful new documentary out on DVD this week makes clear, the U.S. military’s actual measures to prevent rape and punish rapists range from insulting to laughable to virtually non-existent. Meanwhile, women (and men) who sign up to risk their lives for our country are being driven out of the armed forces after having their bodies assaulted and their careers ruined.
Director Kirby Dick’s previous documentaries include a film about sexual abuse in the Catholic church, and the scandals in these two institutions do have a striking number of similarities. Both handle sexual assault charges internally, both have erred on the side of protecting the reputations of those accused while ignoring the needs and rights of victims. And in both worlds, the often intimate relationship between victim and rapist can make the crime even more confusing and painful.
The women of “The Invisible War” are almost deceptively strong, taking great pride in their military service and relating the abuse they suffered in unflinching detail. At one point, a former Army criminal investigator who has appeared throughout the film to testify about the Army’s reluctance to handle rape cases talks about her own rape by a commanding officer. It takes a moment to register that this no-nonsense woman is no longer in the military because she reported her rape (she was given an administrative discharge with no benefits after nearly ten years of service) while her rapist continues to rise up the ranks.
Going deeper;
We all know about the Iraq War Coverup....
The Iraq War Cover-Up
We all know about Dick Cheney crazy torture techniques (such as feeding a person through his ass - probably got that one from South Park). We all know about the prison for Iraqi's where they were doing weird sexual things to them (notice the pattern here?);
We know, by accident, that the military had private torture centers which is immoral and unconstitutional;
How long before the murders they committed in Iraq becomes our fate as citizens of the United States?
The Guardian: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians
Footage of July 2007 attack made public as Pentagon identifies website as threat to national security
You have to ask, whose security are our Generals really interested in? Thiers or our country's? Clearly they need to be all fired. Their whole lineage of Army top brass needs to go. God knows what else they are hiding.
Related:
No comments:
Post a Comment