On 5/31/08, the DNC/RBC engaged in voter fraud and theft. It took delegates from Clinton and gave them to Obama. And, the DNC ignored the reports of caucus fraud;remained silent to blatant misogyny/sexism directed at Clinton (women in general); remained silent at the race-baiting by Obama;and stopped being DEMOCRATIC. This yellow dog Dem stopped being a Democrat that day when I saw what my party had become: UN-Democratic.
Hey, Friends - I wanted to let you know that I will be gone from 2/26 - 3/6, and unable to check in here. As always, I recommend these sites for your edification: No Quarter, Stray Yellar Dawg, Uppity Woman, and Logistics Monster, to name a few. Links are provided in the Blogroll to the right.
You may recall that during the 2008 Election campaign, Obama had his "Obama For America" thugs, er, troops. Once he successfully stole the nomination from Clinton, it became rebranded as "Organizing for America." You know, the one that "thoughtfully" provided a (used) slogan for a memorial service in Tucson after Jared Loughner opened fire, "Together We Thrive." (Photo from LA Times article.)
Hard to believe it can get worse than that headline, but it does (depending upon your perspective, that is):
[snip] Strengthening "our democracy" presumably has something to do with reelecting the revered leader in 2012.
However, the Organizing for America recruiting message says nothing about politics or election campaigns and strangely talks in military terms of "a grassroots program that aims to put boots on the ground and help foster a new generation of leaders -- not just to help win elections but to strengthen our democracy in communities across the country."
The same Obama campaign group was reported involved in fomenting and facilitating the ongoing Wisconsin protests against Gov. Scott Walker's budget plans.
The message about what it calls the "Summer Organizing Fellowship" adds: "Effective organizing doesn't happen in a vacuum. It takes commitment, time, and hard work to build a movement around a cause." It does not specify what the "cause" is, other than promoting Obama and his agenda.[snip]
Again I say, holy crappydoo.
Is this scaring the shit out of anyone else but me?
Well, if that part above didn't, maybe this will:
[snip] The cadres "will be assigned to a specific community," the message informs, "where they'll work to organize supporters street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood."
Hey, friends - I will be out of town starting 2/26 - 3/6, and unable to check in here. As always, I recommend visits to No Quarter, Uppity Woman's blog, Stray Yellar Dawg's site, and Logistics Monster's site, to name a few. There are links to each one in the Blogroll. I hope you all have an excellent week. I know I am planning on doing the same!
Their job will involve recruiting additional Obama workers, running Obama-related events, knocking on doors to talk of Obama "and lay new groundwork to carry this movement forward for years to come."
"In the end," the Obama campaign appeal says of the community organizer corps, "their work will take our grassroots power to an impressive new level." [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
How about now? Recruiting members, knocking on doors, all to spread the Good Word Of Obama, and implement his will for "years to come"?
And just what does it mean to "take our grassroots power to an impressive new level"? I don't think I want to know.
Particularly, about the Taliban in Afghanistan and how it treats women. Now, I realize this might just seem like an "out of the clear blue sky" kinda thing, but trust me when I tell you it is not. (Photo by Steve Evans)
First, I should say that before the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, women actually had a fair number of rights. They had the right to vote about the same time women in the US did. The participated in the legislature, worked as teachers, worked in the government, and generally enjoyed a number of freedoms in side and outside the home.
And then the Taliban came along. Let's just look at some of the changes instituted by the Taliban in terms of women:
[snip] 1- Complete ban on women's work outside the home, which also applies to female teachers, engineers and most professionals. Only a few female doctors and nurses are allowed to work in some hospitals in Kabul.
2- Complete ban on women's activity outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother or husband).
3- Ban on women dealing with male shopkeepers.
4- Ban on women being treated by male doctors.
5- Ban on women studying at schools, universities or any other educational institution. (Taliban have converted girls' schools into religious seminaries.)
6- Requirement that women wear a long veil (Burqa), which covers them from head to toe.
7- Whipping, beating and verbal abuse of women not clothed in accordance with Taliban rules, or of women unaccompanied by a mahram.
8- Whipping of women in public for having non-covered ankles.
9- Public stoning of women accused of having sex outside marriage. (A number of lovers are stoned to death under this rule).
10- Ban on the use of cosmetics. (Many women with painted nails have had fingers cut off).
11- Ban on women talking or shaking hands with non-mahram males.
12- Ban on women laughing loudly. (No stranger should hear a woman's voice).
13- Ban on women wearing high heel shoes, which would produce sound while walking. (A man must not hear a woman's footsteps.)
14- Ban on women riding in a taxi without a mahram.
15- Ban on women's presence in radio, television or public gatherings of any kind.
16- Ban on women playing sports or entering a sport center or club.
17- Ban on women riding bicycles or motorcycles, even with their mahrams.
18- Ban on women's wearing brightly colored clothes. In Taliban terms, these are "sexually attracting colors."
19- Ban on women gathering for festive occasions such as the Eids, or for any recreational purpose.
20- Ban on women washing clothes next to rivers or in a public place.
21- Modification of all place names including the word "women." For example, "women's garden" has been renamed "spring garden".
22- Ban on women appearing on the balconies of their apartments or houses.
23- Compulsory painting of all windows, so women can not be seen from outside their homes.
24- Ban on male tailors taking women's measurements or sewing women's clothes.
25- Ban on female public baths.
26- Ban on males and females traveling on the same bus. Public buses have now been designated "males only" (or "females only").
27- Ban on flared (wide) pant-legs, even under a burqa.
28- Ban on the photographing or filming of women.
29- Ban on women's pictures printed in newspapers and books, or hung on the walls of houses and shops. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
Pretty exhaustive list, right? Wrong. There is more. Much more. To say that women are treated poorly by the Taliban is the understatement of understatements.
So, why the hell am I going on about the Taliban? Because the Obama Administration is making good on a claim Obama made to engage with them. The theory, as I understand it, is to try and get some of them to move away from Al Qaeda. How likely that will be is debatable, but these authorities seem to think it will not work:
[snip] Some Afghan policy specialists are skeptical about whether negotiations would succeed. Peter Bergen, a specialist on Afghanistan and al-Qaida, told a US Institute of Peace seminar in Washington last week that there were a host of problems with such a strategy, not least why the Taliban should enter negotiations "when they think they are winning".
Audrey Kurth Cronin, a member of the US National War College faculty in Washington, and the author of How Terrorism Ends, said talks with Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network were pointless because there would be no negotiable terms.
She said there could be talks with Hekmatyar, but these would be conducted through back channels, potentially by a third party. Given his support for jihad, she said, "it would be unreasonable to expect the US and the UK to do so".
Asked how Obama's Afghan strategy was progressing, a senior former US government official familiar with the latest Pentagon thinking said: "In a word, poorly. We seriously need to be developing a revised plan of action that will allow us a chance to achieve sufficient security in a more sustainable manner." [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
So much for not negotiating with terrorists. I guess that is so Twentieth Century.
Indeed, the New Yorker has an article coming out soon about this whole issue, the US. and Taliban talks. This is something that is moving along, even if we haven't heard much about it:
[snip]When asked for comment on the talks, a White House spokesman said that the remarks that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made last Friday at the Asia Society offered a “thorough representation of the U.S. position.” Clinton had tough words for the Taliban, saying that they were confronted with a choice between political compromise and ostracism as “an enemy of the international community.” She added, “I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace. President Reagan understood that when he sat down with the Soviets. And Richard Holbrooke made this his life’s work. He negotiated face to face with Milosevic and ended a war.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
Uh, yeah - "distasteful" is putting it mildly. Because here is the thing that these articles do not discuss - how the US can negotiate with the Taliban not only for its Al Qaeda ways, but the horrific treatment women suffer under their rule. Here is what happens when you "negotiate" with the likes of the Taliban (h/t Breeze. Photo credit: crethiplethi.com):
[snip] On Saturday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed his government plans to take control of some of Afghanistan’s women shelters.
“Those who are found in violation of the established standards and the rules and regulations will be taken over by the Afghan government,” he said.
Under the plan, a group of Afghan officials will decide who is allowed to seek protection in a shelter.
Human Rights groups worry that Afghan government-run shelters will be disastrous for women and girls fleeing abuse.
“I don’t trust many of the people in this government to decide who should be allowed into a shelter and who should be ejected from a shelter,” said Rachel Reid of Human Rights Watch. “Often people in government have the same conservative attitudes that these girls and women are fleeing.”
According to the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, most Afghan women and girls face severe domestic violence – and many are forced into marriage well below the legal age, some as young as 8 years old. [snip}
And what does this have to do with the Taliban? This takeover of women's shelters is a (misguided) attempt by Karzai to "woo" the Taliban.
But wait, there's more:
[snip] “This regulation comes at a time when the president is trying to position himself as someone the Taliban can do business with,” said Reid. “He is reaching out and calling them [the Taliban] his brothers. He isn’t very interested in protecting his sisters, his wives, his daughters at the moment. But they desperately need his protection.”
Women's rights activists fear this is just the first step in a much larger plan to welcome the Taliban back into political life.
“I really see that in the future they will target other women’s programs and women’s NGOs just to appease the Taliban,” said Manizha Naderi, the head of Women for Afghan Women, a group that runs shelters across Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued a public statement saying that it was “concerned” by the takeover. Privately, American and western diplomats are furious. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
This is what happens when one tries to negotiate with this kind of organization, which is why they US deciding to engage with the Taliban is problematic. Why State personnel should be "concerned" about this takeover is indicative of the short-sightedness of this enterprise. What, did they think the Taliban would just embrace Obama's Hopey Changyness and forfeit their belief system, including how they treat women? Please. Karzai is making this concession now, to take over the shelters, based on a less than credible rationale, to appease the Taliban. But what would the US do to appease them, and get them to come to the table?
I think this old proverb sums this whole situation up: when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Karzai, the US, or anyone else who negotiates with the Taliban are going to be tarnished in one way or another. Sometimes things that are "unimaginable" should remain so, and not made a reality. Like negotiating with the Taliban. Just a thought.
More and more information is coming out about the treatment women reporters in Egypt have been enduring for some time now. The horrendous attack on Lara Logan seems to have opened the floodgates for other women journalists to acknowledge with what they have been dealing for years now. That many of them felt they had to suffer in silence lest they be seen as "weak" by their male counterparts, who, as noted in Angella Johnson's piece below, have no qualms speaking out when they are beaten, is troubling.
But first, an update on what Lara Logan, CBS foreign correspondent, endured at the hands of the 200 strong gang of men who attacked her. Let me tell you this is not for the faint of heart. From the Daily Mail:
[snip] The 39-year-old foreign correspondent for CBS News show 60 Minutes was separated from her film crew in Cairo on February 11 and surrounded by as many as 200 men in Tahrir Square at the height of the anti-Mubarak demonstrations.
According to one source, reported in The Sunday Times newspaper, sensitive parts of her body were covered in red marks that were originally thought to have been bite marks.
After further examination they were revealed to be from aggressive pinching.
It has also been revealed that she was stripped, punched and slapped by the crowd, which was labelling her a spy and chanting 'Israeli' and 'Jew' as they beat her.
And medical sources have revealed that marks on her body were consistent with being whipped and beaten with the makeshift poles that were used to fly flags during the demonstration.
An unnamed friend of the reporter told The Sunday Times: 'Lara is getting better daily. The psychological trauma is as bad as, if not worse than, the physical injuries. She might talk about it at sometime in the future, but not now.' [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
Yes, I imagine it will be some time before she talks about this, and frankly, if she chooses never to talk about this in public, I would support her completely.
I was especially horrified to read of CBS journalist Lara Logan’s sex ordeal as she reported on Egyptians celebrating the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak – because I too was a victim.
I was a few hundred yards away in Cairo’s Tahrir Square last Friday, unaware that Lara – whom I had worked with at GMTV – was then desperately fighting off a mob of 200 rabid men in a sustained sex assault.
Now I can say what I have only told a few friends since my return: That I too was subjected to several sexual harassment attacks at the scene.
Although they cannot be compared to the trauma Lara suffered, they were deeply upsetting.
Regardless of the severity of the assaults, that these women, both journalists and citizens, have experienced these kinds of things so regularly is disconcerting, to say the least. But especially that so few media outlets reported this as a part of the story of the recent protests.
Back to Ms. Johnson:
The first happened soon after my arrival in the square with photographer Philip Ide.
At first it had seemed just the merest accidental brush of a hand on my bottom but within seconds I felt another, less hesitant stroke.
I ignored it and kept moving, firmly gripping Phil’s shirt so we would not be separated in the surge of bodies.
The hand behind me thrust forward again, this time boldly grasping a fair amount of jeans-clad flesh.
I turned round sharply and glared at a young man who stood out in a crisp bright purple shirt but studiously avoided looking at me. He was no more than about 19.
I suspected he was the culprit and in any other situation would have confronted him angrily.
But in the mass of excitable men, their passions inflamed by hectoring chants and revolutionary songs blaring through speakers, I knew it could have resulted in an angry escalation.
And that is just it. Any woman who has ever had someone touch them inappropriately has to gauge the situation and see if it is better to let it go than to speak up for herself. Just a sad reality with which women have to live:
[snip] Then, using the jostling of the crowd, he lunged forward clumsily and thrust his pelvis into my behind, while holding on to my shoulder with his right hand and attempting to encircle my waist with his left.
I reacted instinctively, surprising him with a sharp elbow to his torso and was rewarded with a muffled grunt.
Then I grabbed Phil, explained what had happened and asked him to walk behind me for the rest of the way. Purple shirt soon gave up the chase.
At this stage I didn’t feel particularly threatened or scared. Having travelled the world extensively for work and pleasure, I have been in more frightening situations.
With hindsight, I realise I was also lulled into a false sense of security – as no doubt Lara was – because the crowd largely comprised happy, smiling people.
Even when several youths brushed against me in an intimidating way, some muttering suggestively in Arabic, I felt more annoyance than fear.
[...]
When I got caught in the middle of one particularly boisterous group, they mobbed me and several attempted to grope and fondle my body.
For a moment I was nervous – I could see Phil’s head but several bodies were between us – then I got angry and pushed back. Luckily, I managed to wriggle my way out of their grasps. [snip]
Ms. Johnson was lucky indeed to be able to escape the grasp of these men, to put it mildly. And thank heavens she did. But there is more to this:
[snip] It never occurred to me to complain to my bosses. I have never wanted to give male colleagues any reason to treat me differently.
But what happened to Lara has given women like me a chance to tell our story, like the time in South Africa when I fled a Zulu after he pushed his hand down my blouse.
Or the occasion in Qatar when I fought off a sheikh in full traditional dress trying to force his way into my hotel room.
I have had my breasts grabbed in Turkey, been chased by a gang of men while walking down the street in Morocco and generally treated like a piece of meat on a previous visit to Egypt.
That was why I arrived in Tahrir Square armoured in jeans, a baggy, long sleeve top and with my hair covered with a knitted hat.
No doubt, as a woman friend has said to me: 'In their minds, you and Lara were just two "infidel whores", the kind of sexually-liberated women they see in films and videos, or the ones who visit on holiday, get drunk and have liaisons with local men.'
There are those who believe women like Lara should not cover stories where they could find themselves in danger. Some British and U.S. male commentators have suggested that in some way she was responsible for the attack because she’s petite and attractive.(Emphasis mine.)
Others have suggested she has 'form' for dressing provocatively.
I find such comment offensive. No one ever says a male journalist asked for it if he gets beaten up. And I could not have covered up more – apart from wearing a burka. (Click here to read the rest.)
This is upsetting in many regards, that these kinds of assaults happen routinely to women is bad enough. But when they are BLAMED for them for essentially just BEING, as opposed to holding the perpetrators accountable, is adding insult to injury. It is NOT Logan's fault she was attacked by 200 rabid men. It is THEIR callous disregard for women that is to blame.
This is not new. This has been going on against women journalists in that area of the world for some time. It begs the question, though, why has our media chosen to ignore these attacks? Because it would affect their narrative?
This is a bigger picture problem. The treatment of women, whether abroad or at home, must be taken seriously. No more blaming the victim, or justifying the assaults. It is wrong, it is a violation of not just women's rights, but human rights, and it must be treated as such. I am glad Secretary Clinton has weighed in on Lara Logan's attackers, but that is just the beginning.
Perhaps it is time the United States started to play hardball with those countries that treat women so disparately. Maybe when we have an administration for whom that is important, we will. Clearly, that time is not now. And that is just wrong.
Oh, man - did SC State Senator Robert Ford (D) really say this? Talk about your classic "foot in mouth" disease. Needless to say, a whole bunch of people aren't happy with him about his comment. Ford has been in the Senate since 1993. This isn't the first time he has come out with something that made people do a double-take(he has a tendency to come our with some doozies). Yep, you just never know what Senator Ford is going to say.
But let me put this into context. He made this comment in the midst of a Senate discussion. Here's more from this Post and Courier article:
Robert Ford, a Charleston Democrat, is under fire for making a comment about the work ethic of South Carolina blacks.
“Brothers won’t work hard like Mexicans will so we need to make sure enough Mexicans are here,” Ford is quoted as saying, according to a posting by Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beauford. Ford’s comments came during a Senate committee meeting on immigration legislation.
Ford told The Post and Courier his comments were directed at all Americans — not any specific ethnic groups. He said new immigrants, illegal or otherwise, work at hard labor job such as construction. Americans whose families have been in the country for generations work as doctors or lawyers or school teachers, he said.
“I was talking about the building of America and how every generation of Americans did the hard work,” Ford said. “Americans are not going to do real hard work. Everybody in America knows that.”
You just cannot make this shit up.
And before you start to think, "wow, this guy is a major racist," this is Sen. Robert Ford: Yep, that would be the esteemed senator. Wowie zowie, are people a bit perturbed with him. This is the response by one of the head Republicans in the area:
Joel Sawyer, executive director of the state Republican Party, said Ford should apologize.
“It’s disgusting and abhorrent that any elected official would say something that offensive,” Sawyer said. “He needs to apologize immediately and hopefully the condemnation of his comments will be equally as loud from both sides of the political aisle.”(Photo by O'Neal Compton)
To which did Senator Ford responded:
Ford said he does not mind apologizing, but in this case he said he does not know why anyone would be offended by his comments.
“What am I apologizing for? I made a lot of jokes in my presentation like I always do,” Ford said.
Ford said people who don’t have a sense of humor “need to get a life. I am not going to stop bringing a sense a humor.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
Yeah, lighten the hell up, people! What's the big deal? It's just a joke. Sheesh! Ahem.
The fact that he is now trying to pass this off as just being a joke, while still claiming that Americans won't work hard, pretty much says it all about the good senator. Wowie zowie.
As for Ford's claim, apparently Ford doesn't know people like our brick mason, who worked until after 10pm, the night of the Super Bowl, I might add. He wanted to make sure he got the foundation finished before the rains came again.
And while I am it, how about the current attacks by the Left on Conservative Blacks? Oh, this is rich, coming from the same people who called everyone on the planet who thought Obama was unqualified when he ran, and a horrible leader now, racists:
You have to hand it to Juan Williams - he nails it. It is "crazy thinking."
Just in case you don't know who Hermain Cain is, another very hard-working man, Bret Baier did an interview with this potential presidential candidate just the other day:
So, what do you think about what Senator Ford said? Should he apologize for his comments? Should people get a sense of humor already? How about the Alternet.org guy and the horribly racist representation of Herman Cain? Herman Cain himself? Let's hear it!
No, I don't mean whatever flu or cold this is going around right now. I mean what is happening to a number of our women who serve their country in the military.
This is a disheartening result, and is a stain on the honor of those who serve. And that would be this - there is an epidemic of rape and sexual assault against (primarily) women in the Armed Services.
A landmark lawsuit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleges that the military's repeated failures to take action in rape cases created a culture where violence against women was tolerated, violating the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights.
“There are three types of women in the Army,” says Rebecca Havrilla, a former sergeant and explosive-ordnance-disposal technician. “Bitch, dyke, and whore.” During the four years that Havrilla was on active duty, she was called all three—by fellow soldiers, team leaders, even unit commanders. Once, during a sexual-assault prevention training, the 28-year-old South Carolina native claims, she watched a fellow soldier—male—strip naked and dance on top of a table as the rest of the team laughed. While deployed in Afghanistan, Havrilla spent four months working under a man she alleges bit her neck, pulled her into his bed, and grabbed her butt and waist—on a daily basis. When, on the last day of her deployment, she alleges she was raped by a soldier she considered a friend, it was, she says, “the icing on the cake.”
But Havrilla calls herself lucky: the end of her military commitment was in sight. In other cases, soldiers have had to keep fighting alongside, or even under, the person who assaulted them; been ostracized by their units for reporting an attack; or, as another woman says, simply “shoved to the side.” Havrilla and 16 others are now plaintiffs in a class action suit filed Tuesday against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, alleging that their failure to act amounted to a violation of the plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights. The suit, brought by Washington, D.C. attorney Susan Burke, and filed in the Eastern Virginia federal court, charges that despite ample evidence of the problem, both Gates and Rumsfeld “ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted; … in which Plaintiffs and other victims were openly subject to retaliation… and ordered to keep quiet.” The plaintiffs, in turn, have been “directly and seriously injured by Defendants’ actions and omissions.” “It’s shocking,” the case’s lead investigator, Keith Rohman, tells The Daily Beast. “And it’s just hard to understand why they’ve held off. Families all over America send their young men and women to serve and they do that at tremendous personal risk and danger. But this is not a risk that those families want to assume.”
Nor is it a risk they SHOULD assume. Too often, these perpetrators get off scot-free, with the victims further victimized by the very institution they serve.
I have to say, while reading about this lawsuit, and seeing what has happened to these women at the hands of their commanding officers and/or colleagues, often resulting in their dismissal, I am reminded of the story of the 14 year old Bangladeshi girl, raped by her uncle, and then charged with adultery. It is a matter of degrees. The woman is still blamed, and still bears the brunt of both the assault, and loss of vocation, employment, or career (in the matter of the Bangladeshi girl, she lost her life after being lashed to death).
But I am getting ahead of myself. This kind of treatment of women has been going on for a while, but it is getting worse, not better:
[snip] Meanwhile, the numbers continue to rise. In 2009 reported sexual assaults went up 11 percent, according to Department of Defense statistics, with one in three women reporting having been sexually violated while serving in the military. The Pentagon itself admits that reported incidents probably represent just 20 percent of those that actually occur. Female recruits are now far more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed in combat. But women aren’t the only victims; statistics from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs indicate that more than half of those who screen positive for Military Sexual Trauma are men.
“The military is so focused on operational readiness that all these other issues can be labeled ‘minor.’ But the fact of the matter is, it’s destroying the military internally.”
Even when rape cases are reported, the ACLU finds that only 8 percent of them are prosecuted—the civilian system prosecutes 40 percent of alleged perpetrators—and the military trials are often stunningly mishandled. Prosecutors in a case brought by Christine Smith—a civilian who was says that in 2006 she was raped by a man serving in the airborne division—said that they’d lost her underwear, so didn’t introduce it as evidence. But after the soldier was acquitted Smith received a phone call saying she could come retrieve the underwear from the military investigative office.
Oh, dear goddess. That is a staggeringly low percentage. But to first claim evidence was lost to then offer to return it post-trial is the height of callous disregard. What is worse, there is little one can do:
In such cases, the plaintiff has little recourse. “For lots of reasonable historical bases, the military has a level of civil immunity in our society which is quite high,” investigator Rohman says. “There’s a downside to that: their lack of external accountability means that they have not had to adjust in the way the rest of society has.” In particular, a 1950 Supreme Court ruling, known as the Feres Doctrine, places the military beyond the reach of workplace laws regarding sexual discrimination and sexual harassment. To make matters worse, charges are usually investigated within the immediate chain of command. “There’s no investigatory training. They don’t tell you to look for evidence,” says Greg Jacob, who spent 10 years in the Marines and rose to the rank of captain. Instead, they hand over a manual for courts martial, which explains, among other things, that the investigating officer should consider, first and foremost, “the character and military service of the accused.” Jacob says that essentially means weighing each soldier’s past and future value to the unit. “It’s an HR approach to criminal conduct,” he says. “Military justice imbued me with the ability to be judge and jury. Honestly, I had no idea what to do.”
It was watching the military bungle one such investigation that eventually caused Jacob to leave the service. When a course critique revealed that a senior enlisted marine in his company was systematically assaulting “dozens and dozens” of female trainees, Jacob investigated, got more than 80 corroborations of the behavior, and sent the report up along the chain of command. Less than a week later, the offender was sent to Camp Lejune and subsequently deployed for Iraq. When Jacob asked why he hadn’t been prosecuted, Jacob says he was told, “He’s a good soldier. He just can’t handle an integrated training environment.” In Iraq, the marine was killed, leaving a widow and five children. “If they’d prosecuted him, he would have stayed here and lost some stripes, but not been killed,” Jacob says. “That’s when I decided to get out. I’d been in for ten years. I was a decorated combat Marine. They were going to send me to take a unit to Iraq. But they lost out on all my experience, all the money they’d spent on me. The reach of this problem stretches a long way.” (A spokesperson for the Marine’s Manpower and Reserves Public Affairs office said that she couldn’t comment on individual cases.)
Jacob left the military. Ultimately, Havrilla left as well. Three months after returning to the States she was discharged, having been diagnosed with both combat PTSD and sexual assault PTSD. She’s now living in Missouri and is currently unemployed. She hopes that the lawsuit, and the attention it will receive, will compel the military to start outsourcing sexual assault training. “You’re not going to change hearts and minds overnight,” she says. “Someone who is a misogynistic asshole isn’t going to change their minds because of some PowerPoint presentation. But at that point, at least you can’t claim ignorance. There’s no wishy-washy ‘Oh, it’s just boys being boys.’ If you have a leadership that doesn’t give a shit, nothing’s going to change. It has to start from the top down.” And while the suit seeks significant monetary damages, a payout is neither expected nor entirely the point. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
This is disturbing on so many levels. As noted above, often these victims are victimized repeatedly, through the deliberate lack of action taken, as was the case here:
[snip] In one incident, an Army Reservist says two male colleagues raped her in Iraq and videotaped the attack. She complained to authorities after the men circulated the video to colleagues. Despite being bruised from her shoulders to elbows from being held down, she says charges weren't filed because the commander determined she "did not act like a rape victim" and "did not struggle enough" and authorities said they didn't want to delay the scheduled return of the alleged attackers to the United States.
"The problem of rape in the military is not only service members getting raped, but it's the entire way that the military as a whole is dealing with it," said Panayiota Bertzikis, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and claims she was raped in 2006. "From survivors having to be involuntarily discharged from service, the constant verbal abuse, once a survivor does come forward your entire unit is known to turn their back on you. The entire culture needs to be changed." [snip]
Indeed, the culture does need to be changed, though it is too late for these women, whose victimization continues through the "trial," or the threat or actual loss of career, as was the case for Kori Cioca:
[snip] Even though the man confessed to having sex with her, Cioca said in the lawsuit she was told if she pressed forward with reporting the sex as a rape, she would be court-martialed for lying. She said the man pleaded guilty only to hitting her and his punishment was a minor loss of pay and being forced to stay on the base for 30 days. She said she was discharged from the military for a "history of inappropriate relationships." [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)
Court-martialed for "lying." So, not only was she assaulted by this man physically, but sexually as well, and SHE as the one court-martialed. There is something seriously, seriously wrong with this.
Here is Ms. Cioca detailing what happened to her:
"It wasn't important. I wasn't important."
I don't know about you, but I need a minute after watching this video. Wow.
That is one helluva message for the military to be sending to women. Now you know, I appreciate those who are willing to serve their country, and have a nephew now serving his 3rd tour in the Middle East. But this kind of behavior is systemic, and must be addressed as such. Anyone willing to give of themselves in service to the country deserves to know that the very people in their unit are not going to assault them. And if they DO, they must face the consequences in a sober, serious, meaningful way. Whatever the military is doing now is clearly not working.
I hope these women and men win this lawsuit. But until we, as a nation, are willing to address how women are treated in our country, in our culture, any changes as a result of the lawsuit will be window dressing. As Havrilla said above, “You’re not going to change hearts and minds overnight,” she says. “Someone who is a misogynistic asshole isn’t going to change their minds because of some PowerPoint presentation." Indeed, we need real, systemic change. Nothing else will do.
You may recall that during the 2008 Election campaign, Obama had his "Obama For America" thugs, er, troops. Once he successfully stole the nomination from Clinton, it became rebranded as "Organizing for America." You know, the one that "thoughtfully" provided a (used) slogan for a memorial service in Tucson after Jared Loughner opened fire, "Together We Thrive." (Photo from LA Times article.)
