Rape rampant in US military

Statistics and soldiers' testimonies reveal a harrowing epidemic of sexual assault in the US military.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 21 Dec 2010 13:22 GMT

Sexual assault within the ranks of the military is not a new problem. It is a systemic problem that has necessitated that the military conduct its own annual reporting on the crisis.

A 2003 Air Force Academy sexual assault scandal prompted the department of defense to include a provision in the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act that required investigations and reports of sexual harassment and assaults within US military academies to be filed. The personal toll is, nevertheless, devastating.

Military sexual trauma (MST) survivor Susan Avila-Smith is director of the veteran’s advocacy group Women Organizing Women. She has been serving female and scores of male clients in various stages of recovery from MST for 15 years and knows of its devastating effects up close.

“People cannot conceive how badly wounded these people are,” she told Al Jazeera, “Of the 3,000 I’ve worked with, only one is employed. Combat trauma is bad enough, but with MST it’s not the enemy, it’s our guys who are doing it. You’re fighting your friends, your peers, people you’ve been told have your back. That betrayal, then the betrayal from the command is, they say, worse than the sexual assault itself.”

On December 13, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking Pentagon records in order to get the real facts about the incidence of sexual assault in the ranks.

The Pentagon has consistently refused to release records that fully document the problem and how it is handled. Sexual assaults on women in the US military have claimed some degree of visibility, but about male victims there is absolute silence.

Pack Parachute, a non-profit in Seattle, assists veterans who are sexual assault survivors. Its founder Kira Mountjoy-Pepka, was raped as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. In July 2003 she was member of a team of female cadets handpicked by Donald Rumsfeld, at the time the secretary of defense, to tell their stories of having been sexually assaulted. The ensuing media coverage and a Pentagon investigation forced the academy to make the aforementioned major policy changes.

Report reveals alarming statistics

Mountjoy-Pepka often works with male survivors of MST. She stated in a telephone interview that four per cent of men in the military experience MST. “Most choose not to talk about it until after their discharge from the military, largely because the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in over 60 percent of MST cases is too overwhelming,” she informed Al Jazeera.

Last week the Pentagon released its “annual report on sexual harassment and violence at the military service academies”. At its three academies, the number of reports of sexual assault and harassment has risen a staggering 64 percent from last year.

The report attributes the huge increase to better reporting of incidents due to increased training and education about sexual assault and harassment. Veteran’s Administration (VA) statistics show that more than 50 percent of the veterans who screen positive for MST are men.

According to the US Census Bureau, there are roughly 22 million male veterans compared to less than two million female vets.

In Congressional testimony in the summer of 2008, Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent (approximately 260) of the 2,200 reported rapes in the military in 2007 were reported by military male victims.

Due to their sheer numbers in the military, more men (at a rough estimate one in twenty), have experienced MST than women.

Shamed into silence

Billy Capshaw was 17 when he joined the Army in 1977. After being trained as a medic he was transferred to Baumholder, Germany. His roommate, Jeffrey Dahmer, by virtue of his seniority ensured that Capshaw had no formal assignment, no mail, and no pay. Having completely isolated the young medic, Dahmer regularly sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him.

Dahmer went on to become the infamous serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 boys and men before being beaten to death by an inmate at Columbia Correction Institution in 1994.

Capshaw reflects back, “At that young age I didn’t know how to deal with it. My commander did not believe me. Nobody helped me, even though I begged and begged and begged.”

The debilitating lifelong struggle Capshaw has had to face is common among survivors of military sexual assault.

Later during therapy he needed to go public. Since then he says, “I’ve talked to a lot of men, many of them soldiers, who are raped but who won’t go public with their story. The shame alone is overwhelming.”

In 1985 Michael Warren enlisted in the navy and for three years worked as a submarine machinist mate on a nuclear submarine. One day he awoke to find another soldier performing fellatio on him.

He recollects with horror, “I was paralyzed with fear. I was in disbelief... shame. When I reported it to the commander he said it was better for me to deal with it after being discharged. Nobody helped me, not even the chaplain. The commander at the processing centre wouldn’t look me in the face. When I filled out my claim later they didn’t believe me. It’s so frustrating.”

Armando Javier was an active duty Marine from 1990 to 1994. He was a Lance Corporal at Camp Lejeune in 1993 when he was raped.

Five Marines jumped Javier and beat him until he was nearly unconscious, before taking turns raping him. His sexual victimization narrative reads, “One of them, a corporal, pulled down my shorts and instructed the others to ‘Get the grease’. Another corporal instructed someone to bring the stick. They began to insert the stick inside my anus. The people present during this sadistic and ritual-like ceremony started to cajole, cheer, and laugh, saying “stick em’ – stick-em’.”

Extreme shame and trauma compelled him not to disclose the crime to anyone except a friend in his unit. He wrote in his account, “My experience left me torn apart physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was dehumanized and treated with ultimate cruelty, by my perpetrators… I was embarrassed and ashamed and didn’t know what to do. I was young at that time. And being part of an elite organization that values brotherhood, integrity and faithfulness made it hard to come forward and reveal what happened.”

The reality of being less equal

Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775 and their travails are as old. Drill instructors indoctrinate new recruits into it at the outset by routinely referring to them as “girl,” “pussy,” “bitch,” and “dyke.”

A Command Sergeant Major told Catherine Jayne West of the Mississippi National Guard, “There aren’t but two places for women - in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Women have no place in the military.”

She was raped by fellow soldier Private First Class Kevin Lemeiux, at the sprawling Camp Anaconda, north of Baghdad. The defense lawyer in court merely wanted to know why, as a member of the army, she had not fought back.

The morning after the rape, an army doctor gave her a thorough examination. The army’s criminal investigation team concluded her story was true. Moreover, Lemeiux had bragged about the incident to his buddies and they had turned him in. It seemed like a closed case, but in court the defense claimed that the fact that West had not fought back during the rape was what incriminated her. In addition, her commanding officer and 1st Sergeant declared, in court, that she was a “promiscuous female.”

In contrast, Lemeiux, after the third court hearing of the trial, was promoted to a Specialist. Meanwhile his lawyer entered a plea of insanity.

He was later found guilty of kidnapping but not rape, despite his own admission of the crime. He was given three years for kidnapping, half of which was knocked off.

The long term affects of MST

Jasmine Black, a human resources specialist in the Army National Guard from June 2006 to September 2008 was raped by another soldier in her battalion when she was stationed in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She reported it to her Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) and the Military Police, but the culprit was not brought to book.

After an early discharge due to MST and treatment at a PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (PRRTP) facility, she was raped again by a higher-ranking member of the air force in February 2009.

Administrator for a combat engineering instruction unit in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tracey Harmon has no illusions. “For women in the military, you are either a bitch, a dyke, or a whore. If you sleep with one person in your unit you are a whore. If you are a lesbian you are a dyke, and if you don’t sleep with other soldiers you are a bitch.”

Maricela Guzman served in the navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia. She was raped while in boot camp, but fear of consequences kept her from talking about it for the rest of her time in the military. “I survived by becoming a workaholic and was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic.”

On witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia, she chose to dissociate from the military. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. She underwent a divorce, survived a failed suicide attempt and became homeless before deciding to move in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the VA for help. Her therapist there diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.

The VA denied her claim nevertheless, “Because they said I couldn’t prove it … since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behavior while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened.”

While it will go to any length to maintain public silence over the issue, the military machine has no such qualms within its own corridors. Guzman discloses, “Through the gossip mill we would hear of women who had reported being raped. No confidentiality was maintained nor any protection given to victims. The boys’ club culture is strong and the competition exclusive. That forces many not to report rape, because it is a blemish and can ruin your career.”

The department of defence reported that in fiscal year 2009, there were 3,230 reports of sexual assault, an increase of 11 percent over the prior year.

However, as high as the military’s own figures are of rape and sexual assault, victims and advocates Al Jazeera spoke with believe the real figures are sure to be higher.

Veteran April Fitzsimmons, another victim of sexual assault, knows what an uphill battle it is for women to take on the military system. “When victims come forward, they are ostracized and isolated from their communities. Many of the perpetrators are officers who use their ranks to coerce women to sleep with them. It’s a closely interwoven community, so they are safe and move fearlessly amongst their victims.”

Her advice to women considering joining the US military?

“The crisis is so severe that I’m telling women to simply not join the military because it’s completely unsafe and puts them at risk. Until something changes at the top, no woman should join the military.”

This is the first in a two part series on sexual harassment in the US military. The second part in the series will be published in the coming week.

Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

Karzai Releasing Scores Of Drug Traffickers In Afghanistan, WikiLeaks Cables Show

Do you really think that big natural gas and big mining interests give a sh*t whether dope dealers are caught?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Griftopia

Meet Author Matt Taibbi (46:40 min)



I will let you know what my impression of the book is in this post when I finish it. I'm starting it tonight....
New post here.

2010 Business Year In Review: The AP's Top 10

on re-writing the financial rules - "Republica­n critics say the law goes too far, imposing burdensome rules that will restrict lending to consumers and small businesses­."



Oh puhleeeeee­ze.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

13 Bankers

P. 148.

"The collapses of Enron, WorldCom, and other high-flying companies in 2001-2001 also should have made clear that free markets did not deter fraud on their own."

No shit Sherlock.

Umm, with the spoiled ass frat boys in charge of not only regulating finance, but running the country some of us knew that something stunk to high heaven even if we had no idea at the time what securitized bundling of mortgages, or credit default swaps were. I'm hoping that somewhere in this book before I finish it are some simple steps to turning regulatory agencies back into regulatory agencies instead of allowing them to continue whoring for the banksters. I certainly knew something stunk in May of '06 when I temped at a JP Morgan office that processed mortgages for 4 days and I had never laid eyes on a mortgage file, nor did I know anything about banking. And they didn't want me learning.

OK, finished the book. Three things screamed at me constantly as I read 13 Bankers:

1) Too Big to Fail is TOO FUCKING BIG

2) These banking crises keep happening when the greedy push for and get deregulation through our bought and paid for congresswhores.

3) Obama has a chance to reform, re-regulate and stop the next economic crisis, and it will be catastrophically devastating if he doesn't.

Yeesh I hate Republicans. No, I really hate them.

They are insane.

Strapped Cities Hit Nonprofits With Fees
DECEMBER 27, 2010

Michael Franks - Christmas in Kyoto

Christmas Day'10

Well, besides my major head up ass present fail things are good. I discovered that if you catch the flamage quick enough you can still save a BBQ tri-tip. Yummy food and great company last night. Relaxed today.

Christmas Eve '10

Update 25th 9:50 pm Your Christmas Tree's Twitter Page


And I did not have anything to do with the tree, I refused.

Top 5 Lame Duck Winners For 2010
Brian Beutler | December 24, 2010, 8:25AM

Huh?

Got an e-mail from dear 'ol Dad telling me that an uncle that I never even met died 3 weeks ago.

Let me repeat -- Huh?

Can someone please tell me that that is not normal? I know that he was a lot older than dear 'ol Dad, but hey, I met an uncle that I missed 25 years with due to my adoption, so something is weird here with my family.

Who needs to visit a lake,

When your front yard has become one?

Totally random insertion, but IKEA sucks ass, thank you. And their return policy sucks ass also. It may look wonderful when you buy something, but the whole fucking staff had to approve a recent return. Fortunately, the fact that they could use a measuring tape saved the day. Well, and I don't make a habit of returning shit so when I need to return something and you question me I can be a real bitch. A real LOUD bitch.

Shit

Update II it's back up

Update: My landline is out and I can't get a technician out here until the 26th? Wow, my piece of shit cell phone should be oodles of fun to make the Christmas Day calls on.

Every time it rains these ancient phone lines go out, and mine is out. In other fun news, if you access the internet via cell phone get ready to be reamed some more by Corporate Amurika.:

AT&T, Comcast Must Treat Web Traffic Equally as FCC Passes Neutrality Rule
By Todd Shields - Dec 21, 2010 11:22 AM PT

"The Federal Communications Commission approved the so- called net-neutrality rules by a vote of three to two today. Supporters argued that Internet providers, which also own some of the content they deliver online, may interfere with videos and services owned by others such as Google Inc.

The agency also affirmed that providers may charge subscribers based on how much data they consume. The pricing issue has become more important as companies including Netflix Inc. stream movies and other data-hungry content over the Web."

Net neutrality? More like neutered neutrality.
By David Gewirtz | December 21, 2010, 11:47am PST

"My take: like the health care bill, this is an area that desperately needed quality government attention. Instead, it got politicized, neutered, and gutted to the point where we might have actually been better off if they left the darned thing alone.

Aren’t politicians frickin’ wonderful?

I adore Al Franken's support for net neutrality

hat tip to WOK3

The Great Islamophobic Crusade

Mr. Blumenthal­, some day Americans may figure out that a small group of pro-Israel people run America's foreign policy in the Middle East, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I'm so glad my friends told me which roads to take

Mudslides, flooding close roads including PCH; 'huge' storm expected Monday afternoon
December 20, 2010


Yeesh, I thought the 101 was bad. Whoo, talk about being grateful that my friend knows LA traffic. I am.

r u fn kdn?

Monday, Dec. 20, 2010
Pope: Church must reflect on what allowed abuse


Reflect?

How about they follow the paperwork trail and quit moving the pedophile priests when they get caught? Or they "train priests" to spot the pedophiles before they get a church? Holy moly, the geniuses at work in the Vatican...wow, they're almost as brilliant as the GOP:

House GOP Crushes Bill That Would Protect Against Child Marriage
Rachel Slajda | December 20, 2010, 8:55AM

Yeah, what else are these fuckers going to do while we are bombarded with ads for cars that nobody can afford. Ho Ho Ho's , that's our congresswhores!

Still tired

Wish I was here again.

Or here.

Reading 13 Bankers. It's frustrating. I hate banksters.

Honey, I'm home

(crickets)

ps, did you know that LA traffic on a Friday night, during the holidays, in the rain sucks ass?

Tired

Long drive, next day a marathon shopping trip and the revelation that the overtly political major is hated as is the political junkie mother.

That would be me.

Ok then.

I suppose child needs more time to make up mind regarding career goals. Ok, no problem, but snarling at mom does not help, and mom does not have to live with it.

SNL:

Crooks and Liars

wikileaks documentary

Watch it

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2 car bombs in Stockholm.

The Swedish news agency TT said it had received an email warning 10 minutes before the blasts, which took place either side of 5 p.m. (12 p.m. EST), with a threat to Sweden and its people.

It said the threat was linked to Sweden's contribution to the U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan, where it has 500 soldiers, mainly in the north.

A local news agency, TT, said it had received an e-mail shortly before the blasts, which said it was now time for Swedish people to die "like our brothers and sisters".

Hmmm. Why does this "get the 500 soldiers out of Afghanistan" e-mail stink to high heaven to me?

Weekend At Bernie's

I love Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) I do I Do IIIIIII DOOOOOOOOO! I can't believe I missed this, I was busy all day.

(hat tip Glenn Greenwald tweet)

The Truth-O-Meter Says: TRUE

In 2007, "the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income," which is "more than the entire bottom 50 percent."
Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 in a Senate floor speech

Bernie Sanders, in viral speech, says top 1 percent earn more than 23 percent of U.S. income

#WikiFear: What Are They Afraid Of?

Yup, they had to throw Assange in jail at all costs, even to their appearance of credibilit­y.

Cuban dissidents in order to sting Assange on some bs rape charge that was dropped in August --http://art­icles.cnn.­com/2010-0­8-21/world­/sweden.wi­kileaks.ch­arge_1_jul­ian-assang­e-molestat­ion-charge­-arrest-wa­rrant?_s=P­M:WORLD.

Cuban dissidents­? Yeesh, something out the the CIA's playbook in 1963

Assange had to be stopped before he released the bank documents.

http://www­.dailyfina­nce.com/st­ory/media/­wikileaks-­bank-docum­ents/19738­054/

"WikiLeaks to keep releasing cables despite Assange arrest"
http://www­.guardian.­co.uk/medi­a/2010/dec­/07/wikile­aks-cables­-julian-as­sange-arre­st

Bwaaah ha ha ha ha ha hahahahaha­hahaaaaaa
About Wikileaks
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

You Don't Know Jack

You Don't Know Jack (c) 2009 HBO

Let me be perfectly clear about how I feel about Jack Kervorkian. He is brilliant in a country with a lot of morons brainwashed by religion in it. He pushed the boundaries and he may have technically broken the law but I believe very deeply in physician assisted suicide and I do not believe what he did was wrong.

We have the choice to end our pet's suffering, but grandma can't make the choice to end hers?

How fucking barbaric is that?

Julian Assange interview

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Revenge is a dish best served cold

Pro-Wikileaks Vigilantes Down Visa.com
By Ryan Singel December 8, 2010 | 5:42 pm | Categories: Miscellaneous

WEDNESDAY, DEC 8, 2010 13:09 ET
The crux of the WikiLeaks debate

BY GLENN GREENWALD

I'm really starting to wonder if...

Obama gets to live if he does what the entitled bitches that run that fucking swamp called DC want. Seriously man. Do you believe that bullshit about JFK and the lone gunman and the magic bullet? I sure as fuck don't. Come on man, the Kennedys pissed off and threatened the wealth of a few people who roam the halls of power with impunity, no matter what they get up to. You think those nasty creatures are happy when their entitlements are threatened? You think they don't have disposable jackals in their employ?
VIRTUAL JFK: VIETNAM IF KENNEDY HAD LIVED Teaser Trailer (Streaming on Netflix now)
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(This was simply my stunned response to Obama's tax cut capitulation)

Assange arrest is bullshit

Update ; Assange has been refused bail.

"...Today Visa joined Mastercard, Paypal, Amazon, EveryDNS and others in cutting off their links...."

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested in UK
By RAPHAEL SATTER
Associated Press

And everybody who doesn't have their head planted firmly up their ass knows it. The rape charges were dropped in August so they had to find something else to keep him tied up in court somewhere where someone could keep him from releasing more damaging documents. He was planning on dumping documents that had to do with banksters.

Tweet

National Geographic "World's Most Dangerous Gang"

National Geographic World's Most Dangerous Gang 2006

Interesting to watch. I wonder how much more crumbling infrastructure all over the world this nasty MS-13 gang has decorated in graffiti, blood, drug addicts, and broken lives in 4 years since this documentary was made? Probably grown exponentially with our economic woes, eh?

I'm grateful that even though I've been poor, I never had to deal with these violent lowlife scumbag cretins. Jeez what a bunch of nasty, brutal and stupid thugs. Most of them are hopeless criminals and can't be rehabbed. The gang tattoos are one of the reasons I've never liked tattoos. When I was a teenager none of the angst ridden middle class teenagers had cute, cartoonish and colorful tattoos or weird piercings, only the dirtbags had ugly ass jail tats, and frankly, through no fault of my own, I had to deal with a few of them briefly and in relatively safe environs. I saw the graffiti and tattoos and the glazed, vacant-eyed paint huffing, pcp smoking morons 30 years ago and beat feet. At that time a full-time minimum wage job would get you a 2 bedroom apartment in this city in a decent neighborhood with only 3 inhabitants instead of needing 4 or 5 roommates. At that time it was possible to find a full-time minimum wage job, and a decent neighborhood that had affordable rents.

This gang is certainly a testament to the pathetic state of the justice system in the US and the US's retarded foreign policy in Latin America.

Oh Jeeezus Christ on a fucking pogo stick, wtf?

Dec 06, 2010
Obama announces deal to extend Bush tax cuts

UDPATE: President Obama reached a deal with Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years and unemployment benefits for one year

What the fuck is all this bullshit about compromise?

The fucking RepugnanThuglicans have said before that bipartisanship is date rape. You have to hit these stupid motherfuckers upside the head with a baseball bat to even get their attention.

And they wonder why Democrats didn't fucking bother to vote in the last elections? And they wonder why people check out and don't bother with politics at all?
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Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Taking Down America

Posted by Alfred McCoy

at 5:11pm, December 5, 2010.

"...Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003...

....In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama offered the reassurance that “I do not accept second place for the United States of America.” A few days later, Vice President Bidenridiculed the very idea that “we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended.” Similarly, writing in the November issue of the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, neo-liberal foreign policy guru Joseph Nye waved away talk of China's economic and military rise, dismissing “misleading metaphors of organic decline” and denying that any deterioration in U.S. global power was underway...

...Economic Decline: Present Situation

...Today, three main threats exist to America’s dominant position in the global economy: loss of economic clout thanks to a shrinking share of world trade, the decline of American technological innovation, and the end of the dollar's privileged status as the global reserve currency..."

The public attitude of our leadership in Washington DC is so arrogant that it dovetails nicely with the book I'm reading and that double dose often starts this song in my head.