Support the troops?!

An absolutely horrifying story this morning on NPR regarding women serving in our Military. According to Pentagon research, one in four women in our military will be sexually assaulted by a fellow male soldier or officer. What more, the incidence of repeated rapes is many times higher than that of the general population and the perpetrators tend to be these women’s direct superior officers – they very people that they not only depend on for their paycheck, evaluations and career advancement, but also the very people they would be reported to report the rapes to!


Now I can already hear, or rather, I should say that I have already heard the Conservative response: “Well, what did you expect to happen?! This is why women shouldn’t be there in the first place!”

(Yes, I actually heard that from a bona fide, Right-Wing, Conservative Republican, and (somewhat to my regret) DID NOT immediately hit him in the head with a brick. But Conservatives blaming the victim for their rape is nothing new. American has a culture of rape (look it up, I’m not going to sift through literally THOUSANDS of articles to explain it) and it fits in very nicely with the Republican War on women. (No abortion services for Rape Victims, put the victim on trial, boys will be boys, etc…) So it’s hardly surprising that the first I heard on the matter would to suggest that the best way to solve the problem would be to further punish women, in general, for the criminal sexual behavior of men.

Well, being less of a complete and utter ass-wipe myself, I’m more inclined to agree with General Patton, who says that what is really needed is a “culture change.”

Well, first of all… “YA THINK?!”

And second of all, GOOD LUCK, changing the culture of an inherently Conservative institution that the Right Wing of this country repeatedly co-ops politically and claims monopolistic influence over. That’s bullshit, of course, but there no denying that “Culture change,” especially as it comes to equal rights for women, is an inherently Liberal or Progressive pastime while the Military, especially in its current form, is inherently Conservative. The General has his work cut out for him.

BTW… The asshole who made the comment that I repeated above? Said it in response to a story about rape in the Military that came out during the CLINTON Administration. So… going on 20 years ago. Yeah.

Support the troops?

Maybe we should start by not repeatedly raping the shit out them.

As for any culture change? It’s really very simple. Right now? Our military is WORSE than the Catholic Church ever was. FAR worse. You read that right. See I’m not one to assume that a despicable crime is always automatically worse simply because minors or children were involved. The abuse of power here is not only far more egregious, as these men had actual, official and legal authority over these women, and were allowed to essentially police themselves, but also far more wide spread: I never saw anything suggesting that ONE IN FOUR Altar Boys were being raped! But the important take-away here is that they can certainly learn from the mistakes of that other great Conservative intuition that couldn’t seem to stop its members from raping people. The solution is really very simple: (1) Protect and compensate the victims; (2) Charge the perpetrators (you know: the RAPISTS) with Rape, Dereliction of Duty (treason, war crimes, etc…), give them a dishonorable discharge, relieve them of their pension and benefits and throw them in jail (or as Thomas Dubois calls it, “REAL, ANAL-RAPE PRISION!”) for the rest of their natural lives.

Simple. Even sounds like the kind of ‘common sense’ thing a Conservative might say, no? (Albeit about some other, relatively nonexistent problem.)

So please: Support our troops… and STOP RAPING THEM.