I have posted before about the absolutely unacceptable rate – 1 in 3 – of sexual assault in the American military, but insult has been heaped upon injury as the Defense Department is apparently covering up these crimes by refusing to allow the woman in charge of its SEXUAL ASSAULT AND PREVENTION RESPONSE OFFICE to testify in Congress this Thursday. That 12% of the victims are male is additionally upsetting and that a third of the actual assaults go unreported is indicative of the culture of fear and humiliation that the military encourages with its responses.
This time I am also including the responses the article about this gross injustice has engendered on www.commondreams.org where it appeared today, since they tell a story as well. Several deal with the reality of young women (and men) deciding whether to join a military that puts their safety in jeopardy from their fellow servicemen and then does not enable them to seek redress. Frightening and disturbing and one has to wonder whether such awful realities will change under an Obama presidency. But there, too, there is cause for outrage as the latest polls show the McCain campaign team’s strategy of appealing to the worst instincts in the electorate this past week – depicting Obama as yet another mindless celebrity (a la Ms. Hilton and Ms. Spears, both of whom merit not our attention, but our sympathy as unwitting victims of our crazed culture) seeking attention and as being an ego-maniac who the McCain folks compare to Moses – worked and he is back neck and neck with his Democratic rival. When I hear such news items I have to work hard not to feel tremendous frustration and doubt about our collective future. If the article that follows moves you, please consider letting Congresspeople know that you are outraged at the silencing of yet another woman who is poised to speak truth to power. And let’s be thankful that Ann Wright suffers neither fools or cover-ups lightly!
Sexual Assault in the Military: A DoD Cover-Up?
There was quite a struggle in Congress this week. The Department of Defense refused to allow the senior civilian in charge of its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) to testify in Thursday’s hearing on sexual assault in the military. Rep. John Tierney, chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, angrily dismissed Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Michael Dominguez from the hearing when Dominguez said that he, the DoD chief of legislative affairs and the chief of public affairs, had ordered Dr. Kaye Whitley, chief of SAPRO, to refuse to honor the subpoena issued by the subcommittee for her appearance.
Full committee Chairman Henry Waxman called the DoD’s decision to prevent Whitley from testifying “ridiculous and indicating DoD is covering something up.” It could also place Whitley in contempt of Congress. Rep. Christopher Shays said the DoD’s decision was “foolish.”
One of the questions that would have been put to Whitley was why DoD had taken three years to name a 15-person civilian task force to look into allegations of sexual assault of military personnel. The panel was finally named early in 2008 but has yet to meet. She would have also been queried on the SAPRO program’s failure to require key information from the military in order to evaluate the effectiveness of sexual assault prevention and response programs.
I spoke with Dr. Whitley in April 2007 and had asked for an appointment to bring to her office four military women who had been sexually assaulted and wanted to tell her in what ways the DoD programs to prevent sexual assault were not working. Whitley declined, saying she worked at the policy level, and steered me to the chief of the Army sexual assault program. I called the Army program’s chief, who initially said she would talk to our group. However, when I mentioned that the mother of Army Spc. Suzanne Swift, who had been raped in Iraq, would be with us, she said she could not meet with anyone involved with an ongoing case. I replied that Swift’s case was closed as far as the Army was concerned. Her rapist had not been prosecuted, and Swift ended up with a court-martial and 30 days of jail time because she had gone AWOL for her own protection when the Army would not move her out of the unit to which both she and her rapist were still assigned. In view of the fact that the Army chief of prevention of sexual assault refused to meet with any of the four women who had suggestions on how to improve prevention and reporting of sexual assault and rape, I’m not surprised that the DoD snubbed Congress over the same issue.
Rep. Elijah Cummings joined Rep. Waxman in speaking of cover-ups. Cummings raised the cases of military women who had been sexually assaulted before dying in “non-combat incidents.” He spoke specifically about Army Pfc. LaVena Johnson, who was found beaten and dead of a gunshot wound at Balad Air Base, Iraq, in a burning tent owned by the contractor KBR. Her parents suspected that Johnson had been murdered and that the homicide was being covered up by the Army, which deemed the death a suicide. Cummings also spoke of Army Pfc. Tina Priest, who was raped at Taji, Iraq, and found dead 10 days later of a gunshot wound. After her family had measurements taken of her arms and of the angle of the bullet and found that she could not have pulled the trigger of her M-16 with her finger, the Army said she had pulled the trigger by using her toe. Cummings asked Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, chief of U.S. Army personnel, for assistance in getting all the documents the Army had on Johnson’s death. Additionally, four House members have asked for congressional hearings on the deaths of military personnel who have been classified as suicides, among them LaVena Johnson.
The fireworks with DoD followed the dramatic testimony of Mary Lauterbach, the mother of murdered pregnant Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who had been raped in May 2007 at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Accused in the case is Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean. After the rape, several protective orders were issued to keep Laurean away from his victim. The burned body of Lauterbach and her unborn baby were found in a shallow grave in the backyard of Laurean’s home in January 2008. Laurean fled to Mexico, where he was subsequently apprehended, and he now is awaiting extradition to the United States to stand trial. Lauterbach’s mother explained in great detail the warning signs that Laurean was a danger to her daughter and claimed that all these signs were ignored by the Marine Corps.
Two other military women have been murdered near military bases in North Carolina in the past two months.
Red Cross employee Ingrid Torres told the subcommittee of being raped at Kunsan Air Base in South Korea by an Air Force flight doctor. She spoke of the difficulty she had obtaining medical and emotional treatment from the facility where the doctor still worked, and later from military facilities in other parts of the world where she was assigned.
Rep. Jane Harman cited Veterans Administration statistics that one in three women in the military has been sexually assaulted. She said the prosecution rate of those accused of raping fellow military service members is abysmally low. Of the 2,212 reported rapes in the military in 2007, only 8 percent of the cases ended in court-martial of the perpetrator, while the rate of prosecution in civilian courts is 40 percent.
Lt. Gen. Rochelle, the Army chief of personnel, reported the little known statistic that 12 percent of reported rapes in the military are of male military personnel.
Rep. Shays said he had no confidence in DoD or the military services and their policies of prevention of sexual assault, and asked how recruiting will fare when young women learn that one in three women is sexually assaulted and when young men find out that one in 10 men is raped while in the military.
Brenda Farrell, director of the Government Accountability Office, said that getting data on rape from the military services is difficult because there are no common definitions of terms for the services to use in such cases.
Farrell said the GAO believes rates of sexual assault currently used by DoD are low because many military personnel do not want to report what happened and suffer the gossip, harassment and stigma prevalent in units when confidential reporting is compromised. In a survey of 3,757 persons on 14 military installations, 103 said they had been sexually assaulted in the past year and had reported it, while 52 others said they did not report the sexual assault.
Several Congress members spoke of lack of leadership and accountability in stopping sexual assault. The same day as the sexual assault hearing, the Navy relieved two senior officers of the USS George Washington because of the injury to 23 sailors and $70 million in damage to the ship caused by a smoking violation. Imagine if commanders in units where rape occurred were relieved of command for the harmful actions of their subordinates. That would send a signal of zero tolerance of sexual assault, whereas in the current climate victims are intimidated and alleged perpetrators are given administrative punishment instead of court-martial.
Sexual violence against both female and male military personnel must stop. Let Congress know of your concern about sexual assault in our military. Call or e-mail members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees and members of the Oversight and Government Reform committees.
Ann Wright is a retired Army Reserve colonel and a 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves. She was also a diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the Department of State on March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq war. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience” (www.voicesofconscience.com).
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C.
Boys will be boys! I bet none of the supervisory military officers would want their sons or daughters in the situation so many other military personnel have faced. Maybe,if the DoD would “walk in the shoes of another”, then maybe, they would take criminal assault seriously.
“…how recruiting will fare when young women learn that one in three women is sexually assaulted and when young men find out that one in 10 men is raped while in the military.”
Who’s going to tell them? The military? The media?
I haven’t seen any such information on any military tv ads. It should be mandatory, just like all the side-effect caveats at the end of drug ads.
“You may notice adverse side-effects to military enlistment, like bleeding from rape trauma, feelings of utter helplessness and paranoia, followed by what will be described officially as your suicide.”
When a systematic regime of torture (General Taguba’s conclusion) is left to sham military tribunals and the people ordering it not held accountable, is it any wonder that similarly criminal activities (a systematic regime of rape) within the Army is dealt with with similar disdain? Zero tolerance is the only way to make torture and sexual assault become uncommon occurrences. Better still, get rid of the military. No grey here.
The situation is even worse for women working for private military contractors where justice seems even less likely.
http://tinyurl.com/48jr6w
“Rep. Jane Harman cited Veterans Administration statistics that one in three women in the military has been sexually assaulted. ”
A statistic for Outrage!
Letter to Congress on the way. It is becoming a full time unpaid job communicating with my representatives. I wish they would just do their job that they get paid for.
My, my – Rep. Harman is concerned about such things. Harman – the warmonger neocon Democrap, yuk!
Once upon a time, Congress had power and knew how to use it.
Did anyone notice the scene in “Charlie Wilson’s War” where he wants answers on what’s going on in Pakistan, and he threatens to cut money every day from the budget until he gets it. The CIA guy is in his office by 10 am to talk to him.
That’s how to handle this. You don’t BS around with contempt charges. Instead, they call Sec. Gates personally and say this ….
“Every day of delay before Dr. Whitley testifies before my committee means $10 billion gets cut off the overall DoD budget.”
Do that, and be willing to back it up, and I’d bet Dr. Whitley is there by 10 am.
and asked how recruiting will fare when young women learn that one in three women is sexually assaulted and when young men find out that one in 10 men is raped while in the military.
If I , a rationally-thinking female recruit surmised my possible fate when surrounded by ten , twenty , thirty…MALE “admiring eyes” who ,state-side, would be admiring spouses , girlfriends , fiances , kids… and whose punishment for “enhanced admiration” goes unpunished,unreported , I would weigh that fate against the alternative of perpetual poverty or the risk of being labelled unpatriotic and then politely shun the recruitment centres.
As with most “diseases” the Sexual-Assault-in-the-Military syndrome is going to have to approach HIV/AIDS proportions before there is a mass movement against the military in general.
Americans just don’t care;it’s understandable;it’s the “just say no” to socialism slip that’s showing.
In the mean time , a lotta lt.-and-under-ladies will die.
typical- this committee, not unlike other committees is shut out with wonderful excuses.
typical- the governmental systemic impotence is kept covered.
typical- the abusers shift the blame to the victims.
typical- justice in the courts is profaned daily.
break the traditional. vote Nader
wild
Ann Wright is correct in every facet of her article.
This is a disgrace for the service’s, but even more so for military leadership. Heads should roll and some careers should be wrecked because many senior officers forgot their prime directive. Protect theier troops. Not the service, not the officer corp and damn sure not the government.
The DOD needs a good house cleaning anyway. Why not start now?
Citizenbolog said: “When a systematic regime of torture (General Taguba’s conclusion) is left to sham military tribunals and the people ordering it not held accountable, is it any wonder that similarly criminal activities (a systematic regime of rape) within the Army is dealt with with similar disdain? Zero tolerance is the only way to make torture and sexual assault become uncommon occurrences.”
Exactly right! Either you have the Rule of Law or you don’t. Either officials are held accountable or they aren’t. Either the Congress does its job or it doesn’t. Pretty clear cut.
So, as citizens we also have a job. Either we hold our elected officials accountable or we don’t. Either we speak up or we don’t. Either we vote on principle or we don’t. Pretty clear cut really.
“One of the questions that would have been put to Whitley was why DoD had taken three years to name a 15-person civilian task force to look into allegations of sexual assault of military personnel.”
Well, it probably took them 3 years to figure out how to get around these allegations and/or destroy any evidence that would convict these misfits.
Rebel Farmer August 4th, 2008 5:22 pm &
Citizenbolog
“Exactly right! Either you have the Rule of Law or you don’t. Either officials are held accountable or they aren’t. Either the Congress does its job or it doesn’t. Pretty clear cut.”
Well said!
Citizens For Ethics and Responsibility in Washington Releases Report Honoring “Those Who Dared”
On July 16, CREW released a report titled “Those Who Dared: 30 Officials Who Stood Up for Our Country.” Offering a more optimistic view of Washington, the report tells the tales of thirty brave individuals who have acted and spoken out against unethical and dishonorable conduct in the Bush administration. The report is the culmination of the review of hundreds of news articles, inspector general reports, and congressional reports. The impact of the individual’s actions, the risk involved, and the changes that resulted were also taken into consideration in the decision making process. Some of those included in the report, such as Glenn Fine of the Department of Justice and John Higgins at the Department of Education acted to check agency-wide corruption, misconduct, and undue political influence. Other individuals are included because of a single act of courage, like Army Specialist Joseph Darby who was responsible for turning over the picture of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib to authorities. Other honorees include Inspector General Earl Devaney, Dr. James Hansen of NASA, and U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/33317
This has been going on forever. When I was a young PFC back in the 1950’s the women who were then called WACS were considered something less than trailer court trash and the fact that it continues today is a tribute to the military mind. The 4 star generals who set the pace are usually tough old birds of the paternalistic order who don’t take kindly to anyone telling them how to treat women folk; after all, its their property.
It is slowly changing; the rhetoric has certainly changed, but when women are being raped and murdered on a regular basis it is clear that the Department of Defense is largely responsible. I few well publicized castrations would cool the ardor of these cowardly military bastards.
Years ago I said to a group of women – all of whom had children, boys and girls – that the rate of violence in this world would be greatly reduced if at birth males had one testicle removed. Anticipating anger from the mothers of boys – they surprised me by saying (to a woman) “why stop at one?” (I like millions of women had MY ovaries removed at some doctor’s whim – I didn’t know better – so don’t start with the charges of male bashing.)
As a gender, males are dangerous to society.