A Real Criminal Conspiracy: Military Sexual Assault

This past week we have witnessed near breathless coverage of what every Republican in Washington apparently hopes will be an impeachable offense, the supposed cover-up of the events in Benghazi. Some have gone so far as to suggest that the Obama administration refused to allow a military response to the attacks while there was still time to save people so any suggestions that terrorists were involved or directly responsible could be avoided. There is little doubt that political operatives, both at the White House and the State Department, were part of the process of constructing the final memo which would form the foundation of the talking points that Susan Rice used in the talking points on the Sunday shows.

I do think it’s possible, if not likely, that election year concerns colored some of what Rice said on those Sunday shows. It’s a shame. The truth has been buried under a cloud of partisan hooliganism. Obama has been a major disappointment in terms of bringing transparency to the operations of the federal government. Whistle blowers have been punished, repeatedly, and that is apparently the case here with career diplomats being brow beaten into silence.

It’s all sort of ugly, but impeachable? Hardly. Rush Limbaugh said it best yesterday. Benghazi, he explained, is all about Hillary. He went so far as to say, and peripherally the President. He was actually talking about the Democratic defense of the administration during the hearings on the Hill, but he was no doubt speaking for his party as well. Benghazi won’t go away. Of course, the Republican attacks, which make the administration’s actions out to be the crime of the century are hypocritical. While we can agree that political machinations may have affected the public relations response, spinning that into a yarn that suggests that brave people were left to die out of the same political consideration is obscene. Despite the certain knowledge that a series of embassy attacks during the Bush administration received little or no coverage, Obama and Clinton can blame themselves for the ongoing circus. There is plenty of red meat for critics to chew on and Issa and the other Republican truthers have not yet finished feeding on the carcass.

We can only hope that at some time in the very near future the House, the Senate, and indeed the Obama Administration, wake up to the real crime story exploding over at the Pentagon. 

New York is a fine city of eight million people. It has been my home for more than 30 years and I do not bring this point up except to identify the scope of the sexual assault crisis in the military: In 2010 there were 1,000 rapes in New York.  That equates to about twelve sexual assaults for every 100,000 people. Sexual assault is a heinous crime and that is a horrific record. As of April the NYPD is predicting that 2013 will end with just 500 rapes, a 50% reduction since 2010.

By way of contrast the Pentagon reported just a few days ago, at the height of Benghazi hysteria, that there were 3,374 sexual assaults among an active military population of 1.5 million in 2012. That equates to roughly 225 per 100,000, or a problem in the military that is at minimum 18 times that of the civilian population in New York. 

The FBI changed the definition for rape in 2011 to include many forms of sexual assault besides the traditionally assumed, pardon the expression, crime of penetration, most people typically assume. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) was amended along the same lines in 2006 a few years before the FBI revisions. In both the military and civilian justice system the crime of rape now includes all forms of sexual assault. Before these provisions were modified, it was widely believed that that the narrow definition previously used was leading to substantial underreporting of sex crimes.

3374 sexual assaults among a population of 1.5 million is bad enough,  but the Pentagon report goes further and estimates that the actual amount of sexual assaults  is closer to 26,000, meaning that potentially only about one in eight victims in the military steps forward to file criminal charges. 26,000 assaults would equal more than 1,800 per 100,000 which is a full-fledged epidemic and indicates a stunning state of lawlessness. Again the rate in New York is 12 per 100,000.

The Pentagon report stated that roughly 80% of the sexual assaults were against women. There are only 200,000 active duty women in the military. This makes the chances of a women being assaulted in the military in any given year about one in ten, and a young woman signing up for a three year term of service would have nearly a one in three chance of being assaulted during her term of duty.

Some ascribe the lack of reporting to the toughness of the women in the military. Never wanting to let a controversy pass where he does not exhibit his extreme moronic stupidity, Donald Trump tweeted “26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” “F**kface Von Clownstick” apparently didn’t get the memo about it being the 21^st century and all. That said he nailed the scope of the criminal injustice-- 238 convictions for 26,000 crimes.

Trump and others though have not been short in expressing their outrage over Benghazi. Where is the Conservative/ Republican outrage over the shame of a military that tolerates such staggering numbers of sexual assaults of dedicated women, and a surprising number of men? When combined with the scandal of the VA claims processing, much of the “Support the Troops” rhetoric looks like a monstrous pile of shit excavated and leveled off for the benefit of an ill-informed partisan electorate trained to consume and regurgitate whatever propaganda is pushed their way.  In 2003 “Support The Troops” meant putting a yellow ribbon on a nearby tree, or a flag decal on your car. How many times I’ve thought of John Prine’s classic over these last ten years.

“Oh but your flag decal won't get you

  Into Heaven any more.
  They're already overcrowded
  From your dirty little wars”

In 2013 “Support The Troops” requires major remedies at the VA and a complete overhaul of the military justice approach to sexual assault. So far, what are we hearing? Benghazi, cover-up, Watergate, and oh yeah, on the real issues that affect real service men and women, crickets. Better to print some more flag decals.

If anything the underreporting in the military is almost certainly more extreme than in the civilian population. Sexual assault  victims are required to file their complaint through the chain of command in their unit. The adjudication of sexual assault often comes down to he-said she-said and the military cherishes unit cohesion above almost everything else.  Mix in career concerns and the indifference, or in too many cases actual complicity, of commanding officers, and underreporting is a crisis, which dramatically expands the scope of the crimes.  The plain fact is the Pentagon cannot be trusted to accurately report the scope of the problem. When assaults are reported and adjudicated by Military courts, commanders can and do overturn the decisions of Military courts.

There have been repeated stories that those responsible for prosecuting these crimes and protecting the women that come forward are a big part of the problem, generally reflecting the lack of seriousness throughout the military command. Earlier this week a trial date was set for the head of the Air Force sex assault response unit who is himself charged with sexual assault. Just a few weeks earlier another Air Force Commander, this time a General, overruled and tossed out a military court jury’s decision against a Lt. Colonel found guilty of sexual assault. The General, Craig Franklin, had actually had his name put forward for promotion before the weight of scandal over these past weeks made that move impossible. At least for now. Who knows what’ll happen when the heat dies down, but I can guess…

In 2012, there were 349 military suicides. 95% of the suicides among military personnel are men, but then again more than 85% of totally active duty personnel are men too. Considering the extreme incidence of sexual assault active duty military personnel, both men and women, but especially women, endure, I would be curious to know if rape was a determining factor in any of these suicides.

Whatever the numbers the problem has reached such epic proportions such that even a 50% reduction in the incidence of rape in the military would still be considered failure on any decent, civilized, scale of humanity. John McCain has spoken honorably about the need for action. Beyond that, a very vocal female contingent in the Senate and a handful of very liberal men have been pressing the case. There has been far less outrage and far less coverage in the press for this case then Benghazi. Too many in Congress have remained silent.

It is easy to point to the hypocrisy over Benghazi vis-à-vis the atrocity of an unnecessary war in Iraq, but the immediacy of the rape crisis in the military is much more immediate and much more direct. Democrats who criticize the dishonest partisanship of the Issa committee are on solid ground, but it starts to feel after all these months of rancor like a battle for hill that has little value. Both sides slash and burn to promote an agenda for an election which is three years away, defending a woman who I am quite sure will be more than capable of defending herself. Meanwhile 200,000 women in the military are under assault. Who will defend them? Who will stand for their honor? Is the bravery of 26,000 victims of sexual assault not measurable when compared against the courage of four slain Americans in Benghazi?

What father in his right mind would encourage his daughter to join the military and risk the gauntlet of sexual predators being harbored there? Where is justice?

Continued May-11, 2013
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/05/09/fox-ignores-benghazi-witness-testimony-proving/193981

As I said yesterday I believe the administration is going to twist in the wind for a while longer for the ways that the handled the attack, and especially the misleading information put out by Susan Rice on the Sunday shows. This is all a rather inane side show designed to hobble the President-- for what little that's worth at this point-- and to damage Sec Clinton. Clinton can stand up for herself and the gnats will slowly go away, only to rise slowly in 2015 and 2016.

HOWEVER, the Repubs are using the administrations political maneuvers to press another case, one not born out by the facts at all, not one little bit. They are pressing the case that the Pres was so interested in framing the attack as anything that would not indicate it was originated by terrorists, that he let people di...e rather than send in any level of military support. If true that would be a heinous crime. What they are saying is that the President let people die for the furtherance of his political career. They are taking the natural confusion which arises from the Susan Rice talking points, which is real and a fair topic for conversation and accusing the President of abandoning his post which is an outrageous lie.

Once again this is not for the general audience. The vast right wing conspiracy machine has long ago quit talking to America. Hannity, Levin, Limbaugh and the rest are really only interested in talking to themselves and their white angry acolytes. The goal is not dialogue it is the promotion of hatred for the President, the BLACK President, the one with the middle name Hussein. The white audience sees the country turning many colors. Their anger is fueled by the deterioration of the their political omnipotence. Radio right fuels that, and uses that so a handful of guys can get really rich.

I have so many issues with this President from drones, to gitmo, to lax enforcement and regulation of financial institutions. The President has done nothing to address the money machine that has so corrupted our political process. He has been weak on climate change. Politically he has often been less than adept, though its still unclear whether there was ever a chance that he could be a transformative leader, like, say Johnson.

That said, my disappointment has always and continually been leavened by the sure knowledge that the often virulently racist opposition this President has seen has a singular goal which has had nothing to do with the betterment of the country.

I am a reader of history. I have worked through biographies of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Johnson, Bobby and Jack Kennedy, Clinton and Nixon. I am not naïve enough to believe that the democratic process here was ever pretty. It has often been ugly, petty, and deeply, ugly personal. So I guess, I could not be the one to say "How did we get here?"

But that would still lead me to ask as Bob Dylan once said, "Alright, I've had enough, what else can you show me?"