Except that they aren’t isolated, but pretty common, which is why I used the term ‘endemic’.
:rolleyes:
Meh, try not to judge too harshly, Doors. Trihs is pure in heart and above such vulgarities as the military. Plus there’s no MOS for sitting around in your underwear playing Doom, so he’s sort of specialized himself out of the market.
Ah, a masterful refutation. Maybe the lady soldiers will be so impressed that they’ll stop carrying knives and travelling in groups to protect themselves from our fine and noble male soldiers.
It was exactly the refutation that it deserved.
http://www.stopmilitaryrape.org/ Rape in the military has been an ongoing problem. So have coverups.
When the Army’s integrity is called into question to this degree, I don’t find a rolleyes a very convincing counterpoint.
I don’t trust the current administration. I don’t know anyone currently in the military. I think this war is wrong, that it was launched under pretense, is currently a huge a waste of money and human life. I don’t think this administration has been honest and righteous. I blame it for the current state of our economy and gas prices. Here on the board we’ve read about all the dishonest tactics military recruiters resort to to meet their quotas. From Walter Reed and Abu Ghraib to Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, we’ve had cause to believe the military and government aren’t conducting themselves honorably, and aren’t taking the best care of our troops.
So why should I believe his basic sentiment-- that we can’t completely trust our government and military leadership-- is eyeroll-worthy? It sounds like gross exaggeration that rape is “endemic” or that we have an army of “barbarians”, but I can’t deny that something’s fucked up. I can’t ignore and dismiss it as the rolleyes implies I should.
I would like reason to think mostly positive things about the military and the government behind it, but to be honest I’m seeing very little reason to.
I expect that’s because you are one of the people who thinks that the “solution” to women being raped and abused in the military is to terrorize them into silence, ignore them, or murder them like this woman probably was. Because pretending that the military is noble and righteous and honorable is more important than making it noble and righteous and honorable, not to mention easier.
I happen to agree with you on pretty much all of this. I agree that the current situation is fucked up. I also agree that there is a crisis with rape in the military, and that it has to be addressed in such a way as to punish the people who did the actual raping as well as the officers who covered it up.
What I don’t agree with is that this means that the army or any other branch of the military is made up of barbarians. The majority of military men and women are as repulsed and disgusted with this as we are. I remember the pure hatred we felt toward the CO who tried to cover his ass in the example I cited above. The military isn’t made up of monsters. It’s made up of human beings that at present are caught up quite far above their heads thanks to a situation brought about by the idiocy, arrogance, and short-sightedness of quite possibly the worst president in 150 years. Among the human beings are monsters in human form who would do this to a fellow soldier like LaVena, and I doubt you would find too many soldiers (I use the term to refer to people serving in every branch of the military.), who would disagree with you about the need to flush them out and punish them, or better, to weed them out in basic training, or best of all, make sure they never step foot on a military base to begin with.
The problem with rape and other violence against women did not originate with the US army in Iraq. At present, I’m reading a history of the British Raj, and I’m on the part where British troops are mopping up after the mutiny and fighting of 1857 and 1858. What many did to the women and children of towns they reoccupied was beyond barbaric, it was unspeakable. This doesn’t mean that all or even most British soldiers were barbarians. British troops had and have some of the longest, proudest, most noble traditions of any armies in the free world. If they had been barbarians, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against thousands of righteously pissed-off natives, and in fact, they would have been driven out decades before. The fact that we heard of these atrocities at all was due to the recording of events by other British soldiers who were horrified at this.
I’m not typing the above to excuse the conduct of criminals in the US ranks in any way. I’m referring to it to give you some sense of the scale faced by the reformers who want to see the problem eliminated. I think it can be eliminated, or at least cut drastically. I also think that it’s our responsibility, seeing as how our leadership, such as it is, has seen fit to place us in the role of Top Cop.
It is not fair, and it is not right, however, to blame every soldier for the actions of its criminals. Which is essentially what you’re doing when you say that the army–or any other branch of the military–is made up of barbarians.
That’s exactly right. :rolleyes:
Pretending has worked for 240 years.
Why stop now?
It’s called murder when you’re not wearing a uniform.
Pity that it’s called something else when you are.
Fuckers.
Cartooniverse
You gave him three more words than he deserved, brother-in-arms.
Which is one reason WHY you are going to find plenty of monsters in uniform. Lowered standards for joining, and a mission, an environment ( the increasingly hard right political and religious propaganda and pressure aimed at the troops ), and a President perfect for driving out any decent people.
And even before Bush it’s not like misogyny wasn’t all through the American military. Bush just made it worse.
I expect that it IS right; it’s not like you’ve proposed doing anything else about the problem than typing " :rolleyes: " emotes at people who bring up the subject. At best, you appear to be of the “let’s pretend it doesn’t happen” persuasion.
The onus isn’t on him, it’s on the guy who said this incident was “no doubt … an attempt to cover up yet another rape of a female soldier by her comrades” with no actual evidence to that effect.
Acid to the groin wasn’t a hint ?
Oh, hints we got plenty. Exactly when that translates to “no doubt” is less clear. But hey, don’t let me rain on your parant.
I can’t argue with this except to show just how jaded we have become.
You are the most uninformed person with regards to the military that I have ever known.
You simply don’t understand it, yet you continue to prattle on.
Prattle on, little soldier!
Here is a local story:
http://www.kmov.com/news/asseenonnews4/stories/kmov_localnews_070221_lavenajohnson.229c4b1a.html
Here is the blog/petition: