"Just last night a woman came to me and said her daughter wanted to join the military, and could I give my unqualified support for her doing so. I could not."I don't think John McCain was talking about fear. I would presume that for McCain, the courage of those in the military is understood. The question is equal opportunity in one's career, and a capable, ambitious woman choosing a career path should take account of the obstacles ahead. If one line of work is notorious for hounding women for sex and even forcing it on them and that those in charge were failing to take the problem seriously, you might decide to do something else with your life.
The Dowd column goes on to discuss the legal question of how sexual assaults should be prosecuted — inside or outside the military:
Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, told me the arguments of the brass “boiled down to an almost mystical notion of the commanders’ responsibility. Why can’t we cut the strings to the British system we inherited from George III? The British are baffled by us. They gave control over major crimes to professional prosecutors years ago. It’s an institutional structure that has outlived its utility and credibility.”Does Fidell want us to copy the British or to stop copying the British? We're copying the old British approach and failing to change it to what the British do now. Imagine applying that legal argument across the board. Forget all the legal principles inherited from the British at the time of this country's founding and switch to what the British have devolved into over the years. I have no idea what the right answer is about prosecuting serious crimes, but I hate the general argument about giving up our legal inheritance from the British because the British themselves have tossed it out.
Dowd continues:
As Sarah Plummer, a beautiful ex-Marine who served in Iraq and says she was raped by a fellow Marine who was never prosecuted, explained to NBC News’s Jim Miklaszewski: “Having someone within your direct chain of command handling the case” is like “your brother raping you and having your dad decide the case.”Why specify that she's "beautiful"? I get the impression it's supposed to boost her credibility. Or do you think it's a random detail? And dad deciding the case between sister and brother is a vivid and memorable analogy, but it's not completely apt. There's an issue here to be decided — how to deal with sex assaults and sexual harassment in the military — and it should be decided with sober rationality, not iffy analogies, deference to Brits, or emotional manipulation.
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112 comments:
Susan Brownmiller wrote about that (a long time ago), how newspaper reporters apparently felt obliged to specify that every rape victim was attractive, whether to enhance her credibility, or underline the horror of the crime, or make the crime more explicable, or something. Interesting how little things change.
Sexual assault is probably less prevalent in the military than in let's say college or other school settings.
Do you really want someone in the military that can't defend themselves from rape? What are they going to do when the enemy attacks? Are they going to say that it is against US policy to rape a woman, as they fight hand to hand?
How about the fact that women use the term rape to get concessions from the men around them. That is, false rape accusations. This is opeing the door for discrimination against women as they have to be treated different from their peers and to bring the military superstructure to a halt and prevent adequate decision making capability.
I know people in the military and they don't seem to think this is a widespread problem. In fact the opposite is true, the women act more like prostitutes.
There's an undercurrent here: Using the lever of Leftist ideology to edge into our institutions. Sure there are other considerations, but the ideologues and interests often just want to spread the ideology, and that comes at great cost to the good faith of the people agreeing to any change.
It also changes the character of the institutions, bending them towards impossible ideals and hobbling their real world effectiveness.
Last I heard, the big problem in the military was men being raped by men.
(but we can't talk about that...)
IIRC I read somewhere on the net that this latest rpt cites the fact that OVER 50% of the rapes/sexual assaults are homosexual and 90% of those are men on men. The MSM has been totally silent about this fact or the possible connection to the repeal of DADT in the armed services. This latest media campaign by the feminists is simply another attempt to discredit the male command structure and promote more females. Yesterday two feminist activists were interviewed on CNN(?) where one said that lack of women in the combat arms was directly responsible for this as their absence demeaned women in the eyes of men and thus led to increased rapes. The solution? You guessed it..
Further, the blond female Senator who is pushing these hearings (can't remember her name) let the cat out of the bag this am in an interview on MSNBC when she alluded as throw-away aside that "over half the victims are male." Naturally the interviewer IMMEDIATELY jumped all over that casual aside to ask for clarification, right?
Right...
No female Marine has ever been raped wearing a MARPAT burqa.
with 26,000 service men and women assaulted in 2012.
26,000? That seems extremely high, and I assume this is much higher than whatever the "normal" rate has been. If so, what has changed to cause this increase? Are they just being reported a lot more now, or is there something else going on? (BTW, I honestly have no idea, I'm not trying to imply anything here)
"....Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, told me the arguments of the brass “boiled down to an almost mystical notion of the commanders’ responsibility.... "
Nothing 'mystical' about it. One of your subordinates screws up and it's the commander's career on the line.
How much do we miss Bill Clinton? These are the kinds of crimes that would never happen when he was commander in chief........It's important to remember that not only are many members of our military rapists, but they are also Republicans. Anything we can do to impugn their honor and reputation is all to the good.
Lefties trying to change the topic from the IRS and EPA and Eric Holder. Not that this isn't a serious issue, but it's been a serious issue for years. Why the push right now?
Only question I have is...
The ones claiming rape, did they have solid evidence of the assault or was it a 'she said, he said'?
The Military justice system is not like the civilian. They look for the truth and not how good some lawyer is at convincing a jury. Plus the jury is made up of officers who are intelligent and won't take BS from some shyster lawyer.
It is a real different system.
So, why was the rape claim dropped?
The NY Post had a column last week that claimed the 26,000 assaults is a much exaggerated bogus figure due to the way it was extrapolated. If that claim is true, it is ridiculous that this has become a high profile newsworthy topic.
AllenS said...
Sexual assault is probably less prevalent in the military than in let's say college or other school settings."
What AllenS said. Before making the incendiary statement that MoDowd did, she needed to establish whether having the fear is justified to begin with. And she didn't; she merely pushed out a string of assertions. As is her normal, agitprop-generating style.
If the insinuation is that rape is a pervasive problem in the military, then the writer needs to go beyond insinuation and provide facts. Thing is, for writers like Dowd, facts tend to be inconvenient. I, too, would bet that the rate is lower in the military than other segments of society. Just like it is for Catholic priests (citation: CUNY.edu study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice) but mentioning that seems to upset the narrative, so the media never does.
No, the analogy is not apt.
"Nonapod said...
with 26,000 service men and women assaulted in 2012.
26,000? That seems extremely high, and I assume this is much higher than whatever the "normal" rate has been. If so, what has changed to cause this increase? Are they just being reported a lot more now, or is there something else going on? (BTW, I honestly have no idea, I'm not trying to imply anything here)"
"AJ Lynch said...
The NY Post had a column last week that claimed the 26,000 assaults is a much exaggerated bogus figure due to the way it was extrapolated. If that claim is true, it is ridiculous that this has become a high profile newsworthy topic."
I hope this link doesn't get swallowed by Blogger (crosses fingers):
http://rokdrop.com/2013/05/31/are-rates-of-sexual-assault-higher-in-the-military-or-civilian-world/
From "More men than women harassed in the military, often by other men" by the Audacious Epigone:
while the 2012 figure is higher than it was in 2010, results for 2006 are worse (as in a higher percentage of personnel reporting unwanted contact) than they were in either 2010 and 2012. This looks more like random year-to-year variation than an 'epidemic'. Personnel also report higher rates of unwanted sexual contact prior to becoming active duty military than they experienced after having enlisted.
- More men than women are on the receiving end of unwanted sexual contact--10,571 and 8,949 in 2010, respectively. Of course this is in absolute terms--women are still more likely to be victims of unwanted sexual contact than men are.
-women are more than twice as likely as men are to perpetrate unwanted sexual contact, at least in situations in which the perpetrator(s) were of the same sex (a situation comprising 85% of all designated worst situations, the other 15% consisting of both men and women in a group making unwanted sexual contact with a victim). It strains credulity at first blush, but working from the tables provided on pages 34-36 and active duty personnel figures, we arrive at 12,326 total male offenders and 4,353 total female offenders* in an active duty service in which only about one-in-seven members are women. That translates to about 1 in 47 female personnel perpetrating unwanted sexual contact compared to just 1 in 95 male personnel doing so.
- Relatedly, one-quarter (26%) of all unwanted sexual contact among active duty personnel involves women harrying men. One-half (52%) involves men getting after women, less than 1% consists of women sexually harassing other women, and the remaining cases (22%) involve men engaging in unwanted sexual contact with other men.
Where, pray tell, is the Commander in Chief?
The liberating of some oppressed group, the lowering of some barrier, the removal of some obstacle, always presumes the endpoint of liberation, but that endpoint is ideal, at least within the ideology itself.
Actual military readiness, human nature, facts and boots on the ground etc. are all secondary to other considerations.
Feminists have been doing that for generations now
I served for 13 years in the military (Army and Air Force, enlisted and commissioned). My oldest son served 3 years in the Army. My youngest son has almost 20 years in the Navy and is currently deployed in Afghanistan. I doubt I'll encourage my grandchildren to enter the military when they grow up. I don't like what the country or the military is becoming.
Skipper said...
Where, pray tell, is the Commander in Chief?
Trying to remember where he was on the night of 9/11/12.
I was an officer in combat arms where there were no women serving. I retired before women were in the military in larger numbers and I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of the effects of women serving. My default position is to assume women are as patriotic as men and choose to serve. Perhaps I am an old colonel Blimp type, but in my 25 years of service, I found the military justice system quite capable of handling infractions of the UCMJ.
And in my 25 years of service (anecdotal evidence alert), I never saw a case of male on male sexual assault. Never.
McCain continues on his slide into dementia. I appreciate his service and the travails he endured, but he is long past his expiration date. As for Modo? she is what she is.
I detect a whiff of new rape hysteria in the air. Viene la tormenta.
The Royal Navy in the age of sails, masts and wooden hulls punished reporting a rape with a sound flogging.
I bet there were a lot less sexual assaults in the military when there were no women or homosexuals allowed.
Funny, that.
I wondered about male on male rape after reading Virgil's comment.
First link I got was to a Daily Beast story. It leads off with this:
Less than two weeks after arriving on base, he was gang-raped in the barracks by men who said they were showing him who was in charge of the United States. When he reported the attack to unit commanders, he says they told him, "It must have been your fault. You must have provoked them."
I call bullshit. Well, it is the Daily Beast so that is kind of normal.
the way the article was written it makes it sound like these were a bunch of straight guys who raped the 35 year old new recruit.
The new recruit at 35 sounds like bullshit too. Possible, but smells stinky.
John Henry
"Does Fidell want us to copy the British or to stop copying the British? ... I hate the general argument about giving up our legal inheritance from the British because the British themselves have tossed it out."
Ha. That's Ann doing the law-prof two-step, which is really a word-game. Fidell's argument is not based on 'copying' or 'giving up' British models. Instead, he wants to junk the present intra-military system because "[i]t’s an institutional structure that has outlived its utility and credibility." He cites the Brits only to show that (a) the current US approach is an artifact of history, and (b) others have dumped that artifact because it no longer makes sense. There is no 'general argument' about what the US should do here based on either a pro- or con- attitude to British models that Fidell is making, and so nothing for Ann to 'hate' here. The touchstone of his argument is "utility and credibility." So hate that if you're looking to dump on Fidell.
But that's how lawprofs generate discussion among sleepy-eyed students -- say something outrageous, but do it in a way that requires you to pay attention to see it.
The feminists are in the process of destroying the military. Please do not disturb them. So, far they have been batting 1.000 on the culture destruction front, but they still have work to do.
I note there is news on the Israeli military front as well. I don't believe in coincidences.
Anthony said...
"one-quarter (26%) of all unwanted sexual contact among active duty personnel involves women harrying men.
That's a little hard to believe, insofar as it implies that there is such a thing as unwanted sexual contact initiated by women towards men and that significant numbers of women engage in it, neither of which are very plausible.
Vaginas are all women have going for them, politically.
Using "sober" in a discussion of any MoDo column is a stretch.
The 26,000 is "an estimate." I have not seen any explanation of by whom or by what procedures it was arrived at.
In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of changes in the military with regard to women being incoroprated into field forces, etc., and a lot of exhortations to report sexual harrassment and/or assaults. More complaints should be expected.
And for idiots like Senators McCaskill and Gillibrand: You put young males and females into close proximity in a high testosterone environment, there most certainly are going to be sexual "incidents."
Watch some Nat. Geo. nature films sometime!
the way the article was written it makes it sound like these were a bunch of straight guys who raped the 35 year old new recruit.
It sounds like some dude's fantasy...fodder for Leather Night at Fire Island, or something.
Craig said...
The Royal Navy in the age of sails, masts and wooden hulls punished reporting a rape with a sound flogging.
"The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash."
WLS Churchill
I wonder how many of those sexual assaults on women are by women.
And whether there's video.
only someone completely ignorant of the military and UCMJ would think civilian courts would be tougher on the accused. the accused would much rather have all the rights of civilian court. here's a clue, you have many fewer rights under the UCMJ. why do you think terrorists want to escape military justice?
I am not clear what Fidell is asking for here with the British system.
Sounds like it is just for military.
In the military there are two systems for determining guilt or innocence and punishment:
First is what in the Navy is called Captain's Mast. The accused and accuser go before the commanding officer and he or she decides guilt and punishment.
It generally works reasonably well for relatively minor offenses. Perhaps this is what the beautiful Marine had in mind about "Daddy deciding"
For more serious offenses there is a court martial. A CM can also be requested by the accused for even a minor offense if they do not trust the Captain's Mast process.
In court martials there is a professional prosecutor, a member of the JAG corps.
So what is MoDo talking about?
John Henry
By lumping sexual induindo, pin-up pictures, bumps in the crow line, and "leering with intent" whatever that is in the same catagory as assualt, kidnapping, and RAPE, the Feminists are able to generate huge numbers that make soldiers seem to be 18th Century pirates. That's just not so.
There is a very long continuium of male-female relations in live. At one end is nothing while at the other end are major felonies. The entire military legal system (including Commanders) is aware of and has to deal with it all with an eye toward fairness to all.
When you put thousands of hormone charged young, single women and men in a tiny society cut off from the reast of America, you can expect lots of fireworks, most of it highly desired by both participants. All those hormones aren't going away "by order of the Commasnder." Not even the CinC (Obama) has that power.
If we narrow the definition of "sexual assault" to the crim sex offenses in the UCMJ (identical to most state's Penal Code) and the military CONTINUES to deal harshly with those offenses. That's probably all you can realisticly do with millions of 18-28 year-olds.
Former Captain (and military brat)
I believe that the Navy's Captain's Mast is called "Non-Judicial Punishment" but might be remembering wrong.
I imagine that the Army and Air Force have something similar but don't know the names.
Perhaps someone here can enlighten me?
John Henry
Article 15 John Henry
John--you are referring to non-judicial punishment which is covered by article 15 of the UCMJ. A soldier has the option of taking non-judicial punishment or requesting a court martial of which there are three: summary, special, and general.
During the Vietnam War the army called it an "Article 15." Don't ask me how I know that.
Part of the increase in reporting is potentially due to:
1. increase in the numbers of women in small packets in units that never had women in them before.
2. end of DADT, which increased the openly Gay troops to proposition other soldiers, with a resultant increase in harassment reports.
3. wind down and decompression as a result of the ending of those two wars the liberals keep telling us about. Results in a incr4ease in alcohol use and an increase of alcohol lubricated sexual interactions
4. changes in reporting due to DADT ending
Nonapod said...
26,000? That seems extremely high...
I believe this number, as I was a victim of sexual assault, of the man on man variety.
I've never spoken of this before. Not because it was traumatic, but because it was trivial. As I was walking out of a party in college, some guy groped my butt. It took a long time, ( probably 10, or even 15 seconds ) but I got over it.
I hate statistics about sexual assault, as they are useless, except for the purpose of generating misplaced outrage.
Drill--thanks for your comment--clearly the army of today is not the army I served in. A shame--the army I served in was pretty damn good. My sympathy for today's commanders who have to put up with this shit.
Roger J. said...
I was an officer in combat arms where there were no women serving. I retired before women were in the military in larger numbers and I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of the effects of women serving. My default position is to assume women are as patriotic as men and choose to serve. Perhaps I am an old colonel Blimp type, but in my 25 years of service, I found the military justice system quite capable of handling infractions of the UCMJ.
anecdote 1: When I was an LT in Germany in a Brigade HHC in 76-77ish, women were introduced. My Brigade Colonel refused to take a single woman, till he could have 3-4 and one of them a Sergeant. perhaps that lesson has been unlearned.
Observation 1: Military Juries tend to decide things based on how they perceive the Commander wants the result. Not 100% of the time, but certainly more than a tie breaker. On the other hand, I see no reason why a court if convened would not convict. The issue is referrals. I see no reason why the decision to proceed with an Article 31 (Grand Jury step) could not be done by JAGs rather than Commanders
Fear 1: The Obama Leftists and their Feminist allies would try to put biased rules in place like they have for College Sexual harassment cases.
The Military is being demonized. Hollywood and TV Politicians who market myths are tired of seeing the near reverence Americans give to the ultimate realists.
These cases are not presuctued because there is often little or no proof and the women involved are often involved in misconduct themselves at the time of the rape.
Unlike Dowd and the rest of the feminists idiots chiming in on this subject, I have actually prosecuted rape cases in the military. And I can tell you, unless you want to just get rid of due process and the Constitution, something a fascist like Dowd would no doubt love, you are not going to get anymore rape convictions in the military than you are right now. You can brow beat the command into bringing more cases. But that won't make those cases any less of the dogs they are in court.
As I was walking out of a party in college, some guy groped my butt. It took a long time, ( probably 10, or even 15 seconds ) but I got over it.
Women never do ... if it's the wrong kind of guy doing the groping. And if it's the right kind of guy doing it ... well, they never get over that either, but in a different way.
Drill: thanks, again for the comments--As an aside, I can see having a JAG Colonel as your life's partner has probably had some influence on you. :)
It's the same bullshit statistics that we hear about college campuses.
If you believed the "rape" statistics that the "activists" have been throwing out at my former college for years, you would never even consider having your daughter attend.
No doubt it's a problem, but the overhyped assertions are not a way to solve it. Define the real problem, rather than asserting a phony one, and you are on the road to resolution.
And the drill Sergeant is wrong about military juries. They are not puppets of command. They are always senior people who take their oath and jobs as jurors very seriously. They are not just hacks for the command. But they are not likely to be swayed by emotion either. They are going to give the facts a very hard and rational look and act accordingly. As a defense attorney, I was able to obtain several convictions that did not please the command. But the jury always did the right thing, even if sometimes that meant frying my guilty client or when I was on the other side, letting an accused off lighter than I or the command wanted.
A senior Naval officer on Coronado recently told me that a "sexual assault" in the military would not be considered a sexual assault in the civilian world. He left it at that.
Once again, Kipling provides the answer to traditionalguy said...
The Military is being demonized. Hollywood and TV Politicians who market myths are tired of seeing the near reverence Americans give to the ultimate realists.
"We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind."
What is happening is that the definition of sexual assualt is being broadened. If you call someone a *ussy for not scaling a wall, and there is a woman present (since women are just as tough as men, they say), then the woman claims harassment. At the same time, women get to claim harassment whenever they feel pressure to perform since we do know that women have a hard time distinguishing between professional and personal criticism. Then liberals count the complaints and say there is a problem, and they ignore false charges, because women are held to a low standard for keeping their feelings out of the way of their work/organization.
Here is what people like Dowd are too stupid or too dogmatic to understand about rape cases. It is not that becuase a woman was drunk, seen making out with her assailant, committing the crime of fraternization by being with him in the first place means she deserves to be raped. It doesn't. What it means is that it is impossible absent some really strong evidence beyond her word to prove she was raped.
Criminal cases are about reasonable doubt. And is it not reasonable doubt when a victim was seen making out with the accused, when she was committing misconduct herself by being with the accused and thus has every reason to lie and there is no proof of rape beyond her word?
What do you do with that case? No fair jury will convict on those facts. Yet, the mob will scream about how this is just another case of a woman being raped in the military and nothing being done.
And oh by the way, these same kinds of impossible to prove cases happen in the civilian world as well. Yet, I don't see Dowd bitching about that? It is almost like this is a political vendetta or something.
John--thanks for your comments on military juries--I have served as president of three special courts, the composition of which included senior enlisted soldiers. There is always the possibility of command influence, but in my three cases I never experienced it. And I agree that the juries I served on did their dead level best to attain justice.
As a bit of an aside, when I served as president, I was not a commander (did not wear green tabs)--defense counsels usually objected to green tab guys as presidents. But that is, as I said
an aside. I think it was Melvin Belli, a civilian defense atty, who had high praise for the military justice system.
John,
My point is that the Juries do know how the General feels about the trial. Even when he tries to avoid "command influence: and not all do.
I dated a JAG Defense Lawyer for a while. I was her behind the scenes 'military advisor" she was clueless on some things military.
And I am married to a retired Guard JAG Colonel that I met when we were both on active duty. (different woman, different period)
To reinforce John's point about command influence (always a possibility a la Henry the Second, I never EVER had a senior command communicate with me after my jury reached a decision.
My point is that the Juries do know how the General feels about the trial. Even when he tries to avoid "command influence: and not all do.
They know the general thinks the guy is guilty or the case wouldn't be there. But in my experience, which was fairly considerable, that didn't stop them from acquitting people or giving sentences that did not please the command.
I do not believe that the command influences the jury nearly as much as people think. Maybe in a once in a decade high profile case. But in the average case no.
Now, that said, the enormous political pressure being put on the military to throw more men in jail for sexual assault may start having an effect and sending innocent people to jail.
I am sure people like Dowd consider that feature. They are men after all and are certainly guilty of that if nothing else.
Drill: I admire your panache, sir. You were a tanker, and I cavalry--but you and I both knew the right thing to do: ride to the sounds of the guns. That saved my life on at least two occasions.
Best to you and yours, sir. Gary Owen.
I will say this, if I had a son who was joining the Army today, my advice to him would be never under any circumstances have sex with a female soldier. It is not worth the risk. Don't even socialize with female soldiers. If you don't have sex and don't socialize with them, you are unlikely to ever be accused of rape or sexual assault.
And I will predict one other thing. In ten or fifteen years, it is going to come out that a lot of innocent people were railroaded to prison on rape and sexual assault charges because of all this. And it will all be the military's fault. This whole thing reminds me a lot of the child molestation scare of the 80s and early 90s.
I will say this, if I had a son who was joining the Army today, my advice to him would be never under any circumstances have sex with a female soldier. It is not worth the risk. Don't even socialize with female soldiers. If you don't have sex and don't socialize with them, you are unlikely to ever be accused of rape or sexual assault.
That's equally sage advice if your son was going off to college as well.
Great world liberals are creating for our kids eh Angus?
My uneducated guess is that if you removed boorish behavior such as off color commentary or copping a feel as 'sexual assault' the real number of assault cases would fall precipitously.
Great world liberals are creating for our kids eh Angus?
Oh being the 'caring' group that they believe they are, I'm sure they are confident they have the best intentions. Although the intelligent among I'd know where that road leads.
Wow, I never knew that the flip-side of homophobia was rape apologist.
I hope all you conservative ladies who normally post on Alt-H are proud of your macho-men.
What happens Angus is that women are human. They get angry, they do something they regret. And they use the charge of sexual assault and or rape to cover that up. In many of these cases that are not prosecuted, the woman was married or had a b/f and cheated on him only to have the whole unit find out. Or she sleeps with a guy who then doesn't take an interest in her after the sex and she claims rape as a way of revenge.
These things happen. Feminists want to give every woman in the world the power to send any man to jail for the rest of his life on the power of their word alone. And that is lunacy. If they get their way, our society will be screwed up in so many ways and relations between the sexes will be so damaged there may be no fixing it.
John said...
I will say this, if I had a son who was joining the Army today, my advice to him would be never under any circumstances have sex with a female soldier.
Colonel Angus said...
That's equally sage advice if your son was going off to college as well.
Apparently, one of us missed the entire point of college...
Howard,
Are you trolling or are you really that stupid? What part of "beyond a reasonable doubt" and "due process" do you not understand? And how many times does it have to be shown that innocent men are sent to prison for rape before you understand that woman do lie about such things?
Tell me, when you are a little boy did you tell your mother you always wanted to grow up to be a fascist brown shirt? Or did that ambition come later in life?
Roger J. said...
Drill: I admire your panache, sir. You were a tanker, and I cavalry
I was briefly the Adjutant of 2-1 Cav, 2AD
Apparently, one of us missed the entire point of college...
Unless you do not value your future or reputation, college currently is one of the worst places to get laid. Yeah, you can do it. But thanks to the fascists who run the places, the risks associated with doing so have gotten pretty steep.
Oh, my bad. Rape is approved by the bible, the bible is the word of god, therefore the defense of rapists is next to godliness.
Apparently, one of us missed the entire point of college...
That would be me as I didn't attend the hallowed halls of higher education.
Oh, my bad. Rape is approved by the bible, the bible is the word of god, therefore the defense of rapists is next to godliness.
Not if its rape~rape.
John: I can't help someone like you who had trouble meeting high quality women in college. Fish in a barrel, if you have any semblance of judgement and common sense. I guess when you are stilted like you, rape becomes an option, right.
Oh, my bad. Rape is approved by the bible, the bible is the word of god, therefore the defense of rapists is next to godliness.
Okay. So you are just trolling because you are apparently too stupid to either understand or partake in the conversation.
You might want to go back to your handlers and get some trolling lessons though. That is D- trolling. When you troll you are supposed to read the threat, difficult for someone of your limited intelligence I know. And then troll with stupid and inane comments that at least relate to what is said.
Try harder and I am sure you can get it.
John: I can't help someone like you who had trouble meeting high quality women in college. Fish in a barrel, if you have any semblance of judgement and common sense. I guess when you are stilted like you, rape becomes an option, right.
There you go Howard. Now you are reading the threads and putting up stupid and insulting things that relate to what was said. That is still C- trolling. But better.
Tell me, what is it like going through life having never had a rational or skeptical thought about any issue? Just knowing what to think by what your betters told you what to think. It must make like very confusing sometimes.
MoDo modos. What else need be said?
Wasn't Michael Douglas one of Dowd's boyfriends? I remember Imus needling her about it long ago.
It could be she's the virus queen.
http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=billy%20budd&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBilly_Budd&ei=4WOvUajqA-uHiQeerYHQAg&usg=AFQjCNHw9wUzL8YQ88b9CoTpm35WqeQlvw&sig2=s4bk-I5l143prekQLcUzRQ&bvm=bv.47380653,d.aGc
Blogger rhhardin said...
Wasn't Michael Douglas one of Dowd's boyfriends? I remember Imus needling her about it long ago.
It could be she's the virus queen.
6/5/13, 11:30 AM
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You're right. She was sweet on MD.
She could be genital warts princess.
John: You are a tool who presses the Godwin Chicken-Switch and call me a troll, love the chutzpah. Tell me, what is it like going through life being deathly afraid of homos and women?
Allen S is right. More rapes likely occur in college and lefty administrators bend over backwards to prevent prosecutions to keep their reputations bright and shiny.
Rape is appalling and rapists should get their balls fed to them with a nice Chianti and fava beans. Then, their throats should be slit. All after a jury trial with mandatory appeals to make John Henry happy.
Puh-lease. The idea that a woman will NEVER get raped in the military is unfounded, but the idea that women are getting raped in droves is similarly unfounded.
Maybe its true though. Many women have not had to actually serve in combat units in the military. So, perhaps there the fear of dying for your country is one that many don't take as seriously.
IIRC I read somewhere on the net that this latest rpt cites the fact that OVER 50% of the rapes/sexual assaults are homosexual and 90% of those are men on men.
Gays in the military, bitches!
Hierarchical authority and sexual attraction are an inherently and incurably dangerous mix, as anyone who either understands and accepts evolution, or understands and accepts Original Sin, could tell you.
Unfortunately, neither the science nor the theology get anything more than lip service from a good solid 95% of even supposedly educated adults. I have a hard time as an atheist lamenting the latter, but at least the religious didn't argue that the crooked timber could be made straight by Earthly power.
John said...
I will say this, if I had a son who was joining the Army today, my advice to him would be never under any circumstances have sex with a female soldier.
Call me old-fashioned, but I'd advise him to think twice about the male soldiers too.
I don't understand why they're recruiting in the 1st place, all is well, we are at peace and the military is being downsized.
Allen S is right. More rapes likely occur in college and lefty administrators bend over backwards to prevent prosecutions to keep their reputations bright and shiny.
In most cases the accused is summarily dismissed from campus without the benefit of defending himself from the accusation.
Last time I checked we still subscribed to the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
On the other hand, I am concerned that we are putting these vulnerable women in combat roles if they aren't even trained to fend off unwanted sexual advances.
Howard,
If you don't believe in due process, and the burden of proof in a criminal trial being beyond a reasonable doubt, you are a species of fascist. If you don't like being called a fascist, stop being one.
In fairness, I don't think you mean to be a fascist. You clearly lack the intelligence to understand the term let alone that you are engaging in such activity.
John,
Howard is a woman. She is a very badly disguised sock-puppet.
John,
Look at Howard's vocabulary and syntax. It's very feminine. As a matter of fact, having just reviewed her quirky punctuation, I have come to the conclusion that Howard is actually our resident nurse (ret.) Inga.
your brother raping you and having your dad decide the case.
...because men just love raping women and will defend any man who does so, eh?
I suspect Dowd believes ugly women are not prone to rape?
Coming back into the discussion here, let me just say that my experience as a serving officer in the USAF prior to the inclusion of large numbers of females into the force and prior to DADT, the reason a huge number of rapes/"sexual assaults" don't get reported is because my experience was that when it was a he-said/she-said or he said/he-said situation their Commanding officer--absent any other evidence--would say a plague on both your houses and charge "conduct unbecoming" on both and move to toss both out with the logic applying to the victim that he displayed exceedingly poor judgment and shouldn't have allowed himself to be put in such a situation in the first place. Things probably haven't changed very much 40 years later on that score..
That's a little hard to believe, insofar as it implies that there is such a thing as unwanted sexual contact initiated by women towards men and that significant numbers of women engage in it, neither of which are very plausible.
With all do respect: bullshit on stilts.
There are many men who are married. Most senior NCOs and mid-level and higher officers are.
The military emphasizes discipline, honor, and ignoring short-term wants in favor of long-term benefit, and in taking the difficult good choice over the easy bad choice.
So married men don't want sexual advances from women not their wives.
Women are hypergamous, and are extremely attracted to status. What do you have in a hierarchical environment? Bunches of status differences.
Sometimes the senior ranking individual abuses their rank/status to get sex.
But it is illegal to do so, and most men of honor won't do it. So even unmarried military leaders would not welcome sexual contact from a junior woman in his chain of command.
I would wager that in the 26% of unwanted sexual contact, it is a younger, lower-ranking female attempting to seduce a higher-ranking male.
Adding women to the military has some good points and some bad points.
Overall, I think it has probably been a net plus.
But the thing that pisses me off is how women push to join, call it discrimination...when told they can't take the rigors of the opportunity, they say that they can put up with anything, they don't want to change anything, they just want the opportunity.
And then as soon as they get the right, they start trying to change things. To lower standards or establish double standards for their own benefit.
For instance, I don't personally approve of the fighter pilot community's Boy's Club attitude. If you didn't put sexy pictures in the briefings, they'd complain and you'd get fired. They have all sorts of juvenile sexual crap and masculine dominance games.
But so what?
Women pushed to join the military. They would complain if not allowed to be support staff for fighter pilots. They complained they weren't allowed to be fighter pilots.
Now they are present throughout the whole thing, and the male fighter pilots can't do their thing anymore.
The thing is: what if being able to blow off steam saves lives? What if being able to joke and razz about using the word "head" built esprit de corps?
Now we've lost that.
It's better for the women involved.
But if they pushed to be a part of it, they should have learned to deal with it, or not participate.
So women have a better experience in the military, most of the time, but if it makes the US less safe, is it worth it?
Sometimes it is better to toughen up than to make comfort the highest priority. The warrior ethos/community would seem to be one of those places.
Excellent point, Nathan, but I don't see how you can conclude that having women in the military is a net plus. There is zero evidence of this, and you just outlined some of the contrary evidence.
The military is not about the people in it. It's about the war-making ability of the United States.
I didn't outline the reasons why I think it might be a net plus, true.
Here's the thing: some of my best commanders have been females.
Women catch on to ALL the social requirements of respect for rank much faster then men.
And overall, you end up with a better set of people/skills/brains/thoughts/etc when you enlarge the pool you draw from. That's just the reality of simple math/statistics.
There have been many assignments/bases where the presence of women caused no problems at all just for being women...although specific women brought problems just like specific men do.
I accept your points, Nathan. So, do you conclude that the United States is stronger militarily for having women in the military -- including in combat roles?
That women benefit (individually or as a whole) from being in the military should not factor into the equation. (Nor, for that matter, should the benefits to men of having women in the military matter. IYKWIMAITYD.) The US military's raison d'etre is not to provide employment or meaning to the lives of US citizens.
Novenonuts:
If I was a sock puppet for a woman, I would use another man as my avatar. Preferably a photo of a man pretend playing the role of an uber macho man. Then, I would brag about how often I attended gym class for city rats and how many air-headed skanks I bang every month.
I'm eye-fucking you.
Sure you would, honey.
The obvious solution is to draft Gays into the military. If our Military was 50% female and 50% Gay men, this kind of thing wouldn't happen.
It'd be like "will and grace" with guns and uniforms.
We could add a new Veterans Benefit - one free gay marriage.
How can anyone care anymore? The US Military is just another grown up, serious institution that's been turned into a joke.
I kinda fucking care. The only fucking thing this fucking piece of shit federal government of ours has done well and should do well is make war. If our war-making culture is destroyed, we die.
is like “your brother raping you and having your dad decide the case.”
I'm late on this, but this girls family must be completely fucked up if that is her analogy.
What they won't talk about is all the women that have consensual sex with superiors to gain an advantage or favorable treatment over their peers and then cry "rape" or "sexual harassment" to avoid prosecution for fraternization or adultery.
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