women in the army

Can people stop getting their panties all up in a bunch over rape in the U.S. Army? Sheesh! Alternet links to a David Rosen article from Counter Punch on Rape as an Instrument of War. And it must be Congresswoman Jane Harmon's time of month, because she is going OCD over what she refers to as "Rape in the Ranks." So, nobody is doing anything about the 73% increase in the number of rapes of women employed by the army; so the 12 women who have said they were sexually assaulted or raped or gang-raped by fellow KBR employees haven't received that much attention. But I prefer to look at the military rape epidemic glass as half full.

Congresswoman Jane Harmon reports that at a Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center she visited, 41% of female veterans claimed they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% reported being raped during their military service. But this is actually great news for U.S. service women! As Harmon herself states, "Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

Here's the happy story:

The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.