Women in the US military are more likely to be raped than to be killed by enemy fire.
In case I don't have your full attention:
WOMEN IN THE US MILITARY ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE RAPED THAN TO BE KILLED BY ENEMY FIRE.
This was briefly mentioned in the "Bushed" segment of Countdown last night, and I found an opinion piece by Jane Harman (D, California), entitled Rapists in the ranks on the LA Times web site, which details some of the horrific numbers.
Harman writes in that piece:
Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004. The DOD's newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.
What she doesn't mention is that in all likelihood this is a severe UNDERestimate. Even in the civilian world, rape is the most underreported crime -- estimates of how underreported vary, but "drastically underreported" seems to cover it. In a military environment, outside US borders, and in hostile zones, where victims may find themselves not only subordinate to their attackers, but dependent on them for survival, reason dictates that it's much more so.
Some hint of how much more may be found in something else Harman writes:
My jaw dropped when the doctors [at the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare
Center] told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say
they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report
being raped during their military service.
This is not an accident. It's not a coincidence. It's not something that just "slipped through the cracks". Nothing this enormous goes on without tacit approval, without widespread acceptance, without a pervasive willingness to "look the other way", without an unspoken understanding that those responsible for these vicious attacks against their fellow soldiers will not be held accountable.
And while they say otherwise on paper, it is exactly that kind of operational policy that the US military has put into practice:
At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness
to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only
181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007,
including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the
equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military.
[...]
This is in stark contrast to the civilian trend of prosecuting sexual
assault. In California, for example, 44% of reported rapes result in
arrests, and 64% of those who are arrested are prosecuted, according to
the California Department of Justice.
Can you imagine for a moment that if soldiers were engaging in other acts of violence against fellow soldiers en masse -- let's say, punching their commanding officers in the nose -- that this would not just tolerated, but actively encouraged via deliberate inaction?
The absence of rigorous prosecution perpetuates a culture
tolerant of sexual assault -- an attitude that says "boys will be boys."
They're not "boys". They're rapists. Regardless of their rank, regardless of anything else they've done, they're scum -- and they need to be swiftly, surely prosecuted and punished. Anything less is unacceptable.