Allen West
Radio host Michael Savage specializes in bringing the crazy himself and pushing his guests to do the same. When his guest is former Rep.
Allen West and sexual assault in the military is the topic ... hoo boy.
SAVAGE: ... When I watch these Khmer Rouge feminists try to take over the military, this looked liked an attempted coup to me, Colonel West.
WEST: Nah, you're absolutely right and that's a big concern that I have because when you start to get—you know, I understand civilian oversight of the military. We all understand that as all officers who served in uniform. But when you start to have this interjection of, you know, political, you know, will against, you know, the military, good order and discipline, where you start to try to usurp the commanders' authority and I guess replace it with some type of political, legal officers, and things of that nature. Then the next thing you know, it goes from just dealing with this, you know, sexual assault thing to, you know, making decisions on the battlefield. But --
SAVAGE: Thank you. Exactly. And that's exactly what they're doing here.
WEST: There is an assault against the United States military.
First off, "you're absolutely right"? Someone talks about "Khmer Rouge feminists" and, never mind straight-up disagreeing with him, you don't even say "WTF is a Khmer Rouge feminist?" I mean, really, in what way does trying to reduce sexual assault = genocidal dictatorship? That is a question I would like to see answered, in all seriousness.
West goes on to say he understands civilian oversight of the military—and yet he doesn't contest the description of said civilian oversight (in the form of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's bill putting decisions about how to handle the most serious sexual assault cases into the hands of legal experts) as a coup. Also part of the "assault against the United States military": Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal, natch. Because values! Civilian oversight, yeah, yeah, fine, as long as it in no way disrupts the military's traditions of homophobia and sexual assault.
SAVAGE: Alright, so amongst the 23,000—amongst the 23,000 so-called cases that the Commander-in-Chief Obama talked about last, two weeks ago, at a commencement address, how many of them are fraudulent claims? We don't know, do we?
WEST: No we don't. And furthermore, Dr. Savage, we don't know how many of them are female against male, you know, sexual assaults, or same-sex sexual assaults. So we don't have those numbers either.
In what way would female against male sexual assaults or same-sex sexual assaults require a different response than a man assaulting a woman? I
think what West is doing here is trying to say that outrage on behalf of women in the military is misguided because men can be sexual assault victims, too, but ... yeah, okay. Your point? In an odd way, in fact, he sounds like Khmer Rouge feminist Claire McCaskill
demanding better reporting of military sexual assaults so that we know more about how many rapes there are vs. how much harassment. But of course West's point, inasmuch as he has one, is to try to say that the whole topic is ridiculous. Gosh, it must have been fantastically fun to be a woman anywhere in his vicinity during his time in the Army.
(Via Wonkette)