Kudos to Peter Pace for cracking down on sexual immorality in the army!

[Plaid Adder]

Because obviously since that's one of his goals, he will soon shortly be doing something about this.

I read this piece a couple days ago and I'm still pissed off. It's called "The Private War of Women Soldiers" and it was the subject of a long thread (and a couple of flamewars) here on DU. The summary is: women soldiers serving in Iraq have to contend, on top of everything faced by their male colleagues, with the constant threat of rape. Not at the hands of the enemy--at the hands of their fellow-soldiers. And commanding officers. It has gotten so bad that, according to one report, three women soldiers died of dehyrdration because they refused to drink liquids after coming off duty because they didn't want to have to go to the latrines after dark. Because women were getting raped at the latrines after dark. By their fellow soldiers. By their, presumably, heterosexual male fellow soldiers.

And commanding officers.

Often.

And nothing is being done about it. Other than to silence and punish those victims who are foolish enough to report sexual assault, that is.

Go read the article if you haven't. This situation is very ugly and very sickening and it puts anyone who reads it in a very painful position. We all support the troops, right? Well, what do we do when some of the troops are raping some of the other ones? Do we have to support the rapists as well as the victims? How exactly could you do both things at the same time? It hurts your brain, your gut, and your heart to even think about it; but that is not a reason not to face it. These women are serving their country the same way the men are. They should not be forced to put up with this shit in silence just so that the U.S. military doesn't have to be embarrassed in public.

I assume Pace considers rape to be as "immoral" as "an extramarital affair" or as, God forbid, consensual sex between two members of the same gender. Most people might consider it more immoral. After all, it involves violence, violation, grievous physical trauma, and, often, PTSD. You'd think he'd be concerned that his straight officers and straight soldiers are doing this to their subordinates and fellow-soldiers.

You'd think. But you'd be wrong. Because after all, they're only women, and I guess Pace doesn't give a shit.

You know what, this gays-in-the-military thing has gone around since Clinton first tried to lift the ban in 1993. I've heard all the arguments and not one of them is worth the breath it would take to rebut it. Back in the 1990s it was all about "unit cohesion." Remember that? Allowing gay soldiers to get it on with each other would interfere with the communal homosocial bonding which is at the core of military life. Well, it doesn't look as if "don't ask, don't tell" is preserving that communal spirit--at least not if you ask the women Helen Benedict interviewed for "The Private War of Women Soldiers."

I don't want Pace to apologize to gay people. Shit, I'm old, I'm tough, I'm not stuck in the middle of Iraq. His bullshit doesn't directly affect me. It'd be nice if he would apologize to all the gay and lesbian soldiers he's insulting, but talk is cheap and it wouldn't materially affect their situation until the @#$! ban is lifted. But what he absolutely ought to do, if he MUST shoot his mouth off about sexual immorality in the US military, is to make stamping out solider-on-soldier and commander-on-subordinate rape a top priority. It is absolutely unconscionable that women still have to serve in a climate where they can be harassed, coerced, and raped with impunity by any man who's depraved enough to do it. The military is hierarchical; these conditions are created from the top down. They could be changed. But apparently, it's much less important to protect women soldiers from sexual violence than it is to prevent GBLT soldiers from serving openly.

Whatever. Pace is who he is and he certainly doesn't care what we think of him. But I would like to think that someday, some other commander in chief might put someone into Pace's job who understands that rape is a bigger problem than consensual gay sex.

:argh:

The Plaid Adder

[wicket]

1. It's fucking appalling

:grr:

K & R

:kick:

[EST]

2. Monday, Amy Goodman did most of the hour of

Democracy Now! on this. Very powerful program, available at their website, and well worth downloading.

If it doesn't piss you off, nothing would.

[solara]

3. Bravo! Thank you for posting this!

Pace is the immoral one here. His double standard is an obscenity. He could actually DO something about this travesty...but by looking the other way he and all the other "commanders" who intimidate and exploit their female subordinates are accessories to crimes of sexual violence. I did not think I could be more angry and disgusted than I was.

INVESTIGATE IMPEACH INDICT INCARCERATE

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Very well done

and exactly right. Thanks for posting it!

[Olney Blue]

5. K and R.

[vssmith]

6. Barry Goldwater said,

“You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.”

[Canuckistanian]

8. Goldwater said that?

I know he had a gay grandson, but what did the fundagelicals have to say about that?

After all, Goldwater was their political mentor.

[vssmith]

10. Goldwater was not a social conservative

check him out on Wikipedia

[Canuckistanian]

7. Egg-zactly

What if GAY soldiers and superior officers were raping their MEN?

And considering that heterosexual RAPE is 100% more likely to happen, where is his outrage on that?

[DKRC]

12. That's exactly why you can't have gays serving

with his moral straight soldiers. The horror of subjecting those upstanding hetero male troops to the same conditions that the women are working under 24/7. Can't have men dying of dehydration in their cots from fear of going to a latrine after dark.
:sarcasm: :banghead:

[IChing]

9. If you remember Pace's plan for Iraq is really the "tinkerbell" plan

"Plan B was to make Plan A work."

The Tinkerbell effect describes those things that exist only because people believe in them. The effect is named for Tinkerbell, the fairy in the play Peter Pan who is revived from near death by the belief of the audience.

[SpiralHawk]

11. What did Pace say about Jeff Gannon, the Bush White House male prostitute?

I am sure he must have spoken a ringing condemnation of George AWOL Bush for allowing
a male prostitute to visit the White House over 200 times, including some overnights.*


* According to the official Secret Service records, check it out.

[riderinthestorm]

13. Another k&r.

The obtuseness of Pace with his singular focus on homosexuality as the great "moral wrong" (cough) is staggering.

Thanks for an excellent post. Can I forward it to some friends (with attribution of course)? You have nailed it.

[Plaid Adder]

14. What I usually tell people is to link to the original post

so DU gets the traffic. It makes them happy.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[gatorboy]

15. They should all come out and quit at once.

From what I read, the military is 65,000 strong with gay military men and women. If their military doesn't support them, they shouldn't support the military with their very lives.

[donco6]

16. Wow, what a great point.

Obviously the whole thing disgusts me - the stench of hypocrisy is simply overwhelming.

[KamaAina]

17. I'll bet if one were to pound back a few bourbons with Pace,

he'd allow as how, in his considered opinion, letting the womenfolk in the service "destroyed unit cohesion", too.

And if one were to knock back a few more, he might even get started on race... after all, everything he learned in his "upbringing", apparently during the Mesozoic Era, is still true and relevant in the present day. :sarcasm:

[Erechtheides]

18. that's an amazing Salon article.

I've been stewing about it since reading it.

What's most mind-boggling is that this just doesn't happen in units where the commanding gives even the slightest damn. They have the power to stop this. Most just don't care, or are doing the same things themselves. Disgusting.

My second favorite bit is where the male soldiers admit to believing that the army sends the female soldiers to help "keep them sane." Because there aren't prostitutes in Iraq and Afghanistan like there were in Vietnam.

What the hell?

[Erechtheides]

19. er, "the commanding officer" (N/T)