Rape Goes Unpunished in US Military
This is disgusting. We’ve all known it’s true. The warrior culture protects those cowards who impose themselves sexually on both men and women. God willing, things will change. It’s already started, with the relieving of those in power who have imposed themselves on women who came forward with their complaints. Let there be more, until this culture is wiped clean of their disgrace.
Rape isn’t about sex. It’s about power. Rape is a personal violation.
It’s time for the good men and women in the military to police this up, to stop the outrage. Expose those bullies and cowards who prey on others.
Military Sex Abuse Investigation: Documents Reveal Chaotic Punishment Record
AP
by RICHARD LARDNER and YURI KAGEYAMA
TOKYO (AP) — At U.S. military bases in Japan, most service members found culpable in sex crimes in recent years did not go to prison, according to internal Department of Defense documents. Instead, in a review of hundreds of cases filed in America’s largest overseas military installation, offenders were fined, demoted, restricted to their bases or removed from the military.
In about 30 cases, a letter of reprimand was the only punishment.
More than 1,000 records, obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, describe hundreds of cases in graphic detail, painting a disturbing picture of how senior American officers prosecute and punish troops accused of sex crimes. The handling of allegations verged on the chaotic, with seemingly strong cases often reduced to lesser charges. In two rape cases, commanders overruled recommendations to court-martial and dropped the charges instead.
Even when military authorities agreed a crime had been committed, the suspect was unlikely to serve time. Of 244 service members whose punishments were detailed in the records, only a third of them were incarcerated.
The analysis of the reported sex crimes, filed between 2005 and early 2013, shows a pattern of random and inconsistent judgments:
—The Marines were far more likely than other branches to send offenders to prison, with 53 prison sentences out of 270 cases. By contrast, of the Navy’s 203 cases, more than 70 were court-martialed or punished in some way. Only 15 were sentenced to time behind bars.
—The Air Force was the most lenient. Of 124 sex crimes, the only punishment for 21 offenders was a letter of reprimand.
—Victims increasingly declined to cooperate with investigators or recanted, a sign they may have been losing confidence in the system. In 2006, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which handles the Navy and Marine Corps, reported 13 such cases; in 2012, it was 28.
In two cases, both adjudicated by the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, the accusers said they were sexually abused after nights of heavy drinking, and both had some evidence to support their cases. One suspect was sentenced to six years in prison, but the other was confined to his base for 30 days instead of getting jail time.
Taken together, the cases illustrate how far military leaders have to go to reverse a spiraling number of sexual assault reports. The records also may give weight to members of Congress pushing to strip senior officers of their authority to decide whether serious crimes, including sexual assault cases, go to trial.
“How many more rapes do we have to endure to wait and see what reforms are needed?” asked Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., chair of the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee. She leads a vocal group of lawmakers from both political parties who argue that further reforms to the military’s legal system are needed.
Air Force Col. Alan Metzler, deputy director of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said the department “has been very transparent that we do have a problem.” He said a raft of changes in military law is creating a culture where victims trust that their allegations will be taken seriously and perpetrators will be punished.
The number of sexual assault cases taken to courts-martial has grown steadily — from 42 percent in 2009 to 68 percent in 2012, according to DOD figures. In 2012, of the 238 service members convicted, 74 percent served time.
That trend is not reflected in the Japan cases. Out of 473 sexual assault allegations within Navy and Marine Corps units, just 116, or 24 percent, ended up in courts-martial. In the Navy, one case in 2012 led to court-martial, compared to 13 in which commanders used non-judicial penalties instead.
The authority to decide how to prosecute serious criminal allegations would be taken away from senior officers under a bill crafted by Gillibrand that is expected to come before the Senate this week. The bill would place that responsibility with the trial counsel who has prosecutorial experience.
Senior U.S. military leaders oppose the plan.
“Taking the commander out of the loop never solved any problem,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the personnel subcommittee’s top Republican. “It would dismantle the military justice system beyond sexual assaults. It would take commanders off the hook for their responsibility to fix this problem.”
Gillibrand and her supporters argue that the cultural shift the military needs won’t happen if commanders retain their current role in the legal system.
“Skippers have had this authority since the days of John Paul Jones and sexual assaults still occur,” said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain and senior fellow at the Women in the Military Project. “And this is where we are.”
___
Lardner reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Leon Drouin-Keith in Bangkok and AP researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
Giving Birth to Gun in the South Sudan
This is the newest blog entry from my friend Manyang David Mayar in the South Sudan He visited Pensacola as part of an IVLP program with our Gulf Coast Citizens Diplomacy Council:
Pregnant women fleeing the fighting in Jonglei state, South Sudan.
I was in the town of Bor when fighting broke out last month in South Sudan. I managed to escape the town despite being shot in the arm. But many other people had a far tougher time – people like Nyiel Magot, nine months pregnant and faced with the awful choice of staying in Bor’s hospital or fleeing into the bush.
Against her doctors’ advice, Nyiel decided to escape the immediate danger, and with her five children, took a narrow path out of town which was packed with people also heading to safety.
But, she told me, with every step she took, she grew weaker and more and more people overtook her.
“I was really tired and the pain became really unbearable,” Nyiel said. “I knew the time had come for me to give birth and I had to get out of Bor immediately to escape the attackers.”
Giving birth in the bush
Later that evening, the pain finally forced Nyiel to stop. Instead of a hospital ward, she found an abandoned grass-thatched house.
Luckily, there was a traditional birth attendant nearby who used her bare hands to help Nyiel deliver a healthy baby boy.
But the cold nights and hot days of December in South Sudan soon started to take their toll on the new born and reports of an imminent rebel attack forced Nyiel and her family to leave their hideout.
They walked for days until they crossed the River Nile and came to a large camp for displaced people in Awerial. And then her baby caught diarrhoea and started to vomit.
He was rushed to a hospital in Juba where, after days of treatment, he recovered.
A child of conflict
It was in the hospital in Juba that I met Nyiel and heard her story – and also learned the name of her little baby.
Nyiel had called him Matuor, the Dinka word for ‘gun’, because he was born amid gunfire.
As the conflict continues in South Sudan, I fear he won’t be the last baby born in the bush with such a name.
All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian
AdventureMan came into the room where I was reading and handed me this book. “Will you read this?” he asked, and there was a note in his voice that sounded a little aggrieved.
“What’s up?” I asked. “You sound a little peeved.”
“I read this,” he said. “I thought it was pretty good, but when I read the reviews on Amazon, some people called it ‘trivial’,” and I could see he was embarrassed that something he thought was pretty good others believed was of little importance.
Big mistake, Adventureman.
I might read a little of the reviews when deciding whether to buy a book or not, because I won’t remember it when it comes time to actually read the book or review the book, but I never, NEVER read the reviews as I am reading or before I review a book. And, truthfully, I don’t really care what this reviewer says or that reviewer says. Sometimes I read a New Yorker review of a book and I think “that reviewer has her own filter and can’t see beyond her framework” or “Wow! That reviewer saw some things I’d like to see!” Sometimes I will read a review and then read the book and think that the reviewer really missed the mark, positively or negatively, it could be either way.
Reviews are opinions. We all have them. Some you might agree with, some you might not, but don’t let them touch you, or your experience with the book. We are each unique, and see through a unique lens!
First, it delighted me that I read this just after I read Babayaga, because I ejnoy Paris, and delight in walking Paris, and in Babayaga and in All the Light There Was, people do a lot of walking in Paris. So much so in All the Light There Was that I ran down to my little map collection for the Paris maps and would track the heroine through Paris. It was fun.
Although All the Light There Was is called a novel, I don’t think it is. As I read it, I thought it was highly biographical or autobiographical, based on a diary or diaries. The significant details – how the mama stockpiled food just as war was announced and all the places she stored it, including under the bed, the clothing they wore, the sweaters they knit, the indignities they endured, and the risks they bravely took against the occupying Germans – it doesn’t sound made up to me, it sounds like a story someone has told from that time.
The details are so strong – the bicycle tires that are treasured because if they go flat, that is the end of the last transport they have, the dresses that have become too big because people have eaten too little – these details sound like voices to me.
So I would not call this book trivial. This book captures a moment in time, it’s a snapshot. The characters don’t have a lot of depth, the events don’t have a lot of texture, but I do know what occupied Paris ate during the last years of the occupation (turnips) and the ambivalence with which Paris viewed their Jewish citizens. In this war-time Paris, Kricorian captures well Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s poem about When They Came for Me:
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Many in Paris were happy to see the Jews go, happy it wasn’t them. Kricorian tackles this issue indirectly, with a light but inescapable hand.
One of the things that was shocking to both of us what that when Maral’s ancient Auntie Shakeh died, and we see the tombstone – she is 35 years old. We knew she and Maral’s parents had escaped the Turkish efforts to eradicate the Armenians in Turkey, but because we are seeing the story through Maral’s eyes, her parents and aunt seem ancient, whereas in today’s terms, they are very young adults.
Don’t read the reviews, AdventureMan! Read the book, take from the book what you will, enjoy your own experience. Write your own reviews!
Manyang: Our Friend in South Sudan
God willing, in life, people cross paths and share their stories. I told you about Manyang, how he visited us near Christmas in 2012 and how his story changed our lives. Now, when we hear stories of the South Sudan, it is immediate, it is real, because we know the story of a young boy grown to be a very fine man, who survived the chaos and horrors of the janjaweed invasions and tribal conflicts before his country attained nationhood.
I recently wrote to Manyang, hoping he is still alive. It was that basic. I asked him, if he could, just to let us know he was alive, and that whether he could respond or not, our prayers were with him, for him, his family and his country.
This morning, by the grace of God, I received this wonderful response. Please, join your prayers with ours for Manyang/David, and his country, South Sudan, for peace, safety and prosperity, for justice and equitable distribution of resources.
I am glad to hear from you again. I have been talking of the nice people I was able to meet in Pensacola. Whenever, I talk about these people you are the first people I talk about. I still remember the nice dinner we had in your house.
I think God touched you to worry about my safety. You might have heard from news report the critical condition my country – South Sudan is going through. It is just like the story of my childhood to many other children now.
A political row in the ruling party here, turned violent in Juba, the capital of this country on December 15, 2013. Heavy artillary were fired and sporadic gunfire broke out in most part of the city. it was a genesis of another war which is now going on. Thousands of people were killed only in Juba.
I was in Bor, the captal of Jonglei State, about 125 miles north of Juba. The violent in Juba quickly spread to us in Bor and I was forced to flee to the bush with my family and the rest of the civil population as the town was quickly seized by anti-government forces. I carried my back on my head, walk long distant and drink dirty water again and eat grains when I was in the bush for seven days.
(This is a screenshot from Google Maps; Bor is the “A” north of Juba)
(These are photos from Manyang’s BBC blog, referenced below. Please go there to read more in his own words about the terrors of the South Sudan chaos.)
The government forces recaptured the town and we returned to the town. Many more people were killed and bodies were lying everywhere and there was a terrible smell. The rebels killed everyone they found in the town including old women, lame, deaf and all vulnerable people. And I was wounded in the upper left arm by a stray bullet of soldiers celebrating. The wound has healed and I am fine now.
It did not take long for the rebel to recaptured the town of goverment forces for a second time. And I was force to flee, this time cross the River Nile by boat to a makeshift camp across the river. This was where I got an access to go to Juba which was abit calm at the time. I am now in Juba staying in fear, not knowing where else to go.
God was speaking to you those conditions I was in in December and part of January. We spent Christmas and New Year Day on the run. I am glad for your prayers were able to lead me out of that mess. I still have hope that your prayers will continue to press political leaders to reach a peaceful solution to this crisis.
I have a live blog where I am sharing my bush experiences. You may have a look.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmediaaction/posts/Pens-down-in-South-Sudan
Share my message with the rest of the great people of Pensacola. My heart is always there with you.
Blessings
Manyang
Ghost of Christmas Past
I remember Thanksgiving. It was yesterday. The season has never gone so fast, with Thanksgiving being so close to Christmas. Taking care of my sweet little granddaughter in the afternoons was a wonderful, quiet interlude in an otherwise swirling-with-events December, complicated by AdventureMan and I both catching terrible colds and lacking energy during the middle part leading up to Christmas.
I wouldn’t pass up the babysitting part for anything. My little granddaughter is the sweetest little baby ever. If she fusses, she doesn’t fuss much, and it is easily covered by “change my diaper” or “feed me” or “I really need to sleep” or I’m bored, walk me around a little until I fall asleep” or “Now I really really need to go to sleep!” Every now and then she fools you with an “I’m too hot! Take some clothes off!” but that makes me laugh, because once you do she is so grateful she just gurgles and coos. She is also beautiful 🙂
We had a wonderful Christmas, colds gone, great houseguests, fun family times, including taking our grandson to his first Nutcracker. Just after Christmas we rushed off to a family wedding in south Florida – a horrid 13 hour drive down – so I grabbed a few Christmas photos before it all gets taken down:
Here’s what I love. We have so many decorations loaded with Christmas baggage – you know the kind. “Oh! We got those candlesticks the year we moved to Wiesbaden!” “Oh! Remember that palm tree from our CENTCOM years?” “Look! Our creche!” “Oh! Our Damascus ornaments!” It is wonderful, and it is time consuming, and with a short Christmas this year, and a lot going on, I did something I have never done before. I saw some ornaments in WalMart, I call them “bang-for-your-buck” ornaments, sparkling snowflakes and stars, 20 for $2.98.
I bought a lot. Maybe about $25 worth. A lot of twinkling little stars and snowflakes.
The tree was all silver balls and silver stars this year, with an ivory cross on top.
The stairwell was all silver snowflakes. It was magical. It was also quick and easy and inexpensive – I grinned every time I saw it.
I did pull the Nurnburg angel out; I don’t think I can do Christmas without her and she provided a pop of red against all the greenery and silver and white.
The little silver reindeer are easy; stored all together in a box that says “Early Christmas” right along with the suction cups that hold them up – if it takes me five minutes, it’s a slow year, LOL.
Zabbaleen Cave Church in Cairo
My friend Hayfa sends me the most amazing things. Her mind is another Here, There and Everywhere Kind of mind. 🙂
This article resonates with me because when we moved to Tunis, the garbage collectors would fight over our trash. I felt horrible, we had an infant, and there were diapers in the trash. 😦 Our maid would take cans and jars and especially jars with lids out of the trash, and ask if she could take them. We learned before throwing anything away to see if she wanted it first. They used, and re-used, everything. We learned to look at our consumption in a whole new way. It was one of the best things about living in an ‘alien’ community; we learned to see ourselves with different eyes.
Thank you, Hayfa, for this fascinating article.
The Cave Church of the Zabbaleen in Cairo
The Monastery of Saint Simon, also known as the Cave Church, is located in the Mokattam mountain in southeastern Cairo, Egypt, in an area that is known as ‘garbage city’ because of the large population of garbage collectors or Zabbaleen that live there. The Zabbaleen are descendants of farmers who started migrating from Upper Egypt to Cairo in the 1940s. Fleeing poor harvests and poverty they came to the city looking for work and set-up makeshift settlements around the city. Initially, they stuck to their tradition of raising pigs, goats, chickens and other animals, but eventually found collecting and sorting of waste produced by the city residents more profitable.
The Zabbaleen would sort through household garbage, salvaging and selling things of value, while the organic waste provided an excellent source of food for their animals. In fact, this arrangement worked so well, that successive waves of migrants came from Upper Egypt to live and work in the newly founded garbage villages of Cairo.
For years, the makeshift settlements of the Zabbaleen were moved around the city trying to avoid the municipal authorities. Finally, a large group of Zabbaleen settled under the cliffs of the Mokattam or Moquattam quarries at the eastern edge of the city, which has now grown from a population of 8,000 in the early 1980s, into the largest garbage collector community in Cairo, with approximately 30,000 Zabbaleen inhabitants. Egypt is a Muslim-majority country, but the Zabbaleen are Coptic Christians, at least, 90 percent of them are. Christian communities are rare to find in Egypt, so the Zabbaleen prefer to stay in Mokattam within their own religious community even though many of them could afford houses elsewhere.
The local Coptic Church in Mokattam Village was established in 1975. After the establishment of the church, the Zabbaleen felt more secure in their location and only then began to use more permanent building materials, such as stone and bricks, for their homes. Given their previous experience of eviction from Giza in 1970, the Zabbaleen had lived in temporary tin huts up till that point. In 1976, a large fire broke out in Manshiyat Nasir, which led to the beginning of the construction of the first church below the Mokattam mountain on a site of 1,000 square meters. Several more churches have been built into the caves found in Mokattam, of which the Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner is the largest with a seating capacity of 20,000. In fact, the Cave Church of St. Simon in Mokattam is the largest church in the Middle East.
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Not The Day We Expected . . .
And once again, we have to laugh at God’s perfect timing.
I love Thursdays. Thursdays are the only day I have unscheduled. Once a month on a Thursday I have a meeting, but other than that, Thursdays are mine, and I luxuriate in them.
This morning I slept in an hour, then went leisurely through my Lectionary readings and scanned my e-mail. AdventureMan had other plans, but as we talked over our day, decided he wanted to come with me to the commissary. It’s fine with me. We have always had some of our best conversations in the car, and he doesn’t follow me around in the commissary asking questions like “do we really need this?” the kinds of questions that drive wives to homicidal thinking. There are some benches in the commissary, AdventureMan calls them the Old Farts benches, and he picks up his specialty bird seeds and supplies, then settles in to watch for me coming down the last lane.
Four minutes after we left the house, we got a call from our son, tied up on a case, that little Q broke his arm on the playground, could we go pick him up? We were only about five minutes from his school and were there in a flash. AdventureMan/BaBa rode in the ambulance while I drove over to our son’s home to care for the baby while Q’s Mom zipped to meet them at the hospital emergency room.
It took all day. Between the transporting and the paperwork and the x-rays and the setting of the bones (yep, two bones broken), by the time we all met up again, I no longer had any interest in hitting the commissary. I will try again tomorrow, God willing.
Meanwhile, we marvel at how wonderful it is to be here in Pensacola, to be on call for emergencies like this, and that we were just minutes from his school when our son’s call came. We love it that we can be useful in these emergencies, that we are here to help and that we can be helpful. Once again, we thank God for his perfect timing.
Meanwhile, Mom called and gave me no sympathy whatever. She laughed! “Remember your sister broke both her arms before she was six, and you both broke legs skiing!” she chortled. Ouch! I guess little boy Q comes from a family of risk-takers. His dad broke exactly the same arm in the same place jumping to grab on to a high bar once. His son said “I thought I could fly. . . but I can’t.” It’s in the genes. :-}
My Travel Must-Have
I don’t like large handbags. I am small; a large bag is disproportionate. At the same time, I wanted a bag big enough to stick my computer in without looking like a briefcase. I wanted to be able to take my computer to Alaska with me.
I looked and looked, searching for the right bag. I looked in Pensacola, I looked online, I looked in Seattle. It had to be the right size, a nice heavy leather, a sturdy leather carry strap, and a neutral color as I was only taking one bag. Finally, at the very last minute I found this wonderful bag, and the computer fit beautifully, leaving room for my camera and wallet – what more do I need, right?
Then, me being me, the night before leaving for Alaska I decided I really did not need to carry a full sized computer, that the iPad had enough capacity and besides, it had books and Sudoku on it. But I still liked the purse; I stuck a nightshirt inside in case my luggage got lost, it has a side zip pocket for tickets, car rental brochures and car keys, and with everything inside, it was still roomy and not too heavy. It is wonderful boarding airplanes with just a purse!
By the end of the trip, I was in love. It is a great bag, goes everywhere, can be filled or used with little, it is versatile. I love this bag!
Recipe For Life
Thank you, Renee, for sending this lovely little reminder of how to lead a happy life:
Great Recipe (one of the best that you will ever read)
1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate antidepressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
Talk to God about what is going on in your life.
3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following
statement, ‘My purpose is to__________ today. I am thankful for______________’
4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
5. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild
Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.
6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
7. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, issues of the
past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead
invest your energy in the positive present moment.
8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
9. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
10. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
11. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
12. You are not so important that you have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
13. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
14. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about
.
15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
16. Frame every snowballed disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?’
17. Forgive everyone for everything.
18. What other people think of you is none of your business.
19. GOD heals everything – but you have to ask Him.
20. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
21. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your
friends will. Stay in touch!!!
22. Envy is a waste of time. You have everything you need.
23. Each night before you go to bed, complete the following statements: I am thankful for__________.
Today I accomplished_________.
24. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
25. When you are feeling down, start listing your many blessings. You’ll be smiling before you know it.
26. Send this to everyone you care about.
“);
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Here There and Everywhere 