With the recent media coverage of the Navy sexual assaults and hazings (click HERE) and the perpetrators going virtually unpunished, it is no wonder that rape and assaults are such a problem at DoD bases Iraq and Afghanistan. It would appear the DoD has the old “boys will be boys” mind set!
Senator Bill Nelson(D-FL) noted that the Defense Department, which has reported 742 sexual assaults against soldiers and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, has claimed that it was unable to prosecute cases involving civilians–like defense contractor employees–until recently. (Even among those cases where it clearly had jurisdiction, a close look at the DoD’s own stats reveals a far from stellar record: among the 684 sexual assault complaints lodged by US soldiers in the Middle East, only eighty-three cases have led to courts-martial. Meanwhile, last year alone, 2,688 sexual assaults were reported globally against women serving in the US Armed Forces; disposition of these cases is pending.)
Obviously, US military contractors have an interest in avoiding the bad publicity that would follow if these complaints were not kept secret. With huge sums hanging in the balance–KBR has an estimated $16 billion in contracts–the stakes are high.
But such a financial incentive cannot explain why the Justice Department has failed to act. Although it has the authority to pursue criminal cases involving US military contractor employees, it has hemmed and hawed over even the tiny fraction of cases that have made their way through the maze of obstacles to land in the Justice Department’s offices. Grilling Justice about these twenty-four civilian sexual assault cases, Senator Nelson demanded to know exactly how many cases Justice was pursuing–and whether there had been a single conviction. “I don’t know of any convictions for sexual assault,” admitted Sigal Mandelker, deputy assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. But, she stammered, “we do have active investigations…somewhere about…somewhere upwards of…somewhere between four and six, I believe is the number.”
And all too often, they go largely ignored by the media, as with the case of Pfc. LaVena Johnson.
In July 2005, 19-year-old Johnson became the first female soldier from Missouri to die in Iraq. She was found with a broken nose, black eye and loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals, presumably to eliminate DNA evidence of rape, a trail of blood leading away from her tent and a bullet hole in her head. Unbelievably, that’s not the most horrifying part of the story. Here’s what is: Army investigators ruled her death a suicide.
– the LaVena Johnson case has rarely been noted. And sadly, it is far from unique. In a story in the New Zealand Herald on Wednesday, Tracey Barnett writes, “[LaVena's father] John Johnson has discovered far more stories that have matched his daughter’s than he ever wanted to know. Ten other families of ‘suicide’ female soldiers have contacted him. The common thread among them — rape.”
Army Pfc. Tina Priest, who was raped at Taji, Iraq, and found dead 10 days later of a gunshot wound.
Army Spc. Suzanne Swift, who had been raped in Iraq, Swift’s case was closed, her rapist had not been prosecuted, and Swift ended up with a court-martial and 30 days of jail time because she had gone AWOL for her own protection when the Army would not move her out of the unit to which both she and her rapist were still assigned.
The September 4, 2006 death at Camp Taji of Pfc. Hannah Gunterman McKinney Ft. Lewis, WA was investigated and rather than having been run over by a military vehicle as she crossed a road from a guard tower to the latrine as initially claimed by the Army, she fell or was pushed from and run over by a vehicle driven by a drunk Sergeant from her unit who had first sexually assaulted her.
For the complete list of women that have died and there is a surprising number of non-combat\non-hostile action related deaths that their family members have been stonewalled by the DoD and not given satisfactory answers Afghanistan and Iraq
Male on Male Sexual Harassment
Allegedly , “on at least one occasion, Jesse Elizondo rubbed his groin on Thomas’ desk, and said, ‘You know what I’m doing, I’m rubbing myself on your desk,’” claims the lawsuit, filed December 29, 2008 in Houston federal court. Other alleged incidents include the threats of “sticky surprises” in Thomas’s work area and pictures of another man’s testicles on Thomas’s digital camera. The employee also used a black marker to write that he “Fucking Rules” on the camera’s memory stick, according to the lawsuit.
Even Heather was speechless:
KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne also got back with Hair Balls, issuing a no comment.
Hearings
Rep. John Tierney, chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, angrily dismissed Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Michael Dominguez from the hearing when Dominguez said that he, the DoD chief of legislative affairs and the chief of public affairs, had ordered Dr. Kaye Whitley, chief of SAPRO, to refuse to honor the subpoena issued by the subcommittee for her appearance.
Rep. Shays said he had no confidence in DoD or the military services and their policies of prevention of sexual assault, and asked how recruiting will fare when young women learn that ONE IN THREE WOMEN are sexually assaulted and when young men find out that ONE IN TEN MEN are raped while in the military.
Although the allegations and the photos of the Embassy in Afghanistan document events that are disgusting and moronic, they do not represent the worst that has happened to soldiers and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, at the hands of their co-workers and supervisors. Hopefully this is not just a diversion tactic to deflect attention from the alleged criminal activities that seem to go unchallenged with no repercussions, for the perpetrators. I do have to wonder if KBR’s attitude toward the women that have come forward with complaints has something to do with the Retired General’s Club and their lack of knowledge of proper corporate conduct. They need to realize that these alleged crimes are not a mere inconvenience and that they need to be delt with and the perpetrators need to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law – end of story.
There must be a huge carpet in Washington DC, to hold all of the crap that has been swept under it and apparently will continue to be swept under it. The irony here is that we are allegedly saving nations and their people from tyrants that abuse their citizens using these very tactics to control and silence them. KBR et al., I am sure Saddam is looking down, or up, at you with pride and admiration at your accomplishments while on the US taxpayer’s dole.
Ms Sparky
The Military not only recognizes there is a problem they even have an acronym for it–
Known in the ranks as MST, military sexual trauma is another factor homeless advocates point to as a possible cause for PTSD.
Here the link to the article that came out today:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/09/25/homeless.veterans/index.html