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At any given time there are 1,500,000 individuals enlisted in one of the branches of the U.S. military, 15% of which are women. That's one million and five hundred thousand people enlisted in the institution set up to protect American freedoms from outside aggression. This institution instills values and beliefs that will be carried by those very same men and women for the rest of their lives, even after service, when they attempt to reintegrate into civilian life.
That's why it's so worrisome that our military has become one of the largest national incubators for implicitly sanctioned rape and sexual assault. By allowing our military to slack in the disciplining of sexual assault crimes, we are creating a culture of impunity, where perpetrators of rape and sexual assault escape punishment, and their victims are denied justice. These perpetrators of sexual assault are then free to return to civilian life. That's right, they're free to then visit your neighborhood, your jogging route, your favorite local bar, anywhere. We know our enemy, and it is within.
one in three women who join the US military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. The warnings to women should begin above the doors of the military recruiting stations, as that is where assaults on women in the military begins — before they are even recruited.
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Even as women distinguish themselves in battle alongside men, they're fighting off sexual assault and harassment. It's not a new consequence of war. But the sheer number of women serving today - more than 190,000 so far in Iraq and Afghanistan - is forcing the military and Department of Veterans Affairs to more aggressively address it...
Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma, The Associated Press has learned. That means they indicated that while on active duty they were sexually assaulted, raped, or were sexually harassed, receiving repeated unsolicited verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature...
In the fiscal year that ended Oct. 1, 131 rapes and assaults were reported in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Kaye Whitley, director of the Defense Department's sexual assault prevention and response office. Comparing that to previous years isn't possible because of changes in the way data was collected, she said.
The actual number is likely higher than what's reported. Among members of the military surveyed in 2006 who indicated they had experienced unwanted sexual contact, about 20 percent said they had reported it to an authority or organization.
Anyone, from army generals to anti-militarism activists should have stopping sexual assault in the military as a top priority for exactly one reason: Rape culture in the military is seeping into civilian society, making it even harder to fight rape against civilians in the U.S.:
"Feminists have pointed out how the military nurtures a culture of sexual violence and misogyny linked to the abuse of women in occupied countries and countries with U.S. bases - as well as the abuse of women in U.S. prisons, and the high rates of rape in U.S. cities with military bases. Phoebe Jones of Global Women's Strike and Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (STAAAMP) explains:
"It's all connected... You have prison guards here, like Charles Grainer [implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal], who go to Iraq and abuse people there. Then you have soldiers come back from Iraq or Afghanistan getting jobs as prison guards, and they rape and abuse people. The military could stop it if they want to, but they don't want to. They're socializing men into doing this." Prison torture in Abu Ghraib was outsourced to U.S. companies using personnel from domestic prisons. Of course, outside the prison-military complex which Jones begins to outline, the impact of rape culture nurtured by the military can be traced through U.S. society further..."
I'm going to let the links speak for themselves tonight.
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Author's Note: My name is Travis Ballie. My area of activism centers particularly around queer activism. My goal is to write diaries on DailyKos as a regular update concerning issues facing the queer community and occasionally other issues dealing with race, gender and class. I sincerely hope to gain a readership base of committed LGBT activists and our supporters. Such a base will only enhance DailyKos and provoke greater thought. Just as a note, I may use terms like gay, lesbian, bisexual transgender (GLBT) or queer (a substitute for GLBT).