The NYTimes is out with a story today regarding the "dozens of servicewomen in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere saying they were sexually assaulted or raped by fellow troops." There was a Congressional hearing on the subject on Wednesday that according the story was heated with both Democrats and Republicans blasting the Pentagon. Read the story
here
I am not surprised by this epidemic of rapes in the Persion Gulf. I lived in the Persion Gulf countries and it is not the place to be if you are a single, Western man, in your 20s and 30s. Unlike, say Korea, Japan or Europe, the Middle East is a place where the local female population are for the most part unavailable as dating partners and where the servicemen are typically confined to their bases. You combine this with the stresses of war and being deployed for months (years in some cases) and, while still shocked that it happened, I am not surprised. Take Kuwait, for example, prior to the build up to war, the US army camp at Doha housed about 5,000 soldiers who were typically on 90-day deployments - it is by all acounts a hard-ship posting - so they keep the deployment short. Now, we have 10s of thousands of soldiers in that theatre for much longer periods of time.
The Pentagon is of course at fault for not taking these factors into consideration in planning and enforcing protective measures for our servicewomen in the Persian Gulf/Iraq/Afghanistan, and this seemed to be the thrust of the Committee's criticism in today's hearing.
Another by-product of our DoD and their total inability to do something about the culture of sexual violence in the military and the short-signtedness in planning for what should be a very obvious concern. We aren't talking about a handful of incidents - we are talking DOZENS of incidents!!!