The Pentagon has issued a flawed report on sexual assault

Submitted by Mastodon on Thu, 2014-03-20 23:40

Article here. Excerpt:

'Citing a non-scientific survey of sexual assault in the military, the Pentagon issued a flawed report, which claimed that 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted last year. Panicked prosecutors and military leaders have responded by initiating some of the most preposterous prosecutions we have seen since the tide of false sex abuse allegations on college campuses reached its height a decade ago.

Promoting the panic in Congress, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York demanded that the military chain of command be replaced with civilian legal processes in cases of sexual harassment and assault. Claiming that the military leadership is unable to deal with issues of “violence and power,” Ms. Gillibrand sent a powerful message to military leaders that convictions are necessary — and the “good soldier” defense is dead.

Although the Gillibrand bill has been stymied, the panic persists. Most recently caught up in its effects is Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair. Facing life in prison if he had been convicted, Gen. Sinclair had been charged with sexual assault, sodomy, having public sex and abusing his government credit card in pursuit of a three-year sexual affair with the same female officer who accused him of sexual assault.

In a military courtroom at Fort Bragg, N.C., last week, the accuser tearfully testified that she continued to have sex with the general for two years after she says he threatened to kill her. Gen. Sinclair maintained that the accuser was angry because he refused to leave his wife. Her private journal confirmed this. In an attempt to avoid the life sentence that is a real possibility in any moral panic, Gen. Sinclair pleaded guilty to adultery and lesser charges.
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Politics always plays the pivotal role in any moral panic. Exaggerated claims by advocates like Ms. Gillibrand and her date-rape industry supporters are coupled with incendiary headlines in the media. Promoting the panic, the New York Times editorialized that the sexual assaults are the result of the “military’s entrenched culture of sexual violence.”
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It is likely that this moral panic will continue to grow as the sexual assault-industry will help to create an unending supply of female victims in the military. There will always be soldiers behaving badly — but instead of receiving the message of strength and independence that the military has always promised, women in the military will be reminded of their fragility and vulnerability.'

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Comments

Back then it was communism. Today it's sexual assaultism. Gillibrand is the Congressional inquisitor-in-chief of today as McCarthy was of yesteryear. And as back then, there are today the myopic cyclopses of sexual assault obsessive panic and paranoia on college campuses as there were for communism back in the '50s.

Well, cannot feminists claim to have reached a long-pursued goal? They have reached parity with men in that one of their own is as capable of leading destructive ideological and persecutory campaigns as any paranoid ideologue who happens to have a penis.

I'd say "You've come a long way, baby!", except for three things: 1) It's probably trademarked, but I'm not saying it in an ad or to sell something, so there's probably no legal issue anyway, and 2) I'd hate to enlist a slogan associated with *%#^ing cigarette smoking, but most importantly, 3) No, this is not an example of "coming a long way"; it's an example of acting like a Salem witch trial prosecutor* or Joe McCarthy (yet also a senator).

[ * Far more men were executed by hanging for withcraft during that time than were women, since the accusations were used as ways of stealing unpopular neighbors' land more than anything else; any land owned by the convict was given to the accuser as a "reward". ]

I sincerely wish Sen. Gillibrand would get a job somewhere where she can't mess up other people's lives but still be useful, and have the occupation be therapeutic for her. Maybe stuffing envelopes at home. Low-intensity work, makes her own hours, etc. And, she really doesn't need the money from her Senate gig. Her family of origin is tres riche, as they say in France, and Mr. G is also loaded. (Read her Wikipedia entry. Talk about your I-don't-care-who's-paying-me politicians! You'd think she has to read the paper/iPhone so she knows which face to put on.)

Another wealthy person in the US Senate who'll take $ from anyone! Imagine that!

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2014-03-21 03:59