All Alone in the Night

Every one of these cases just hits me in the gut. I think back to everyone I ever knew on active duty… I can think of a few who would be capable, but I also knew that their squad leader, their entire squad, knew it and would never let it happen. We policed our own.

After a fair courts martial and conviction, the first thing that should happen is a public ceremony where they are stripped of their rank and unit patches.

Actually, leave the punishment to the platoon and it would be far harsher than anything the courts could/would do.

At the risc of appearing culturally insensitive, the US is much more rape prone than most islamic countries (even amongst men - I've never seen much outrage at the high risc of being raped in a US prison either). Through the years after the invasion there have been several articles about the rape-risc US female troops ran - from their own troops!.

Articles like this give an interesting insight in rape as a phenomena.

If something hardly happened *before* the invasion and regularly happens *after* it is not suprising that the population thinks the invasion had something to do with it.

And about the platoon punishing their own troops; I doubt it. So far the 'band of brothers'-loyalty seems to outweight condemnation and there is much more proof of things being silenced dow by army members than the other way around. Read the articles - there are unfortunately many more to be found. If they treat American women like that, I doubt wether they will work harder for Iraqi women.

I don't want to drag abu g'hraib into it again, but if it happend there it has happened elsewhere too - and afaik there has been no rape process.

You will forgive me, dutchmarbel, if I do not take the word of Janis Karpinski for even one second on such matters? The other reports may well be correct, but Karpinski is a liar with rank.

This is not to say that such things don't happen. The case I cited yesterday serves as evidence enough for me that there are problems. And it may well be that there are fewer rapes in Arab society than U.S. society, although I didn't notice a cite for the claim. I'll also point out that in a society where the woman may be killed in order to reestablish the honor of her family, few women would have much incentive to report having been raped in Iraq.

I would like to believe that a soldier's squadmates would police themselves, but experience suggests that is rarely the case, and the military continues to struggle to find ways to make the military a safer place for women. I pointed out a few days ago that some people are prone to believe that because some rules are suspended in war, they can violate all rules, and unfortunately there are still plenty of people in the military who do not welcome female soldiers even in peacetime. The military has put a number of procedures in place to try and stop sexual assault of all kinds, as well as systems for reporting it, but I suspect that this kind of cultural change will take some time for people to really internalize the changes.

Still, I'm really not sure what your point was here, dutchmarbel. I noted in the post that the U.S.'s hands are not clean in this matter, and I am sure there are many things America still can do to ensure women have the same chances men do. But I'm curious why you seem so determined to attack the U.S. when my argument made no claims that the U.S. was innocent in this matter.

Let's put it another way: if you were given a choice of living in the United States or a peaceful Arabic country of your choice, where would you choose to live, dutchmarbel?

I don't have any cites, but I think it's been shown that ceteris paribus, dictatorships have less crime than democracies (because there's more fear of the state in general) and that strongly patriarchal societies have less crime against women than more egalitarian societies (because the subjugation of women is institutionalized). I don't think it's fair to look solely at the incidence of rape and make broad statements about that culture.

Which I guess is pretty much the point of G'Kar's last sentence.

I have never been to any Arab or Islamic nation, so I am basing this on what I have read. But isn't it a little bit improper to compare rape rates between Arab and western nations?

The definitions are entirely different.

I realize that Iraq was somewhat more secular than the rest of the Arab Middle East, but it was still primarily tribal and Islamic. In many countries in the Middle East one needs three male witnesses to find someone guilty of rape. And there is, of course, no such thing as spousal rape (admittedly it is rare to convict someone of that here as well).

I think it is amazing that you can compare rape rates between the United States and an area the views women as less than full human beings and come up with the idea that we brought rape to Iraq.

I have to admit that I am a little stunned by that. Maybe I'm missing something.

Late to answer, but we were a few days away with the family.

G'kar: would you prefer if I accompagnied any critical remark about the US with a list of things I admire about the US, or with a list of things we do badly in the Netherlands? Both list are very easy to make, but since they often don't have anything to do with the subject I don't intend to include them. However if you answer with things like 'where would you rather live' it might be a good idea since you seem to take my critisism broader than intended. I also wonder about the frequent use of my nick/name throughout your comment. It comes across rather agressively and rude - I'm not sure wether that that is intentional.

You say that I didn't have a quote about the rape comparisons (like this?) but I intended it like KenB stated, in combination with the fact that women were less likely to be in a position where rape is possible. Rape is a difficult crime - it is quite often not reported, not in our western countries either, for several reasons. Hence my link to the general article about rape.

Iraq at the moment is pretty lawless and to be honest women rights have deteriorated at a terrible rate since the invasion. And more and more rape stories have emerged - without many trials and convictions. Hence the 'own troops' remarks, and the Abu Gh'raib link - I googled the first articles I found because I knew I read a lot about it at the time. Being female might make me more alert to those kind of stories; you tend to empathize with the women. Which might also be why I read Riverbend diffent from you; I've followed her blog since start, from the first time she wanted to go back to work to find that women weren't allowed anymore...

dutchmarbel,

To address your points in no particular order: I often write my responses in pieces, so I ended up using your name multiple times because they were parts of different responses. No offense or aggression was intended, I just don't edit the comments when I'm done.

No, I don't expect you to say anything nice about the U.S. at all. But when you make a claim that implies that the U.S. is a worse place for women than men, I feel justfied in challenging you on that.

I said more rape prone, even for men. That's not the same as 'the US is a worse place for women than men'.

Though *if* I said the latter it would actually be true - only the difference is very small compared to Islamic countries.

I said that rape is a rotten crime that is not depending on women rights or how equal the position of women in society is. If that was true we should have higher incidents than you, since the past decade or so the Netherlands went from horrible to average on most women lib issues (not our strongest suit as a society).

Iraq is currently a pretty lawless state, all crime has gone up afaik and chances of getting caught are minimal. The randomness of the violence makes life for the population very hard. I think that has more to do with it than the decline in women rights.

That should have read that 'the U.S. is a worse place for women than Iraq.' Not sure where my head was when I was writing that; clearly the U.S. is by most measures of which I am aware a worse place for women than for men. Unfortunately, I do not know if there is anywhere on Earth where that is not the case at the moment. We have some distance to travel, I think, before we can hope for real equality, and I would bet that any such equality that is achieved will be fragile. I do not know how to overcome that.

I do not know how to overcome that

*sigh*
Me neither... But it helps to not just look at what you want to achieve, but also at what is allready achieved.

Problem is also that there are a lot of culture differences that make it hard to compare equal rights. Opportunity to study is good - but Afghanistan forbids girls from going to school whilst Iran has the highest percentage of female professors at university (and 65% of students are female). Economic independence is good, but the Dutch do not score high in that area (we are world champions in part-time ;) ). But for us making sure fathers have enough time to be an involved parents is an important part of equalizing society (they work part-time less often than the women but still more than elsewhere) whilst in the US (a.o.) that is not an important issue at all.

But that, of course, is a completely different discussion. Though one of the things that infuriates me is that women rights are frequently given as one of the motivations (or pleasant side effects) for all the 'forced change' of the US invasions. I often get told about the improvement of women rights in Afghanistan - but I hardly ever see people comment about the detoriation of women rights in Iraq the last 4 years.