Let me guess: don't ask, don't tell?
February 26, 2004 7:56 AM Subscribe
"No war comes without cost, but the cost should be born out of conflict with the enemy, and not because of egregious violations by some of our own troops"
Dozens of American servicewomen serving in the Gulf, Afghanistan and other regions report sexual misconduct, assaults and rapes by their colleagues.
Dozens of American servicewomen serving in the Gulf, Afghanistan and other regions report sexual misconduct, assaults and rapes by their colleagues.
In an effort to blunt criticism that the defense officials were not doing enough to address the issue, the Pentagon moved up the release of a Congressionally mandated survey conducted in 2002 — a period before most of the latest rash of complaints occurred — that found that the number of servicewomen who said they had been sexually assaulted had declined to 3 percent from 6 percent in 1995, when the last survey was taken.
In a system where professionalism, discipline and self-control are demanded of its consituents, most of whom should have been screened for abhorrent, anti-social or psychotic tendencies, any sexual assault "rate" greater than 0 should be considered unacceptable. Is this hopelessly naïve to think this?
posted by psmealey at 8:37 AM on February 26, 2004
In a system where professionalism, discipline and self-control are demanded of its consituents, most of whom should have been screened for abhorrent, anti-social or psychotic tendencies, any sexual assault "rate" greater than 0 should be considered unacceptable. Is this hopelessly naïve to think this?
posted by psmealey at 8:37 AM on February 26, 2004
Is this hopelessly naïve
We watch again the ragged, tired, burnt-out fighters walking through the villes and the pretty native women smiling because if they don't smile, the fighters might kill their pigs or burn their cache of rice. We rewind the rape scenes when American soldiers return from the bush after killing many VC to sip cool beers in a thatch bar while whores sit on their laps for a song or two (a song from the fifties when America was still sweet) before they retire to rooms and fuck the whores sweetly. The American boys, brutal, young farm boys or tough city boys, sweetly fuck the whores. Yes, somehow the films convince us that these boys are sweet, even though we know we are much like these boys and that we are no longer sweet.
...
because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroking his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his real First Fuck. It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar - the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.
Jarhead
A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
By Anthony Swofford
posted by matteo at 8:47 AM on February 26, 2004
We watch again the ragged, tired, burnt-out fighters walking through the villes and the pretty native women smiling because if they don't smile, the fighters might kill their pigs or burn their cache of rice. We rewind the rape scenes when American soldiers return from the bush after killing many VC to sip cool beers in a thatch bar while whores sit on their laps for a song or two (a song from the fifties when America was still sweet) before they retire to rooms and fuck the whores sweetly. The American boys, brutal, young farm boys or tough city boys, sweetly fuck the whores. Yes, somehow the films convince us that these boys are sweet, even though we know we are much like these boys and that we are no longer sweet.
...
because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man; with film you are stroking his cock, tickling his balls with the pink feather of history, getting him ready for his real First Fuck. It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are antiwar - the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.
Jarhead
A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
By Anthony Swofford
posted by matteo at 8:47 AM on February 26, 2004
most of whom should have been screened for abhorrent, anti-social or psychotic tendencies,
Firstly, most of whom?
Secondly, how are they screened, and given that they then have their individualities stripped away and are trained to kill how relevant is this screening?
posted by biffa at 8:56 AM on February 26, 2004
Firstly, most of whom?
Secondly, how are they screened, and given that they then have their individualities stripped away and are trained to kill how relevant is this screening?
posted by biffa at 8:56 AM on February 26, 2004
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this one doesn't
posted by matteo at 8:07 AM on February 26, 2004