Comments on: Let me guess: don't ask, don't tell?

Let me guess: don't ask, don't tell?

magullo — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 07:56:06 -0800

"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.

By: matteo

matteo — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:07:13 -0800

the FP link requires registration this one doesn't

By: psmealey

psmealey — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:37:30 -0800

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?

By: matteo

matteo — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:47:31 -0800

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

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:56:32 -0800

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?

By: roboto

roboto — Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:54:04 -0800

here's the original NYTimes Google link