 |  |
 
October 2012
August 2012 July 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
     |
 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! February 6, 2006 Death Before DishonorBy GreyhawkThe latest Iraq war urban legend: Several female service members have died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day due to fear of being raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark. This is absurd for countless reasons - the most obvious being that death by dehydration takes a little longer than a couple hours without fluids, even in the hottest conditions. But this fabrication has an interesting source: Col. Janis Karpinski, former commander of the unit responsible for torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. And she's found a sympathetic forum in which to tell the story: The "Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration" - a mock trial sponsored by "Not in Our Name", a group originally founded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party to protest the US-led war in Afghanistan. Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.If you're still reading, that's good - you didn't smash your computer screen in anger. Now let's take this apart. Like any other urban legend, this one has it's basis in truth. Dark? Few lights? - True. Light tends to help terrorists aim mortars. Latrines are located away from sleeping quarters - also true. In 120 degree heat you don't want to sleep next to the latrine. And there are health concerns beyond the unpleasant (to all but the flies) smell. But this means that when nature calls, you must walk. And if nature calls in the middle of the night, you get out of your bunk, don all your gear (including Kevlar and armor, depending on the threat level) and take a moonlight stroll. There are a couple ways to avoid this. One is the (forbidden) empty widemouth Gatorade bottle by the bed (hopefully capped and disposed of daily. This solution doesn't work as well for females. The other is one I used myself - stop drinking after a certain hour, depending on sleep cycle and workload. Having used this method myself I can testify that I never once died of dehydration in my sleep while I was in Iraq. But Colonel Karpinski testifies that not only did this happen, but that it was covered up by the Army: For example, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Sanchez's top deputy in Iraq, saw "dehydration" listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, he directed that the cause of death no longer be listed, Karpinski stated. The official explanation for this was to protect the women's privacy rights.Note that a plausible cause of death - heat stroke - is not cited here. The very specific "dehydration" is. According to this rather grim article in the Annals of Internal Medicine, it takes "several days to a few weeks for death to occur by this means" - if no liquid is ingested at all. At some point prior to that time, someone would have noticed the individual's deteriorating condition and complete inability to function. Note also the victim described above. A Master Sergeant is an E8 - one rank short of the highest possible rank an enlisted member can achieve. To reach that requires skill, intelligence, desire, ability, and knowledge of "the system" - plus significant time in service. Further, those grades are limited by law to just 3% of the entire enlisted force - the "top 3 percent". To believe Karpinski's account you must accept that a mature individual who had achieved a place of great significance and responsibility in the US military had foregone all fluids for several days without anyone noticing her failing health before her death - because she was afraid of being raped on her way to the latrine at night. And oh by the way, she also had either an M16 or a 9mm at her disposal. Which brings us to allegations of rape. Let's establish this point right now: rape is serious business. But Karpinski's account diminishes this to absurdity and robs legitimate victims of credibility. Fortunately, the Department of Defense has a very determined and aggressive policy against sexual assault, and a zero tolerance policy for predators. No military unit could maintain cohesion and be able to function with a "see no evil" approach to such crime within the ranks. We are talking about people who often must depend on one another completely in order to have any chance to survive. While individual predators can indeed exist within this society - as they can in any - for obvious reasons those discovered are dealt with quickly and severely within the confines of the law. But therein lies yet another element of truth in this myth. There has been at least one unit where discipline had broken down to the point where stories of such behavior become plausible - and that unit was commanded by then-General Janis Karpinski, the highest ranking individual to be punished for the crimes at Abu Ghraib. Relieved of command and reduced in rank, her own defense in the subsequent months has been that while everyone above her in rank knew what everyone below her in rank was doing, she had been kept in the dark. She launched her strongest assaults on those above her - and this case is no different: Sanchez's attitude was: "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory," Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told me that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did. She thinks it likely that when the information about the cause of these women's deaths was passed to the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld ordered that the details not be released. "That's how Rumsfeld works," she said.One could almost feel pity for someone who has fallen this low. But her accusations have now sunk to a level of absurdity that bring additional discredit to any previous actions, statements, or accusations she's ever made - not to mention a tremendous discredit to the United States military. And while no one capable of a few minutes of coherent thought could possibly consider such fables as truth, we live in a world where cartoons spark riots and a hit film describes how US soldiers bring prisoners to a Jewish doctor to harvest their organs at Abu Ghraib. And even in the US considerable numbers of people desperately want to "believe". Update Tony B notes another small problem with Karpinski's story: No female master sergeants have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Why it matters: Because the Left believes what they're told to believe. Random Lefty blog response via technorati: Female soldiers in Iraq are having to make an impossible choice: Risk being raped , or risk dying of dehydration. Many of them have ended up dead. Nicole in London: Tales of Los Angeles Expat If I get one comment from ANYONE saying that this proves that women don't belong in the army. . . Grrrrrr.The "American Constitution Society" blog: Female soldiers' fear of being raped is not a new phenomenon; indeed, the problem has become so severe that the Army has established its own sexual assault website.supercrisp (who lists his Industry as "Education"): Having said all that, Sanchez has a point. If women want to join the army, let them. But it’s like joining a gang. You’re always going to be someone’s bitch, doubly so if you’re a woman. I mean, what do you expect from an organization of killers? Murder is something society works hard to eliminate in all of us, except in certain sanctioned areas of killing. There, with the loosening of stricture against slaughter, all mores are loosened. And, remember, we’re talking about people who haven not been well acculturated in the first place because they find the army their best alternative. Rape and pillage do not follow armies; they are of the nature of armies, despite America’s fantasies about its greatest generations.Kathy Kattenburg ("a future New York City English teacher"): So the attitude of the senior military commander for U.S. forces in Iraq about the rape of female American soldiers by men who are supposed to be their comrades, their buddies, their fellow soldiers, on the same side of this ghastly war, is no different from the attitude of the Taliban toward women: They wanted to cast off the burka [go to Iraq]; they wanted to go outside unaccompanied by a man [fight alongside men], go to school, have a job [go where they don't belong] -- now let them take what comes with the territory."L-Girl" is "american by birth, canadian by choice": Of all the hypocrisy and lies perpetrated by the US government, for me the worst, the absolute lowest, is the shameful treatment of the armed forces. Lie to these people, betray their trust, cut off their options so the military is one of the only ways to get an education, use them for propaganda - then spit them out. Cut funding for the ongoing medical treatment they'll need long after their dues have been paid, give their families only partial benefits because they were reservists, deny them even proper protection in combat - it's a long list.Guess she never used the military "to get an education". Naturally, the US government is doing everything it can to cover it up. I guess "General Washington" must be military: How the hell do you allow the cover-up of something like this? What rationale do you use to cover-up women soldiers not drinking fluids - and dying from dehydration - just so they don't have to risk being raped? Who the hell would allow such a cover-up to go forward?Or maybe not. Now, considering that (a) most soldiers don't have reliable access to a phone, and that (b) statistics have shown that only one in ten rapes gets reported, one could easily extrapolate that there over 1,500 rapes per year being forced upon our female soldiers. I propose the following theory: Regardless of the number of individuals in the group, the combined IQ of people who believe this story will never exceed 10. With that, I'll close by stealing the closing line used on every post from Iraq by fellow milblogger/Iraq vet Phil: "Be safe - drink water" Posted by Greyhawk / February 6, 2006 8:00 PM | Permalink 5 TrackBacksGreyhawk over at Mudville Gazette tells us about an interesting story that is no doubt supposed to make us even more upset about the war: The latest Iraq war urban legend: Several female service members have died of dehydration because they refused to... Read More I never met Janice Karpinski myself, although I formerly granted her the honorific BG, or COL on this blog. Let’s just say I had my reservations about the lady woman since I read about her petty shoplifiting offense. This, though, is out of fu... Read More Lets go with some facts Read More ....how things could have gone so wrong at Abu Ghraib, the story of former General, now Colonel Janis Karpinski's fall from grace is instructive. Here is a woman who had... Read More Col. Janis Karpinski, the one-time general whose supervisorial failures were revealed to the world when the infamous Abu Ghraib photos came out, is making the anti-Iraq War rounds peddling a new lie. Several female service members have died of dehydrat... Read More 37 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
Comments (0) |
|
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
General ... excuse me, Colonel Karpinski is a perfect example of a person who does not accept responsibility for his or her own actions (and lack of) and continually tries to put the blame on someone or anyone else. In joining up with communists and the like such as NION, she couldn’t fall any further unless she actually joined the enemy in combat operations.
According to the www.icasualties.org
No female Master Sgt's died in '03 during OIF.
In Sept '03, Specialist Alyssa Peterson died of a non-hostile gunshot wound in Talafar. No other female deaths occurred.
In fact, there are no Female Master Seargents listed in the casualty database of OIF, 22 Male Master Sergeants are lists
Who is this woman who disgraces the US military?
Her comments are unforgivable as far as I'm concerned. I know my uncle, who is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, and my grandfather, who's a retired Army Major and buried in Arlington Cemetery by the way, would be even more outraged.
She should be dismissed from the US Military for spreading such lies.
As a military spouse for 30 years of an E9/CWO3, former Command Master Chief, I have spent my share of time around E7, E8, and E9 rated women. Frankly, I wouldn't want to surprise any of them in the dark and I would not want to be a man who tried to attack or rape one of them either, whether another enlisted or an officer. Forget being battled hardened, they made it through boot camp. These are not demure little wall flowers, these are hard, tough broads who don't take "crap" off anyone, least of all some sneaking sexual predator. The guy, if he lived, would be up on charges so fast and his butt would be in the brig and his discharge would say, "dishonorable." The operative words being, "if he lived."
I had some sympathies for General Karpinski when the Abu Graib scandal first broke, but only a few minutes of listening to her, showed me that she is everything that gives women in leadership a bad name.
Wasn't this occurring under her command? Maybe she should have been a leader and if it was true (which I highly doubt) she could have implemented a "buddy" policy after dark. That "brilliant" idea took me about three seconds to come up with, and would have taken two minutes to tell my NCO's and have it implemented.
Not surprising she shuns responsibility. She is a discrace to the uniform she wears, and seems to be the type that will put her own career and reputation before the lives and welfare of her soldiers. Worst possible combination for a leader. Period.
One quick phrase comes to mind ... She has hit bottom, and started digging.
Can she not be brought up on charges for this???
You had to know this woman was a damn liar from the time the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. She spent most of her time in Kuwait, not Iraq. She's a damn liar and a pitiful human being at that.
My first thought reading this was, these women have guns, who is going to try to jump them. Second thought was, that is totally ridiculous, it would be like some guy I work with every day going after me in the parking lot. Now I'm sure that it happens occasionally where a woman is raped by a co-worker, but that is definitely not the normal every day turn of events. Does Karpinski actually believe what she is saying? Is she mentally ill? How can she think that the facts will bear up her story otherwise?
I first heard this last week while tuning in the Moonbat Channel, aka, Air America. It was brought up and backed up by Gen, uh, Col Karpinski's statements. Wait a minute, after Abu Grahib these same asshats wanted her scalp. NOW she has unlimited moral authority, like Cindy Icraponmysonsgrave Sheehan? The "I hate Bush first and foremost, now what is the issue?" crowd are like dogs slopping up thier own vomit.
I did hear, tho, that Gen Sanchez is a bit of a goof at times. Apparently he issued orders that everyone in vehicles must wear seatbelts after someone dies in a vehicle accident. Nice idea here in Seattle, but not in a war zone if you have to unass the vehicle right figgin' NOW when the bullets fly.
"Tony B notes...no female master sergeants have died in OIF".
AHA! See the cover-up goes to the point of completly erasing any evidence of this Sergeant's death. Karpinski's testimony is now proved!
I call Bullshit on Ms Karpinski. I was there in a line unit under command of the 800th MP BDE when she became the CO. She had a sizeable rear det in Kuwait and was there alot. She was in the dark because she made no effort to know what was going on in her command. I saw her 3 times in 12 months while there. Once in Karbala and twice at Abu Ghuraib. THe 16th out of Bragg took over from the 800th in January and we saw that CO at least once a week.
It's not unusual for people who feel tremendous guilt, to disassociate from realty, and relieve themselves from guilt by entering an "alternative reality".
I feel sorry for the Karpinki's and Sheehan's. They need professional help to deal with their grief and guilt. Instead, they will spend the rest of their lives finding someone else to blame.
Yeah, the BS meter is dinging on this one....
Speaking as a liberated American female I consider Karpinki to be another fine example exposing the failure of purple-hazed Marxist feminism, a movement based completely on the female's ability to use lies as the means achieve emotional blackmail. From Ms Betty down the line such radical feminist based their platforms entirely upon BS.
(The bright side to all this is that because feminists have manipulated and distorted for so long now they have ruined Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions.)
Karpinski names one [phantom] MSgt and suddently we see, "MANY of them have ended up dead." Fiction becomes pure fantasy.
Is this woman {Karpinski] still serving? I assume her command is aware? Is this not the clearest case of "conduct unbecoming"? It is in my book -- and possibly treasonous since she seems to be attempting to affect the morale and well-being of the troops who are serving in a war zone... our very own Tokyo Rose?
I too am leaning toward thinking this woman has lost her mind. The spew she is spewing could be so easily believed by far left idiots who never have, and never will serve. As I was reading this, at first, I was getting really pissed off, then my rage turned slowly into sadness for an obviously half-sane woman who has lost touch with whom she is, where she's been, and what she's seen. Now it is time for her to be removed from her military service; she obviously doesn't have what it takes to lead anymore.
Here's a scary thought: this person was a general officer in the US Army. How in hell did that happen?
And are there more high-ranking crazed weasels floating around, needing only the pressure of a bit of bad publicity to display their crazed weaselhood in a manner calculated to do the greatest damage?
I mean, I was upset enough that someone like Graner reached noncom rank without anyone noticing he was a sadist with no self-control, but he was only a corporal. Karpinski was a general.
I've taken several bloggers to task for passing on this garbage. Not one of them so far has produced a shred of evidence of this other than Karpinski's testimony and the casualty records make it look pretty far-fetched. To believe it you'd need to believe in a conspiracy of enormous breadth—too broad to keep it as tight a secret as it apparently would have to be.
Frankly, I don't understand the mentality that would allow people to promote enemy propaganda like this.
I don't see how you can die from dehydration overnight. It took Terri Schiavo two weeks, and she wasn't in the physical condition you'd expect a soldier to be in.
i usually don't post comments on nutjob lefty blogs (cuz really, what's the point?) but this is too much. now you've got me going to all the sites you linked to and leaving really nasty comments.
damn you.
seriously, how can people who consider themselves so smart be so stupid? or maybe the better question is how can people so stupid consider themselves so smart??
The cure seems simple enough: Recall Colonel, formerly General, Karpinski to active duty and court martial her.
a) If no soldiers died of dehydration during her time in command; particularly if there were no rapes at Abu Ghraib during that time, she can be convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer under Article 133 of the UCMJ for her lies in front of this so-called "Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration".
b) If rapes or deaths from dehydration did take place on her watch, however unlikely that may seem, she can be convicted under Article 92(3) for having been derelict in the performance of her duties.
There is no point letting this go by. Forbearance only allows the lie to become urban legend, which will be retold over and over again as a rallying cry on the angry left.
"And are there more high-ranking crazed weasels floating around, needing only the pressure of a bit of bad publicity to display their crazed weaselhood in a manner calculated to do the greatest damage?"
Wesley Clarke?
Dave and Ender, I know exactly what you mean. When I first caught wind of this yesterday I was running around to every leftist site that was trumpeting this story saying the same thing. To believe any part of this requires you to not think at all. The story was so ludicrous I barely knew where to start. I was SO happy when I saw this posted on this site.
Greyhawk, thanks for the link by the way.
I guess the left really doesn't understand how people work, and they especially don't get military culture. Any unit I was ever in with women, especially in combat zones, the women were considered sisters, just as my fellow male troops were brothers. A squad is a family, a platoon is a bigger family, and your battalion, regiment and division were ethnic affiliations. The general rule was, and I'm sure still is, you do not f*** with my family because there will be retribution, guaranteed, and if you trifle with me on that "ethnic" basis, well, we might go just for the hell of it. You really can tell that the left has never served, or they would understand this.
It's also pretty amazing that Karpinski is peddling that line - what Army did she serve in? Had anybody raped one of my "sisters"... well, I won't make idle talk here because it never happened, so anything I can say would be conjecture. Knowing the units I served in, I can state with some certainty that my squad or platoon, at an informal level, would probably have imposed some pretty severe sanctions on the offender. And in all likelihood the Topkick would have inquired discretely with the NCO's concerning the situation, to ensure no injustices were going unpunished - New Army, or not. CID would probably be moving pretty quickly to get such an offender out of his unit, before the vengeful "brothers" caught up with him.
Guys still serving in mixed units - do you feel the same way about your distaff battle buddies?
I went prowling to the lefty links you had on this story. On the bright side most of the comments poked holes in the story. Of course, most started with the disclaimer "I'm no fan of Bush......."
I posted earlier today and came back to see if other agreed or disagreed that this whole story is a piece of crap. I see that quite a few are asking why or what makes Karpinski spew this garbage.
At the risk of bringing the wrath of the entire feminist movement down on me, I offer this ... many women of questionable sexual priorities have the concrete opinion that ALL men are a rape waiting to happen. I'm trying to be diplomatic since I know nothing of Karpinski's personal life, but I have known a few women "old timers" - those who have made it to the top in the military before the women's movement. Without exception, they all think in these terms, although I doubt few would admit it publicly.
Let's just assume this is correct -- and it isn't.
The left regularly trots out rape statistics to show how vicitmized women are. Let's look at those statistics and see how vulnerable women are in the military.
Among college students nationwide, between 20% and 25% of women reported experiencing completed or attempted rape (Fisher, Cullen, and Turner 2000).
Among adults nationwide one in six women (17%) reported experiencing an attempted or completed rape at some time in their lives. (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000).
According to a military survey where members can anonymously report rape or sexual assault, rapes have dropped by half from the mid-90s when 7% of military women reported being assaulted. In 2002 the figure was 3%.
So you are more than 6 to 8 times more likely to get raped while at collge than you are in the military. You are even about 5 times more likely to be raped while in the civilian population as a whole than you are in the military.
What the left can't seem to understand here as they inflate this into a hysterical story about the military failing to protect vulnerable young women, is that the safest place BY FAR for young women to be shielded from rape is in America's military forces. The WORST place (and the bastion of liberalism by the way) is in America's colleges and universities.
This topic also got some discussion here:
http://ginmar.livejournal.com/633471.html
And for a more sane view:
http://soldiergrrrl.livejournal.com/314093.html
She really is disgusting. The best thing we can do about such people is say this once and then ignore them. She is like an Internet troll - stop feeding her and she will eventually go away.
I debunked this story over a week ago. I also checked every source I could. No female MSG has died in Iraq, nor did any female senior NCOs die during the period in question. Amazing how many idiots picked up the story without questioning it. Karpinski owes the Army an explanation. I do believe slander against a general officer is prosecutable under the UCMJ.
I was in Iraq as a transportation officer. One of my female soldiers refused to eat or drink for a couple of days, trying to be sent home. She didn't die, because we hooked her up to an I.V., and I assume any responsible commander would do the same to a soldier suffering from dehydration. Karpinski is an idiot. If I remember right, a commander (which I was) is responsible for everything thing that DOES or DOES NOT happen in their unit. It's called command responsibility, something she knows nothing about - look at the finger pointing she did after the Abu Ghraib scandal. As a flag officer, she had a lot of pull, and if she didn't think so, she could have offered her resignation. If commanders are in the same vein as Karpinski, then, yes, maybe women soldiers are dying of dehydration. And if we have many commanders like that in the army now, God help us. Thankfully, though, the vast majority of commanders are competent people, and Karpinski's fairy tale is just BS.
I work at a MEF Hqtrs. Lot's of female Marines in a variety of billets. I (like many others) go out of my way to treat them with professionalism and courtesy, or sort of ignore them when I can, because of the climate of "guilty until proven innocent, and then probably still guilty" when it comes to sexual harssment.
If the females in question were that worried about the problem, they would have doubled or tripled up for the late night latrine runs (safety in numbers, etc), informed their command, and/or requested (and likely received) female latrines closer to their billeting.
Stuff like this perpetuates the perception of "victimhood" of women that those serving in the military work very diligently to avoid.
Well, that SOME work to avoid, right, Colonel Karpinski?
1. There's not enough room on a portapotty for me, let alone me and an unwilling female.
2. Drinking water to avoid peeing at night? Like there's nowhere else on the FOB to piss.
3. I'll bet she believes in the "ether bunny"
4. Well, it wasn't in her basic company, but in the one right before hers, a guy tied the cord of the buffer to his neck and threw it out the window to commit suicide, but the cord was too long...
5. And this one time, at advanced camp...
At least I now know it can't be *that* hard for a nine-fingered CPT with more scars than skin to make it to BG.
--Chuck
Sounds to me like Colonel Karpinski is dringking... but I don't thik it's water!!
Good job Greyhawk on exposing this. It is sad that some choose the path they do and in such increasingly large numbers. I believe it was the evangelical Rutz who said that he could not understand in his youth how billions would be deceived by the anti-Christ. After the Reagan era he understood a little bit better. After Clinton even more so. Now, with today's Bush Derangment Syndrome in full bloom it is clear that self-deception is becoming an art form - a Dali style art form, but an art form. Well, they learn from the father of self-deception. Before Satan starting lying to us he had throughly deceived himself, and continues to do so.
My prayers have changed. Yes, I still pray for the salvation of people like the Colonel, but I also ask God that if He has no use for them, even as an antogonist, to please dispose of them. David prayed similar prayers.
Thanks again Greyhawk. I'll be shaking your hand on the other side if I don't meet you before the end.
If there is an amusing view of this story, it's the notion that Karpinski "testified" to an invented, fake "investigation" - even to a "panel of judges" (hahahahaha). I mean, even the NAME of the panel has got to make you snort a little - The Commission of Inquiry For Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration (CICFCAHCBA??)?. OMG! How ludicrous can it get? There must be a Russian translation for it that is more respectable as former Communist Party name branding. Cuz in English, it really, really sucks.