A "war tactic"? In what way?

noob - To generate fear as a means of controlling a population.

Doesn't sound like they're trying to control the population, sounds like some drunk guys thought they'd abuse some woman and her family.

It appears that they tried to cover their tracks so that it would be blamed on insurgents rather than have it be a "This is what happens if you F with us" type of display.

You might be right. I don't know enough about the case to agree or disagree with you. If it is part of a larger strategy though, I doubt we'll hear about it.

I felt the need to register in order to write a response.

No. I don't know why anybody is calling rape a "tactic". Whoever does obviously has no understanding of what strategy and tactics are, or how they work.

A quick overview of strategy:

In order of highest level to lowest level, "strategy" can be classified as Grand Strategic, Strategic, Operational, and Tactical.

As with all insurgencies that have been fought over the past century, the Grand Strategy in Iraq is to defeat insurgent forces and restore order to the failing nation. The Strategy is winning the "hearts & minds" of the local, non-insurgent population. The best way to counter an insurgency is to rally the civilian population to cooperate with counterinsurgent forces.

Rape and murder are crimes, not "tactics". Tactics, as the lowest level of strategy, facilitate the Operational aim, in order to support the Strategic goal and ultimately achieve the Grand Strategy. If your Strategy is to win the loyalty of a population, then rape and murder certainly would not be effective tactics, as they completely contradict the Strategic purpose.

So don't go making outrageous allegations that rape is a "tactic" of war. Aside from being absolutely horrendous and unquestionably wrong, you can't call rape a "tactic" because it fails the Operational aim. No crime can be cassified as a tactic, especially in a counterinsurgency.

Rape is an effective tool for instilling fear and control in a population. I would suggest that you check out some of Amnesty's work on this.

This incident fits none of Amnesty's categories on that page. I find it very offensive that you flat-out call this a "war tactic" by the United States.

I am mildly shocked that most of the comments on this page reflect outright ignorance about violence against women during war time.

Rape has been used in pretty much every violent conflict to instill fear, "taint" ethnic groups, terrorize the population, etc. From goddam "Braveheart" to the war in former Yugoslavia, rape is undeniably an elemental method of war.

War and militarization is patriarchal, why is anybody surprised that rape is a deliberate part of it? Oh right, because "our" soldiers would never do something like that.

Stop glorifying militaries and start dismantling them. We'd all be better of without them.

I don't know if it applies to this particular case, but rape and general brutality can and have been used as tools of war.

I'm shocked at the absolute ignorance of the article.

This war is not "braveheart", this is not about conquering a country, these are not marauding Vikings, the idea is not to terrorise, destroy and exterminate its civilians.

The justification for the war is liberation. Rape of civilians would be about the most idiotic "tactic" they could possibly use, since it will alienate the Iraqis, Americans and just about the entire rest of the world. It just doesn't make any sense.

A "loose cannon" is exactly what Green is. As you may have noticed this "tactic" has not been condoned or brushed under the carpet, Green is on trial and facing the death penalty.

Rapes may occur, as do loss of lives, warzones are not nice places, but to call this a "tactic" is just absurd. You will notice that fake rape propaganda (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38464)is used against the Americans, doesn't that give you an idea of how counter-productive it would be?

And no, I don't support the war, although that doesn't mean I'm going to spout absolute illogical nonsense about it.

Of course rape and torture are used as tools in war! They have been throughout history. Besides, how can any of you say that this guy is simply a "loose cannon" and not part of a broader picture with all that we have seen resulting from the invasion of Iraq? Do you not see "loose cannon" for the catchphrase that it is? Have you forgotten about the "few bad apples" "blowing off steam" at Abu Ghraib? What about the 3 families of 24 civilians brutally slaughtered and then covered up as an "insurgent attack"? The pregnant woman, her fetus, and her sister shot for not stopping at a "checkpoint" when she was rushing to the hospital (almost an hour away) to give birth? These are just a few of the recent atrocities we are hearing about. Do you really think these were all just a few isolated incidents? Do you truly believe the military values the lives of Iraqi civilians? I'm talking on a broad level here, not individual soldiers or officials. Would white phosphorous have been used if they did? Would the families of victims be paid off with a measly $2000? Would the number of payouts have so vastly increased over the past year? Or is it that you think rape is more heinous and therefore a less common form of violence in war than torture and murder? Please inform yourself of the atrocities committed in occupied countries and the tactics occupiers use in doing so before trying to convince yourself and others that they aren't tools.

People get so defensive whenever it's stated that the U.S. military may not have the best interests of the country they have INVADED at heart. This is absurd. With all that has come to light, how can you honestly still believe that we are in Iraq to "liberate" the Iraqi people?! That's not even why "we" went into Iraq, remember? Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda, remember? He had WMDs, remember? How are we liberating Iraqis when they don't even have electricity most days, no clean water, little food and medication, few jobs, family and friends are unaccounted for, no school, and they live in constant fear of incidences such as that described in the article! I'm sure members of the military eat and drink water everday without the threat of contracting some terrible illness. When they get hurt, there are medications and hospital beds available to them. When they have a day off, I'm sure they get to email friends, kick back with a few beers, play video games. Is this their right for doing their jobs? What about the rights of Iraqis? Do they even have any in the eyes of the occupiers?

Of course this terrible crime is going to get attention--the government and their lapdog media have to look like they give a shit because they are majorly blowing it for the rest of us and they want our vote in the fall. Although I do think this deplorable scumbag is a morally bankrupt psycho, I unfortunately do not believe that he is the overwhelming exception. You, of course are free to disagree with me. But until Bush and the rest are ready to admit that this illegal and immoral invasion is not winning us the hearts and minds of Iraqis, is not defeating the insurgency, is not making us safer at home, and is sending our mentally and physically depleted soldiers to the brink, we will continue to learn of such terrible atrocities. Take a look at Truthout or Common Dreams if you want to learn more. Dair Jamail has written extensively on the lives of Iraqis. Don't make the mistake of thinking that rape, torture, and murder of civilians is the exception in Iraq or any other war. CONTROL (of populations, RESOURCES, infrastructure, etc) through fear and violence is what war is about.

Rape has been used as a tactic in Iraq (specifically as an information-gathering tactic), the most notable examples being the rapes at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, but this isn't an example of it. At most, it's an example of a depressing lack of discipline and leadership, but as I can't think of a single extended military action without crimes of this type, I can't even push that much.

It's an example of the price of war. It should be publicized, yes, as there seems to be some myth that the U.S. military is somehow immune to this kind of thing happening, but I wouldn't make it into something larger than it is. Three, possibly four Army soldiers conspired to commit rape, and possibly conspired to commit mass murder. At least one of them talked, and they eventually got caught. There is no indication that their officers were in any way aware of their plans or actions.

The only major cause for complaint in the attitude is that only one is apparently being charged, though I suppose that may eventually change. There's this unfortunate military culture of trying to punish as few people as possible for atrocities that seems to be in evidence here, but it's ludicrous to think of this event as part of a policy of rape for population control.

xyz:

As an aside, what did you see wrong with the article? It seemed to be fairly straightforward and factual to me, unless you know something about the incident that I don't. Or did you mean the blog entry or the comments?

In Vietnam, they called someone who did what Green did a "double veteran". While these acts probably did not represent the norm, or official military policy, the term was too common to simply reflect a very rare and isolated phenomenon. The adage, "what happens in the field stays in the field" coupled with the extreme mental transformation that tends to happen to people in combat, no doubt accounts for this behavior. In other words, it is an inevitable consequence of war, and tends to get out of control where insufficient supervision is performed by superior officers. It is my impression of what we are seeing in Iraq is that the "what happens in the field stays in the field" mentality that tolerates this conduct is running up against a more modern culture with better communications than the indigenous Vietnamese possessed and therefore, is able to report these instances. Thus, we are probably in for a great many more reports of stories of these types. Hoever, in my opinion, the effort to explain the phenomena by attaching blame to various individuals and factions misses the larger lesson which is - when you vote for war, this is what you get almost as an inevitable consequence. Therefore, if there is any blame in this, we all share it as a society because we as a group decided on this course of conduct. So, take a good look, because when you vote for war, this is what you get.

I remember being at an anti-war rally in Houston before the invasion of Iraq where the counter –protesters where shouting to us “You support rape! You support murder!�. I wonder what they would have to say about this.

Whether or not this was an isolated image isn't really the point.

This is the image that the international community has of American soldiers. This is why people around the world seem to hate America so much. I doubt anyone in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Afghanistan, etc. etc. is the slightest bit surprised about this news, and I say this having lived in the Middle East and Pakistan.

So American politicians and the American media can talk all they want about how he was a "loose canon" and this was an "isolated incident," and you know what? It might even be true. It doesn't matter. To the millions of people out there who don't believe that liberating Iraq is anywhere on the military's list of priorities, this is just further proof.

I don't think this can be interpreted as a war tactic. The soldiers are not fighting the Iraqis themselves, and unpunished rape would give all the American soldiers stationed and currently working in Iraq a negative image among the Iraqis. That would (and has) incited reactions that have been the source of anger among them. What kind of tactic interfere with the common objective which is to keep non-recruited Iraqis from joining the terrorists, and rebuilding Iraq? It would foster distrust and just builds on suspicions they already have of the Americans.

Xyz, I went to the article that you linked to, and I have to say that your claims of "fake rape propaganda" are a little over-reaching. For example, there are ACTUAL photos of Iraqi women being raped by US soldiers, but the Pentagon so far hasn't released them. General Taguba, who reviewed the Abu Ghraib scandal, saw the photos, and said that they depicted "US soldiers 'having sex' with Iraqi women." We've already covered the issue of prisoner-rape, and realize, I hope, that prisoners can't give consent when they're propositioned for sex since any allowances they might make would be due to fear of reprisal or indimidation. You should read the article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1214698,00.html.
I thought it was especially interesting since the article you linked to dismissed all claims of soldiers raping prisoners as "Arab propaganda," when, of course, there are documented cases and photographic evidence that it happened.

I wonder what they would have to say about this.

They generally scream that the media only reports bad things that happen in Iraq and that it's only the latest example of how thankless everyone is toward the US. One is reminded by Instapundit's completely indifferent reaction to Haditha.

Rape and killing of civilians became a war tactic in the 20th century. Here are some very sobering facts for feminists to ponder:

By the 1990s, 9 of 10 people who died in war from direct and indirect effects were civilians. The rise in the proportion of civilian, and notably women’s and children’s deaths, in 20th century warfare is attributed to changes in war technology and war tactics.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=3229

Women and children account for almost 80% of the casualties of conflict and war.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1219-26.htm

Women and children have replaced men as the greatest casualties of war, and are often used as deliberate targets, says a leading women's rights advocate. 90 per cent of war casualties are civilians, 80 per cent of whom are women and children. A century ago, 90 per cent of war casualties were military men.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/03/1033538723853.html

Small arms and light weapons are the main tools of almost every conflict. Women and children account for nearly 80% of the casualties, according to the UN Secretary-General.

http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/scandal-index-eng

Rape and the killing of civilians became a war tactic in the 20th century. Here are some sobering facts for feminists to ponder:

By the 1990s, 9 of 10 people who died in war from direct and indirect effects were civilians. The rise in the proportion of civilian, and notably women’s and children’s deaths, in 20th century warfare is attributed to changes in war technology and war tactics.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=3229

Women and children account for almost 80% of the casualties of conflict and war.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1219-26.htm

Women and children have replaced men as the greatest casualties of war, and are often used as deliberate targets, says a leading women's rights advocate. 90 per cent of war casualties are civilians, 80 per cent of whom are women and children. A century ago, 90 per cent of war casualties were military men.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/03/1033538723853.html

Women and children account for nearly 80% of the casualties, according to the UN Secretary-General.

http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/scandal-index-eng

Rape and the killing of civilians became a war tactic in the 20th century. It's a psychological tactic to scare the enemy and weaken the infrastructure of a country so it cannot recover. 90% of war casualties are civilians and 80% are women and children:

By the 1990s, 9 of 10 people who died in war from direct and indirect effects were civilians. The rise in the proportion of civilian, and notably women’s and children’s deaths, in 20th century warfare is attributed to changes in war technology and war tactics.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=3229

Women and children account for almost 80% of the casualties of conflict and war.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1219-26.htm

Women and children have replaced men as the greatest casualties of war, and are often used as deliberate targets, says a leading women's rights advocate. 90 per cent of war casualties are civilians, 80 per cent of whom are women and children. A century ago, 90 per cent of war casualties were military men.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/03/1033538723853.html

Women and children account for nearly 80% of the casualties, according to the UN Secretary-General.

http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/scandal-index-eng

XYZ, to say that this war is about liberation and that rape as a tactic would not be useful is to ignore the more complex issue here.

Yes, this is supposedly a war for liberation. Yet, at the same time, the people we are "liberating" don't appreciate our presence there. Most Iraqis want Americans gone. Many of the people fighting our troops have no connection to terrorists at all - they are fed-up Iraqis who want us gone.

Rape is a very effective method of brutalizing the population. Since the population is fighting our soldiers, it would be a useful tactic to brutalize them into silence.

EJ, your post at most shows that it's a possibility that rape is being used as a tactic. What it doesn't show is that it's an actual tactic, in the sense that the military encourages or deliberately turns a blind eye to rape in order to pacify the population. Plenty of horrors of war occur not because of deliberate atrocities but because the chain of command doesn't give a damn about civilian life and hence doesn't do shit to crack down on brutality.

"EJ, your post at most shows that it's a possibility that rape is being used as a tactic."

That was all I was attempting to show. I decided to address one issue here (the plausibility of such a tactic) rather than every single issue in the thread. :)

Anyway, I think several other posters have put forth good arguments as to why it is being used as an "actual tactic". You could reply to them if you want. :D

Ah, okay... then I don't have any argument with you here.

"Rape is a very effective method of brutalizing the population. Since the population is fighting our soldiers, it would be a useful tactic to brutalize them into silence." - EJ

Well said. If a force can generate fear in a population to the point that individuals avoid anything that would draw attention to themselves, that force has gone a long way towards controlling the population in question.

Some of the posts on this thread are just ridiculous. From silly theories about "grand strategy" and hearts and minds to rape not existing as a war tactic, it is all hopelessly naive and unnecessarily argumentative.

First of all, rape is a very common deliberate war tactic, as in the cases of Yugoslavia and the Congo.

As to the issue of rape being unleashed in Iraq by US forces there can be no question. If it is in fact a "policy", I cannot say. Nor do I care. It is permitted to happen and that is the only relevant issue for me.

However, I will say that the threat of rape can easily be used to coerce a prisoner, to obtain information from a civilian by threatening to take his wife or daughter in custody where she is at risk of being raped, or take her behind the house and just rape her there. Once rape EXISTS in real time, on the ground, then these threats are not idle threats, they become real and thus useful tools for soldiers.

Hearts and minds is bullshit and so is liberation. That country is a mess, it's in chaos. There is so much lawlessness and atrocities commited every day, that anything the USMC, National Guard, or Army do would barely be noticed. THIS rape was only noticed because this same squad had 2 of their crew kidnapped and tortured, probably in retaliation for the rape/murder. That's why the story came out because one of the witnesses felt guilty about indirectly causing the soldiers' deaths.

Our boots on the ground only care about two things: Getting home alive and controlling the environment (read: civilians) around them. Concepts like law, discipline, honor, crime reporting, etc, do not come into play. These instances like Haditha, and this rape, are only "crimes" when they are found out. Otherwise they are business as usual.

That's SNAFU for you military brats.

"It is permitted to happen ..." -MsJane

That could only be true if the alleged were being given pats on the back instead of being prosecuted.

"Hearts and minds is bullshit and so is liberation."

Iraq is liberated from an oppressive Dictator and is now growing as a Democracy. Occupation would not allow military and police training. Occupation would not allow the national government to be elected by the people. Occupation is what happened when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Saddam Hussein hardly spent any money on infrastructure while he was in charge. Remember the "Oil for Food" debacle? Supplies did not go to the people that needed it, just to Hussein's pocket. The only people that got electricity were the Sunnis.

Now that all areas of the country are being treated equally, it is difficult for enough electricity, clean water, schools etc. to be made immediately available.

MsJane, you seem to be anti-military. That saddens me. We should all support our fellow brothers and sisters in arms.

Hey Dave, this is you on another thread:

..."while men organize into prison gangs much more than women do, the women are louder and get into more fights."
Posted by: Dave

I've read 4 or 5 of your recent posts, and they are all nonsense. Go troll at Huffington Post or something. This is a feminist website for real thought and discussion.

And no, I'm not replying to your "saddened" support the troops post, in case you were wondering.

hey, dave,

let's take stock of a few things...

if supporting our fellow brothers and sisters in arms were the top cause for you, and if you think our military commanders are incapable of enabling rape, i beseach you to read about the cover-up of rape of our own soldiers by our own soldiers.

as far as the liberation thing is concerned, we certainly removed Saddam. however, our intention has never been to "free" or "liberate" the Iraqi people. that came in after WMDs and connections to Al Qaeda were found not to exist and we needed some reason to be there.

if you just look at our historical involvement in the region for, say, three decades, you'll see that we've consistently overthrown democratically elected governments (Mossadegh) when it's suited our purposes (or paranoias) as well as dictators.

that Hussein was a tyrant was merely incidental to our invasion and occupation of Iraq. he was just as much a tyrant when we supported him. if it were otherwise, we would be working with the indigenous movements for liberation in Iraq.

and so, to shore up our strategic interests in the region, we currently support the Uzbek government despite the despotic rulership there. we even resisted an international inquiry into a massacre there in May, 2005.

considering all of these factors, as well as the rich history of US military since World War II, i fully support MsJane's alleged "anti-military" stance.

frankly, it saddens me that we, as US citizens, consistenly fail to see through this wool pulled over our eyes. we fail to see that, in afghanistan, we made no partnerships with indigenous rights groups, but rather with warlords...

our most recent "success", Afghanistan, is a prime example where our "liberation" of the people has involved handing over political and military power to former members of the Taleban government as well as individuals with their own private armies, such as Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.

yeah, real liberation... and what do we hear of all of the indigenous human rights groups? the ones who don't have weapons? the US military is not concerned with them, because they don't offer us a strategic advantage.

until that changes, any attempt to play off US invasion and occupation of other countries as for the "liberation" of the people there is going to be political white noise, put out to detract from the very real concerns of people who live in the countries where we choose to exert our military dominance.

peace and blessings

Everyone has different life experiances and beliefs that effect how they look at the world. This is why I enjoy engaging in discussion and the sharing of opinions on blogs. MsJane, the quote you borrowed from me isn't even my opinion. It is the opinion of a number of people that have worked at both men's and women's prisons.

Dismissing me as a "troll" shuts down conversation. I welcome you to challenge my ideas. Maybe you could do the same for me.

Engaging, challenging, and sharing ... these are the things that create open minds.

Dave:

Insofar as it concerns "permitted to happen", most of those involved are, in fact, being given pats on the back, and investigations are regularly squelched, and the evidence suppressed. Only in extreme cases, where the evidence cannot be suppressed, are prosecutions resulting in any serious penalty. See for example the ACLU FOIA requests regarding abuse investigations in Iraq. Make sure your stomach is well settled before reading; it's fairly nauseating stuff.

Iraq's current status as a democracy is not yet entirely justified; the election was so chaotic and suffered from so much tampering that it could well be argued that it's no more than an only partially successful attempt to generate a puppet government. Others have already pointed out that our support of dictatorships or democracies has more to do with politics and economics than principle, in any case.

I also find the definition of "occupation" based on what the occupiers allow unconvincing. The flip side of the coin is that "liberators" wouldn't have looted the country, or tortured, raped, and killed people on a similar (or even greater) rate than the dictator that was removed. If there is some spectrum between liberator and occupier, I see the U.S. involvement as much more heavily on the occupier side. I remain unconvinced that the people of Iraq (and the stability of the region) are better off currently than they were under Saddam Hussein.

Your comment about electricity is highly misleading, as well. Saddam Hussen did allocate the lion's share of the electricity to Baghdad, and it is true that more electricity is currently being generated in Iraq than before the war, and that Baghdad is seeing more power outages because electricity is being apportioned more evenly throughout the country. However, this isn't a Sunni issue -- Baghdad actually has a Shiite majority. Hussein wanted the capital to have power, not just Sunnis, and there is no evidence that I am aware of that Sunni sections of Baghdad received more power than Shiite sections. See the numbers released on energy allocation by the Iraq Project and Contracting Office in 2005, for instance. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to post.

Insofar as a challenge of ideas goes, while it's a fine idea in principle, it's a little difficult to take such a line seriously from someone who just one post prior accused another poster of not supporting the troops by virtue of objecting to what's happening. That kind of thing is what gets you called a troll.

From my perspective, those that are opposing the war tend to support the troops much more strongly than those who support it. I can't speak for MsJane's beliefs personally, but I strongly suspect that she'd find little to object to in the following list of things to support:

The lives, limbs, and minds of troops should not be spent without great need.

Troops should receive the basic armor and equipment they need not to become needless casualties.

Troops should be given sufficient leadership and a sufficiently honorable environment that they aren't led to commit atrocities or war crimes.

Upon return, troops should be given proper medical care, especially when they require such care because of events while deployed.

Upon return, troops should not be left destitute or homeless.

We support our troops far better than our current administration, which has gone against every single one of the above, taking our troops into a war of aggression against a country that wasn't a threat, justified with doctored and cherry-picked intelligence, failing to equip them properly, chopping their benefits, deploying them far more than is considered healthy by even the military specialists, and abandoning them upon return.

"Support our troops" has become shorthand for "support the politicians", and I'm saddened that you seem to be using it the same way.

Electricty update:

I went looking for the PCO numbers to see if they had improved significantly since 2005, and couldn't find them at all anymore. I did, however, find two sources, one from Feb. 2006, and one from June 2006, stating that Iraq's electricity production has not only not increased, but dropped since the Jan 2005 report back to below pre-war levels. I'm also suddenly reminded that Iraq's electricity production before the war was less than half of what it was before sanctions started a decade prior, as well, so if you want to tally the complete result of U.S. interference, the number is incredibly large.

Regardless, I thus retract my previous statement that more electricity is currently available under U.S. occupation than it was under Saddam. That appears to be untrue as well. Water seems to be in the same state.

Electricty update:

I went looking for the PCO numbers to see if they had improved significantly since 2005, and couldn't find them at all anymore. I did, however, find two sources (edit: I'm repeating this comment without the second link, because the anti-spam system here is set so aggressively that only one link is allowed), one from Feb. 2006, and one from June 2006, stating that Iraq's electricity production has not only not increased, but dropped since the Jan 2005 report back to below pre-war levels. I'm also suddenly reminded that Iraq's electricity production before the war was less than half of what it was before sanctions started a decade prior, as well, so if you want to tally the complete result of U.S. interference, the number is incredibly large.

Regardless, I thus retract my previous statement that more electricity is currently available under U.S. occupation than it was under Saddam. That appears to be untrue as well. Water seems to be in the same state.

Zed, where do I find the ACLU Freedom of Information Act Request information you refer to?

The documents are on the ACLU website.

That's a much longer list than it was the last time I looked over them, and a quick scan of some of the documents on top seems to generate quite a lot of unreadable trivia. Scan down to the ones relating to detainee abuse or torture; those appear to be the same documents I remember.

"Insofar as a challenge of ideas goes, while it's a fine idea in principle, it's a little difficult to take such a line seriously from someone who just one post prior accused another poster of not supporting the troops by virtue of objecting to what's happening. That kind of thing is what gets you called a troll."
Posted by: Zed

Thank you Zed. Yes, everything in your post is how I feel.

Dave, I don't mean to shut down discussion. I didn't like being "shut down" myself on this type of website when I could go somewhere else and experience that. Plus, arguing over and over on this type of topic gets to be futile.

Some of your statements also seemed slightly inflamatory and slanted, like the prison quote I used before. But I am willing to try to converse again.

Just a quick interjection: I thought the women-dead-from-dehydration-in-order-to-avoid-rape nonsense was exposed to be a myth a long time ago? Are people actually still taking this obvious lie seriously?

Raven:

I'm not sure to whom you're responding, since I don't see any mention of that particular claim in the comments here. I'll take a stab at answering it, though:

The only contradictory evidence I've seen put forward is that no female master sergeants died in the time period specified. (I haven't been able to verify that claim myself, and if it is true, it doesn't preclude the possibility of an error about the rank alone by either the reporters covering the testimony, or by Col. Karpinski herself.)

I'm not sure why you call it an "obvious lie", however. It has been established (by testimony and by photographic evidence) that rape, or at a bare minimum, sexual assault was being tacitly permitted at at least Abu Ghraib, and reportedly at other locations as well, and both sexual assault of female soldiers and the suppression of reporting of such incidents has been well documented throughout the military.

Dehydration sets in very fast in a desert, and the body doesn't give very good warning about it -- by the time you feel any thirst at all, you are already in a state of dehydration (about 2-4%, causing a significant loss of physical performance), and greater dehydration (5-10%) is marked quickly by dizziness and fatigue -- the natural (and potentially fatal) reaction to which would be to go to sleep. Few people survive reaching 15% dehydration. A reluctance to drink will turn deadly in that environment very quickly, and fear of sexual assault combined with the military machismo culture of toughing it out could plausibly have caused some women to fail to recognize exactly how dangerous an error it was.

I've seen some comments (at other locations) to the effect of disbelief that a woman with access to weaponry can be sexually assaulted, but the existence of prior incidents in the military trivially demonstrate this to be possible, and certainly in an environment where the officers that would be in charge of an investigation are hostile to the women, shooting a fellow soldier for groping you is effectively suicide, even if the woman were psychologically inclined to take that action. In any case, a reasonable person would likely seek solutions short of killing someone first.

I am not aware of any supporting evidence other than Col. Karpinski's statements, but neither am I aware of anything that demonstrates those statements to be false.

One quick followup:

Although the 15% dehydration mark would probably require more than a day without water even in a 120 degree desert to reach, even reaching the 5% mark will make you susceptible to heat stroke, as you stop sweating properly. I would hazard a guess that if anyone died that way from avoiding sexual assault, it was technically from (dehydration-caused) heat stroke, not specifically the dehydration itself. This doesn't change the analysis, of course.

"... it's a little difficult to take such a line seriously from someone who just one post prior accused another poster of not supporting the troops by virtue of objecting to what's happening."

Zed, that is an inaccurate assumption. Here are the two reasons why I said it SEEMS like MsJane is anti-military.

1. "Concepts like law, discipline, honor, crime reporting, etc, do not come into play."

This quote and referring to rape as "business as usual" for our military are inflammitory and simply not true. The assholes that participated in this rape should and will have the book thrown at them.

2. "... military brats."

This is a condecending statement. A person in the military is not a brat or a lesser person.

As far as the electricity arguement ... The area of Iraq that includes Baghdad is where the majority of the Sunni population lives. Saddam Hussein wanted to give his people (Sunnis) favorable treatment so that area of the country was given electricity.

I will try to make time to find information on electricity and water availability. Please bare with my busy butt.

Dave:

Unfortunately, there's significant supporting evidence for claim 1. Another incident was just posted on this site, and if you google on military sexual abuse, you'll find quite a lot, not to mention that the "the military doesn't air its dirty laundry in public" attitude is very well documented by this point. There have been numerous reports by military personnel of suppression of evidence of various forms of abuse, and the ACLU documents I linked to earlier show a pattern of minimizing investigations into even extreme abuse.

As to the statement in 2, you have left off an important word (deliberately?), and changed it from "... you military brats." I took it as referring specifically to the previous commenters attempting to claim that rape isn't a war tactic, not military personnel in general.

True, rape has been used as a weapon. It's been used on me...right here in the USA....And I'm a guy. Sure, roll your eyes and be quick to judge me... why not...I'm a guy. This webpage is sad. Don't think so? Try to find crazy comments from guys on a page like this that hates/judges women as you hate/judge men? Hard to do isn't it? Just stick to daytime TV please...You can have that.

Whoa I didn't know my comments posted (July 7) on this thread!

Here's a link on sexual violence as a weapon of war.