The Heavier Side

The search for sex in Iraq blog-quest started in a lighthearted spirit, but the more one thinks and reads about it the more the real answer looks rather dark. "I was trying to understand how being a woman fit into both the war and the psychological consequences of war," writes Sara Corbett in her New York Times Magazine cover story on women in the Iraq War, "the story I heard over and over, the dominant narrative really, followed similar lines to Swift's: allegations of sexual trauma, often denied or dismissed by superiors; ensuing demotions or court-martials; and lingering questions about what actually occurred."

Helen Benedict did a piece for Salon on woman soldiers' allegations of rape in Iraq. When you think about it, you're really looking at the worst possible mixture of circumstances, institutions, and political inconvenience here. I bet when this war finally ends we'll learn a lot more about what was really happening and it's mostly going to be very ugly.

Comments

Yes Matt we are going to hear major complaints about all those female officers turning their hunky pfc's into boytoys.

Posted by Sallyacious | March 19, 2007 10:02 AM

From the photos in Sara Corbett's NYT Magazine piece, I was surprised at how fat and out-of-shape some of these female soldiers were. It's possible that being in worse physical shape (physical standards are lower for women in the military) made these women more susceptible to PTSD.

Posted by Fred | March 19, 2007 10:21 AM

fred,

wtf? seriously, wtf are you talking about? did you mean to comment on a different thread?

Posted by mmgood | March 19, 2007 10:41 AM

The Army won't admit it has a problem with rape until they are forced to by congressional inquiry. Luckily, our officer corps is filled with morons reared on right wing propaganda and devoid of people with a any actual combat expertise, so we can safely gut it and lose very little as a result.

Posted by soullite | March 19, 2007 10:46 AM

What Fred means is that he was hoping for hot, sexy soldier-girls to imagine in intimate moments, and was disappointed. The women let him down! (As usual, no doubt.) As Fred knows, the first obligation of any woman appearing in public is to be attractive to men.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | March 19, 2007 11:09 AM

Soullite,

I'm as anti-militarist as they come, but I think you're being entirely unfair about our officers. Yes, many are closeted (or not so closted) Christianists and empire-builders; but many are intellectuals and humanists, despite (maybe because?) of their profession. Just look at LTC. Bateman from Altercation. I also think of an acquaintance who joined the Marines straight out of the elite liberal arts college we attended together, was made a 2nd Lieutenant, and was recently killed in Anbar province. Or the inestimable Pat Lang. Are these anecdotal: yes. But let's try to avoid such broad-based smears.

Posted by Ben Cronin | March 19, 2007 11:12 AM

I was drill sergeant in the Army Reserve, so I know something about PT standards for male and female soldiers, as I had to train both. I also know that people who are in better physical shape tend to be able to handle stress better than those who aren't -- there have been studies on this.

You can try to burnish your politically correct bona fides at my expense, but you should remember that political correctness is the reason why women are allowed to serve in the military without meeting the same physical standards as men.

Posted by Fred | March 19, 2007 11:18 AM

I expect we'll find that there's more sex with Iraqis going on than we currently aware of.

Posted by otto | March 19, 2007 11:28 AM

I don't really see the connection between physical fitness and sexual assault. What is I imagine more telling is not a lower PF standard for women but the across the board lower standards for men and women including felons, ex-cons, and general perverts that have been put in place to sustain the Iraq effort. And yes even lowered PF standards for men and women.
Hell, they aren't even kicking out the gays near like they used too!

Posted by Willy | March 19, 2007 11:28 AM

but many are intellectuals and humanists, despite (maybe because?) of their profession. Just look at LTC. Bateman from Altercation.

The supposedly intellectual LTC Bateman, in 2004: "Suggestions such as that I read in the New York Times recently (that we ought to follow the example of the British, who have such extensive Northern Ireland experience) are bollocks. Our British allies never faced IEDs in Northern Ireland. Or anywhere. We, more than any other force, actually do have the most experience in this particular issue."

"Our British allies never faced IEDs in Northern Ireland." Think, if you will, about the superb arrogance and pitiful ignorance that would allow an army officer to make a statement like that.

The Benedict piece is unreliable, by the way: see http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/03/karpinski_salon_lies_and_pitif.php

And, Fred, true or not, you must see that that was an incredibly tone-deaf remark.

Posted by ajay | March 19, 2007 11:41 AM

Dude, Fred, you are conflating so many issues, it's ridiculous. Look, even if women have to meet lower standards than men, that has nothign to do witht hem being fat and out of shape. If they met the standards, they'd still be in shape. So, the standards have nothing to do with this story. You dragge dit in for your own reasons. PC or not, it's a non-sequitor. (BTW, I'm a four star general.)

Second, even if the women have not met their standards and are therefore out of shape, and less able to deal with stress than a comparably in shape woman, so what? (BTW, I'm a trained clinical psychologist).

Is any of that -- any of that -- relevant to the topic at hand, the sexual abuse of women soldiers by their male colleagues?

No. And it's sickening that you would even suggest it.

(NB: my claims to expertise are, of course, not real -- but they carry the same wweight asyour claim to be an instructor. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. In cyberspace, no one knows. But I can say that I am familiar with men and women in our armed services and there are plenty of bothes sexes who are badly out of shape. You can believe me or not, but, really, it's irrelevent to the discussion here.)

Posted by MMGood | March 19, 2007 11:54 AM

Ben, with all do respect one well thinking officer isn't a lot of well thinking officer. I have repeatedly seen our military fuck things up on a massive level and then blame the lowest ranking enlisted person they could find. That's not a hallmark of a well run officer corps. I have seen and heard nothing but problems with discipline. Male soldiers raping female soldiers and the officer corps sweeping it under the rug. The sort of fratricide rates you should only find in poorly trained militias, not a professional military. Poorly managed ops that pretty much consist of dropping people with no resources in the middle of nowhere and with no schedule to be picked up upon completion of their poorly chosen tasks. The leadership of the army is so heavily in bed with defense contractors that money is often spent on redundant, obsolete or imaginary weapon systems while our soldiers are poorly equipped and poorly paid. Every scandal ends in the lowest ranking enlisted person paying the price while the officer corps is given a pass on every one of their crimes and poor decisions. These are failures of leadership. Officers are leaders. who, exactly, would you blame for this? The president doesn't train soldiers. He doesn't oversee day to day discipline or criminal proceedings. He can be blamed for the spending, but the generals are always there with their hand our no matter who the president is. These are all duties of officers, and on each one of these issues those officers are repeatedly failing. They do so because they are lackey's, not leaders. They are more interested in personal advancement than they are with any of their actual duties. Unlike you I'm not really anti-militarist. I'm just getting sick of the disgustingly sad state of our officer corps.

Posted by soullite | March 19, 2007 12:10 PM

If the problem of intraforce rape is widespread in Iraq, as it seems to be, I worry about future treatment of women and gay rights. The upshot of the rape problem will probably NOT be a serious, concerted effort to remedy the problem. Instead, this will become fuel both for getting women out of combat, and for keeping gays out of the armed forces.

Posted by dj moonbat | March 19, 2007 12:12 PM

There is a simple solution to both issues of gays in the military and sexual assault of women in the military:

From now on, we should only recruit women and gay men into the Army. The women won't have to worry about unwanted sexual advances from the men, and straight men won't have to worry about gay men ogling them in the showers -- because all the men will be gay. It'll be like Crunch fitness with weapons.

Granted, we might have to spruce up the drab uniforms to recruit enough women and gay men, but I think it would be worth it. It will be a great step forward for both women and gay men.

Posted by Steven | March 19, 2007 12:31 PM

Not to minimize the allegations of rape (I'm sure the stats there are highly disproportionate to here, and the Army certainly isn't the place to find sympathy as a victim) there is a shitload of prostitution going on there. Not locals, uniformed girls and contractors. Supposedly they've cracked down on it in the past year plus, but that's not exactly some easy shit to crack down on... I'm sure it's still there. Course if anyone does an article on this aspect of Sex in Iraq, they'll be unpatriotic and hate the troops. Nice, eh?

Posted by bubba | March 19, 2007 12:35 PM

A sex-integrated military is profoundly foolish, and we should start looking for ways to roll back this particular social experiment.

Posted by MQ | March 19, 2007 12:48 PM

It's too hot for sex in Iraq.

Posted by aleks | March 19, 2007 3:36 PM

> It's too hot for sex in Iraq.

Lord knows no one's ever fucked in the Cradle of Civilization. "Fertile Crescent" my ass.

Posted by Dan | March 19, 2007 4:12 PM

I have to say, I feel for with the low-level officers who try to bury this stuff. It's not a pretty decision, but they're in a pretty tough position. Their options can look a lot like:

A) Sweep this under the rug, or maybe pull someone aside and chew them out, but do it quick so I can focus my attention back on this whole "war" thing.

B) Take the time out to go through a highly emotional process which if successful means I lose a set of eyes and arms, with the potential to make my men split up on lines of friendship and personal loyalty and start arguing about which side betrayed the other.

And for a corps that's been specifically instructed that yes, sometimes your troops will get hurt or even crippled for life, but you have to put that aside and finish the fucking mission anyway, well, I'm not willing to say that B's always the wrong decision.

Posted by Senescent | March 19, 2007 4:17 PM

Er, that A is always the wrong decision.

Posted by Senescent | March 19, 2007 4:17 PM

All-female deployments might be the way to go. There is one Indian female MP unit being deployed to Liberia now. Whatever the rate of sexual assault in the U.S. Military is, it's an asterisk compared to the raping done by your average UN Peacekeeper unit. Maybe these Indian ladies will buck the trend.

Posted by Fred | March 19, 2007 5:51 PM

That was a really interesting NY Times Magazine article. I'm kind of conflicted about it. Yes, it's obviously tragic and the obvious steps should be taken (internal reform, upping the mental-health budget, etc.). But at some level this is and was entirely predictable. I don't just mean the decision to go to war, but also the decision to intergrate the sexes.

Instead, this will become fuel both for getting women out of combat, and for keeping gays out of the armed forces.

Without the draft coming back, women in the military are here to stay, probably in their present capacity too. As the article mentions, women mostly already serve in non-combat roles. But that's almost a meaningless distinction in a place like Iraq.

Having gays serve openly in the armed forces will lead exactly to the same sorts of problems that are faced by women soldiers now. As with women, society may decide the benefits outweigh the costs. Still, it's going to be entirely predictable.

Posted by Korha | March 19, 2007 6:03 PM

I wonder if maybe sex-trafficking/sex-slavery hasn't opened up in Iraq in the past few years because of the soldiers stationed there.

Posted by Toadmonster | March 19, 2007 11:49 PM

I think Fred is on drugs. S. Swift looks hot to me.

Posted by merlallen | March 20, 2007 3:09 AM

Whatever the rate of sexual assault in the U.S. Military is, it's an asterisk compared to the raping done by your average UN Peacekeeper unit.

Possibly true, Fred, but you can take comfort from the fact that the US military is still well ahead of UN peacekeeping units on the critical metrics of reckless killing of civilians, torture, murder, abduction, taking of hostages and wanton destruction of civilian houses and property.

Posted by ajay | March 20, 2007 7:00 AM

There is an intereting meme floating around within the military. I've heard former military staff from Iraq that there are women in the military essentially prostituting themselves over there. The quote I heard was that there were several women coming back from a tour with "Thousands and thousands of dollars." I think this is a very useful meme for the military, as it enables others to easily dismiss women's claims of rape/abuse/etc.

Of course, no one who ever said this to me had any actual proof. But combine this with someones inherient desire not to see problems, and the problems all get overlooked.

Posted by anon | March 20, 2007 7:11 AM

I'm putting 10:1 odds on women eventually taking the hit for what's happening over there. This will end with more restrictions on what kind of duties they can serve, restrictions on how rape can be prosecuted based on women's reporting/prior actions, etc. Incredible resources and effort going into crackdowns on prostitution, etc.

After all, it's gotta be their fault. When it comes to sex, it's ALWAYS the women's fault. Individually and as a group.

Posted by anonymous | March 20, 2007 8:35 AM