Reply #34: A Different View

[Dogmudgeon]

I think we're seeing more rape in the ranks for the same reason we're seeing more suicide and mental illness: Bush's jolly little war is an exercise in futility and hopelessness, and it's rotting the troops's heads from the inside. Not to belabor the point, a lot of our troops are going crazy from being in a crazy situation with no predictable mission profile or date of return home.

The Iraqis hate them. Their REMF (Rear Echelon Mother F***er) superiors exploit them for political gain then institute Stop-Loss and cut their benefits. They see their buddies get shot to hell and then after they get stitched back up, have to deal with medical providers dunning their families back home. They know they are in Iraq as part of a geopolitical game, and that they won't share any of the spoils of war. Most of them are aware of the Cheney/ Halliburton/ Bechtel axis; more and more of them are talking about their Fearless Leader's own feckless desertion during wartime. The soldiers on the front lines live in squalor and filth, and in-fighting is becoming common. And through it all, they have no idea when they are going home.

Rape isn't the half of it. Mad-dog soldiers can do a lot of damage raping a woman or two, but we have over 100,000 victims of another kind of rape in Iraq dealing with several million much-abused civilians.

The problem comes from the top.

--bkl
It ain't me ... I ain't no fortunate son!