Their bodies as weapons

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1854585,00.h...

Rapes in conflict zones result from the idea that violence is erotic, and it pervades the US military

Robin Morgan
Monday August 21, 2006
The Guardian


When news surfaced that four GIs allegedly stalked, gang-raped and killed an Iraqi woman, the US tried to minimise this latest atrocity. Now article 32 hearings - the military equivalent of a grand jury - have ended at Camp Liberty, a US base in Iraq. In September, a general will rule whether the accused should be court-martialled. The defence already pleads post-traumatic stress disorder: in four months preceding the crime, 17 of the accused GIs' battalion were killed.

The victim's name was Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi. Abeer means "fragrance of flowers". She was 14 years old. According to a statement by one of the accused, the soldiers first noticed her at a checkpoint. On March 12, after playing cards while slugging whisky, they changed into civvies and burst into Abeer's home. They killed her mother, father and five-year-old sister and "took turns" raping Abeer. Finally, according to the statement, they murdered her, drenched the bodies with kerosene, and set them on fire. Then the GIs grilled chicken wings.

The US military is now a mercenary force. In addition to hired militias and "independent contractors", we have a draft: a poverty draft. That's why the army is disproportionately comprised of ethnic minorities seeking education, healthcare, housing. But there are other perks. Teenage males, hormones surging, are taught to confuse their bodies with weapons, and relish it.

One training song (with lewd gestures) goes: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; one is for killing, one is for fun." The US air force admits showing films of violent pornography to pilots before they fly bombing raids. Feminist scholars have been exposing these phallocentric military connections for decades. When I wrote The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, I presented evidence on how the terrorist mystique and the hero legend have the same root: the patriarchal pursuit of manhood. How can rape not be central to the propaganda that violence is erotic - a pervasive message affecting everything from US foreign policy to "camouflage chic" and glamorised gangsta styles?

[sweetheart]

1. Its pathological

There are a thousand of these to be had on any search engine:
http://www.armytales.com/index.htm?id=jenout&ex=0

[AngryAmish]

2. Germany opened hundreds of abortion centers post WWII

Virtually every woman in the east was raped, many of the repeatedly. Rape has been an offshoot of war for as long as mankind has existed.

on edit: It seems that the above post somehow excuses rape during wartime. Of course it was not my objective but rather I am trying to point out the pathology of our character as beings.

[KoKo]

3. As grotesque as this is ...thanks for posting it, Don. We need to be

reminded of stuff as horrible as this so that it never goes out of our memory.

Its a terrible cost of war that's minimized as "collarteral damage" but Rape and Pillage has been going on in Wars since time began. It's always the Women and Children...the Women and Children and the innocent Men who get caught up in this horror.

It's one of the largest reasons that WAR should always be the last resort and avoided to the utmost...because it's not just bombs and guns and bullets that maim and kill. It's testosterone and vanity (now that we have females in the military) and the darkest sides of both sexes in times of stress and violence come out and do things that are so horrendous that way overshadow the killing in battle.

We cannot go on with this kind of "collateral damage" being lumped in with a name which tries to desensitize us to what really goes on in war.

And the "Stepford Babes" on the cables seem to care less...they didn't follow in the footsteps of those who walked down roads to give them their freedoms. They take a birth control pill and figure life is good. They have high incomes forgetting that females weren't allowed in newsrooms until the early 1970's....and they've forgotten what it really means when one is a female or a child in a war zone with no protection. They are protected by their jobs and salaries at the cables. Life is good and they can't see anything beyond that. They worked hard to get where they are and their fellow anchors think they are just as cute as bunnies.

[Mr_Spock]

4. That's just despicable

What are we teaching our children?

Sanctity of life my ass.

[rman]

5. I don't understand why they call a 14 year old a "woman"