Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

To the military command structure and certain senators ([cough-Chambliss-cough]):

Now Hear This.

If you are unable to safeguard our service-men and -women from sexual assault, rape, and forced prostitution from within our ranks then you should be tossed out on your collective brass.

If you refuse to drop the attitude and if you continue to blame the victims–see Gen Welsh’s tissue-thin excuse of the “hook-up culture” of American youth or Sen. Chambliss’s unbelievably ignorant comment about it all coming down to “hormones“–then you should not only be removed from the chain-of-c0mmand you hold so dear, but you should be brought up on charges for dereliction of duty.

Sexual assault and rape are not problems caused by the military “climate.” They are not the result of off-color jokes being taken too far or fraternization gone awry. They are crimes. They are crimes against the women and men (a large fraction of sexual assaults in the military are against males) under your command, by men under your command.

What is part of the military climate is the fact that your service personnel report less than 15% of the sexual assault crimes perpetrated against them. Thousands of assaults go unreported for fear of retaliation or for fear that, after you do nothing, the victim will be “marked” within the ranks (all as stated in your own Pentagon report).

Your past efforts to deal with this wave of assaults have proven ineffective, by any standard, much less a military standard. Your assertion–nay, your insistence–that the only way forward is the path we’ve already traveled flies in the face of reason.

So suck it up, soldier. Do your duty to the men and women under your command. Admit what has been proven already: that you are incapable of solving this through a simple chain-of-command reporting structure. Realize that in this case, if you aren’t part of the solution, you are definitely part of the problem.

That Is All.

k

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