by James Glaser
January 26, 2004

A Denver Post article of January 24th by Miles Moffeit and Amy Herdy is about "Female GIs reporting rapes by U.S. soldiers." "Women say response lacking within military, some even threatened."

Now in a combat zone where soldiers have been told to shoot first and ask questions later, it is not hard to believe that the American military command would look the other way if soldiers started raping Iraqi women. It looks like some of them have looked the other way even when they rape American women.

There has always been a perceived stigma put on any women who reports being raped and for those in the military I can only imagine that it is worse. That is why I believe that the number of rapes must be very high if at least 37 women that served in Iraq and Kuwait have sought sexual-trauma counseling from civilian rape crisis organizations. The total number of women raped will never be known.

These women, from the enlisted ranks and officers too, have reported poor medical care and incomplete criminal investigations. Also some say they were threatened with punishment after reporting assaults.

"The Pentagon did not respond to repeated requests for information about the number of sexual assaults reported by service personal," in the War on Terrorism. They will only say that they will not tolerate sexual assault in their ranks. Well tolerate or not, rapes are happening. If American soldiers feel safe enough to rape other soldiers and even officers, I can't even imagine how many Iraqi women are getting assaulted.

"Commanders at every level have to take appropriate steps to prevent it, protect victims, and to hold those who commit them accountable," a written statement from the Pentagon said.

Now let us be honest here for a while. Young American soldiers are given life and death control over a whole population. These soldiers are under incredible stress, they are young and immature, their leaders have told them to kill civilians if they even think their lives are in danger…….so, what is a rape?

If Americans are raping Americans, it has got to be open season on Iraqi women.

The American public has no idea of what happens in a war zone. Nice young American boys change into monsters. No not all of them, but a small percentage of them do. Some guys will kill a civilian just so they can say they shot somebody in the war. Yes I know that is sick, but it happens.

Some guys think they are going to die any day now in that war zone, so what does it matter if they rape some "rag head"? The Pentagon has already reported that over 600 soldiers have had to be taken out of Iraq for psychological problems and military doctors are saying that over 20% of the troops are going to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress, when they get home.

War zones turn into a little piece of hell and the things that some people do there would never be done by them any place else. Some soldiers, not a lot, but more than you would think, go a little nuts, murder civilians and yes, rape women. The Pentagon and commanders in the field are not about to do anything, because it would make the United States and the Army look bad and it would hurt the careers of those in charge.

I don't know about any big ones, but I have no doubt in my mind, that there have been little massacres several times in Iraq. Scared soldiers that have lost friends lose it in a raid in the middle of the night when something unexpected happens and everyone opens up on a family and kills them all. We put awesome firepower into the hands of every American soldier out on an operation. One person opens up and you don't wait to see if they were right. You open up too.

A convoy comes under attack and civilians are in between the enemy and the convoy. Civilians get killed and the troops drive away. Hey it happens, way more times than the United States Army would like and nobody is about to say anything.

Are Iraqi women getting raped? No doubt. If American soldiers are so desperate for power and control over somebody, that they will rape an American woman, an American women that could send them to jail for years, you have to know that it is open season on Iraqi women.

It doesn't take long for those that will commit a crime like this, to learn that their commanders will look the other way.