Conscientious Objector

Women In War Zones: Sexual Violence in the Congo

2011-02-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

This is a great documentary film from 2009 on sexual violence in the Congo:

Women in War Zones Trailer from Greg Heller on Vimeo.

Class Action Lawsuit by Female Soldiers Against the Defense Department

2011-02-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has followed the situation regarding women in the military that a class action lawsuit has been filed due to the inability of the U.S. military to effectively investigate and prosecute sexual assaults.I have written about this extensively in the past and while the lawsuit did not add much new information, it serves to highlight the ongoing callousness that is directed towards victims of sexual assault.

Here are my previous posts on the subject:

http://endviolencetoday.blogspot.com/2010/02/women-at-war-bbc-goes-in-depth.html

http://endviolencetoday.blogspot.com/2010/04/women-are-not-just-victims-different.html

http://endviolencetoday.blogspot.com/2010/01/peril-in-war-zones-sexual-abuse-by.html

V DAY and the City of Joy

2011-02-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

V-Day in Conjunction with UNICEF local non-profits in the Congo have opened up a center in the Congo for women who have experienced sexual violence known as City of Joy. It just opened on February 4, 2011 See how they built it
here:

Building the City of Joy from V-Day Until the Violence Stops on Vimeo.

Visit the V-DAY Congo Campaign site for more information: http://drc.vday.org/

The Next Resource Wars will be in Africa

2011-01-13T07:48:00.000-08:00

While wars are raging in Afghanistan and Iraq (Yemen & Pakistan too for those who are keeping score at home) the next big wars will not be centered in the Middle East. Africa is home to many of the rare earth minerals that fuel the technology of the 21st Century and the Congo has many of the best reserves. Amidst the turmoil of the lame duck session of Congress President Obama revealed his strategy for dealing with the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo. It is becoming apparent that instability in the Congo is against the national interests of the United States. The strategy which is discussed heavily in Foreign Policy Magazine, is murky at best and like many advisory efforts looks as if it is headed for an escalation. More over, the Congolese Army is often not a competent or ethical partner. The only good news that has come out of the Congo as of late has been the indictment of a high level war criminal at the International Criminal Court.

Vermont Students as Activists for the Congo

2010-11-18T14:40:00.000-08:00

Several students from Saint Michael's College here in Vermont are making headway in their campaign to end U.S. support for Rwanda and Uganda. Both nations allegedly have made forays into the Congo and their soldiers have committed rapes and other atrocities. This effort is part of the Dear Hillary Campaign which was founded at the college. Early this year Secretary Clinton stated that the situation in the Congo was a matter of national security and it is hoped that advocacy such as this will help the U.S. live up to that assertion.

Security Council was Briefed on Congo Rapes

2010-10-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

On October 14 the United Nations Security Council was briefed on the recent rapes that happened under noses of U.N. peacekeepers. PRI'S " The World" discusses various strategies for dealing with the situation in the Congo including an interesting program that tries to address the problem through the rapists who are often children themselves. A fictionalized account of one such case is detailed in the novel Beasts of No Nation.

Congo's Lastest Horrors

2010-10-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

News regarding rape in the Congo rarely lets up. This article from Salon details the new allegations of the rape and murder of Congolese women at the hands of Angolan government officials. It also gets into the failure of the integration of women into the peacekeeping process on the 10 year anniversary of the U.N. resolution that was supposed to make it so.

Margot Wallstrom and the Security Council

2010-10-01T17:02:00.001-07:00

Margot Wallstrom, the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict informed the United Nations Security Council this week regarding the mass rape of men, women, and children in Kampal, Democratic Republic of the Congo that occurred this summer in areas patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers. Wallstrom has spent much of the last month touring the DRC taking testimony from victims. Wallstrom and others have found fault with the lack of resources devoted to the U.N. DRC Mission and response of the peacekeepers involved in it. While it seems like, a far away problem the Congo is becoming an increasingly important supplier of rare earth minerals to the United States.

Gang Rape in the Congo

2010-09-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago it was reported that several hundred women were gang raped, sometimes in front of their families by rebel militia groups in an area patrolled by the United Nations. This came at a time when Margot Wallstrom was touring the region. It is just another sad chapter in the history of this conflict. Today the U.N. Undersecretary for Peace Keeping apologized for the incident. I have spoken about the appalling lack of resources devoted to the problem in the past and their is current little indication that the United Nations will be able to change the situation in the future.

Margot Wallstrom is putting focus on the Problem of Rape in Combat

2010-08-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Margot Wallstrom, U.N. Special Representative on Sexual violence in Conflict has been touring Africa this summer to uncover the level of rape occurring in five conflict zones. In a CNN article she discusses important issues such as the socialization process that child soldiers are forced to endure that makes them more easily molded into a rapist. Wallstrom has been documenting the use of rape in combat as it has been supplanting other methods of violence on the battlefield.It is incredibly important work that will pave the way towards war crimes trials and assistance for the victims of these crimes.

PTSD and Rape in the Military

2010-07-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

New regulations were announced for diagnosing U.S. veterans with PTSD that are supposed to make it easier for veterans to receive benefits however they pose a "Catch 22" for survivors of rape and other sexual trauma as detailed here. And what if the wounds did not include rape as in this case ? New regulations need to be developed in order to put sexual trauma on equal footing with other combat injuries.

Rape and Genocide: Not Just Perpetrated by Men.

2010-07-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents allege that a women now residing in New Hampshire committed acts of rape and murder while living in her native Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. Although these charges are highly controversial, the fact that women can be party to such acts of cruelty on the battlefield should not be surprising given that female soldiers/combatants are often socialized in the same manner as their male counter parts. Whether it is during the Balkan conflict, wars in sub-Saharan Africa, or Abu Ghraib female soldiers have utilized sexual violence. Noted psychologist Brett Kahr was not surprised by the actions committed by the men or women stationed at Abu Ghraib as in his estimation after thousands of interviews conducted regarding sexual fantasy "The crimes of Lynndie England may be regarded as concretization - an explicitization- of the very same acts the one can find as a mainstay of ordinary American and British sexual fantasy life". The war, in conjunction with reinforcement of the behavior as being normative gave them license to do that which they had only previously thought about.

Jessica Stern on her own rape.

2010-07-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

Last week, terrorism/violence expert Jessica Stern released book regarding her own rape which she says helps explain her own interest in extreme violence. Read the article here.

The Children of Rape in Rwanda

2010-05-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

This striking project from photo journalist Johnathan Torgovnick chronicles the aftermath of the genocidal campaign of rape in Rwanda in 1994. It follows the story of several mothers and the children that they conceived as a result of being sexually assaulted by Hutu militiamen. There stories are remarkably similar to those of women that were victimized in the former Yugoslav Republic, the Congo, and Sierra Leon. The strategy employed by the militiamen was simple, any children conceived out of their criminal act would be at least in part Hutu and most of Africa only the "male" lineage counts, thus negating an entire generation of children that would have otherwise been born Tutsi.

I wrote this in 2006 regarding a piece of literature regarding the genocidal rape situation in Bosnia which has striking parallels to the Rwandan situation:

Serbia would become the most prolific executer of this genocidal ideal during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. They resurrected the concentration camp for use in ethnic cleansing operations on European soil for the first time since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The most disturbing element of their plan to exact genocide upon the Bosnian and Croatian populations was their use of rape camps. S is the fictional composite sketch of one such camp, as seen through the eyes of a young Bosnian Muslim school teacher named S. In these camps, Bosnian women were subjected to humiliation that was in many ways worse than death. This type of denegation was used to augment the killing and cultural destruction that was occurring both within and outside their walls. S was first raped by three soldiers in the camp and she was utterly dehumanized even before the violation occurs and Drakulic states “Now she is standing naked in the office, learning against the wall. She is surrounded by hunters. She can feel them crawl all over her. They are wet, slimy, hot, as they touch her nipples and descend her belly into her loins. This is perhaps the worst thing that will engrave itself on her memory: the eyes of the strange men reveling in their trophy just before the attack”. [21] The strategy that was being pursued within the camps was even more diabolical than state sanctioned rape centers in and of themselves. Beverly Allen in her book Rape Warfare coined the term “genocidal rape” to describe the Serbian policy that was conducted within the rape centers. Serbian leaders not only wished to totally dominate Bosnian Muslim women but wish to use their bodies as incubators for Serbian babies.[22]Allen sums up the absurdity of the idea when she states that “Initially the idea that Serbs could kill off the Bosnian- Herzegovina and Croatian peoples by producing more of them, by fathering babies was utterly ludicrous…I finally understood that to its perpetrators such a equation was possible on the condition that they cancel every aspect of the mother’s identity….other than that as sexual container.” [23] S is subjected to this grim fate, and is forced to carry the baby to term. She views the being inside of her as “a tumor which will grow and spread and become increasingly visible and her body as mere receptacle, like a rent a womb” [24] This was not the first time that rape was used in an attempt to form the foundation of nation state. The rape of the Sarbines women by the army of Romulus is central to the creation story of Rome, for the children born of these unholy unions would go on to become its first citizens. Allen argues that the rape of the Sarbines Women was essentially an act of creation and not one of destruction, as is the case with the rape of the women of Serbia[25]. Serbian leaders, however, most likely missed this philosophical distinction and might have used this myth as a blue print towards their genocidal aims.

Ohio Prisoner Punished for Reporting Rape

2010-05-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

This piece from Mother Jones details the rape of an inmate at the Ohio Reformatory Woman. The shocking lack of investigation and subsequent treatment of Michelle Ortiz, the inmate in question, are issues that are now making their way to the U.S. Supreme Court. I was an Intern with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in the Security Threat Group. While I worked with a good group of people the attitude that surrounded the issue of rape was general in-credulousness. I was funded under the department's allotment of grant monies stemming from the Prison Rape Elimination Act even though my duties had nothing to with the prevention of rape (especially staff on inmate assault). It is interesting to note that several of the guards at Abu Ghraib including Charles Graner were civilian correctional officers before their service in the army where their skills regarding abuse were refined and brought to the Iraq War. The Standford Prison Experiment highlighted the lengths that Correctional Officers might go to in order to humiliate prisoners(including sexual humiliation) but its lessons were not heeded until more than twenty years latter when the photos of Abu Ghraib surfaced.

Army Interregator Threatened Child Soldier with Rape

2010-05-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Evidence has been brought to light that accused Taliban fighter Omar Khadr was threaten with rape during an interrogation session in 2002. Khadr was just a teenager when he was accused to killing a U.S. solder in Afghanistan. He had been held without trial for over nine years until his recent appearances for a Military Commission. His treatment has flown in the face of numerous treaties regarding the treatment of children in which the U.S. is a signatory. The recent evidence came from the testimony of an a former Army Interrogator that had questioned Khadr 8 years ago. I have written about Khadr's case here previously. This adds another twist to a sad story that is not inconstant with the detainee abuse events of Abu Gharib or Bagram Air Base as featured in the documentaries Standard Operating Procedure and Taxi to the Darkside.

Peacekeepers in the Congo

2010-04-20T14:47:00.001-07:00

The U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom was in the Congo two weeks ago to advocate for an extension of the U.N. mission in the country. All though peacekeepers have been linked to some atrocities in the country, it is widely believed that if the U.N. is forced to leave conditions for women and girls in the country will worsen. Wallstrom has an uphill battle to fight in a country whose conflict has been the deadliest since World War II, which was characterized by a recent article in Foreign Policy magazine as being less of traditional war and more akin to "organized banditry".

Black Hearts and War Crimes

2010-04-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

In a new book journalist Jim Fredricks chronicles the leaderships failures that helped lead to the 2006 rape and murder of a young Iraqi girl and her family at the hands of U.S. troops. I have written about this incident before but this book has new details about the factors that helped further one of the most infamous crimes of the Iraq war.

Women are not just victims.... A Different Perspective on Rape in the U.S. Military

2010-04-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

The piece written by Lt. Jessica Scott is for the PBS series regarding women in war. It touches on the fact that a woman's accomplishments in and contributions to the military are not defined by and large by victim-hood. Scott had a positive refection on her service and stated that "In the Army I serve, women and men are treated based on their performance and how they carry themselves." (This type of blame the victim mentality by is explained this study)She goes on to state that "The media claims that nearly one-third of service women have experienced sexual abuse. This percentage is certainly higher than anyone should find acceptable, but those who suffer abuse are still in the minority". She blames the media for a lack of positive stories regarding women in combat and ends her piece by saying "We are soldiers and spouses and sisters and mothers and wives and daughters. We are not just victims, bitches, sluts or dykes.To the mainstream media: please stop telling America that's all we are." Author Kelly Oliver refers to this assertion in her book "Women's Bodies as Weapons of War" as the virgin/whore dichotomy. Oliver, like Scott, believes that women have either been portrayed as virgins as in the case PFC. Jessica Lynch or whores as was the case for Lyndie England by the media during the war in Iraq. It is not just the media rallying around these accounts. It is the Pentagon who needed a hero or a scape goat to complete their own narratives. I cannot discount Scott's experiences however; she can only speak for herself in this matter as many other women have ones that differ greatly.

The Comfort Women of Korea are still Remembered Today

2010-03-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

This article was drafted as part of the Korea Times 60th Anniversary series.It details the history of the "Comfort Women" who were forced to work as prostitutes by the Kempeitai or Japanese Military Police during World War II. This was problem felt by a whole generation of women that were exploited from China to the Dutch East Indies by Japanese forces during World War II. It was felt most intensely in Korea, as Korea was a province of Japan at the time. "The Comfort Women" by Nora Okja Keller(pictured above) is a novel that encompasses the reality of the time in a way that many non fiction sources are unable to do. It is a must read for anyone who wishes to have a fuller understanding of the time period and the events surrounding the Comfort Women.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declares that international opression of women is national securtity threat

2010-03-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

On March 10th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the United Nations regarding the rights of women. It was Clinton, who in 2009 traveled to the Congo to discuss rape as a tool of war. She had this to say regarding rape in combat zones during an interview after her speech:

When you have women who are denied their rights, it’s often in cultures that are prone to extremism. We’ve seen that again and again. And generally, it is such a challenge to American values and American interests when you have half a population of a country denied the fundamental rights that we stand for.

And if you look across conflict zones, where we spend a lot of our time worrying, from Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Somalia to Yemen, every place that we worry about is a place where women are denied their rights...............QUESTION: You mentioned violence against women, rape as a tool of war. And how do you change that mindset, the culture of abusing women? Because after all, in some conflict zones, you’ve even had UN staff raping women.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Jill, this is one of the worst manifestations of the oppression and terrible abuse that women face around the world. I remember reading Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s autobiography. I admire her so much. She is the president of Liberia, the first woman elected to lead an African nation. And she went through this horrible period during the civil war in her country and, at one point really feared for her life and really feared that she was going to be attacked. And she tried to talk to these young men who were so menacing. And at one point, she said, “Well, think of your mothers.” She said to this day, she doesn't know why she wasn’t attacked.

And part of what I’m trying to figure out is how do we find the language that cuts across cultures, that tries to interrupt a rampage of violence, a sense of entitlement, of power that too often motivates the fighters in these various conflicts around the world so that they stop and think and they regain some sense of humanity.

So we have taken very seriously the whole issue of gender and sexual-based violence. I was privileged to chair the Security Council when they adopted a resolution condemning it and putting forth more United Nations efforts to try to combat it. But it’s gratuitous. You could go back in history and you can always find marauding armies that pillaged and raped along the way, but now it’s almost as though that’s the purpose of it. It is to subjugate women. It is to use women as a prize in armed conflict. And we just have to stand so strongly against that. It is just barbaric and inhuman.

Former General blamed Gay Dutch Soldiers for the Massacre at Srebrenica

2010-03-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO General John Sheehan asserted during a Senate hearing that due to the fact there were gay soldiers in the Dutch peacekeeping force at Srebrenica Serbs were allowed to overrun the town. This is a patently ridiculous notion. The massacre was largely allowed to happen due to restrictions imposed on the force stationed there by the UN Security Council.The General also stated that rape and sodomy would increase if don't ask don't tell was repealed while ignoring the rise in rape allegations of a mostly heterosexual nature during 2009. It also discounts the fact that male on male rape and sexual harassment occurs in the supposedly totally heterosexual military and that some accusers are then labeled as homosexuals after they report the assault.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UN appoints Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict

2010-03-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

Last month the United Nations appointed a Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. She is already hard at work in several African countries. This is a positive, if only symbolic step as rape has only been recognized as a war crime by the International Criminal Court since 2001 and it was only in 2008 that the United Nations recognized rape during conflict as a crime against humanity. It is hoped that having a high level representative will raise the level of consciousness of the issue in the world community.

Law and Order SVU highlights War Rape in the Congo

2010-03-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

This week Law and Order:SVU featured a story line regarding the rape of women during the current conflict in the Congo. This is an interesting intersection of popular culture and the phenomenon of rape during wartime. The SVU series has long been a curious dichotomy between our society's revulsion regarding sexual violence and its desire voyeuristically examine it. Mariska Hargitay, the star of the series wrote a companion piece that explores the origins of the conflict.

Congo in the VDAY Spotlight

2010-03-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

Rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is at levels that one can barely fathom. This issue has garnered a lot of attention recently due to a high profile visit last year by Secretary Hillary Clinton. For this year's VDAY coinciding with Woman's History Month the plight of the Congo is being highlighted. I first wrote about the problem in 2008 and and the problem has only grown since then.

See a trailer for the 2008 documentary The Greatest Silence:Rape in the Congo

Women at War: BBC goes indepth

2010-02-16T18:50:00.001-08:00

The BBC has been running a series regarding the experience of women in combat this week. In the this piece the BBC attacked the problem of sexual assault in the U.S. military. It largely recalls the details of the ongoing problem but its also covers the harrowing story of soldier who faced courts martial if she reported the crime that occurred against her because she did not have here weapon with her during assault which is mandatory in a combat zone. This blame the victim mentality apparently is even common amongst women according according to a new study that that surveyed more than 1000 women in the U.K. and found that 20 percent of those surveyed blamed the victim for the assault if she had done something to precipitate it. It seems that many people including women have a lot to learn about sexual assault.

Learning No Lessons regarding the Psychological Health of Soldiers

2010-02-15T12:38:00.000-08:00

A piece in Time Magazine this week details how the military disregarded signs of mental illness in several soldiers before the Fort Hood incident who went on to commit murder including Pfc. Steven Green. Green, you may recall, took part in one of the most infamous incidents of violence in the Iraq War when he and four other soldiers raped and murdered a 14 year old Iraqi girl. During a psychological examination Green stated that he had no hobbies "Other than killing Iraqis". One of Green's fellow soldiers, James Baker illuminated his own attitude at sentencing. The entire incident in outlined in the partially fictionalized Brian De Palma film Redacted.

Suicide and Sexual Abuse at a Navy Kennel

2010-01-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

This is probably the most under reported military story of 2009. The investigation by Youth Radio International details the suicide of a female sailor assigned to a military working dog group with the United States Navy, Jennifer Valdivia. The piece details a sordid and complicated chain of events in which she was both the victim and perpetrator of abuse during her time in the military that ultimately led to her suicide. This story is made all the more disturbing given the role that dogs played in the Abu Gharib incident and it highlights the prevalence of hostility towards women in the military more generally.

U.N. Fails to Protect women in the Congo from rape

2010-01-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

A new report is out from Human Rights Watch that details the deaths of more than 1,400 Congolese civilians at the hands of rebel and government forces during UN. backed operations in the eastern part of the country this year. Several thousand women were also raped by both sides as punishment for alleged collaboration with one side or the other. This is not the first time a U.N. Peace Keeping mission has failed to protect civilians.

- 1992 Militias are able to stay in control of the county of Somalia after U.N pull out.

- 1994 U.N. fails to allow its peacekeepers to intervene in Rwanda allowing for the deaths of over 800,000 Rwandans in 100 days.

- 1995 U.N. forces failed to protect the safe haven of Srebrenica, Bosnia allowing the deaths of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.

A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s

2010-01-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

This was the headline in a story that ran today in the New York Times regarding sexual misconduct and rape in the military. It is perennial problem that continues to be largely discounted by the U.S. military despite recent steps combat it. The article states according to the Pentagon that fewer than 10% of sexual assault incidents are reported. In 2005, Congresswoman Jane Harman, of the House Armed Services Committee received an unreleased Pentagon study detailing the extent of sexual misconduct in the reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces. It revealed that 27 % of male soldiers experienced what the report termed "military sexual trauma" which includes verbal harassment as well as touching and other unwanted sexual behavior. The prevalence of women experiencing the same behavior is at 60%. 3% of males reported actually having been sexually assaulted (i.e. raped, sodomized, etc) and 23 % of women reported the same. The GAO recently released a report that the article links to which details the poor implemetation of the Petagon's anti-sexual violence measures. The report also states that services for men who have been raped are almost nonexistent. This conclusion is bolstered by a 2004 Boston Globe story "Sexual Assault in the Shadows" that details how the military has labeled the male victim of rape in the military as being homosexual in the past.

Rape in Zimbabwe in order to "fix" elections

2009-12-11T16:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was revealed in a report by the non profit group Aids Free World that it had completed an investigation into allegations of rape in Zimbabwe at the hands of government backed militias. The report states that on at least 70 occasions, militiamen attached to the ruling party raped women in order suppress opposition part political activities. This strategic use of rape has been common in recent times as its perpetrators seek to instill fear in both the women and their immediate families. The living victim then gos on to serve as a reminder if the demands of the particular militia,political party, or religious authority are not met further rapes will occur in the future.

Read the full report here:

http://www.aids-freeworld.org/content/view/339/198/

Read PRI's interview with one of the Directors of Aids Free World:

http://www.theworld.org/2009/12/10/sexual-assault-in-mugabes-zimbabwe/

Women for Women Interantional

2009-12-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

After seeing this group on the Oprah Winfrey Show, I will be donating to their cause. Their mission is to halt sexual violence in war zones and to uplift the lives of women. If you have ever read any my previous posts on sexual violence in combat zones you understand how prevalent and under reported the phenomenon is until very recently. Please go to their website and see the work that they are doing.

http://www.womenforwomen.org/

and watch the 60 minutes piece on rape in the Congo:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/60minutes/main3701249.shtml

A Women in Berlin

2009-08-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

This is an incredibly important piece of film regarding the use of rape in warfare. I will tie the movie into later research once I see the movie. Here is a story from NPR regarding a survivor of the Russian rape of the women of Berlin after World War II and a review of the movie based on a true account:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106687768

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEZxcSf9HwM

War Sex

2009-03-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is the introduction to my up coming paper entitled War Sex: The Cultural Implications of the Sporadic and Intentional acts of Sexual Violence Committed by the United States Military Since World War I. I plan to have the paper written by the end of April to coincide with National Violence Against Women Awareness Month.

Sexual violence has had a part to play in every war that the United States has conducted since World War I and probably most conflicts before that. Culturally, it is an extremely painful realization. The U.S. military is often trumpeted as the vaunted legion of democracy and the guardian of the ideals that which democracies represent. Most recently, the prima facia pornography of the photos at Abu Gharib changed that popular understanding to a certain extent. However, this episode was not the United States military’s first foray into the world of sexual violence. There have been accounts of the sporadic commission of rape on the battle since World War I. In fact, the first execution of a U.S. Army soldier on foreign soil was for rape in 1917.World War II, Vietnam, and the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have all been littered with accounts of sporadic as well as planned sexual violence. More important than chronicling each individual act of sexual violence, this paper seeks to explain how sexual violence perpetrated by the U.S. military has affected art, literature, and film in the western world. The exploration of how cultural output of the United States and other western countries has played a role in enhancing the level of sexual violence in the U.S. military will also be explored. In this way, the feedback loop regarding sexual violence that plays out between culture of the United States and its military can be understood. The review of several works of art, literature, and film from each era provides a glimpse at how cultural understandings regarding sexual violence in combat have changed over the last hundred years and how images from one era affect another in sometimes surprising ways.

From the Congo to Guantanamo:The Plight of Child Soldiers

2009-02-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago the trial of notorious Congolese militia leader Lubanga Dyilo began in the International Criminal Court. He stands accused of among other things, using children to sow rape, mayhem, and murder throughout the Congo. These children were, as a CNN article points out, socialized to commit unspeakable acts of violence as rape and torture was first utilized on them. The article states: "Lubanga's armed group recruited, trained and used hundreds of young children to kill, pillage and rape. The children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga's crimes. They cannot forget what they saw, what they suffered, what they did," ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said as the trial opened on Monday morning." This type of monstrous socialization is charted in several books such as "A Long Way Gone" by Ismael Beal, and the novels "What is the What" by Dave Eggers, and "Beasts of No Nation" by Uzodinma Iweala which detail the events of wide range of African civil wars. This entire event is juxtaposed by the fact that the United States currently holds a child soldier in Guantanamo Bay. Omar Khadr has been held, without trial for oven 7 years. He was first taken from the battlefield when he was just 15. The evidence that has been proffered against him is dubious at best. It is even alleged that harsh interrogations and even torture had been used on this teenager (Now a 22 year old man). His conditions of detention have been identical to those of all of the other detainees at Guantanamo Bay despite his age. There is little doubt that Khadr was coerced into service by relatives in the same way that child soldiers in Sierra Leon, Liberia, the Congo, Sudan, and numerous other countries have been. Holding Khadr in this manner for the past seven years dilutes the world community's ability to prosecute the real crime in this case: the use of child soldiers in the first place.

CNN trial article:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/26/congo.hague.trial/index.html

Rape in Warfare, Part II

2008-04-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

The paper that I posted on the subject of rape in warfare arose from work I did in a comparative studies course last year (Comparative Studies: War in Literature and Film) . For our final paper we were asked to address any overarching theme that was present in the various works of art, literature, and film that were covered. I immediately latched on to the overarching images of rape that were present. Why rape? It is one of the most uncomfortable topics that one can discuss is most societies and is not often examined in terms of military history. Moreover, the links between genocide and rape are to compelling to ignore. Researching these accounts was not easy work , not because there is not ample evidence of the phenomenon but because of the horror that is contained within them. I went into a deep depression upon realzing how deeply the pairing between war, sex, violence, art, literature, and film had become.

I plan to present several short postscripts to my original paper in order to illuminate some of the current issues surrounding sexual violence on the battlefield and these incidents have affected the recent cultural output. It also must be noted that I do not hold the view that every solder with post traumatic stress disorder is a rapist at heart. While presenting my paper on at the University of Calgary a veteran of the Canadian Forces (with post traumatic stress disorder) took great offense to my linkage of post traumatic stress syndrome with rape in combat. He stated that he was unable to be sexually intimate with a woman because of his condition. I explained that I had come to understand that combat stress effects every soldier differently, and where he had trouble being sexually intimate; some individuals' disorders manifests itself in other ways. In this way it is my hope that any members of the Armed Services that come upon my writings understand that I believe war itself creates the conditions for such inhumanity while not removing culpability for its' individual participants.

The Use of Rape in Warfare: A Multicultural Literary and Historical Review

2008-04-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

Rape is generally seen as the most abhorrent act that one can commit. It is the only violent crime for which there no possible mitigation. Even the most mild mannered among us can see the necessity for killing in self defense, but the act of rape is much less accessible. Why, then; has rape been a part of warfare sense antiquity? Individual acts of rape on the battlefield occur due to a combination of one or more biological, psychological, and sociological factors which are often unique to combat zones. While isolated rapes have occurred in nearly every armed conflict, it is important to explain the role that these factors play on the battlefield when armies decide to use rape in a deliberate fashion. To this end, I plan on examining the use of rape as a tool of warfare from an individual and cultural perspective. I will delve into the connection between rape as a form of individual terrorism and the wider destruction of culture that is often present where state sanctioned rape is pursued as a tactic of war. I will examine these issues in light of several pieces of literature in tandem with their accompanying visual works that span time and cultural boundaries. For works of literature and art, unlike the often dry narrative of history, are often able to capture the collective uncensored experience of war[1]. In this way, each story presents the interplay between rape as genocide and genocide as rape in a way that is unique to the author’s cultural and historical perspective.

Why do Soldiers Rape on the Battlefield?

The question of why soldiers commit acts of rape on the battlefield is as old as war itself. Acts of rape in warfare present a historical constant that bridges both time and culture in a way that no other factor does. Modern science and scholarship have done much to shed light on the connection between violence and sexuality on the battlefield. Individual acts of rape in combat are now tied to number of factors that comprise a rape ‘syndrome’. Lt. Colonel David Grossman in his seminal work On Killing charts the perceived connection between a soldier’s virility and his ability to kill in combat[2]. Grossman notes that this link was made by ancient cultures that used killing as a right of passage into manhood. The link has been maintained throughout western history. Roman women actively pursued sexual liaisons with victorious gladiators and today’s western societies hold up professional athletes who participate in violent sports as the epitome of manhood. In this way, soldiers are socialized into the belief that heterosexual sexual prowess and killing are somehow inextricably tied together. A U.S. Navy medical officer during World War stated that “The men in a successfully trained army or navy are stamped into a mold…They cannot, and they must not be mollycoddled, and this very education benefits nature, induces sexual aggression, and makes them stern, dynamic type of men we associate with the armed forces. This sexual aggressiveness cannot be stifled.”[3] The philosophy that was espoused by the medical officer is a common philosophy among military leadership throughout history and in modern times, implicit in this conditioning equation is the belief that homosexuality and weakness go hand in hand. In the United State’s military admitting to homosexuality will earn one a dishonorable discharge and considerable embarrassment. While this punishment is harsh, other armies throughout history have prescribed the death penalty for homosexuality amongst its ranks. In this climate, it is no wonder why a soldier would want to prove his (or her) sexual prowess at every turn[4].

Popular culture has also played a role in how sexuality and violence is combined on the battlefield. In the United States and elsewhere, violent movies often have a strong sexual component. The sexual prowess of characters such as James Bond is directly linked to their ability to kill and cause destruction. Martial Arts movies such as the “Kill Bill” series and a myriad of others pair hyper-sexualized images with unmatched violent content. Even war movies such as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket contain sexual scenes and themes. Moreover, when sex and violence are paired this way violent films and media can become a kind of pornography. In his memoir, American veteran Anthony Swafford had this to regarding the impact of film on his Marine platoon’s preparations on eve of the Gulf War; “They would send a few guys downtown, to rent all the war movies they could get there hands on…..we-head butt and beat the crap out of each other and we get off on the various visions of carnage violence and deceit, the raping, killing, and pillaging…Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and destruction are pornography to the military man.” [5] The situation that Swafford describes is not unique. The use of sexually violent images that portray soldiers using rape has a long history that dates from the beginning of western civilization. Film is merely the latest medium in which to convey the violence of war to an audience that is eager to receive it.

Beyond the sociological factors that contribute to a rape culture on the battlefield, individual psychological traumas also play a prominent role. Combat stress or what is now referred to as post traumatic stress disorder, can manifest itself sexually in several ways. First soldiers can learn to equate sexuality with the exhilaration that one feels in combat. Israeli military psychologist Ben Shalit observed a soldier firing a heavy machine and stated that “ The Gunner was firing away with what can only be described as a beatific smile. He was exhilarated by the squeezing of the trigger, the hammering of the gun………these are the pleasures of combat, not in terms of the intellectual planning…but of the primal aggression, the release, the orgasmic discharge.”[6] This complex combination of endocrine secretions can also lead soldiers to be hyper sexualized off the battle. They are in essence chasing the ‘ghost’ of the drug of combat. Soldiers who engage in this behavior are trying to prolong the high while at the same time trying to escape the horrors that they have witnessed. A U.S. Navy SEAL who fought in Vietnam stated that “In Nam you just grabbed some broad and you fucked them. It was to let you know that you were still a human being…..Picture this you come off of an operation you just killed some people, you helped take some of them apart… what do you do? There is not enough booze in the world.”[7] Sex then, becomes a driving force unto itself for some. It literally becomes a primary, rather than ancillary objective that juxtapositions that of killing.

Armies from around the world have exploited these sociological and psychological factors to encourage their soldiers to commit strategic acts of rape. While rape is wide spread on the battlefield, in some cases that would otherwise be disparate acts are purposefully organized. Rape and killing are then brought to bare simultaneously both to maximize the terror felt by the affected population. The following historic and literary case studies are examples of that very phenomenon.

Case Studies

Trojan Women and the Athenians

Euripides’ Trojan Women is arguably the best anti-war literature that has survived from antiquity. It tells the story of the women of Troy after it has been destroyed by the invading Greek army. The Greek expeditionary force killed all the men of Troy, threw the male children of the city from its walls to their deaths and decided to take the women of the city as forced concubines. In this way, the rape of Troy’s culture was undertaken simultaneously with the rape of its women. This ‘total warfare’ strategy predates Clausewitz’s strategic model by several thousand years. In this way, the Greek soldiers sought to dominate the city of Troy entirely. By killing the men and boys in addition to practically erasing city from the earth, the Greek’s are able to control even the memory of the city’s existence. For after all the men and boys were killed, there would never again be a person born of Trojan decent. Every child born thereafter would be of Greek parentage because only the father’s cultural history would have been recognized. It is interesting to note that the destruction of Troy and the rape of its women is one of the first western images of war. In the image known as the Kleophardes Painter the rape of Troy’s women is presented both as heroic depiction of combat and a protest to the dishonorable destruction of the city of Troy. [8]It depicts the rape of Cassandra as;
“The Warrior Ajax marked as a solider by his helmet and greaves, carries a long sword, which protrudes beyond his genital region in a phallic manner. He strides forcefully over a dead warrior in order to grab Cassandra by the hair, a gesture which denotes sexual violence…..The only unclothed figure on the vase, she is rare example of frontal female nudity in fifth century Greek art. Her arms and legs are open to display her genitals, and scholars agree that this scene of a nude aristocratic woman would have shocked viewers. Ajax’s phallic sword and gesture of force make this clear that this was a matter of rape”.[9]
While the Kleophardes Painter would be the first artistic production of this nature it would not be the last[10]. It is important to understand that rape and genocide in war are not unique to the modern world. Although this was a fictional account of war’s wrath on the civilian population of Troy, it is indicative of a culture that exulted warrior’s manhood which tied to his ability to kill and conduct sexual congress with women. We must strive understand the mindset of the ancient past; lest we become like “Nestor in the Iliad, reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”. [11]

Trojan Women is not in and of itself a piece of historical fiction. It was designed to be a social commentary regarding the city state of Athens’ military actions on a number of occasions. The armies of Athens had decided to pursue a policy of genocide in their quest to dominate the city states of Scione and Melos. There is almost no doubt that Euripides one or both of these conflicts in mind when he first composed Trojan Women. [12] In both cases, the Athenians committed the very same atrocities that were depicted in Trojan Women. On the island Melos, they killed all of the adult men and sold the women and children into slavery in the same fashion that Euripides describes in his dramatic prose.[13]

The Comfort Women of Korea

Although it has been more than sixty years since the end of World War II in the pacific theater, Japan’s use of rape as a distinct strategy is still a hotly debated within that nation. Many in Japan, including the former Prime Minister of Japan, still believe that the infamous ‘Rape of Nanjing’ was widely over stated and that the ‘comfort battalions’ that sexually serviced troops contained only willing participants. The ‘Rape of Nanjing’ was one of the most horrific war crimes perpetrated by the Japanese however; the use of nearly 200,000 Korean and Chinese women as forced prostitutes affected the Korean nations in a way that they have yet to heal from[14]. They were known collectively as ‘Comfort Women’ taken or lured from their villages and forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers in army organized brothels during the Second World War. The rape of Korea itself began in 1905 when Japan invaded Korea and took possession of the nation as a territory of Japan. The Korean people were seen as subhuman inhabitants that were subject to the whims of there Japanese masters. As early as 1932, the Japanese army began to construct ‘comfort’ stations’ populated by the women of Korea because they were thought to be virginal and free of disease[15].

There were many survivors of the Japanese military’s forced prostitution camps that were willing to tell their stories. Due to this fact, a wide body of fictional literature exists that has helped to tell the tales of women that can scarcely be spoken about in conservative Korean society. The novel Comfort Women by Nora Okja Keller is one of the best examples of literature that seeks to convey the horrors of the forced prostitution camps and the effects that those camps had on one Korean woman named Akido. At first, Akido was too young to be a prostitute in the camp that she was taken to. She instead served the women of the camp and was witness to the ‘total institution’ within its walls. She stated that “Unless they (the women of the camp) had to visit the camp doctor, their freedom outside their stalls consisted of weekly baths at the river and scheduled trips to the outhouse”.[16] Though the character of Akido, Keller is able to tell the story of the women who dared to resist there Japanese oppressors. In one passage, Akido speaks about a woman who tried to resist the repeated episodes of rape; she stated that “Just before daybreak, they took her out of her stall and into the woods, where we couldn’t hear her anymore.” [17]This passage sets the stage for the rest of the novel where Akido relates her experiences in the camps with a series of flashbacks. One night after she is forced to have an abortion in the camp after listening to a Japanese military doctor speak of the “evolutionary differences between the races, biological quirks that made one race so pure and the women of another so promiscuous. Base, really almost like animals, he said.”; Akido escaped from the camp.[18] She, like the other ‘comfort women’ of Korea may have survived their experiences but they did not come away unscathed. Nearly an entire generation of Korean women was affected by the policy pursued by the Japanese military. Instead of happily producing Korean children in loving relationships, they were instead forced to abort the fetuses of their Japanese rapists. This was a calculated strategy on the part the Japanese military to decimate the Korean population and heritage by forcing the life givers of Korea into prostitution. Their actions have exacted a cost which can barely be calculated and in the face of Japanese denial, it continues to cause strain between the two countries.

S and the Bosnian Conflict

While the Trojan Women is a timeless tale that tells of the tragedy that befalls women in zones of combat, Slavenka Drakulic’ S reminds the reader that this type of horror carries on into the present. The break up of the former Yugoslav Republic could have scarcely been more of a disaster. Men of the worst character came to power in the three biggest nations within the former Republic of Yugoslavia which included Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. Each nation constructed the myth of cultural superiority and when war broke out they did not hesitate to use destruction to uphold their vision of history. According to one Bosnian Serb, “The war began with words, but none of us paid attention. The extremist Serbs and Muslims were misfits, criminals, and failures. But soon they held rallies and talked of racial purity, things like that. We dismissed them-until violence began”.[19] What followed was the wholesale destruction of cultural elements that did not fit the myth that one side or the other was attempting to propagate. Chris Hedges in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning states that “In Bosnia the Serbs, desperately trying to deny the Muslim character of Bosnia, dynamited or plowed over libraries, museums, universities, historic monuments, and cemeteries, but most of all Mosques…The Serbs standing in flattened fields were able to argue that their were ever churches of mosques on the spot because they had been removed .” [20] In many instances, cultural destruction of this nature is merely the precursor to the destruction of the people that are the living embodiment of the cultural output which is so despised.

Serbia would become the most prolific executer of this genocidal ideal during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. They resurrected the concentration camp for use in ethnic cleansing operations on European soil for the first time since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The most disturbing element of their plan to exact genocide upon the Bosnian and Croatian populations was their use of rape camps. S is the fictional composite sketch of one such camp, as seen through the eyes of a young Bosnian Muslim school teacher named S. In these camps, Bosnian women were subjected to humiliation that was in many ways worse than death. This type of denegation was used to augment the killing and cultural destruction that was occurring both within and outside their walls. S was first raped by three soldiers in the camp and she was utterly dehumanized even before the violation occurs and Drakulic states “Now she is standing naked in the office, learning against the wall. She is surrounded by hunters. She can feel them crawl all over her. They are wet, slimy, hot, as they touch her nipples and descend her belly into her loins. This is perhaps the worst thing that will engrave itself on her memory: the eyes of the strange men reveling in their trophy just before the attack”. [21] The strategy that was being pursued within the camps was even more diabolical than state sanctioned rape centers in and of themselves. Beverly Allen in her book Rape Warfare coined the term “genocidal rape” to describe the Serbian policy that was conducted within the rape centers. Serbian leaders not only wished to totally dominate Bosnian Muslim women but wish to use their bodies as incubators for Serbian babies.[22]Allen sums up the absurdity of the idea when she states that “Initially the idea that Serbs could kill off the Bosnian- Herzegovina and Croatian peoples by producing more of them, by fathering babies was utterly ludicrous…I finally understood that to its perpetrators such a equation was possible on the condition that they cancel every aspect of the mother’s identity….other than that as sexual container.” [23] S is subjected to this grim fate, and is forced to carry the baby to term. She views the being inside of her as “a tumor which will grow and spread and become increasingly visible and her body as mere receptacle, like a rent a womb” [24] This was not the first time that rape was used in an attempt to form the foundation of nation state. The rape of the Sarbines women by the army of Romulus is central to the creation story of Rome, for the children born of these unholy unions would go on to become its first citizens. Allen argues that the rape of the Sarbines Women was essentially an act of creation and not one of destruction, as is the case with the rape of the women of Serbia[25]. Serbian leaders, however, most likely missed this philosophical distinction and might have used this myth as a blue print towards their genocidal aims.

With in S, Drakulic also delves into the use of rape against men and boys in the Balkan Conflict. While far less prolific, Serbian soldiers did force fathers and sons to rape each other.[26] The novel contains a scene where a Bosnian man was forced to rape his son at gun point. After they were finished another father and son pair were forced to do the same and executed.[27] While the images may seem gratuitous even for this novel, they stand to illustrate an important point. They show that the sexually sadistic cruelty of the soldiers in the novel extends to men as well as women and that no one is safe from its terror. All too often, the use of rape in war is seen only as a women’s issue. Thus, male historians, combat commanders, and politicians do not full recognize the impact that the weapon of rape can have on every member of a society in war time regardless of any demographic factors.

The Ronan Children of Africa and Beasts of No Nation

During the past decade the living conditions for people in central Africa has declined dramatically. AIDS, civil wars, and chronically malignant leadership have all lead to some of the most abhorrent situations imaginable. In Uzodinmae Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation readers are introduced to a young boy named Agu who is forced to conscript in to the militia of an unknown rebel group fighting in a nameless civil war that rages in central Africa. What makes this story more all the more disturbing is that unlike the two previously discussed pieces of literature on rape; soldiers socialized young boys to the techniques of rape and murder. Agu is forced to kill unarmed civilians or be killed by his Commandant. During his first kill, Agu is forced to hack a man to death with a machete with the help of the militia Commandant.[28] Agu is also subjected to repeated sexual abuse at the hands of the Commandant which breaks down Agu’s unwillingness to do the same to others.[29] In Central Africa, victims of rape at the hands of combatants are often left alive to serve as living reminders to the terror that can be brought to any one who resists. In the Congo, women often have knives inserted and guns discharged into their vaginas. This brutality causes a problem known as a fistula, which is a condition where the thin layer of skin between the anus and vagina is ruptured and the affected women is unable to control her bowels[30]. An article in News Week, states that the perpetrators of this crime are careful to leave their victims alive in order to spread terror and humiliation[31]. This to, is a form of genocide because it condemns its victims as undesirables and renders them unable to bare children. Agu participates in several graphic incidents of rape that are equally as troubling. In this way, terror is spread like a virus, which Agu catches and spreads to his victims with the same force that it was spread to him. These child soldiers (and adult soldiers for that matter) will continue to plague the societies that created them. In the countries that utilize child soldiers most prolifically, there is little in the way of reintegration efforts. African nations face tremendous consequences if the problem of child soldiers is left unchecked and as a recent CNN article points out “Without intervention, they could grow up to become a lost generation of migrant professional killers.”[32]

Conclusion

Rape in war is an occurrence that will continue to haunt humanity. Wars throughout history are ripe with images of rape and destruction. However, it is important that scholars begin look at the interplay between rape and genocide. For rape is as powerful a genocidal tool as any gun or bomb and should be recognized as such. For until rape is recognized as a precursor or even a tool for genocide by the whole of the international community, it will continue to be practiced as it has been for centuries. Rape is perhaps one of the few ‘perfect’ weapons for those who would endeavor to use it as tool of terror. It is a weapon that costs nothing and can be manipulated by anyone regardless of gender, age, or physical ability. The proceeding discussion regarding the fictional literature that contained rape in war as a theme, illustrates that impact of rape on the individual is as great as any other physical or mental injury. The act of rape is able to terrorize a victim a way that is often worse than death; where the humiliation, physical injury, and social ostracism remove them from society for all practical purposes. In countries such as the Congo, local non governmental organizations are seeking to assist victims of war rape but “Despite their heroic efforts, however, many organizations lack training and resources needed to assist the survivors”. [33] Western countries then, must vigorously assist countries who have faced the use of wide spread rape in war in order to reintegration the victims. Only reintegration will begin to facilitate a healing process within a particular country. For if this reintegration does not occur, the full terror of the rapist’s weapon will continue to be wielded with its full ferocity exacting a maximum toll on its victims.
[1] In this case the concept of ‘collective experience’ is only referencing the experience of the individuals that are party to a particular incident not a collective cultural memory.
[2] Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave. On Killing. New York: Back Bay Books, 1996. pg 136
[3] Costello, John. Love, Sex, and War. London: Collins, 1985. pg 120
[4] Women have only recently been allowed to serve in frontline units and as we saw with the Abu Ghraib incident, women are equally capable of perpetrating acts of sexualized violence on the battlefield.
[5]Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead: a marine's chronicle of the Gulf War and other Battles. New York: Scribner, 2003
[6] Grossman, pg 136
[7] Shay, John M.D., PhD. Odysseus In America. New York: Scribner Press, 2001. pg 114
[8] Wolfthal, Diane. Images of Rape . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. pg 61, 62
[9] Wolfthal, pg 61
[10] Wolfthal wonderfully illustrates the “dualistic nature” that historical images of rape present. One the one hand they note the abhorrence of act of rape, while on the other they depict the manhood of the soldiers that commit the acts of rape.
[11] Hedges, Chris. War is Force that Gives Us Meaning. New York: Anchor Books, 2002. pg 11
[12] Mcann, David. Strauss, Barry S. War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War. New York: M. E. Sharpe Inc, 2001. pg xxvi
[13] Thucydides. Trans: Richard Crawley History. Book V, Chapter XVII. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/History/Thucydides/HistoryPeloponnesianWar17.html.
[14] “Abe: No new apology for war brothels” The Associated Press. March 12, 2007. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/03/04/japan.sexslaves.ap/index.html
[15] Chunghee Sarah Soh. The Korean “Comfort Women”: Movement for Redress Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 12. (Dec., 1996), pg. 1228

[16] Keller, Nora Okja. The Comfort Women. New York. Penguin Books, 1998. pg. 20
[17] Keller, pg. 21
[18] Keller, pg. 20
[19] Hedges, pg 110.
[20] Hedges, pg 76
[21] Drackulic, Slavenka. S. New York: Viking Press, 1999. Pg 60
[22] Allen, Beverly. Rape Warfare. Minnesota.: University of Minnesota Press, pg xxi
[23] Allen, pg xxi

[24] Drakulic, pgs 144, 145.
[25] Allen, pg. 91
[26] Carpenter, Charli R. “ Recognizing Gender Based Violence Against Civilian Men and Boys” Security Dialogue. Vol. 37. pg. 95
[27] Drakulic, pg. 109
[28] Iweala, Uzondinma. Beasts of No Nation. New York, Harper Collins, 2005. pg 21
[29] Iweala, pg 83
[30] Nordland, Rod. “More Vicious than Rape”. News Week, November 13, 2006.
[31] Nordland (2006)
[32] O’Neil, Anne. “Stolen kids turned into terrifying killers”. 2007. CNN. February 12, 2007.http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/02/12/child.soldiers/index.html
[33] Pratt, Marion, Ph.D. Werchick, Leah, J.D. Sexual Terrorism: Rape as a Weapon of War in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. USAID Assessment Report, 2004. pg 16

V-Day

2008-03-31T14:21:00.001-07:00

Last Friday I attended:

Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer on March 28 @ 8pm in Hitchcock Hall Auditorium. This is a groundbreaking collection of monologues by world-renowned authors and playwrights, edited by Eve Ensler and Mollie Doyle and commissioned by V-Day for the first V-Day: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS festival, which took place June 2006 in New York City. All proceeds from the book will benefit V-Day.These diverse voices rise up in a collective roar to break open, expose, and examine the insidiousness of violence at all levels: brutality, neglect, a punch, even a put-down.The volume features such authors and topics as: Edward Albee on S&M; Maya Angelou on women's work; Michael Cunningham on self-mutilation; Dave Eggers on a Sudanese abduction; Edwidge Danticat on a border crossing; Carol Gilligan on a daughter witnessing her mother being hit; Susan Miller on raising a son as a single mother; Sharon Olds on a bra; Patricia Bosworth on her own physically abusive relationship; Jane Fonda on reclaiming our Mojo; and many more.These writings are inspired, funny, angry, heartfelt, tragic, and beautiful. But above all, together they create a true and profound portrait of how violence against women affects every one of us. The book includes information on how to organize V-Day events and readings of the book. A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, And A Prayer is a call to the world to demand an end to violence against women. ~

Although there were many thought provoking moments in the performance, I thought the most interesting thing that happened was something that was not stated at anytime, i.e. whether or not the monologues were 'real' or based on fictional composites. I have long held the position that because of the nature of sexually based violence that audiences of either print or visual material are most moved when they consume partially fictionalized accounts. I think that this is true for several reasons. Institutional accounts of sexually based violence in both war and peace time use clinical terms to describe what has occurred. The reports use terms like 'rape' and 'sexual assault', the legal definitions for which vary widely. Those terms are also unable to convey to emotional terror that sexually based violence wages on its victims. On the other side of the coin, victims of such violence also have a tough road when they give their account of what has happened to them. While there are many people that enjoy watching fictionalized stories of sexually based violence on programs such as Law and Order Special Victims Unit or CSI, very few of us are able to stomach having to assist a rape victim in the aftermath of the crime and look him or her in the eye to the see victim relive the terror. Moreover, because of the personal nature of sexual assault victims are reluctant to tell their stories publicly because of the shame surrounded with victimization. Let me know what you think. Remember mark your calendar for V-Day on April 11& 12.

http://v10.vday.org/homepage

The Iraq War: 5 Years Later

2008-03-31T14:21:00.000-07:00

I posted this to my facebook account two weeks ago but I figured it was a good lead off post for the new effort here.

Five years ago this week my roommates and I were huddled around a nearly obsolete television set that dated from the early 90’s. In the background Guns n’ Rose’s “Welcome to the Jungle” was set on repeat and helped to sonically illustrate what we were about to witness visually. The channel was tuned to CNN. For the first time in history, civilians were able to ride ‘shotgun’ while an army representing one country spilled over the boarder of another with the aim of invasion. Sure, pictures of war had been available since the Civil War. During World War II newsreels upped the ante by providing an edited motion picture version of war. Coverage of the Vietnam War went further still by beaming the day’s action into the living rooms of millions of Americans during the nightly news. The Gulf War gave us a glimpse of what was to come with the cruise missile camera footage that was featured so prominently during Storm’n Norman’s daily press briefings. The resolution of the cameras was so high you could identify individual bricks on the buildings that were destroyed. The images were every little boy’s video game fantasy about what war could be. What we witnessed on CNN that night differed exponentially in scope because of the immediacy of the broadcast stream. As the tanks of the 3rd Infantry Division pounded through the mounds of sand that marked the border between Kuwait and Iraq we were there in real time. The tension in the room was amplified by the smell of sweat and testosterone. This was the ultimate in real time ‘gonzo’ snuff films for the enjoyment of anyone who wanted to witness it. It felt as if we were going into combat but, of course we were not.

I will admit, that night and for several years thereafter; I was drunk on the current Iraq war. I was trumpeting the change to freedom fries and cheering on Donald Rumsfeld’s vaudevillian press briefings. Now it is almost laughable that I had bought into it all but at the time I was energetically engaged with the ROTC program at Ohio State. While I knew that I could not make a career of it because of various congenital back deformities, I lapped up every drop of the military I could. Belief in the mission is the central cannon of the Army and I believed with all of my heart. "Lets Roll" was our battle cry everyday at formation. Much has occurred in the interim. The President has gathered together all of the hubris he could muster and laded on the flight deck of an air craft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished”. Keith Olbermann reminds us nightly that nearly 1800 days have past and more than 3000 soldiers have died since that declaration. Iraqi has descended into a violent civil war in which coalition soldiers are killed at a rate of nearly one a day while policing it. Several people that I know have been killed or irrevocably damaged in connection to their deployments. The lapses in mental health treatment and physical care for veterans have been shown to be appalling in many VA Hospitals. This is to say nothing of the lies, half truths, and innuendo that brought us into the war in the first place. Then when you think that it can not get any worse the president on the eve of the fifth anniversary of this war describes the service of the troops in Iraq as “Romantic”. Fifteen month deployments are romantic? The death of thousands of Americans is romantic? Harvard trained seminarian and author Chris Hedges stated it best in his book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning when he said that in regards to war that “we have all become like Nestor in the Iliad reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation”.

I recently attended a group veterans called the “Warrior’s Council” at the First Congregational Church in Tallmadge, Ohio. This group is dedicated to healing the trauma caused by combat in its members and to aiding members of the military currently serving back into civilian life. The veterans and family members that were that attended the meeting spanned several generations of service and ranged from World War II veterans to parents of those currently serving in Iraq. The stories were moving and I could feel their pain reach back up through time to touch all who were in the room. While I do not take the lachrymose view that all war is utterly purposeless, it is most often at the very least a gross misappropriation of society’s resources. One can only image the kind of change that could have been implemented if this country could have back its 4000 dead and trillions of dollars that have been spent on this current misadventure. One can only wonder what humanitarian crisis the United States could have intervened in if its blood and treasure had not been pillaged elsewhere. Darfur? Burma? Tibet? We will never know. On this, a holy week for both Christianity and Judaism, I will be thinking of all of those who are serving, will serve, and who have died in Iraq. I pray that the madness that spurred on the Iraq war will be halted as soon as is reasonably possible.