I wasn’t important.

“We have an epidemic here,” [Rep. Jane Harman] said. “Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.”

That was 2008, yet little has changed.

Kori Cioca, 25, of Wilmington, Ohio, tells about how she was raped while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Long story short, I was raped.

When I told my command they waited. They didn’t do anything to help me. It’s like they didn’t care. It wasn’t important. I wasn’t important.

The coast guard’s a lifesaving service yet they didn’t save mine.

Military doctors say that 40% of women at veterans’ hospitals report being sexually assaulted during their service.

[Rep. John] Tierney said, “what’s at stake here goes to the very core of the values of the military and the nation itself.

“When our sons and daughters put their lives on the line to defend the rest of us, the last thing they should fear is being attacked by one of our own.”

Will we kick the can down the road on this, as victims of sexual assault in our own military suffer in silence? Will we continue to hold hearings and listen to the military say it takes these issues seriously, while the evidence in these cases proves the opposite to be true. We must listen to these women’s stories. We must believe and trust them. And we must demand justice.

Please check out the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) for more information and ways to get involved.

 

What If He Is?

This morning on Meet the Press, former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama.

While I lost nearly all respect for Powell when he lied to the UN in the push for the Iraq War, I gained some back today for his comments about Muslims.

I’m also troubled by what members of the party say, and is permitted to be said, such things as, “Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.”Well, the correct answer is, ‘He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian.’

But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?’

The answer is ‘No, that’s not America.’
Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Thank you, Colin Powell, for using your voice to say what is right and what is true. And while conservatives are already spinning your words, that you endorsed Obama because of race or because McCain didn’t select you for VP, you did the right thing by using your access to the press to say something that has been needing to be said (Campbell Brown did her part, too). There truly is no other response to the demonizing of Muslims in this country than to stop doing it. Spin away, Fox News and John McCain, but you know that Powell is right when it comes to Kareem Ushad Sultan Khan and his service to this country you claim to love. So just stop it.

Photograph: Platon

Update: Powell talked to reporters outside his interview on Meet the Press and added some more good points. Steve Benen has video; here’s a highlight:

He went on to express his disgust for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) neo-McCarthyism. “We have got to stop this kind of nonsense,” Powell said, “pull ourselves together, and remember that our great strength is in our unity and in our diversity.”

 

Promoting Loyalists: How Palin = Bush

Shortly after McCain announced Palin as his running mate he began to tout her experience as the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard. But then it seemed that several people in Alaska were insisting that she didn’t actually have any authority or responsibility when it came to the Guard.

There was the pressing interview by Campbell Brown in which McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds couldn’t name any actual national security experience Palin had.

As VetVoice reports:

Sunday 31 August 2008: Major General Craig Campbell, Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard, tells the AP that:

he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.

The quote is used against Palin throughout the media for several days.

Wednesday 3 September 2008: Major General Craig Campbell does significantly more damage to Palin’s credibility in this piece in the Boston Globe:

And while the Alaska National Guard operates a launch site for a US anti-missile system at Fort Greely, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, the Alaskan governor is not in the site’s chain of command and has no authority over its operations, according to Maj. Gen. Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard who commands the roughly 3,800 state militia members.

Then all of a sudden, just 2 days after the statement above, Maj. Gen Campbell flip-flops. He goes on Fox to talk about how well Sarah Palin commands the National Guard:

National Guards are state military forces run by governors, and Sarah Palin does it great.”

Hmm…I wonder what made Campbell change his mind?

Could it be the promotion he received 2 days after his positive comments?

Lt. Gen. ( Alaska ) Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard and commissioner of the Department of Military & Veterans Affairs, received his third star, signifying Governor Sarah Palin’s support of the Guard and her commitment to reinforcing the cooperation between federal and state military assets.

Palin took the opportunity to promote Campbell ahead of any pending emergency that may occur with the upcoming fall storm season. This allows Alaska to have more of a say in times of state disasters.

“This is about Alaskans serving Alaskans.  The promotion is a statement that the Alaska National Guard is the state military force responsible for responding to state issues, at the direction of the Governor,” Governor Palin said.  “The decision to promote the Adjutant General to Lieutenant General is based on a fundamental states’-rights stance, for which Alaska has a strong historical position.”

Silencing dissent. Promoting loyalists. Remind you of anyone…?

 

McCain the Fighter

Barbara Boxer has a great statement up in response to John McCain’s acceptance speech at the RNC. She talks about serving with McCain for 16 years in the Senate and what she’s known him to fight for (or against) during that time.

Some highlights:

In the 16 years that we have served together in the Senate, I have seen John McCain fight.

I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.

I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.

I have seen him fight against a women’s right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.

I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.

I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system “an absolute disgrace.”

And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.

For a more detailed account of McCain on the issues, click here.

 

Cranky and Delusional

Do we really want another President who lives on some other imaginary planet? One who denies the troubling realities when they are not politically convenient? One who can’t admit to any mistakes…ever?

Today John McCain insisted that Iraq is a “peaceful and stable country now.”

Q: Some members of the [Iraqi] government have made it clear in the last month or two that they might want to withdraw before complete stability, before totally secure borders, before some of the completeness of victory as you described. Is there any change, do you think there is some wiggle room there because what you described with Petraeus was an end point that was rather complete – a peaceful, stable country.

MCCAIN: Its a peaceful and stable country now. (ThinkProgress)

Wow. This guy’s on the armed services committee? I can only imagine how the military servicemen and women and their families feel when they hear a statement like this.

It seems to me that at the expense of rambling and making yet another gaffe, McCain’s advisers have really muffled him. However, when sticking to short responses such as these, he comes off “prickly” and uninformed. Delusional, perhaps.

 

Troops Donate Six Times More Money to Obama

OpenSecrets.org, which tracks money in U.S. politics, reports that contributions from deployed troops are six times greater for Obama than they are for McCain.

During World War II, soldiers crouching in foxholes penned letters assuring their sweethearts that they’d be home soon. Now, between firefights in the Iraqi desert, some infantrymen have been sending a different kind of mail stateside: two or three hundred dollars — or whatever they can spare — towards a presidential election that could very well determine just how soon they come home.

Though McCain touts his reputation with military personnel, this popularity is not reflected by campaign donations.

Army Specialist Jay Navas contributed $250 while deployed in Iraq, but it wasn’t over the Internet. “It took some effort to get that check. I had my mom send me my checkbook and I walked to the post office in Camp Liberty in Baghdad with an envelope addressed to Barack Obama in Chicago, Illinois,” he said. “He was right on Iraq long when others were jumping into the sea like lemmings, and that’s hard to do. We’re soldiers and we respect courage.”

Navas anecdotally confirmed that soldiers are often conservative but that many are making an exception in the presidential race. “Most of my friends are conservative Republicans and they say, ‘I’m voting for Barack.’ McCain does not have a lock on the military vote, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ll complete our duty — I’m deploying next year — because it’s a commitment I made to the nation, not to a president. But we all know that Iraq was a big mistake.”

Despite the fact that “money talks,” McCain will continue to lie and say that he has support from all the veterans groups. He consistently disregards facts for whatever is convenient at the moment. He may continue to brag about the success of the surge, saying that Obama’s judgment on Iraq was faulty despite the fact that he did not support the war in the first place. Perhaps the troops also know that Obama supported the new GI bill, while McCain did not.

It has nothing to do with cameras or basketball. I think they just want to come home.

UPDATE: Contrast the post above with this one, from ThinkProgress, noting that top CEOs donate more to McCain 10:1.  Which candidate has your best interests in mind — the one  the troops favor or the one the CEOs of big corporations favor?  Which is more likely to have your financial interests in mind?

 

Sexual Assault ‘Epidemic’ in the Military

Today the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs held an oversight hearing on sexual assault in the military. The head of the sexual assault prevention office was subpoenaed, yet forbidden from attending by her superior at the Pentagon. Smells of a cover up.

The Pentagon’s No. 2 personnel and readiness official was admonished and dismissed from a House subcommittee hearing on sexual assault in the military Thursday after admitting that he had directed a key subordinate not to appear.

‘Mr. Dominguez, I notice that Dr. Kaye Whitley is not in her chair,’ said Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., and chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s national security and foreign affairs panel. ‘Is it under your direction that she has not shown for testimony this morning?’

‘Ah, yes sir,’ replied Michael Dominguez, principal deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

‘Mr. Dominguez, this is an oversight hearing,’ Tierney said. ‘It’s an oversight hearing on sexual assault in the military. As such, we thought it was proper to hear from the director of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. … Inexplicably, the Defense Department — and you, apparently — have resisted.’

Tierney said Whitley would be subpoenaed and that Dominguez’s decision showed disrespect to the two women who had testified moments earleir — one a rape victim, one a rape/murder victim’s mother — as well as other victims and the subcommittee itself.

When Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the full committee chairman, asked for an explanation, Dominguez said that the decision was made ‘in consultation with the department’s leadership’ — the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs and the Defense Department general counsel.

Whitley ‘is available to the Congress … unfettered, unmuzzled by us,’ and had previously appeared, Dominguez said.

But he added that ‘in this hearing format, we wanted to ensure and make the point’ that he and his boss, Pentagon personnel chief David S.C. Chu, ‘are the senior policy officials, accountable to Secretary [Robert] Gates and to the Congress for the department’s sexual assault and prevention policies and programs.’

‘That’s a ridiculous answer,’ Waxman replied. ‘What is it you’re trying to hide? She’s the one in charge of dealing with this problem. We wanted to hear from her.’

Waxman said the Pentagon ‘has a history of trying to cover up sexual offense problems … I don’t know what you’re trying to cover up here, but we’re not going to allow it. I don’t know who you think elected you to defy the Congress of the United States. This is an unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable position for the department to take.’ (AirForce Times)

Some numbers:

41 percent of female veterans seen by military doctors say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military and 29 percent reported being raped during their military service, said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Cali.). According to Department of Defense reports, in 2006 2,947 sexual assaults were reported, 73 percent more than in 2004. Since the creation of the SAPRO, the DoD has initiated training and improved reporting of rapes and sexual assaults but has inexplicably failed to track prosecution rates or how victims are faring within the military service, Harman said.

‘Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq,’ Harman said. (TalkRadio News)

While the military has come a long way since the days of the Tailhook scandal 15 years ago — which is credited with creating a safer environment for female service members — Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said there remains an ‘epidemic of assault and rape against women in our military.’ (ABC News)

As we are reminded by the tragic LaVena Johnson case that has resurfaced in the news, military servicemen and private contractors in Iraq are rarely brought to justice for their sexual assault of women. Take a moment and sign the ColorofChange petition which calls for an investigation and full disclosure of the events surrounding LaVena Johnson’s death.

UPDATE: Watch the video of part of the hearing at ThinkProgress.  Waxman’s on a rampage!  Let’s hope he keeps it up.

 

Mr. Surge

In case you hadn’t noticed, the conservative talking heads have decided that promoting McCain’s support of the surge is their best bet at winning this election. Amazingly, they continue to repeat how McCain was right and Obama was wrong on this one, completely disregarding the fact that Obama was against the WAR in the first place. If people had listened to him then, we wouldn’t have needed a surge. How hard is that to figure out?

This video reminds me of the way Bush and Friends repeated the words “9/11” and “Iraq” in the same sentence as often as possible, eventually creating an imaginary connection in the minds of the American people. If you say it out loud often enough, it becomes true.

In a slightly different version of history, there’s this clip about the surge. (TPM)

 

‘Winning’ the War in Iraq?

As Obama’s trip gets positive media attention at home and abroad, McCain has upped his attacks on Obama’s stance on the Iraq war. McCain claims that Obama was wrong about the surge, and that McCain was willing to do what was less popular politically (because most Americans are against the war in Iraq), in order to ‘win’ the war in Iraq.

Headlines read:

‘Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign’ (FOX News)

‘We will withdraw. The fact is, is whether we withdraw in victory or whether we withdraw in defeat’ (MSNBC)

‘Lieberman: Obama choosing the lose Iraq war’ (CNN)

Interestingly, General Petraeus advises against using the phrases ‘we’re winning’ and ‘victory in Iraq.’ Yet McCain continues to repeat soundbites about the success of the surge, despite the fact that many experts agree that progress in Iraq was in motion well before the official ‘surge.’ Many also note that voters don’t care about the surge, they care about ending the war. Another fact McCain is ignoring, less than half of Americans think the U.S. can win in Iraq.

As a proponent of a war that the vast majority of Americans oppose, that is helping to ruin our economy with each passing day, one would think McCain would want to distance himself from Bush’s war in Iraq, not embrace it.

UPDATE: Wow…if this is going to be his big issue, he should probably get the facts straight. Check out: ‘Not a gaffe: A fundamental misunderstanding of Iraq’ over at HuffPo.

 

McCain Insults Vet for Correctly Questioning His Record

A man at a town hall meeting wants to know why McCain didn’t vote to increase health care funding for returning Vets. McCain first talks about the GI Bill, which he also didn’t support, but never gets around to answering the man’s question about health care for returning Vets. McCain goes on to claim he’s received every award from every major Veterans organization in America, a claim that the guest rebuts with facts and figures, and McCain proceeds to essentially call the man a liar in front of a room full of people.

McCain has made the exact same claim before — and it is just a false today as it was then. As ThinkProgress documented, McCain’s so-called “perfect” record has been roundly criticized by prominent veterans groups: He received a grade of D from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a 20 percent vote rating from the Disabled Veterans of America; Vietnam Veterans of America noted McCain had “voted against us” in 15 “key votes.”

As for the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars — with whom McCain claims to have a “perfect voting record” — both groups vigorously supported Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) GI Bill that McCain tirelessly opposed.

Later in the town hall, McCain admitted he does “not have a perfect voting record,” but then declared that questions about veterans issues were off limits: “I will be glad to debate a lot of things, but not that one,” McCain said. (Think Progress)

McCain never thanks the man, who appears to be a Veteran, for his service to our country, despite the fact that the man recognizes McCain’s service. Way to support our troops, McCain. Calling them liars when they bring up questions about your voting record, pretending not to know what they’re referring to because it will catch you in a lie, and not acknowledging their service after they’ve applauded yours isn’t the way you’re going to get their votes.

For a man who claims to thrive in the town hall format, scolding guests for speaking out of turn and suddenly declaring question topics “off limits” doesn’t make you seem very approachable or open.

And these are just the people that get in to the “public” townhall meetings. Imagine what kinds of questions McCain would be butchering if his townhall guests weren’t screened to make sure the dissenting 61-year-old librarians didn’t “trespass.”