Barack Obama is fighting for his political life, embroiled in three scandals: the criminal use of the IRS, using the Justice Department to spy on reporters and the cover-up of the attack in Benghazi.
There is a fourth scandal that is equally serious but is not being addressed because this cover-up involves both the administration and Congress, Democrats and Republicans.
Last week, the Pentagon released a report on the soaring number of sexual assaults in the military. These crimes have increased a whopping 129 percent since 2004. The confidential portion of this report indicates that some 26,000 members of our armed forces were sexual assaulted last year alone. However, only 3,347 of these assaults were reported. The reasons are as obvious as they are disturbing.
There has been a smattering of news coverage with pundits and politicians expressing appropriate outrage, suggesting time-worn – but mostly worthless – ideas to improve the situation without addressing the real problem.
The military, unlike the rest of the country, does not function as a democracy. It can’t. In times of war, no one wants to be at the tip of the spear. Our combatants are assigned these positions. They don’t get to pick and choose.
We owe our freedom to millions of dedicated men and women who have answered the call to serve, voluntarily or involuntarily through the draft.
In times of peace, the military is often viewed as a career opportunity and has provided many with needed paychecks, benefits, skills and educations. However, it is not an equal opportunity employer! We’ve lost sight of that.
The purpose of the military is to win wars: to kill people and break things. War is an expensive, destructive, messy, unpleasant but necessary business. No one wants to go to war, even the most hardened military veteran, but at times wars are necessary. A highly trained fighting force of strong, young combatants must be maintained.
Over the years, military necessity has given way to political correctness, which has proved costly and unworkable. This didn’t happen overnight, but the Obama administration recently pulled the pin on two hand grenades that can finish the job by 1) lifting the ban on gays in the military and 2) setting in motion an incremental plan that will place women at the point of the spear in direct ground combat units.
The military has been playing with fire with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and by placing young male and female soldiers and sailors together in barracks and on ships and submarines at the time in their lives when hormones are raging.
Due to constant feminist pressure – not necessity– the line between combat and combat support slowly has been erased to the point that women are now in units that are more physically demanding, and close contact is inevitable.
Men often resent having to carry twice the work load in order to make up for the lack of strength of the female soldiers next to them who receive the same pay.
Also, these soldiers, sailors and airmen not only have to deal with the rigors of military life, but one where no one goes home at night, boredom often sets in and rank rules. No amount of sensitivity training is going to change that!
Late night comic Jay Leno runs a segment called “What Did You Think Was Going to Happen?” where he shows people setting themselves up for impossible stunts and suffering the inevitable consequences.
Don’t get me wrong. Sexual abuse should not be tolerated anywhere, especially in our military. However, the answer is not more sensitivity training. We’ve wasted millions of dollars on that already – and what have we got to show for it?
Among respondents to the military’s confidential survey, 6.1 percent of our military women were sexually assaulted over the past year. In the general population, it’s only about .02 percent – and the general population doesn’t undergo sensitivity training!
Even more astounding: The New York Times reported that the Pentagon extrapolated that, over the same time period, 13,900 of our strong, active-duty men were assaulted. How can this happen? Not being reported, but not surprising, is that almost all of these sexual assaults of men were committed by men.
Military life is difficult enough without putting our military personnel in situations where they are viewed as objects of sexual desire or become subjects of this brutal retaliation by their comrades or superiors.
Congress makes the rules that govern the military. The Obama administration attempted an end-run around Congress by making these policy changes, but Congress has the power to put a stop to it! Don’t be fooled.
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