Greyhawk over at Mudville Gazette tells us about an interesting story that is no doubt supposed to make us even more upset about the war:
The latest Iraq war urban legend: Several female service members have died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day due to fear of being raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women’s latrine after dark.
Say what you will about the story (be sure to read the whole thing). Here’s what is bothering me:
Why it matters: Because the Left believes what they’re told to believe. Random Lefty blog response via technorati:Female soldiers in Iraq are having to make an impossible choice: Risk being raped , or risk dying of dehydration. Many of them have ended up dead.
Nicole in London: Tales of Los Angeles Expat
If I get one comment from ANYONE saying that this proves that women don’t belong in the army. . . Grrrrrr.
And that last comment gets to my point.
Greyhawk pretty much shreds the story (now being perpetuated by Col Janis Karpinski, of Abu Ghraib fame) to bits. If it were true, it would be a horrible, horrible thing, and all of us at the Brief would be outraged. But considering how “shred-able” it is, wouldn’t the folks on the left want to tread pretty lightly before giving the “No Women In Combat” supporters ammunition like this?
(Hat tip: Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner)
I read the whole thing, and I love Greyhawk’s shredding… but somehow, even after appreciating such a masterful work on his part, I’m still irate.
I am offended that such an accusation would be made, and I am offended that so many clueless idjits are so willing to believe anything they’re told, as long as it paints the US Military in a bad light.
I think the leftist response that irritated me the most was the one by “supercrisp (who lists his industry as education)”:
remember, we’re talking about people who haven not been well acculturated in the first place because they find the army their best alternative. Rape and pillage do not follow armies; they are of the nature of armies, despite America’s fantasies about its greatest generations.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Mom.
Comment by AProudVeteran — 20060206 @ 2000
DAVID!!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, DAVID!!!!! (not Mom)
*blush*
Comment by AProudVeteran — 20060206 @ 2031
Well, it’s the first time I’ve been mistaken as a Mom, but I’ll take it as a compliment.
No worries, ProudVet.
Comment by David — 20060206 @ 2039
I called Cpl/Sgt Blondie over to the computer to take notice of this, and she was so disgusted, and exasperated about this she couldn’t even bring herself to respond.
Looking at all those things that these idjoits apparently take as the absolute gospel truth about the military,well, really it’s not much of a leap to believe this load.
Oddly enough, though, she was talking the other day about the womens’ latrines at the camps in Kuwait, when she was over there. They were cleaned by local contractors, and the big problem was, at one point, that the contractors didn’t want to handle cleaning the portapotties which the female troops had been using… because of the chance they might have to cope with… gasp! The horror! Used sannies and tampons!!!
Oh, the horrors of war… especially those faced by local contract personnel who have to clean the facilities…
Comment by Sgt. Mom — 20060206 @ 2136
The left regularly trots out rape statistics to show how vicitmized women are. Let’s look at those statistics and see how vulnerable women are in the military.
Among college students nationwide, between 20% and 25% of women reported experiencing completed or attempted rape (Fisher, Cullen, and Turner 2000).
Among adults nationwide one in six women (17%) reported experiencing an attempted or completed rape at some time in their lives. (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000).
According to a military survey where members can anonymously report rape or sexual assault, rapes have dropped by half from the mid-90s when 7% of military women reported being assaulted. In 2002 the figure was 3%.
So you are more than 6 to 8 times more likely to get raped while at collge than you are in the military. You are even about 5 times more likely to be raped while in the civilian population as a whole than you are in the military.
What the left can’t seem to understand here as they inflate this into a hysterical story about the military failing to protect vulnerable young women, is that the safest place BY FAR for young women to be shielded from rape is in America’s military forces. The WORST place (and the bastion of liberalism by the way) is in America’s colleges and universities.
Comment by Gaius Obvious — 20060207 @ 0221
This story would be comforting to lefties on two counts: it perpetuates the image of women as victims, and reinforces the image of military personnel (mostly men) as ignorant brutes.
Don’t expect to see any retractions when this is shown to be bogus, either. If anything, we’ll hear elaborate, logically twisted explanations involving contexts and subtexts and deeper truths. Or greater truths, whatever, I’m not up on this week’s Doublespeak.
Comment by Steve Skubinna — 20060209 @ 2152
Fwiw when I saw this on ‘The Stranger’s Forum .. I half-way believed it. Rape happens. Although the only time I can recall once that it did happen, in four years.
The only odd thing in my mind then was wondering why an armed female soldier simply didn’t shoot the sumbitch ’stead o’ staying in her rack and dying of dehydration.
Comment by brian — 20060210 @ 1647
Because, Brian, that would violate the First Rule of Victimhood. Likewise, so would several women banding together to go to the latrine.
The problem with being a Complete Victim is that it requires one to be not only helpless but stupid as well, and to me that’s the worst part of the PC mindset. However you dress it up, it’s still condescending elitism towards the poor helpless stupid victims, who can only be saved through the constant vigilance of their betters.
Comment by Steve Skubinna — 20060210 @ 1822