DOJ Evasions Concerning Rape Investigations

From ABC NEWS:

[ In an apparent reversal of policy, the Justice Department will send an official to answer questions before Congress on the investigation and prosecution of alleged sex crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last December, the department declined to send an official to testify before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on law enforcement efforts to protect U.S. contractors in Iraq. The hearing featured testimony by Jamie Leigh Jones, a young Texan woman who says she was gang-raped while working for government contractor KBR in Iraq. ]

The KBR rape case:

Warning: The Nation article contains graphic description of what was done to the victim.

Then there is this:

[ The Greatest Silence: Rape in the CongoToday, in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is taking place on a scale that is almost unimaginable. In the last ten years, hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped - but their suffering goes unacknowledged. Instead, they are invisible, shamed and mute. This is the story of one filmmaker's crusade to break the silence surrounding this shocking reality, armed with a firsthand connection with the women and men she meets. Winner of a Special Jury Prize (Documentary) at this year's Sundance Film Festival, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo premieres Tuesday, April 8 at 10pm ET/PT. ]

From what I could handle of this documentary (made by a rape victim herself) it seems these guys believe that rape makes them stronger, and thus, then, is 'good for Congo.'

So convenient a 'belief' isn't it. Like the one that 'meat is bad for women,' so only men get to eat it.

Rape Cases on Indian Lands Go Uninvestigated

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12203114

Part 1, broadcast yesterday: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12203114

Part 2, broadcast today on "All Things Considered."

This is beyond outrageous. Non-native men are responsible. No investigations, no indictments, no trials, no convictions. This is in the general region of where I come from. It's our version of the Mexican borders maquilordoras, where sexual kidnapping, torture and murder happen with impunity.

When did my part of the world become like this, filled with men making war on the most defenseless, children and women? O.k. granted I come from the bottom of the Red River Valley, which is far from the North-South Dakota Standing Rock stateline-bridging reservation. But I read in the Fargo Forum, and even the smaller towns' papers, every week of terrible crimes involved torture and beating and kidnapping and rape, of small children, of girls, young women, old women. This wasn't going on when I was growing, lucky for me.

This nation is beyond sick.

And, I truly fear, beyond healing.