Last year in the U.S. military, there 26,000 reported cases of sexual assault among the troops, up from 19,000 the year before. The overwhelming majority involve women being assaulted by men. Of these known cases, the military sports a stellar 1% conviction rate.
That's because "chain of command" protocol says that the first review of such a report is by the accused's immediate supervisor. ("Did ya rape her, son?"
"Sir, no sir!" "That's good enough for me.")
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) offered a popular proposal to remove all sexual assault cases -- but only sexual assaults -- from the so-called chain of command, with initial reports being made directly to military prosecutors.
Yesterday,
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, scuttled Gillibrand's very sensible idea with his counter-proposal to keep sexual assault reports within the chain of command, but to skip a couple links by reporting them to senior commanders instead of immediate supervisors. Oh, that's so much different!
Generally, I like Carl Levin but he's got his head up the Pentagon's ass on this one. Makes him look like just another clueless old fart.
The chain of command is OK for administrative and battlefield decisions, but not for criminal cases like sexual assault.
I don't have a daughter but if I did and she told me she wanted to join the military, I'd have to advise against it.
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