"I will be ruthless in ridding the Army of people who cannot live up to its values." Oh hell yeah!
This is of course in response to an ongoing sex scandal within the Australia military that have been made even worse with reports that some men had recorded sex acts with female soldiers and put them online behind the woman's back.
I love this guy's attitude, and would like to see OUR military take this same kind of no nonsense, fuck you if you don't like it, approach.
I saw this yesterday and was amazed. Why can't we have someone like this handling our sexual assault problems? The Lt Gen was angry and not afraid to show it. I would not want to get a chewing out from that man.
ReplyDeletePossibly no higher ups in our military could remain. Seriously, remember 'god-like' Betray-us Petraeus? No one outed him. The culture stinks. We would be void a military.
DeleteThe Chinese know this and more about individual corruption (McCain, Tilman and a long list). Smart of them to get the GED guy in their pocket.
In his press interviews it was plain that he was livid that his own officers were making and distributing their own porno cartoons and whatnot, and who could blame him?
ReplyDeleteHe WILL be ruthless. As a CO you're prepared for some degree of embarrassment regarding your officers, it goes with the responsibility, but this is way too much - it's even an embarrassment for the Australian people, who expect their officers to be gentlemen.
I think the Democratic Party should start talking to Republicans like this. Better yet, I think the women of the Republican Party should start talking to the men of the Republican Party like this. They should tell the men that their actions toward women are demeaning, and are denigrating the good name of the Republican Party, that they should just take themselves someplace else, find another job, and to just get the hell out of the Republican Party.
ReplyDeleteCathleen D
Cathleen, I couldn't agree with you more concerning what the Repube women should do. However, most of the women of whom you speak are religious nuts like Bachman and they DON'T feel what the men say is bad! Or, at least, that is the impression I get from them.
DeleteUnfortunately, concerning the rest of it? If the Democrats started talking like the Lt. Gen does, all hell would break loose and there would be all sorts of formal complaints lodged and ethics charges made against those who DID speak straight. It's sick, but that's the way those idiots would react. They would call it "insulting to their fellow congressman" and Robert's Rules doesn't really like that too much.
It's kind of odd how the sane Republican women are never heard from these days, isn't it?
DeleteTHAT is how you take care of this type of issues - NOT the an by-pampy-style like we do it in the US!!!
ReplyDeleteKudos to the Australian Army!
Personally, I would NOT want to be on the wrong side of this man! This is the way all OUR officers and NCO's should act.
ReplyDeleteMilitary officers in the US are called gentlemen "by an act of Congress" and they damned well should ACT like it.
Personally, I feel that if even one of our senior officers had reacted this way after a sexual assault instead of transferring or ignoring, it would have gone a LONG way toward stopping it. I mean, put someone in Leavenworth for 20 years at hard labor for rape and see how fast the word gets around.
And THIS General will do just that if his men are found guilty - THEN he will give them dishonorable discharges! Ever seen what kind of life a DD soldier has after the military labels them that way? Get a job? Nothing meaningful. A convict would get better jobs.
As far as I am concerned it couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people - once proven guilty in a courts martial.
And assault on a fellow soldier IN A COMBAT ZONE??? Good grief. You don't even want to KNOW the punishment for that!
And before the more soft-hearted people out there have something nasty to say about over-reacting and unjust punishment, just remember this: our military has a totally different set of laws. It's called the UCMJ, aka the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and is backed by millennia of military history of what works and what doesn't. Most militaries have something similar.
Besides, any man who would assault a woman - let alone rape her - deserves to be treated like the trash he is! Military or civilian.
More power to this General!!!!!!!
I heard that Bill Maher's take on this, is that the military has a unique way of handling this situation, and wonders why they aren't simply saying:
ReplyDeleteDON'T RAPE ANYONE. AND THAT'S AN ORDER!
...leaving it that if that order is disobeyed, it will be dealt with as harshly as if the order had been to engage the enemy, and the soldier refused.
Wow. Thanks for posting this. If only our generals and admirals could see this and realize that REAL men, REAL heroes never degrade another human being.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that a huge number/percentage of rapes in our military are man-against-man and woman-against-woman, and those rapes are. definitely. not. reported – for fear of getting one's entire career destroyed. By same-sex rapes, please know that I am not implying that all these rapes are homosexual rapes, either: many of them are committed by seemingly heterosexual people against other heterosexual people for the sole purpose of dominance, harassment, and demeaning the self-worth of the other person.
DeletePlease everyone, when you hear the words 'military' and 'rape' in the same sentence, do not assume that all or even nearly all of them are rapes of women soldiers by male soldiers. While all these things are a huge disgrace (and all should be treated as equally disgraceful, IMO), the situation is far more complex than the media is making it. Combat zones, combined with military stresses, close quarters, high hormone levels, and alcohol, can create a war-is-hell atmosphere all on their own.
Sorry, 8:10 your statement doesn't really alter the foundation of the argument the General is trying to make. Rape is NOT to be tolerated. PERIOD!
DeleteWho the hell CARES if it is man against woman or man against man or woman against woman? The main point is that rape is WRONG and the ATTITUDE the general is displaying here is what is needed.
And if there IS an atmosphere of "I can't report this because it will destroy my career", it is there because our leaders have failed to actually DO something about the root problem! (And just so you know, I agree such an atmosphere has been created. Note I said CREATED.)
The time to handle what you bring up is AFTER the crime has been reported and is in process in the military court system (or whatever court system Congress deems necessary for this) on one condition: It cannot be used as a crutch or a method of getting the accused off or allowing the defense to attack the victim. There is far too much of that garbage as it stands now - even in civilian courts.
"Boys will be boys", Sarah Palin said about Toddie being a pimp and a notorious bottom for his wimpy vienna sausage-loving clients.
ReplyDeleteBut Sarah has been unable to forget the only real (young) man who ever tapped that blown-out woo-hoo of hers, the kid from UM who had a quick first step before taking it to the hole and slamming it. And he played basketball, too, also.
But Sarah's first true lover was her kiddy-fiddlin' dad, Creepy Chuck, Jr, back when he was doing his panty-sniffing with his 3 teenage daughters living at home.
>>But Sarah's first true lover was her kiddy-fiddlin' dad, Creepy Chuck, Jr, back when he was doing his panty-sniffing with his 3 teenage daughters living at home.
DeleteBingo! And that is why Sarah is the way she is with her references to sexual parts, her come hither dress and hooker shoes, her lip-licking, thigh-stroking, pre-teen dressing. She's stuck at that age that she was first assaulted and learned quickly to use her sexuality to get what she wanted, or to please her tormentor. Her father should rot in hell for what he did to those girls.
On the other hand, I know of too many girls who had similar experiences growing up and they did not turn into nasty, vindictive, man-hating shrews, so Sarah CHOSE her way and never did anything to heal those early wounds, just spends her time inflicting abuse on those who she believes have betrayed her, projecting her twisted damage from childhood onto anyone she can, in an effort to telegraph the damage done.
It's SO clear for anyone who has worked in the field of early childhood sexual abuse, I'm sure Gryphen has seen a lot of it in his career of working with troubled kids.
Not a word wasted nor minced. THIS is how it's done. What an honorable man!
ReplyDeleteWhile I loved every single word he said, and even cheered for lots of it.... I was a bit intrigued by the fact that he never blinked, not once, during that whole speech. Damn, he must have been pissed off to be that straight-eyed for that long!
ReplyDeletePlainly clear the Aussies somehow avoided “the Vietnam Syndrome" (a brain drain). We must learn from them (more than sport science).
ReplyDeleteIdaho man pleads guilty to placing ads on Craigslist seeking men to rape his wife; yes men showed up
ReplyDeletehttp://freakoutnation.com/2013/06/14/idaho-man-pleads-guilty-to-placing-ads-on-craigslist-seeking-men-to-rape-his-wife-yes-men-showed-up/