A Dose of Stupid v.64

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

Lynndie England thinks the Iraqi soldiers she tortured got the “better end of the deal”

In an interview for The Daily, Lynndie England showed zero remorse for torturing and humiliating several Iraqi soldiers. The act landed her in prison for eight years, and it appears that the time behind bars only made her bitter. In the interview she stated:

“Their lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” England said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”

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“All the prisoners that were there were on that tier of high-priority. They were there for a reason. They had killed coalition forces or they were planning to,” England told The Daily over a hamburger at a Mexican restaurant near her home in Fort Ashby. “They had information about where insurgents were hiding.”

England seems to forget a tiny, yet important fact: we attacked them first. We invaded their country to “save” them (not really) from a dictator who we thought (not really) had weapons of mass destruction (which we never found because he did not have them).

Yes, they are trying to kill you because you are trying to kill them. You bombed their country, destroyed what little infrastructure they had, treated just about everyone as a potential combatant, caused billions of dollars in damage, and caused hundreds of thousands of injuries and deaths to the civilians.

You do not get to complain that the people you started a war against had the nerve to fight back. That is what happens when you star a war.

Bulletin Board v142

36-year-old Woman Accused of Raping 12-year-old Boy — A 36-year-old village woman has been charged with first-degree rape, a Class B felony, after being accused of raping a 12-year-old boy. Police arrested Tara Porter of 3 Bartlett St. on the evening of Tuesday, Nov. 8. An intensive investigation followed a report early that afternoon from the Child Abuse Hotline, which was notified anonymously that a sexual relationship was going on between the two, Ellenville Police Chief Phillip Mattracion said.

Archdiocese of Chicago to pay sex abuse victim $3.2M — The Archdiocese of Chicago will pay $3.2 million to a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of convicted former priest Daniel McCormack. The name of the plaintiff, a boy who was abused between the ages of 10 and 12 by McCormack, has not been released. Attorneys spoke on his behalf through a statement released Tuesday, “We are pleased to have reached this settlement because it marks one more step toward bringing justice to him and his family,” said William Martin, a partner at Hilfman & Martin, a Chicago-based law firm that has represented other victims in child sex abuse cases involving the Archdiocese of Chicago and other entities.

Editorial: Make reporting child sexual abuse mandatory — The grand jury report alleging serial abuse of young boys by a Penn State assistant football coach is grim reading, especially the parts where two men separately encountered Jerry Sandusky in the middle of horrific sex acts and did little or nothing to stop him. Their failure of courage is a sad marker of the tendency people have not to get involved, even when the result is abuse of a defenseless child. The nagging question left unanswered by the report is whether anything can be done to make such lapses less likely.

Indon boy allegedly sexually abused — An Indonesian 15-year-old who spent time locked up in an Australian adult jail on people smuggling charges was allegedly sexually abused while in custody, a Brisbane barrister says. Between 40 and 50 Indonesian minors are reportedly in Australian prisons on people smuggling charges. Brisbane lawyer Mark Plunkett told AAP he believes one of the Indonesian minors he represented was sexually abused while in custody at Arthur Gorrie prison alongside rapists, murderers and pedophiles.

Jerry Sandusky Penn State sex abuse case eerily similar to Timothy Bagshaw boy scout case three decades prior — When the Penn State sex abuse scandal unfolded – with allegations of horrific crimes against minors committed by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky – James Polo says he was transported back nearly three decades. In graphic details that mirror the abuse Sandusky’s alleged victims have testified about, Polo says he was on the cusp of his teenage years when he was the victim of sexual abuse by a Boy Scout leader in Potter Township, a few miles from State College. 

The Ignored Victims of Wartime Rape

Originally posted on March 4, 2011

Sexual violence has long been a tool of warfare. However, contrary to feminist theories, rape has never been the exclusive domain of female victims. Sexual violence has often been used against males as a means of torture, humiliation, and terrorism. It is not uncommon to hear reports of male prisoners or combatants captured by the enemy being sexually tortured. What differs is that male victims are far less likely to report being raped or consider the acts done to them rape. Males are also less likely to come forward in part because of culture stereotypes and stigmas they face, particularly the loss of their status as men in their given cultures.

Yet another reason was mentioned in a recent New York Times article written by Lara Stemple:

As disturbing new reports of male rape in Congo made clear, wartime sexual violence isn’t limited to women and girls. But in its ongoing effort to eradicate rape during conflict, the United Nations continues to overlook a significant imperative: ending wartime sexual assault of men and boys as well.

Sexual violence against men does occasionally make the news: the photographs of the sexual abuse and humiliation of Iraqi men at the Abu Ghraib prison, for example, stunned the world.

Yet there are thousands of similar cases, less well publicized but well documented by researchers, in places as varied as Chile, Greece and Iran. The United Nations reported that out of 5,000 male concentration camp detainees held near Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict, 80 percent acknowledged having been abused sexually. In El Salvador, 76 percent of male political prisoners told researchers they had experienced sexual torture.

Rape has long been a way to humiliate, traumatize and silence the enemy. For many of the same reasons that combatants assault women and girls, they also rape men and boys.

Nevertheless, international legal documents routinely reflect the assumption that sexual violence happens only to women and girls. There are dozens of references to “violence against women” — defined to include sexual violence — in United Nations human rights resolutions, treaties and agreements, but most don’t mention sexual violence against men.

In short, the international human rights groups do not seem that concerned about male victims of rape.