LOOK TO THE MILITARY COMMAND. :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:
SIGN THE PETITION. Please - help this woman & all of the troops being abused, who are then turning around and abusing the Iraqis.
Command RapeBy David Swanson
Suzanne Swift's story begins in an all-too-familiar way. A dead-end job, a friendly military recruiter, a promise that signing-up as military police would mean no deployment to Iraq, a broken promise, and a trip to war. Then it takes a less commonly heard of turn, one involving a practice known as "command rape." Suzanne is back in the U.S. and is refusing to return to Iraq. Until a couple of days ago she was confined by the military and threatened with prosecution. The three superiors whom she has accused of various forms of harassment or assault have not yet been charged. Suzanne's mother, Sara Rich, spoke with me about her daughter's ordeal and recorded this 20-minute conversation.
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http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/suzanne.mp3> <snip>
SARA: ...she chose to be a miliary police officer and do 5 years so she would not go to Iraq.
DAVID: And yet they sent her to Iraq anyway?
SARA: That's exactly right. The first thing they said to her when she got off the bus at boot camp, was the sergeant yells, he said "You blankety-blank-blank all think that you're not going to Iraq? Well, your recruiter lied. You're all going to Iraq and you're all going to die!" Scared the hell out of Suzanne.
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DAVID: And she is now refusing to return; why is that?
SARA: Well, there's a lot of reasons why. When it came down to her redeployment, about 2 weeks before she was due…well first of all, she only got 11 months of stabilization time. You're mandated to have 18 months of stabilization time between deployments in a combat zone, so she was only being given 11 months of stabilization time, and was forced to sign a waiver waiving her rights to that 18 months. This was really hard for her.
Then about 2 weeks before they were to be redeployed, she was out on a training mission, and a male sergeant raped a male specialist out on a training expedition, a training that they were doing in Yakima, which kind of triggered all of the sexual abuse and assault and harassment that Suzanne experienced when she was in Iraq the first time.<snip>
DAVID: But what was done specifically to her that led her to refuse to go back?
SARA: Well, there were two sergeants that harassed her and one that sexually assaulted her in something called command rape while she was in Iraq; then a third harassed her when they returned from Iraq, so three sergeants that we are pressing criminal charges against.
DAVID: Can you define "command rape" for people who are not in the service or familiar with the term?
SARA: Sure, this is something I have learned, and the Army family therapist…I've heard of a lot of stupid things.
I have never heard of command rape. It's when your superior has life-or-death decisions over you, so they can tell you to run across a minefield, and you have to comply. Basically they have all the life-or-death decisions over you. They coerce you or do something with you that's sexual it's called command rape.<snip>
She asks those concerned by this story to visit a website:
http://www.suzanneswift.orgIf you go there, please sign the petition. If you can, please contribute financially. And, if you are able to organize others to take part, please hold an event in support of Suzanne Swift on her birthday, July 15th.