Sex crimes in the military and police: Walt has the solution

Interesting to watch the chiefs of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard testifying about the sex crimes scandals in front of a Senate committee yesterday. They were flanked by countless underlings, all in dress uniform. Why, there was more salad in that room yesterday than on the buffet at the Willard.

The military chiefs were shocked, shocked to learn of the 10s of 1000s of cases of sexual harrassment and assault -- meaning everything from ass-grabbing to violent rape -- reported every year. Not to mention an equal or higher number which are not reported for fear of retribution or at least diminution of mililtary career prospects.

They were more shocked to hear that the rate of conviction in cases brought before military tribunals is substantially lower than for similar prosecutions in civil courts. Worse yet, many commanders, for reasons known only to them, set aside convictions, leaving the guilty horndogs with not even a reprimand on their records.

If these were war crimes -- like the slaughter of innocent villagers in Afghanistan -- exonerating the perps would be Standard Operating Procedure, because war is hell. But we're talking about incidents at home in the USA, not in theaters of war. And we're talking about crimes committed by soldiers, sailors and airmen against female soldiers, sailors and, errr, well, you know what I mean.

Such criminal behaviour is not confined to the US military. It's the same in police forces too. Nor is the abuse and humiliation of women to be found only in America, where notions of "gender equality" are strongest. North of the border, the famous (or infamous) Royal Canadian Mounted Police are on the sharp end of a class action lawsuit alleging serious and persistent harrassment and abuse of female Mounties.

In all the testimony as to the reasons for these crimes and what should be done to the perps, one basic point has been overlooked. It falls to Walt to point out that the incidence of heterosexual rape and other sex crimes in the military was just about nil until the 1970s. That's because until the feminists started nagging for gender equality, there were virtually no women in regular units of the police and armed forces. Security and law enforcement was a man's world!

But, the bra-burners and wimmin's libbers insisted, whatever a man can do, a woman can do too! (Walt can think of one exception but that's a topic for another day.) Not only can do, but ought to do. Including combat duty in the war zones of Baghdad or Trenton NJ.

Some old-fashioned types (like Walt) said that if you put a few even moderately attractive women in the same barracks or shelter half with men who haven't had the "comforts of home" in months (and who are bullies by nature anyway, otherwise why would they be in uniform), there's bound to be sexual tension and sexual trouble. And that's exactly what happened.

So the solution is simple. If women want to be in the armed forces, put them in segregated units, as was done before. Keep them away from the men!

Then the guys can go back to having sex with each other, if they're desperate enough. It was good enough for the Royal Navy, which in the old days was said to "run on rum and buggery". And in today's PC world, no-one's going to make a fuss about homosexual rape.

Footnote: The soldiers in the picture are Israelis. They have been disciplined for posting this photo on Facebook. Walt supposes that if US wimmin soldiers looked like this (instead of like Ellen DeGeneres) the problem would be even worse!