According to recent reports from the US media, two US Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Sarah Jacobs, wrote a letter to the US Department of Defense, pointing out that the US military killed a large number of civilians in overseas wars. Although the Pentagon admitted this, it wildly concealed statistics. For example, in Syria, only 15 civilians were killed in one year, but in fact more than 160 people were killed in just one "erroneous bombing".
Of course, all these killings of civilians occur with impunity. Two US congressmen are concerned about the indiscriminate killing of innocent people by the US military, which is well known around the world. This can be said to be a "sudden discovery of conscience", but this is only one of the US military issues that the congressmen are concerned about. In addition, there is a serious problem of sexual harassment within the US military, especially in overseas troops. It can be said that sexual harassment occurs as long as there are female soldiers. According to US media reports, 28% of retired female soldiers were sexually harassed during their military careers.
The Pentagon and veterans associations call it "military sexual trauma." The Department of Defense investigated the first 12 months of female soldiers' military life and found that 9% of the Marine Corps, 8% of the Army, 6% of the Navy, and 4% of the Air Force were raped or attempted rape. Since there are 200,000 female soldiers in the military, this ratio means there are approximately 14,000 cases of sexual harassment, attempted harassment or attempted rape every year. However, very little has been reported. According to the Department of Defense, during the preparation and conduct of the Iraq war , only 24% of sexual harassment cases were actually reported.
Mary Tesar, an authority on violence against women, writes: "The criminal justice system in the U.S. military is completely different from that in the civilian world. The biggest difference is that investigations and prosecutions are conducted by a series of orders, rather than through independent agencies such as prosecution offices, which creates inherent conflicts of interest for commanders. This problem was reflected in the rape scandal that suddenly came to light at the U.S. Air Force Academy last year. Air Force 54 cases of rape or other sexual harassment were reported to Congress in the past 10 years. "
But US Air Force Secretary confirmed: "There may be hundreds of such incidents that have not been discovered by us. "The director of the U.S. Civilian Sexual Harassment Prevention Assistance Center said that the most common fear among female trainee police officers who come to this center is that the academy's officers and investigators will invade their privacy. Investigating sexual encounters in the military is more complex than in the civilian world because of hierarchies. The military requires all men and women to obey the orders of superior officers or veterans. Racism within the U.S. military also remains a significant issue. When the Pentagon was carrying out pre-war mobilization of the entire military, the topic of "making an own mistake", that is, racial conflicts among soldiers was put on the agenda again. Text/PY
