Profile Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

From US Senator from NY Kirsten Gillibrand from her website http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov . Great corruption in military and abuse especially of women.

The American Military is full of rape and abuse of women. Now they want to draft all women? And almost nobody is complaining -  Dovid Eidensohn

Comprehensive Resource Center for the Military Justice Improvement Act

Introduction

Over the last three years, there has been a stream of national headlines and new investigative reports exposing the military’s failure to combat sexual assault in the ranks and/or provide a military justice system that holds assailants accountable in order to maintain good order and discipline. Despite incremental reforms passed in the last two National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA), and a sharp focus on the issue of military sexual assault in Congress, the most recent Pentagon survey found that 62 percent of women who reported being sexually assaulted experienced retaliation. The amount of retaliation remains unchanged from 2012, while the estimated number of unwanted sexual contacts remains at 2010 levels – an average of 52 new cases every day.
The latest FY 2015 SAPRO report by the Defense Department shows military leaders failing at its mission of “zero tolerance” for sexual assault first stated over twenty years ago. The report showed that 75 percent of the men and women in uniform who have been sexually assaulted lack the confidence in the military justice system to come forward and report the crimes committed against them. The most current data also shows a current climate where 76 percent of servicewomen and nearly half of servicemen said sexual harassment is common or very common. A climate where supervisors and unit leaders were responsible for sexual harassment and gender discrimination in nearly 60 percent of all cases demonstrates a system deeply in need of further reform before there can be trust in the chain of command.
Additionally, Senator Gillibrand and Human Rights Watch (HRW) independently released reports that demonstrate how poorly survivors are treated and how few rapists are ever punished. HRW found that service members who reported a sexual assault were 12 times more likely to suffer retaliation than see their offender, if also a service member, get convicted for a sex offense. Much like the 2013 case file request, the 2014 cases expose a troubling command culture that seems to favor the higher-ranking accused, and also seems to value closing cases over pursuing justice. In this group of case files, there were multiple instances of commanders choosing not to proceed to court-martial despite a recommendation from the military investigating officer that probable cause existed. Shockingly, the review found a case where the accused confessed to a sexual assault, but was allowed to be discharged in lieu of trial and faced no legal consequences or appropriate punishment. That an admitted sex offender was allowed to go and live freely in an unsuspecting community suggests a disturbing disregard for public safety. The Human Rights Watch’s report is available here. Senator Gillibrand’s report is available here.

The Military Justice Improvement Act

The carefully crafted Military Justice Improvement Act is designed to reverse the systemic fear that survivors of military sexual assault describe in deciding whether to report the crimes committed against them. Repeated testimony from survivors and former commanders says the widespread reluctance on the part of survivors to come forward and report is due to the bias and inherent conflicts of interest posed by the military chain of command’s current sole decision-making power over whether cases move forward to a trial. This reform moves the decision whether to prosecute serious crimes to independent, trained, professional military prosecutors while leaving military crimes to the chain of command. In fact, the decision whether to prosecute 37 serious crimes uniquely military in nature, plus all crimes punishable by less than one year of confinement (Article 15, non-judicial punishment), would remain within the chain of command (see excluded offenses here.)
After earning the support for the second straight Congress of a bipartisan majority of Senators, this common sense proposal was unfortunately filibustered again meaning the fight to pass this critically needed reform will continue. 
Many of our allied modern militaries have already moved reporting outside of the chain of command, such as Britain, Canada, Israel, Germany, Norway and Australia. At a September 2013 hearing, military leaders from Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and Canada testified on how changes they’ve made to their justice systems — including the one up for debate in the Senate — haven’t diminished the accountability of commanders or their ability to maintain good order and discipline.
The Military Justice Improvement Act has been endorsed by Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Protect Our Defenders, and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women just to name a few. The bill is also supported by dozens of U.S. military flag officers, including the first female three-star General of the Army, Claudia Kennedy, UCMJ experts and major newspaper editorial boards across the country.

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