New Program - Promoting Biblical Family Values

                  Promote Biblical Family Values:

Stop Draft of Women in Military

Stop Sexual Abuse and Rape of  Women in Colleges and the Military

Make Family Affordable

Stop Government Pressure for Anti-Biblical Family Values

By Rabbi David E. Eidensohn Disciple of World’s Greatest Rabbis Aharon Kotler, Moshe Feinstein, and Yosef Shalom Elyashev, all of blessed memory

The Talmud tells us that in the End of Days, prior to the Coming of the Messiah, the Satan will be given great power to do things that never happened in earlier times. Although great sins always snared people, there were still some standards. For instance, there are sins of eating forbidden good and stealing, and yet these sins are common with some people. But even people who do many sins refrained from insulting their parents or the parents of their spouse. But in the era before the Coming of Messiah family values will collapse, not everywhere, but relative to earlier times. New sins in family will appear. “A son will berate his father, the wife her mother-in-law.”

The new level of sin is the profaning of Derech Erets, the Way of the World. This means, that people have an innate appreciation of how to behave as people, as human beings. Before the arrival of Messiah the ability to refrain from behavior that defiles our humanity will be weakened. The most sensitive level of Derech Erets is with family, how we treat our parents especially. True, dealing with all human beings is Derech Erets, the Way of the World, a holy obligation upon each person created “in the Image of G-d.” But there is a special and higher level of treating our parents properly. After all, they brought us into the world and they raised us, and we must show our appreciation. If a stranger raised us, would we not appreciate it? Surely, if our parents have us as children and raise us for many years, we must honor them. This is the highest level of Derech Erets, the Way of the World. And before the Coming of Messiah, the Satan will have the power to loosen this appreciation even though before that time people generally honored their parents.

We find in the Written Bible, the Torah, three sections. Torah, Prophets, and Holy Writings. Torah is the Five Books of Moses and basic history and laws. Prophets is the work of the prophets. Holy Writings are entire books such as Psalms of David, the Book of Job, the Book of Daniel, etc.

The end of the second section of the Bible, the Prophets, is about Elijah the Prophet. G-d spoke of the Redemption and said, “I am going to send you Elijah the Prophet … and he will restore the hearts of the fathers to the sons, and the hearts of the sons to the fathers…lest I come and destroy the world.” It is very rare for a biblical book to end on a bad note, one of curse and punishment. But if the world does not respond to Elijah’s efforts to restore Derech Erets, the Way of the World, and the feeling of humanity in family, G-d will destroy the world.

This is our time and our challenge.

There is a book taught by Elijah to a great rabbi of the Talmud known as Tono Divei Eliyohu, the Teachings of the Yeshiva of Elijah. The first lesson there is that Derech Erets, behaving like a human being to other human beings, is greater than the Torah. This has become a popular phrase, “Derech Erets precedes the Torah.” And today, in times of great testing and great evil, the Satan is empowered to test us with Derech Erets. And we must withstand the pressures.

The gemora that talks about this testing time adds that things will be so difficult that “We have nobody to rely upon other than our Father in Heaven.” Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, the greatest disciple of the Chofetz Chaim explained, “This does not mean we should despair. It means that G-d is with us when we struggle even against the darkest day in our history and the furious power of the Satan. We will merit the Coming of Messiah because we trust in G-d and defend ourselves against the prevailing temptations to violate Derech Erets even in family matters.

Stop Draft of Women in Military

The above gemora mentions that in the End of Days before Messiah arrives, governments will deny biblical values. In America we have President Obama working very hard to use the military as a tool to violate biblical family values. He has appointed an openly gay person as a very senior general, and has turned the traditional male military into a male-female army. Now, women are weaker and smaller than men. You never heard of a woman who can play on a professional football team. But Obama worked hard to bring women into the military and shoot it out and smash and stab men who are stronger than women. What will happen to the weaker ladies? But Obama does this not because it enhances the military, but because it enhances equity, equity with ladies who belong in the house raising children, and equity with men who are openly gay and who will influence the military to become accepting of gay actions, even publicly. Woe to an American lady who is captured by ISIS. Her life will be a slavery publicized for the entire world to see the horror that Obama created for American women.

Biblical Family Values means that we take a look at Harvard and its tragic failure to protect women from rape, see below the entire article. We also want to publish facts on abuse in the American military which is a growing failure with no end to the most hideous suffering of women who joined the military voluntarily. Now the government is getting ready to force all American women into the military where even more of them can be raped. In this article, we deal mostly with Harvard, as the military has a huge annual book with the stats on rape and abuse, and we can’t use all of that stuff right now. But the Harvard article is only a few pages long, and it says very important things, so now we will talk about Harvard, and hopefully, in a later article, we will deal with the military. The military has some very complex problems that has created a great uproar in the United States Senate and elsewhere, and we have to do that separately. Now back to Harvard.

In September of 2015 the Harvard Gazette, the official publication of Harvard University, devoted much space to the problem of women being raped and abused sexually in Harvard College. The article is published here below. But we quote here some very troubling parts of that article. In the article, these sections are in red, as they are here.

The survey found that sexual harassment is a problem for women students all across the University, with 72.7 percent of undergraduate women reporting an incident of harassment during their time at Harvard, while fewer than 62 percent of undergraduate women in the broader 27-school survey reported such incidents.

Almost half of Harvard’s female graduate and professional School students reported being harassed, and 21.8 percent of these women said a faculty member had sexually harassed them.

Here is the article. I find it amazing that the smartest professors of Harvard are wondering why Harvard came out so poorly regarding suffering of women there. For one thing, here is a part of that article: But when asked how likely University officials were to take action against an offender, 46 percent of female undergraduates said they had little or no confidence that they would. In addition, 84 percent expressed some doubt any action would be taken. Overall, 68 percent of Harvard students surveyed were dubious of follow-through against offenders.

How in the world could Harvard’s geniuses who run the school have ignored the most basic thing that is to create confidence that a molester would be punished? If that wasn’t done, what are they doing about these things?

But allow me to conclude with my thoughts about Harvard and the military. These are both organizations with tremendous talent and money. But saving women from rape is beyond their ability.

Biblical Family Values are the answer. In my family, boys and girls never mix, ever. A secular writer once commented in amazement about how in Israel the ultra-Orthodox girls are virgins. It is nothing to be amazed about. Ultra-Orthodox children are mostly virgins. But when you go to Harvard, and are not home, but in a dormitory that is flowing with men and women who are boiling with biology, and drinking and who knows what else, you are going to have rape and abuse.

Another point. My children and ultra-Orthodox children marry young. When you have people earning a  doctorate before they marry, you get Harvard. Thus, the military and Harvard and modern colleges with co-ed dormitories will never be free of rape and abuse. And yet, they will never be honest enough to accept that without separation of male and female there will always be suffering women. They know it, of course, but since their purpose in life is to be modern, they have to accept that women will be raped and too bad because it is more important to be modern.

Troubling findings on sexual assault

Harvard’s portion of national study paints disturbing picture

September 21, 2015 | Editor's Pick

Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer

President Faust discussed the survey results with students Monday night at the Science Center.

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By Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Staff Writer

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In tandem with the release of findings from a new national survey of college and university students about sexual assault, the University’s Task Force on the Prevention of Sexual Assault made Harvard’s data public Monday, including results that paint a disturbing picture of sexual misconduct here on campus.

In a 13-page letter to President Drew Faust, Task Force Chairman Steven E. Hyman said that the survey, which was administered to nearly 20,000 degree-seeking students enrolled at Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), and the 10 professional Schools last spring, makes clear that sexual assault is “a serious and widespread problem that profoundly violates the values and undermines the educational goals of this University.”

Women at Harvard College appear especially vulnerable to sexual assault, the survey said. More than 60 percent of women in the College’s Class of ’15 responded to the survey. Of those, 31 percent said they had experienced some sort of unwanted sexual contact at Harvard. Ninety women characterized that contact as what the survey termed “nonconsensual completed or attempted penetration involving physical force, incapacitation or both,” the most serious category of misconduct. This group comprises 16 percent of female College seniors.

Faust finds results “deeply disturbing”

In an email to students, faculty, and staff, Faust called the survey results “deeply disturbing” and said the findings reinforce the “alarming frequency” with which Harvard students experience sexual assault, and she called for a Monday evening meeting to discuss the results with them.

“All of us share the obligation to create and sustain a community of which we can all be proud, a community whose bedrock is mutual respect and concern for one another. Sexual assault is intolerable, and we owe it to one another to confront it openly, purposefully and effectively,” Faust wrote.

The survey was part of an effort led by the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 research universities, to better understand the nature and pervasiveness of sexual assault, harassment, and other misconduct on college campuses. More than 150,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at 27 private and public research universities across the country took part, making it one of the largest surveys of its kind.

Overall, 19.3 percent of eligible students responded to the AAU survey, though rates at each institution varied depending on the type of school and size. At Harvard, 53 percent of the eligible students participated, the highest rate among the universities surveyed. Faust said she took that as a “positive sign” that students recognize sexual assault as a serious issue.

Harvard fared slightly better than the averages reported by students in the national survey aggregate. Four percent of Harvard students surveyed said they had at least one incident of nonconsensual sexual contact last year. Additionally, 1.4 percent said the contact was completed, or involved attempted penetration by use of force, incapacitation, or both. Nationally, 6.5 percent of students reported some form of unwanted of sexual contact, while 2.4 percent reported penetration or attempted penetration by force or incapacitation.

Last April, the Harvard task force asked students to complete an online survey about sexual assault. Students were asked a series of questions about various kinds of sexual misconduct that they may have encountered while they were enrolled at the University, regardless of where or when the incident took place, or whether the perpetrator was part of the Harvard community. The survey focused on nonconsensual sexual activity conducted through the use of physical force, incapacitation, or both.

The survey found that sexual harassment is a problem for women students all across the University, with 72.7 percent of undergraduate women reporting an incident of harassment during their time at Harvard, while fewer than 62 percent of undergraduate women in the broader 27-school survey reported such incidents.

Almost half of Harvard’s female graduate and professional School students reported being harassed, and 21.8 percent of these women said a faculty member had sexually harassed them.

“We must commit ourselves to being a better community than the one the survey portrays,” Faust wrote in her email. “It is up to all of us to ensure that Harvard is a realization of our ideals, not our fears.”

Also in response, Rakesh Khurana, Danoff Dean of Harvard College, announced that the College would host three town-hall style discussions with staff from the Office of Sexual Assault and Prevention this week.

“We have it in our power to make Harvard better,” he said in a message to students. “This is a moment for all of us to take stock of what we stand for as a community” and to make the necessary changes to better Harvard and the world.

At a 90-minute meeting Monday evening before an overflow crowd at the Science Center, Faust and Khurana answered questions from students following a presentation of the survey results by David Laibson ’88, the Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics. Laibson, who serves on the task force and chairs the Economics Department, was closely involved in the survey’s design and analysis.

As an institution of higher education, learning from these survey results “is something we are especially equipped to do,” Faust said.

“We want to use those skills to figure out how can we combat this, how can we make it stop, and how can we help the individuals who are trapped in these terrible, terrible circumstances from ever having to have those kinds of things happen to them again. How can we help future students not have to confront the same realities?” she said. “Let’s use every tool that we have to make this a better place.”

Students attending the community meeting asked that the University offer more opportunities to gather in both large and smaller groups not just to discuss their views about sexual assault policy initiatives and programs, but also to comfortably share their experiences in the hopes of learning more about the underlying issues that contribute to such traumatic incidents. Many expressed support for better and faster access to mental health services and the creation of “safe spaces” so that final clubs events were not a focus of undergraduate social life.

Noting the essential value that students derive by socializing and learning from Harvard’s diverse student population, Khurana appeared to signal that single-sex entities like final clubs may face greater scrutiny in the near future.

“Any organization that attaches itself, recognized or unrecognized, to Harvard, recruits from Harvard students and enjoys any sort of status by being affiliated with the College has to be in synchronization with the mission of the College,” he said.

Alcohol use a major risk factor

Unsurprisingly, the use of drugs and alcohol as a “tactic” or precursor to sexual assault on college campuses accounts for a “significant” percentage of reported incidents, the AAU survey found.

At Harvard, when students were asked if anyone had been consuming alcohol before an incident of completed or attempted penetration when incapacitation was a factor, 89 percent of respondents said they had been drinking, while 79 percent said the perpetrator had been drinking.

“The percent of alcohol is so high that prevention efforts are not likely to succeed if we do not, as part of our final report, suggest approaches to decreasing the harm associated with student drinking,” Hyman wrote in his letter to Faust.

More than 75 percent of Harvard College women reported the assaults took place in student Houses, while at least 15 percent said they occurred at what the survey categorized as “single-sex organizations that were not fraternities or sororities,” a category that most closely aligns at Harvard with the non-affiliated final clubs.

Not serious enough to report?

One reason why reliable information about the pervasiveness of sexual assault on college campuses is so hard to come by, analysts say, is that, historically, few students choose to report such incidents to someone in law enforcement, at a university, or at another organization. The AAU survey bears out this unsettling truth. Just 5 to 28 percent of students nationally said they had reported an incident, depending on the type of misconduct. Among those who said they did not report an incident, the most common reason given was a belief that it was not serious enough to warrant action. Other explanations included that the student felt “too embarrassed, ashamed, or that it would be too emotionally difficult” to report the incident, or that she or he “did not think anything would be done about it.”

On that score, Harvard appears no different. Here, 80 percent of female undergraduates who said they had been penetrated as a result of incapacitation did not formally report the assault, while 69 percent who said they were penetrated by the use of physical force did not report the instances.

Fifty-four percent of Harvard student respondents who said they “had seen or heard someone acting in a sexually violent or harassing way” did nothing to intervene. A full 80 percent who said they had seen a “drunk person heading for a sexual encounter” indicated that they did not take any action.

Hyman said the survey results are “entirely congruent” with testimony that the task force has heard since its formation. “The fact that Harvard data is quite similar to that of other private universities within the AAU gives little comfort,” he wrote to Faust. Noting the “deeply ingrained” nature of sexual assault, Hyman wrote, “It reminds us that we cannot simply make and implement a series of recommendations and consider that we have done our work.”

Messages on assault not being received

Despite initiating several efforts in the last two years to better confront sexual assault on campus, such as the adoption of the University-wide Title IX policy, the establishment of the Office for Dispute Resolution to investigate misconduct, and the addition of 50 Title IX coordinators to work across Harvard on such issues, many students said they are not well-informed about where to get support, how to report sexual assault or misconduct, how the University defines sexual assault and misconduct, or what happens after a report is made.

Just 24 percent of Harvard students said they were very or extremely knowledgeable about where to go for help, and only 20 percent said they were very or extremely knowledgeable about where to report an incident. When asked what happens after a report is filed, 82 percent said the process wasn’t entirely clear to them, and only 15 percent said they fully understood what constitutes sexual assault or misconduct at Harvard. In all four areas, the percentage of Harvard students who said they were very or extremely knowledgeable was consistently smaller than the national survey average.

“Clearly, we must do more,” Faust wrote. “University leaders — starting with the president, the provost, and the deans — bear a critical part of the responsibility for shaping the climate and offering resources to prevent sexual assault and [to] respond when it does occur.”

To that end, Faust has asked the deans from each School to prepare “school-specific plans” that begin to facilitate community discussion, engagement, and action surrounding the survey findings.

The task force and the University’s Institutional Research Office will further analyze the survey data to better understand the full results. In January, the task force will submit a report and make recommendations to Faust.

Confidence in the University’s ability to handle sexual assault cases vigorously and appropriately varies widely.

Although 61 percent of all Harvard students think the University is “very or extremely likely” to take a report of sexual assault seriously, only 43 percent of female undergraduates at the College and at the Division of Continuing Education said they feel that way.

Asked if they thought the University would conduct a fair investigation of any reported assault claim, 41 percent of Harvard students said they were only “somewhat” certain officials would do the job properly, while 29 percent said the process was “very” likely to be fair. Female undergraduates were a bit more skeptical, with 45 percent saying a fair investigation was “somewhat” likely.

But when asked how likely University officials were to take action against an offender, 46 percent of female undergraduates said they had little or no confidence that they would. In addition, 84 percent expressed some doubt any action would be taken. Overall, 68 percent of Harvard students surveyed were dubious of follow-through against offenders.

The national survey was designed to provide university communities, federal policymakers, and educational researchers with greater insight into the scope, frequency, and nature of sexual assault and misconduct on American college campuses, the AAU said in a press statement issued Monday.

The survey results come amid growing pressure on colleges and universities from the Obama administration, Congress, the Department of Education, and activists to codify and make transparent their procedures for investigating, disciplining, and reporting sexual assault cases, as well as the case outcomes.

Other participating Ivy League schools included Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Public universities involved included the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Texas at Austin, among others.

END OF HARVARD ARTICLE

This is the end of this, our first discussion on Biblical Family Values.

We invite everyone to write us what they think about our work, with comments. We also invite new people to join our email list.

Shalom,

Dovid E. Eidensohn

Monsey, NY 10952

845-578-1917

dddeid@verizon.net

from my brother Rabbi Dr. Daniel Eidensohn's blog daattorah.blogspot.com - The Kaminetsky perversion of the halacha, must a Gadol give permission to complain?

from my brother Rabbi Dr. Daniel Eidensohn's blog daattorah.blogspot.com:

Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Kaminetsky-Greenblatt Heter: Summary: Does a gadol have to give permission to protest against Rav Shmuel Kaminetky's heter Question: Regarding my posts about the terrible perversion of Torah and halacha that Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky has engineered with his production of the Kaminetsky-Greenblatt Heter - how could I publicize this matter without a psak from gedolim (i.e. Daas Torah) that it was permitted and also being told explicitly what kind of publicity should be done?
Answer:
1) Rav Sternbuch in his letters regarding this matter has made it clear that we are required to  publicize and protest this perversion where a woman was allowed to remarry without first receiving a Get. He does not mention anything about remaining quiet unless you personally receive a psak to protest.
November 2015 letter          November 2015 parsha sheetJanuary 2016 letter
2) However even without Rav Sternbuch's explicit statement as well as the many public letters of major rabbis attacking this heter - there is no halachic source which requires a person to ask a person viewed as a gadol or even ask a rabbi. Obviously if the determination that something wrong has been done comes from a single individual it is a good idea to confirm with a competent rabbi that his evaluation is correct. But in the case of this "heter" there are many strong letters of condemnation from major rabbis and there are no dissenting voice that the heter is valid - that is simply not an issue. The consensus is that Tamar is an eishis ish who is living with a man who is not her husband.

If Tamar Epstein Friedman has a baby with her friend with no GET and the baby is a mamzer, should she name the baby after her deceased father?

From my brother Rabbi Dr. Daniel Eidensohn's blog daattorah.blogspot.com

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Kaminetsky-Greenblatt Heter: Should they name their mamzer son after her father?

After universal condemnation and rejection of the Kaminetsky-Greenblatt "heter" - the couple is still living together. Neither R Greenblatt nor the Kaminetsky's seem to feel it necessary for the couple to separate despite clear consensus that they are committing adultery. 

This raises in interesting question of kibud av. Given that her father was niftar - it seems reasonable that when they have a son that she would name him after her father. The question is whether honoring her father by naming a mamzer after him is truly honoring her father's memory? On the other hand if she doesn't name her son after her father that shows that she acknowledges  that her marriage is not valid according to halacha and she is disgracing his memory by merely remaining in the phony marriage.

A related question is whether Rav Shmuel or Sholem Kaminetsky  or Rav Greenblatt would be the sandek for their son? Is it considered an honor to be a sandek for a mamzer? On the other hand if they refused the "honor" that would mean that they acknowledge that the child is a mamzer that they were responsible for creating. 

For those close to these gedolim, I would appreciate if you asked them these questions. I will publish their answers. If you can get them to explain why they haven't told the couple to separate - even after the Kaminetsky's accepted Rav Dovid Feinstein's psak that the heter is garbage - it would also be appreciated.

Most women can't be in combat so why are they drafted? Center for Military Readiness

Center for Military Readiness June 26, 2016

Eilleen Donnally

Myths about gender equality in the military are starting to crumble under the pressure of actual experience. Witness the recent Associated Press report that 6 of 7 female Marine recruits failed to qualify in training for direct ground combat assignments. The women deserve credit for trying, but it matters that 86 percent of them, compared to 3 percent of the men, could not meet gender-neutral tests of upper body strength, stamina, and running speed.

Mostly-civilian “experts” had predicted that 200 women per year would qualify for ground combat assignments. The emperor's new clothes, it seems, are getting a bit gauzy. A few women can meet minimal combat arms standards, but the fact remains that most women cannot meet them while most men can. In a future national emergency making it necessary to reinstate Selective Service, it would not make sense to order all women to register as if they were the physical equals of men.

Common sense nevertheless was missing during a closed-door meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 19. Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) approved surprise legislation that would force young civilian women to register for a possible future draft. Then the full Senate rubber-stamped the McCain mandate for co-ed conscription as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, without a separate vote. Since the House did not approve similar legislation, conference committee members reconciling both versions of the defense bill should drop Chairman McCain’s “draft America’s daughters” legislation. If lame-duck President Barack Obama gets the opportunity, he will sign the McCain mandate into law, doing harm to every young woman of draft age in America. Flawed gender-equality theories and misinformation have blurred harsh realities. It is not true, for example, that Selective Service would only induct young women for traditional positions supporting combat troops. The last time Congress debated this issue, a Senate report clearly stated that the only legitimate purpose of Selective Service registration is to speed the process of finding and training “combat replacements” for troops who are fighting and dying on the battlefield. No one is drafted to play clarinet in the Marine band.

Contrary to vague claims about “equality” or “fairness,” the brutal, physically-exhausting nature of direct ground combat against ruthless adversaries is not “equal” or “fair” to anyone. It is not even civilized. Both the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, and researchers conducting extensive tests for the U.S. Marine Corps from 2012 to 2015, produced definitive findings that can be summarized in one sentence: “In the infantry and other direct ground combat units that attack the enemy with deliberate offensive action, women do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or help fellow soldiers to survive.”

Instead of reality-based debate about national security, we hear petulance from “egalitarian sexists” and “hostile proponents” who resent feminists and blame military women for “gender diversity” quotas. “You asked for equality,” they taunt, even though an official survey found that less than 8 percent of Army women wanted to serve in the combat arms. Civilian women’s views haven’t been sought at all. 

Patriotic women have always served and sacrificed in our nation’s wars. They will volunteer to do so again. As for claims that women need close combat experience to be promoted ˗ Defense Department figures repeatedly have shown that for decades, women have been promoted at rates equal to or faster than men. Responsible members of Congress have yet to conduct open hearings with independent experts who would explain why the Obama Administration should have respected the Marine Corps’ request to keep infantry and other fighting forces all-male. Oversight requires an objective review of field research exercises in which all-male teams displayed greater speed and lethality in 69 percent of scientifically-monitored tests. Injury rates among women were two to six times greater than men’s, and even higher injury rates in load-bearing infantry units would seriously detract from mission readiness.

Everyone hopes it will never be necessary to reinstate the draft, but Selective Service registration of young men remains a relatively low-cost insurance policy to defend America if multiple threats overwhelm our shrinking All-Volunteer Force. If the McCain mandate for co-ed conscription becomes law and a catastrophic national emergency makes it necessary to reactivate Selective Service, officials would have to call up both women and men, ages 18-26, in roughly equal numbers. The administrative burden of culling thousands of women, just to find the theoretical one-in-seven who might be qualified, would actually hinder the speed and lethality needed to respond to an existential military threat. As stated in a previous Senate report, “[A]n induction system that provided half men and half women to the training commands in the event of mobilization would be administratively unworkable and militarily disastrous.”

In 1981 the Supreme Court deferred to Congress’ judgment and upheld the constitutionality of women’s exemption from Selective Service obligations. Women were not eligible to serve in direct ground combat, noted the Court, but Congress had the constitutional authority to decide. They still do. Congress should recognize the absurdity of registering or drafting thousands of young women – 86 percent of whom are not qualified to be “combat replacements” in time of war. If Congress made a rational choice to exempt women from infantry assignments as well as Selective Service, the Supreme Court very likely would uphold the right of Congress to decide. First, however, Congress should do no harm. Conferees should remove the “draft America’s daughters” language from the defense bill, and the next Commander-in-Chief should order military leaders to conduct an open, objective, and honest review of the impact of recent social experiments on military readiness. The next administration could restore sound priorities, but responsible members of Congress need to step up and help.

* * * * * *

The Center for Military Readiness, founded in 1993, is an independent, non-partisan educational organization that reports on and analyzes military/social issues. More information is available on the CMR website, www.cmrlink.org. To support CMR with a tax-deductible contribution, click here. You can also support CMR by visiting, liking, and sharing the CMR Facebook page.

Protect Our Defenders Challenges President Obama for Not Reforming Corrupt Military and Protecting Rapists

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2016

***STATEMENT***

AFTER THE SENATE REFUSED TO DEBATE MILITARY SEXUAL ASSAULT REFORM, PROTECT OUR DEFENDERS CALLS ON PRESIDENT OBAMA TO STAND WITH ASSAULT VICTIMS

Advocacy organization asks President Obama to make good on his word to have victims’ backs after the Senate fails to vote on the bipartisan Military Justice Improvement Act, which would create an impartial justice system for service members

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congress failed service members who have risked their lives to defend this nation. The Senate refused not only to hold a vote on the bipartisan Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA), which would create an independent and impartial justice system for our service members. They refused even to hold a public debate on the issue. Even after it was revealed that the Pentagon intentionally misled Congress on its handling of sexual assault cases, the Senate failed to vote on bipartisan legislation supported by a majority of the American public, which was twice backed by a majority of the Senate. More than 150,000 people have called on President Obama to reform the broken military justice system and investigate the Pentagon for misleading Congress.

Col. Don Christensen (ret.), the former Chief Prosecutor of the United State Air Force and President of Protect Our Defenders, released the following statement:
“Mr. President, it is time for you, our Commander-in-Chief, to step up and lead. We know your administration cares about this issue. You have told our troops that you have their backs. However, during your presidency, the military sexual assault crisis has continued, and minimal reforms have not worked. The crisis continues unabated. Retaliation against victims is hauntingly cruel, done with intent, and remains at record highs. The buck stops with you. You can fix the system. This issue could make or break your legacy regarding one of your most solemn duties – protecting the men and women who protect us.
“The fight goes on.”
A recent Associated Press investigation and Protect Our Defenders report exposed the Pentagon’s intentional misleading of Congress to stop reform by falsely claiming that military commanders are tougher on crime than prosecutors. In response, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) called on President Obama to open an independent investigation.
Rather than respond to the specific allegations regarding the Pentagon misleading Congress, a recent letter from the Secretary of Defense, written on behalf of the President, and a Pentagon white paper attempt to discount the evidence that the Pentagon’s testimony was false by challenging Col. Christensen’s knowledge of “how the military justice system works” and “how prosecutions are conducted under [the Uniform Code of Military Justice].” Col. Christensen is the former Chief Prosecutor of the United States Air Force and served as trial counsel, defense counsel or military judge for every year of his 23-year military career.

###

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Protect Our Defenders Release Letter Responding to Defense Secretary

American military filled with rape and abuse and when the victim complains they get a senior officer who backs the rapist. Senior prosecutor in military resigned because of this and is now president of an anti-corruption organization to defend women raped in the military from the lies of senior officers.

From New York Times magazine.

Nov 26 2014

PRESS RELEASE: Former Air Force Chief Prosecutor Colonel Don Christensen (Ret.) Named President of Protect Our Defenders

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 26, 2014 Contact: Brian Purchia, brian@protectourdefenders.com

*** PRESS RELEASE *** 

FORMER AIR FORCE CHIEF PROSECUTOR COLONEL DON CHRISTENSEN (RET.) NAMED PRESIDENT OF PROTECT OUR DEFENDERS 

After Serving Over Two Decades in the U.S. Air Force, Colonel Christensen Retires from the Military to Effect Change and Speak Out Against the Sexual Assault Epidemic — Calls for Fundamental Reform to Broken System; Col Christensen Successfully Prosecuted the Fighter Pilot at the Center of the Aviano Scandal, But the pilot’s Conviction was Overturned by a Conflicted and Biased Chain of Command

Washington DC – Today, in a cover story that will appear in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, Colonel Don Christensen announced that he has left the United States Air Force after 23 years and will become President of Protect Our Defenders (POD). Having served for four years as the Chief Prosecutor of the U.S. Air Force—the longest time for anyone who has held that position—as well as a defense attorney and a judge in a number of high profile cases. Col Christensen brings a unique, perspective to the ongoing sexual assault crisis in the military, and has witnessed first hand the failures of the military justice system.
In his role as Chief Prosecutor, Col Christensen was responsible for managing military prosecutors all over the world. Among the many cases he chose to prosecute personally in this role was one of the most high profile cases in recent Air Force history—the case at Aviano Air Base in Italy, where Lt Colonel James Wilkerson was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault, sentenced to a year in jail, and dismissed from the Air Force. In that case, Lt General Craig Franklin, the convening authority, overturned the conviction and freed his fellow fighter pilot, reinstating him back into the Air Force against the recommendation of his own legal counsel.

Col Christensen’s released the following statement regarding his decision to leave the military in order to speak out in support of fundamental reform:
“As a military prosecutor, I have personally seen the abuse and injustice victims of sexual assault face in the military,” said Col Christensen. “At first, I truly believed as the Chief Prosecutor of the Air Force I could help fix the broken military justice system from the inside. But after Aviano, where I watched at least 30 commanders, some of whom served as convening authorities, come to the defense of Wilkerson after he was convicted of sexual assault and blatantly attack the prosecution, judge, investigators, and the jury, this changed. I realized that in order to see substantial change, I would need to leave the Air Force, breaking a military tradition that has been a part of my family for over 150 years.”
“The military justice system is fundamentally broken. Your rapists’ boss should not decide whether to investigate or prosecute a sexual assault allegation or pick the jury. The decision to prosecute is a legal decision that must be entrusted to professional, legally trained prosecutors, the jury should be randomly selected, not hand picked by the accused’s commander. The military justice system must be changed. I am leaving the institution I love and joining Protect Our Defenders in order to fix this broken system.”
Col Christensen’s family has a history of American military service dating back to the Civil War. His family has served this country’s military for six generations; his great-great-great grandfather enlisted in the Army in the 1850s and served through the entirety of the Civil War; his great-great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Little Big Horn; his great-grandfather served on the Mexican border in the Army’s efforts against Pancho Villa; his Grandfather served in three wars including World War II; and his father flew 102 combat missions over Vietnam.
Protect Our Defenders’ Founder Nancy Parrish released the following statement:
“We are honored and humbled that Colonel Don Christensen has decided to join Protect Our Defenders, to stand with survivors and help us end the epidemic of sexual assault in the military, and stop the retaliation against victims. Col Christensen has dedicated his life to the military, and his distinguished career speaks for itself. Prior to the Wilkerson case, Col Christensen was named the top litigator in the entire U.S Air Force in his Officer Performance Report (OPR). With over two decades of experience as a military prosecutor, defense attorney, and judge, Col Christensen knows the ins and outs of our military justice system. He has seen, up close and personal, the lack of justice victims too often receive in the military justice system, which puts a victim’s fate in the hands of the rapists’ boss rather than professional, legally trained experts.
“Col Christensen could have stayed in the military, instead, he has chosen to honor his family’s commitment to service, and fight to improve the military that he loves. Col Christensen’s focus will be to push to reform the Uniform Code of Military Justice by calling on the President and members of Congress to enact fundamental reform.”
Robert D. Shadley, Major General, U.S. Army (ret) and Protect Our Defenders’ Advisory Board Member who led the 1996 Aberdeen sexual assault scandal investigation released the following statement:
“I know Don Christensen and he is the perfect choice to lead Protect Our Defenders in the fight to eradicate sexual assaults from our armed forces. The prevalence of rape and sexual assault undermines military readiness and fixing this broken system will strengthen our military by improving unit cohesion and troop morale. Throughout his esteemed military career, protecting victims and seeking justice for survivors has always been Don’s top priority. I know how much love and respect Don has for the United States military, and there is no doubt in my mind that he will do everything he can to improve the institution that he served in for so long.”
As a first step in his new role, Col Christensen is looking to our Commander-in-Chief, President Obama, to take a stand for justice and to support fundamental reform. Last year the President told victims he has their back and will support them. Since issuing that statement, the American public has been shocked by countless military sexual assault scandals from an Associated Press investigation this past February that exposed rapists receiving no punishment and commanders failing to prosecute sexual assault cases at U.S. Military bases in Japan; up to and including recent scandals at Fort Leonard Wood, and the Air Force Academy. Protect Our Defenders calls on President Obama to make good on his commitment to victims and support an independent and impartial military justice system.
–
New York Times: The Military’s Rough Justice on Sexual Assault
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/magazine/the-militarys-rough-justice-on-sexual-assault.html?ref=magazine&_r=1
[VIDEO] NBC News: Woman in Air Force sexual assault case speaks out
http://www.today.com/video/today/51159896#51159896
Associated Press: Documents reveal chaotic military sex-abuse record
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/documents-reveal-chaotic-military-sex-abuse-record-1
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Former drill sergeant found guilty in sexual misconduct case at Fort Leonard Wood
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-drill-sergeant-found-guilty-in-sexual-misconduct-case-at/article_299d20de-a395-5321-ba8c-6743769d06de.html
Colorado Springs Gazette: Report: West Point football team recruited high school athletes with booze, women
http://gazette.com/report-west-point-football-team-recruited-high-school-athletes-with-booze-women/article/1540172
ABC News: Air Force Cadet’s Secret Story: I Blew the Whistle on Football Players and Sex Assaults
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/air-force-cadets-secret-story-blew-whistle-football/story?id=26524925
About Protect Our Defenders: Protect Our Defenders is a human rights organization.  We seek to honor, support and give voice to the brave women and men in uniform who have been sexually assaulted while serving their country, and re-victimized by the military adjudication system – a system that often blames the victim and fails to prosecute the perpetrator. Learn more about Protect Our Defenders at www.protectourdefenders.com or on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ProtectOurDefenders or follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ProtectRDfnders.
Protect Our Defenders partners with Attorney Susan Burke, Burke PLLC to advance lawsuits filed against the DoD and service academies for repeatedly ignoring rape, sexual assault and harassment, failing to prosecute perpetrators and retaliating against the victim.

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STATEMENT: Protect Our Defenders Calls on President Obama to Stand With Victims of Sexual Assault and Fix the Broken Military Justice System Ahead of the President’s 1-Year Deadline

New York Times Magazine: The Military’s Rough Justice on Sexual Assault

Response to letter from Senator McCain head of Senate Military Group to me and my response:

Response to letter from Senator McCain head of Senate Military Group to me and my response:

June 30, 2016

Rabbi David E. Eidensohn

Monsey, NY 10952

I contacted various senators in Washington, DC regarding the drive to draft women into the military. I opposed this on the ground that an enormous number of women are abused sexually and it gets worse every year, although the Defense Department has struggled since 2004 to stop it. If a woman joins the army voluntarily, that is her decision if she wants to be in a situation of abuse and I am limited in my complaints. But how can the military force a woman into the military by drafting her, where everybody knows that rape and abuse is rampant, is getting worse, and is so bad that abused women don’t usually bother reporting it? One reason is that the complaint goes to a senior military commander who sometimes rules that the rapist is innocent and then begins a process of destroying the name of the complainer. This information and much more is on the website of US senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the section on the military. I have also a 700 page on abuse from the Defense Dept FY2012.

The senior senator on the military is Senator John McCain. I expressed my reservations about the draft and he responded as follows:

June 30, 2016

Mr. David Eidensohn 2 Phyllis Terrace Monsey, NY 10952-2724 Dear Mr. Eidensohn:      Thank you for contacting me to relay your concerns regarding female service members in combat roles in the military. I appreciate you taking the time to share your views with me.  I sincerely apologize for the delay in my response.      Over two years ago the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the decision to open certain combat roles for women. I do not feel that Congress should overturn this decision made by our military leaders. As you know, female service members are serving in hostile locations around the world and in all branches of the military. Many women have made the ultimate sacrifice through their service, and our nation owes them a deep debt of gratitude.        The military services are currently working to ensure we maintain the very same high standards that separate the quality of the United States military from the rest of the world — particularly the standards for our elite special forces units.         Again, thank you for contacting me on this important matter. Please feel free to contact me on this or any other matter in the future.            Sincerely,         John McCain         United States Senator  JM/ak

Senator McCain’s letter has nothing to do with my complaints, as is obvious. Of course, he has to answer many letters and maybe he just has them put into general sections. This letter was obviously not about my complaints but included in the pile of letters and emails that opposed women being in the army, which was not the topic of my complaint, as I mention above. I say simply that to draft a woman against her will when you know she has a good chance of being abused and even raped is wrong. And furthermore, until the military somehow finds a way to put men and women in the same army without abuse, they should not draft any women. But on second thought, what can Senator McCain answer to my complaints about abuse in the military?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand demanded an investigation into very serious complaints against the Defense Department and the huge amount of abuse and what it seems are questionable and even lies perpetrated at the highest level of the military and Defense Department.

Senator McCain refused the demand of Senator Gillibrand to investigate charges against the military despite the fact that it was backed by many senators of both parties and important sections of the country. He has no answer.

 But I should be grateful for Senator McCain for writing to me. At least he proved that he tries to be polite. But is he polite to the women who are raped? And if he has no answer to this, this itself is an answer. It is an answer that raped women are not something he is interested in.

Any senator who wants to draft women knowing that many will be abused and even raped, should be ashamed, not a senator, and not even consider himself a decent human being.

Sincerely,

David Eidensohn

845-578-1917

From US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's website Pentagon misled Congress about military abuse: http://www.gillibrand.senate.gov .

Pentagon misled lawmakers on military sexual assault cases

By RICHARD LARDNER

Apr. 18, 2016 5:26 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon misled Congress by using inaccurate or vague information about sexual assault cases in an effort to blunt support for a Senate bill that would make a major change in how the military handles allegations of sexual misconduct, an Associated Press investigation found.

Internal government records that summarized the outcomes of dozens of cases portrayed civilian district attorneys and local police forces as less willing than senior military officers to punish sex offenders. The documents buttressed the Pentagon's position that stripping commanders of their authority to decide which crimes go to trial — as the Senate legislation proposes — will mean fewer victims will get justice because there will be fewer prosecutions.
But in a number of the cases, the steps taken by civilian authorities were described incorrectly or omitted, according to AP research and interviews. Other case descriptions were too imprecise to be verified.

There also is nothing in the records that supports the primary reason the Pentagon told Congress about the cases in the first place: To cast top military brass as hard-nosed crime fighters who insisted on taking the cases to trial after civilian law enforcement said no.

The records were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the advocacy group Protect Our Defenders, which provided the documents exclusively to AP. The nonprofit group on Monday said it found no evidence that any case was prosecuted at a commander's insistence.
Former Navy helicopter pilot Lt. Paula Coughlin, a member of the group's board of directors, called on Congress to hold hearings on what she called "this latest deception."

Military representatives defended the accuracy of the information sent to Congress.
The bulk of the cases involved soldiers. Army spokeswoman Tatjana Christian said the case descriptions were written by service attorneys who had "personal and direct knowledge of the circumstances." She said they contacted the local authorities in each case to ensure the description was accurate, although there is no indication of that in the summaries. The Army declined to make a service official available for an interview.

Previously, the more than 90 cases had been discussed publicly only as statistics that underpinned the Pentagon's objections to the Senate bill, the Military Justice Improvement Act.

Three years ago, Navy Adm. James Winnefeld, then the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned a Senate panel that if approved, the bill would result in fewer sexual assault cases going to trial. Winnefeld retired from military service last year.

In response to the AP's reporting, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Richard Osial described the information that Winnefeld provided the committee as a snapshot based on data that was supplied by the military services. "He had confidence to go with it," Osial said.

The consequences could be significant if lawmakers believe they were misinformed. A backlash may stoke additional support for the Senate bill that's failed to pass largely because of the military's strident opposition. Another vote on the legislation could come as early as June.
The legislation aims to stop sexual assaults by stripping senior officers of their responsibilities to decide whether to prosecute sexual assault cases and giving that authority to seasoned military trial lawyers. Protect Our Defenders, a nonpartisan organization, supports the bill.
"Someone at the Pentagon should be held accountable," said retired Col. Don Christensen, the organization's president and the former chief Air Force prosecutor. "Whether you agree or disagree with the policy, every senator — especially those who repeated the claim or based their vote on the claim — should be outraged."

The often unflattering image of civilian law enforcement projected in the records also runs counter to the close working relationships local prosecutors told AP that they've forged with the uniformed legal staffs at military installations in their jurisdictions — far from the contentious political climate in Washington.

Civilian prosecutors said it's not unusual to transfer a sexual assault case to the military for investigation or prosecution, particularly when the incident occurred off post and involved two or more service members. Yet these referrals are routinely depicted as refusals, leaving the impression the charges would not have been pursued had military authorities not stepped in.
"It's offensive that they would say they would prosecute cases that we would not," said Jaime Esparza, the district attorney for El Paso County, Texas, where the Army's 1.1 million-acre Fort Bliss is located.

At Fort Drum in upstate New York, the Army took credit for prosecuting a soldier who had been previously convicted for the possession of child pornography but was never discharged from the service. The soldier, whose identity AP could not confirm, also failed to register as a sex offender. After being allowed to stay in uniform, he groped a girl and also sent her sexually explicit messages. He then was court-martialed and sentenced to five years in prison.
Kristyna Mills, the district attorney in New York's Jefferson County, where Fort Drum is located, disputed the Army's conclusion that her office turned the case down. She said the decision to allow the Army to take it was a "collaborative effort" made with the legal staff at Fort Drum.

"It is extremely rare that my office 'declines to prosecute' a case unless there are serious evidentiary issues that we feel cannot be overcome," Mills said.

In another case, the sheriff's office in Macomb County, Michigan, launched an investigation of Marine Corps Staff Sgt. D.C. Hagler, who was suspected of child pornography and indecent exposure, according to the records. But Hagler was stationed in Iraq. So the sheriff asked the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to take over what had become an international probe. Yet this is among the cases cited by Winnefeld as an instance where the military had to step in after civilian authorities wouldn't act.

Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Clark Carpenter said the service is "not in a position to characterize" Winnefeld's testimony. Carpenter said the individuals who prepared the summaries "had personal and direct knowledge of the circumstances" and that the Marine Corps does not provide information to Congress unless it's first been "reviewed by a higher authority."

The Senate legislation, which is sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., was first introduced in the spring of 2013 and has won the backing of at least 50 senators. But the legislation has twice failed on the Senate floor to meet a 60-vote filibuster threshold.
The dispute over Gillibrand's bill centers on the power that senior officers known as convening authorities have to send charges to trial and select jury members. Gillibrand and a bipartisan group of lawmakers argue that the system is archaic and ripe for bias, particularly for sex crimes. Victims may be reluctant to step forward, fearing they won't be believed or that they'll be retaliated against if they file a complaint.

But the bill's detractors have said fewer sex offenders will be caught and convicted if Gillibrand's bill ever becomes law. And that's where the sexual assault cases factored into the debate.

Winnefeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2013 that there were 93 sexual assault cases that military commanders insisted on taking after civilian authorities said no. Of the cases that had gone to trial at the time, more than half ended with a conviction, he said.
"I worry that if we turn this over to somebody else, whether it is a civilian DA or a nonentity in the military, that they are going to make the same kind of decisions that those civilian prosecutors made," said Winnefeld, who was the nation's second highest ranking military officer at the time. "I worry that we are going to have fewer prosecutions if we take it outside the chain of command."

Opponents of Gillibrand's bill seized on Winnefeld's remarks. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., has cited the cases several times since the admiral testified, saying each one represents a victim who would never have had their day in court if Congress curbed the authority of commanders.
"The importance of these cases is that they show definitively that commanders don't sweep sexual assault cases under the carpet," said Sarah Feldman, McCaskill's spokeswoman. "On the contrary, the numbers continue to prove that commanders aggressively pursue courts-martial."

But there's no indication in the records of any direct intervention by commanders in the 93 cases or others listed in the documents. Each appears to have followed the steps mandated by the military's legal code: Senior officers cannot refer cases to a general court-martial unless uniformed attorneys known as staff judge advocates have first advised them that the evidence warrants the charges. So the argument that excluding commanders from the decision to prosecute will mean less justice for victims is a flawed one, according to proponents of Gillibrand's bill.

"Charges should not be sent to trial to set an example or show a commander is tough," said Christensen, the president of Protect Our Defenders.

Not all the case descriptions had enough information to independently verify if they were correct. The Army convicted Sgt. Cecil Saddler of raping a 10-year autistic girl in a case Winnefeld singled out as heinous. Saddler, who was stationed at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in August 2011.

The Army's description said that the commonwealth's attorney in Virginia declined to prosecute Saddler but provided no additional identification. Virginia has 120 commonwealth's attorneys — the state's name for its elected, independent prosecutors — but no central database that keeps track of cases.

AP contacted the offices of four commonwealth's attorneys near Fort Eustis, where the crime occurred, and none of them had any record of Saddler's case. A spokeswoman at Joint Base Langley-Eustis said in order to get the name of the office, the AP would need to submit a FOIA request, a process that can take months to get a response.

Other descriptions omitted key details about the level of involvement by local authorities. A case from San Diego County, California, illustrates that point. The summary said the office of the district attorney in San Diego refused to move forward with sexual assault charges against a soldier because of insufficient evidence. But county court records and interviews provide a much different account.

Army Sgt. Paul Henson was convicted at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in February 2013 of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Carlsbad, California. He was sentenced to two years confinement and was released after serving 18 months.

The assault occurred in July 2010, but the Carlsbad Police Department didn't learn of the incident until nearly nine months later when it received a report from a police department in another state. By then, Henson was long gone from California. But the Carlsbad police investigated the allegations and the San Diego County District Attorney's office issued an arrest warrant for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

After Henson was found guilty in military court, the district attorney's office consulted with the victim and her family and elected not to proceed. She had testified at the Army trial in Kentucky and they were concerned about putting her through another one. But the sexual assault charge against Henson in California wasn't dropped until May 2015.

The imprecision in an Army case description resulted in a serious but untrue accusation against the office of the prosecuting attorney in Pierce County, Washington, where Joint Base Lewis-McChord is located. The summary said the office declined to prosecute a soldier accused of rape and then destroyed forensic evidence that had been collected the day after the assault.
John Sheeran, the office's assistant chief criminal deputy, said Pierce County elected not to prosecute because of concerns the charges couldn't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But he said his office did not destroy evidence. That was done by the local police department — which held the evidence — after it was informed no charges were being filed.

That's a distinction with a difference and one that should have been recognized by the Army attorneys who wrote the summary.

"If the implication is that prosecutors are reckless with evidence, it is problematic," Sheeran said. The Army also did not inform local law enforcement that it needed evidence preserved for a possible prosecution, he said.

"Let's not kid ourselves," Sheeran said. "Anybody can cherry pick cases."
___
Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this rep

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.

Torah Women at Risk and Nobody Cares

Tragedy - Senate Votes for Women to be Drafted

The following is a brief paragraph from the New York Times describing the vote of the Senate of the United States to draft women along with men if and when the government requires a draft. Until that time, men and women who come of age must apply to Select Service or face penalties. Here is the paragraph from the Times:

On Tuesday, the Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would for the first time require young women to register for the draft. The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties.

Incredibly, the Orthodox who have so many effective people who spend much energy on getting government programs for Yeshivas, etc., were no where to be found in this issue. We have no leadership. And now women may be called up for the draft, and when the government needs them, for military matters, they must service, everywhere. Since this is against the Torah and a cardinal sin for a woman to be in an army with men, all Orthodox women will suffer. And since men cannot enter a mixed army, they, too, are forbidden to join the army.

Three thousand women in fiscal year 2012 claimed to be abused sexually. The government who made the report says that this was less than fifteen percent of the actual number. But many ladies are afraid or disinterested in reporting their suffering, but the actual number is probably around twenty thousand women mostly young ones who were abused seriously. And not one major rabbinic group fought this draft rule. Today in shull we were discussing a teaching from a holy person of the earlier generations, that before Moshiach comes, some people who are apikorsim will become major rabbis. Maybe that is what they should teach in Yeshivas and the Agudah Convention.

Federal Stats on Abuse in the Military - Draft for Women is Unthinkable, but the Government is Ready to Do it

As it seems that the congress and the president are preparing the country for draft, when that is necessary, to include woman as well as men. Federal Law requires the Department of Defense to provide annual reports about sexual abuse in the military. The latest report that I have is 729 pages containing many results of thorough investigations. The report on Fiscal Year 2012 adds this:

The number of sexual assaults reported to DoD authorities in FY12 does not necessarily reflect the number of sexual assaults that occurred in FY12.  

¡  Civilian research indicates victims only report a small fraction of sexual assaults to law enforcement.  For example, of the 1.1 million U.S. civilian women estimated to have experienced nonconsensual vaginal, oral, or anal penetration in 2005, only about 173,800 (16 percent) said they reported the matter to police.  For the estimated 673,000 U.S. civilian college-aged women who experienced nonconsensual vaginal, oral, or anal penetration, only about 77,395 (11.5 percent) indicated they reported it to the police.^[1]  The definition of sexual assault used in this college sample refers to penetrating crimes only.  Consequently, it captures fewer crimes than the DoD definition of sexual assault, which encompasses both penetrating and non-penetrating sexual offenses, and attempts to commit these offenses.

This reporting behavior is mirrored in the U.S. Armed Forces.  Over the past 6 years, the Department estimates that fewer than 15 percent of military sexual assault victims report the matter to a military authority

At any rate, assuming that "fewer than 15 percent of military sexual assault victims report the matter to a military authority" that says that about 85% of those abused did not report it. If the report says that in Fiscal Year 2012 about 3,000 people, mostly young women, reported serious abuse, and if that is less than fifteen percent of the true total, what is the true total? The true total is roughly twenty thousand molested and abused people, mostly young women.

We must also keep in mind that the military is desperate to curb sexual abuse, and it tries everything, but nothing works. Things just get worse, not better, even after all of the efforts, studies, and huge monies spent. Things just get worse.

Because anytime, anywhere, that men and women are together, there are going to be problems. There are no exceptions. Harvard University recently released a study about Harvard abuse and found that 72.7 percent of women in Harvard were sexually abused, many, about twenty percent, by instructors.

See our post on this blog about Harvard. At any rate, we have quoted these disgusting facts, because the government seems determined to call up women to the draft if there is one, and this would seem to be backed by the Supreme Court in a previous ruling, as we explain there.

It is a cardinal sin for a woman to be with men in the army or anywhere else. The American army is now thoroughly mixed with men and woman working together almost everywhere. It is thus very sinful for even a man to answer the draft and live in the military where men and women are constantly sinning, willingly or by force. But women are a very serious problem because some of them may end up committing suicide, not just because of abuse, but because a Jewish woman cannot live in such an environment of terrible sin. HaShem Yerachem. And yes, nobody besides this blog is complaining about it, as far as I know. I speak to a lot of people and they have all types of responses that "it will never happen" which just shows they don't read the papers.

[1] Kilpatrick, D., Resnick, H., Ruggiero, K., Conoscenti, L., & McCauley, J. (2007). Drug-Facilitated, Incapacitated, and Forcible Rape: A National Study.   End quote: On my computer it came out that this information is on page 70 but since WORD changes the original study that was PDF although the text is the same the pages may not be. Nonetheless, it is generally easy to find the sections in the 729 page report that have the statistics and realities of how much problems there are.

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of NY Attacks Senate for Failure to Solve Abuse in Armed Forces

Gillibrand Statement On Senate's Failure To Vote On Military Justice Improvement Act

June 14, 2016

Washington D.C. – U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand issued the following statement following the Senate’s failure to vote on the bipartisan Military Justice Improvement Act:
“I am deeply upset that the Senate closed the National Defense Authorization Act without even debating military sexual assault and the Military Justice Improvement Act specifically. The bipartisan amendment has previously earned the support of a majority of Senators twice before and is widely supported by Veterans Service Organizations, retired military members, sexual violence NGOs, military law experts and most importantly military sexual assault survivors. 
“When the Department of Defense tells us they estimate there are over 20,000 sexual assaults on service members each year, that nearly 8 out of 10 of those attacked do not report the incident and that 62% of those brave souls who do report then face retaliation – often from someone in their chain of command who is supposed to protect them – how can it be possible that the Senate refuses to even debate reforming this system? The Department of Defense has buried its head in the sand on sexual assault for over 25 years and today the U.S. Senate joined them. Despite evidence uncovered by the Associated Press that the DoD misled members of the Senate on sexual assault cases, this simple reform was blocked from even being considered by this Senate. They used to just filibuster the bill, but now they won’t even debate it – pushing this national scandal to the shadows. I think that sends a shameful message to military sexual assault survivors. 

“We know today that the men and women in the military who are sexually assaulted do not get a fair chance to get justice in the current system. Today, I am saddened to say the same appears to be true from the U.S. Senate. Given this abject failure on behalf of Congress, I will again call on President Obama, the Commander of Chief, to fulfill his responsibility to service members and take action to give them a system of justice worthy of their sacrifice. In December of 2013 President Obama put the Department of Defense on notice that they had one year to show ‘the kind of progress I expect’ before considering additional reforms. The data does not lie – significant progress has not been made, retaliation remains exactly where it was then and in the case of unrestricted reporting we have actually gone backwards from last year.  

“The question for the Senate and the President shouldn’t be, ‘have we done enough to combat military sexual assault’, but rather, ‘have we done everything we can to fight this epidemic?’ The answer to that question is a resounding 'no', and brave service members pay the price every day for our inaction. In recent surveys and in their countless stories, survivors tell us they lack faith in the command-controlled system. They simply fear that nothing will be done or they will be retaliated against for reporting. I don’t know why the President and members of the Senate refuse to believe them. 

“Today is a setback in our fight on survivors’ behalf, but it is no more than that. I will continue to advocate for reform, and I refuse to back down or go away from fighting for survivors on this issue. Whether it is this President and Congress or the next, we will not give up until we can provide service members with a system of justice that is fair.”

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Press 

72% of Women in Harvard Are Molested - Should they be drafted in the American army?

Terrible Abuse of Women in Harvard - 72.7% abused. Now Obama wants to draft women in the military?

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn

Here we quote some findings in the lengthy study of sexual assault at Harvard published in the Harvard Gazette of September 21, 2015 with comments of the President of Harvard Dr. Faust.

“Women at Harvard College appear especially vulnerable to sexual assault, the survey said… The survey found that sexual harassment is a problem for women students all across the University, with 72.7 percent of undergraduate women reporting an incident of harassment during their time at Harvard, while fewer than 62 percent of undergraduate women in the broader 27-school survey reported such incidents.

Almost half of Harvard’s female graduate and professional School students reported being harassed, and 21.8 percent of these women said a faculty member had sexually harassed them.

“We must commit ourselves to being a better community than the one the survey portrays,” Faust wrote in her email. “It is up to all of us to ensure that Harvard is a realization of our ideals, not our fears… confident that the University will respond to their needs.

Confidence in the University’s ability to handle sexual assault cases vigorously and appropriately varies widely.

Although 61 percent of all Harvard students think the University is “very or extremely likely” to take a report of sexual assault seriously, only 43 percent of female undergraduates at the College and at the Division of Continuing Education said they feel that way.

Asked if they thought the University would conduct a fair investigation of any reported assault claim, 41 percent of Harvard students said they were only “somewhat” certain officials would do the job properly, while 29 percent said the process was “very” likely to be fair. Female undergraduates were a bit more skeptical, with 45 percent saying a fair investigation was “somewhat” likely.

But when asked how likely University officials were to take action against an offender, 46 percent of female undergraduates said they had little or no confidence that they would. In addition, 84 percent expressed some doubt any action would be taken. Overall, 68 percent of Harvard students surveyed were dubious of follow-through against offenders.”

 I am very curious what solutions Dr. Faust has for preventing abuse suffered now by over seventy percent of Harvard women. Maybe she can start by identifying the twenty percent of abusers who were faculty members in graduate and professional school students.

And does Dr. Faust believe that all women should

 be drafted?

Will Orthodox Women Get Drafted in American Army?

I greatly fear that American women will be forced to register to be drafted in the American army. When I use to mention this to most people they dismissed my worries. But now, as of June 6, 2016, the Washington Post writes that the head of the Senate committee on Army and Defense, Senator John McCain, is open to drafting women. A vote in the House by a few dozen representatives who are involved with military issues revealed a majority of pro-draft for women.

President Obama has been working toward this and now it seems he has it. What was his plan and why must we fear that he won this battle?

In 1981, the Supreme Court of the U.S. in Rostker v. Goldberg 453 U.S. 57 ruled that the practice of requiring only men to register for the draft was constitutional. The justices voted by 6-3 that since women did not participate in war, there was no reason to draft them. This became the accepted policy of the Military Selective Service Act until today, although Jimmy Carter wanted to include women in the MSSA. Another president, Obama, decided to change the MSSA by having the military accept women for combat. This was a process that took some years to achieve as ladies had to be trained in various areas that required strength most women did not have. A lady was trained to fly a jet plane off of an air craft career and she crashed into the ocean and died. But the process continued under Obama until some women were able to do difficult combat tasks. At that point, when women were already volunteering for the military and were participating in shooting battles, and were now being trained for full participation in all kinds of fighting, it was obvious that the ruling of the Supreme Court to exempt women from the draft was no long feasible. And now there is no longer any legal basis to exempt women from the military and the draft. When we recognize that President Carter wanted a draft for women even when they did not do fighting, and that three Supreme Court justices agreed that women should be drafted without their fighting, we see that the issue is a complex one. Now, especially, it will be very difficult to reverse the Supreme Court ruling and the feeling of many that men and women must be drafted in the Military Selective Service Act.

My mechuton Rav Eliezar Brizel of Jerusalem explained to me that the sin of a woman joining the army is not because of a fear of sin. It is because a woman may not be under the control of anyone other than a father and a husband. If the government drafts a woman to say Tehilim an hour each day, or some similar matter, it means the government has a control over her, and is forbidden.

Thus, it is forbidden for the government to have any control over a woman. But for a woman to be drafted into an army of men, or men and women, is a hideous problem. If an army is comprised of men and women, it is a sin for men or women to go there, because the army itself is a place of sin and abuse. The fines and jail that can result from this will be a big problem.

Inventing Invalid Gittin and Making Mamzerim

Recently a terrible disgrace of coercing a husband to give a GET by denying him his children, getting him fired  and constant threats that got worse and worse, was perpetrated by a Beth Din. It is takeh hefker what is happening today. Dovid Feinstein worked so hard to restore Shmuel Kaminetsky, the mamzer-maker, to be the Gadol of Agudas Yisroel and other places where the Satan wears a Talis. There are people out there who tell women to remarry without a GET, or because they claim that the marriage disappeared in ways that nobody agrees to, and there are for all of this mamzer-making,crowds of people shouting with happiness that at last somebody has spit on the Torah's ruling about these matters. What will be tomorrow? Mamzerim.

There is a huge network of people on the treifeh filth of Facebook who cheer on husbands who are broken and mangled and give a forced GET. I went onto Facebook and asked this question: The halacha is clear that a forced GET is invalid, see Rashbo in teshuva volume IV number forty. But you have decided that the Torah is wrong, and you want to permit a woman to remarry without a kosher GET. Such a woman has a child with her forced and invalid GET and her child is a mamzer. The child grows up, and is enrolled in a school where mamzerim are a problem. The child eventually will find out that he is a mamzer. Nothing can be done about it except to go to the Reform "Rabbis" who invent remarriage without a GET and who declare that the marriage disappeared, or that forcing a husband even murdering  him is proper if he refuses a GET. But the vast majority of Jewish people are going in the other direction, becoming more and more frum.

Reb Yosef Shalom Elyashev died at the age of a hundred plus with a thousand progeny. A secular Israeli newspaper published this and guess what: Everybody knows it. Throughout the Torah or Jewish world, Orthodox children are flowing in great numbers, may it increase. But the secular Jew has a child and a dog. The child goes to Japan and marries a gentile lady, and the dog doesn't vote. The strongest element in Israel's army used to be the Communist Kibbutsniks, or similar such people. Today, the strongest pro-army element in Israel is the frumeh, although in some ways they are Modern Orthodox and may be strongly involved with the state, nonetheless, the future generals wear yarmulkas, and things are going to get much stronger in that direction. An Orthodox Israeli Colonel used to visit Washington DC regularly to discuss with the marines and the American soldiers various military techniques. When he refused to let a woman sing at some event there was an uproar. But he is the Colonel who went into Gaza and fought it out bullet for bullet, and he is the future, not the ladies singing.

As we get stronger and stronger and more charedi and more charedi, children from funny or forced Gittin are going to have more and more problems marrying if they are really Orthodox. And even to get a person with a mamzer problem a shidduch with somebody not so religious is hard, because if a mamzer has a child that child will also be a mamzer, and even a person who is right now not Orthodox, doesn't want to burn their bridges behind them and have a child that will disgrace the family and all he marries.

I once dealt with gedolei hador in Israel and America, including Reb Moshe Feinstein and Reb Shmuel Zalman Aurebach, about a questionable mamzer. I was heavily involved. I will just say this: Never in my life did I see a person with the yiras shomayim of the problem person, a doubtful mamzer. And anyone who takes a Jewish neshomo that can reach the top and make a mamzer out of them will not have to explain anything to me, but in a Higher World, they take these things very seriously. And all of those who participated in mamzer making will say their piece to the Mighty Angels of Accusing and Destruction, and let them educate these angels on the glories of making mamzerim.