Split over military sex assaults issue crosses party lines in Senate

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

By Joseph Morton

WASHINGTON — A deep division runs through the U.S. Senate over how to handle sexual assaults in the military — and it zigzags across party lines.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., finds herself alone among senators from Nebraska and Iowa in opposing a proposal by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to remove sexual assault and other serious criminal cases from the military chain of command.

Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, has been pushing her proposal in the wake of a series of sexual assault scandals, as well as statistics that indicate a rising number of sexual assaults in the military — with an estimated 26,000 incidents last year.

Gillibrand says she has the support of a majority of the Senate, including Sens. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is still weighing the matter, but he was a co-sponsor of Gillibrand's original proposal.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://www.omaha.com/article/20131121/NEWS/131129735/1685#split-over-military-sex-assaults-issue-crosses-party-lines-in-senate

[Decaffeinated]

1. We trust them with lives and millions of dollars of equipment...

... but not to handle paperwork and basic investigations.

Great message

[zipplewrath]

2. Nuttin' new

We have several "Offices of the Inspector General" as well as regular audits and regulations out the ying yang because we "don't trust them to handle paperwork". The current system of military justice was created when armies could be out of touch with the brass "back home" for years. It's not that way anymore and these crimes should be handled by professionals.

[tkmorris]

5. They HAVE been trusted to handle sexual assault investigations

They are "trusted" to handle them even now. Do you think they are doing a very good job of it?

[Cal Carpenter]

6. Right because some abstract 'message'

about paperwork is more important than justice for victims of sexual assault.

[eggplant]

3. Am I the only one to see "a New York Democrat" as intentionally derogatory?

What I sent to the author of the article:

Mr. Morton,

Can you explain why every single senator you name in your story is referenced with their party affiliation and state in the formal “R-Neb” style, except for Sen. Gillibrand, to whom you refer as “a New York Democrat”? For an article that is claiming to show that the issue crosses party lines, this seems to be a remarkably derisive descriptor to use for Sen. Gillibrand.

I ask that you please update your article and correct this slur accordingly.

[RC]

4. The military has proven time and time again, that it cannot properly handle sexual assault cases.

It is time for outside review of every case.

[MADem]

7. I think the "problem" (and I use that term advisedly) here is that it's not just outside "review"

that the Senator is proposing. The idea would be to remove any authority for prosecuting these cases from the chain of command. It's more than oversight--it's "Hands off, we're taking over."

They won't be doing this for servicemember-on-servicemember robberies, or murders, or assault that aren't sexual in nature.

I think if the idea were to assign an outsider to do a contemporaneous "review" --with authority to initiate course corrections at a higher level in the chain of command--of how any given sexual assault case is handled, in REAL time (i.e. someone outside the chain of command is examining every step of the process as it happens), complete with separate victim-witness support that's outside the chain, that might satisfy everyone. It would be a bifurcated oversight process, but I think the victims/witnesses would feel safer knowing that there's someone who isn't part of the club that they can go to if they feel their concerns aren't met. By the same token, commanders wouldn't feel that they aren't trusted to do the right thing before they even begin to process the case.

I don't think that has been proposed, though. It would require another layer--almost like a Preliminary Inquiry Report going down as the prosecution unfolds.