Why doesn't AP identify this "western" 14-year-old girl as a woman?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.wtkr.com/Global/story.asp?S=5121615&nav=ZolHbyvj

Soldier Charged With Having Sex With 14-Year-Old Girl

A 27-year-old soldier is behind bars today after authorities in Isle of Wight charged him with having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

The Isle of Wight Sheriff's Department says Thomas Joseph Duffy used to live with the victim's family in Chesapeake when on active military leave from the Army.

Duffy had moved with the family to Carrsville in south Isle of Wight three weeks ago. The department says the victim's father found Duffy having sex with his 14-year-old daughter in her room July 4th.

[readmoreoften]

1. Because she counts. (Sorta) /nt

[itzamirakul]

3. What readmoreoften said...for sure...nt

[pooja]

2. Just out of curiosity is this statutory rape...or because

she is 14, does it count as sexual assault of a child... "found them having sex"... Unless I'm mistaken it sounds like they were rolling in the hay a few times before daddy caught his little girl practising the birds and the bees...

[China_cat]

4. The OP is talking about the identification,

not the charge. Sure, she's underage, etc. But, at 14 (and probably being white) the media identifies her as a GIRL...even though she is having consensual sex that is usually the province of WOMEN.

But the brown 14 year old, raped and murdered by American servicemen, is only identified as a WOMAN. Not even a 'young woman' but a woman.

That's what sticks in a lot of our craws.

[pooja]

6. I understood the connotation that the Iraqi girl brutally

raped and murdered was identified as a woman.. but because an American girl was caught behind the barn with her panties down.. she becomes a little girl so that her "purity" remains in light of the story.

[China_cat]

8. Now I'm confused

When did the Isle of Wight become American territory?

[Island Blue]

9. Isle of Wight is in eastern Virginia

in the Tidewater area. It's been there for quite a while.

[Clark2008]

11. There are apparently, two.

I was confused, as well, considering I knew of major concerts on the Isle of Wight off the Southern coast of England: http://www.islandbreaks.co.uk/

But, there is apparently this one, as well, in Virgina: http://www.co.isle-of-wight.va.us/

[leftchick]

5. because she is not brown

and the US Military is not involved?

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Because to so state would heighten the outrage here (loss of support

for our indefinite occupation of Iraq and treatment of nonviolent citizens) and in Iraq among insurgents and otherwise law-abidng, nonviolent Iraqi citizens who MIGHT now consider joining the insurgents in challenging our occupation.

With regard to the Iraqi outrage (both insurgents and non), remember the use of the execution of nurse Edith Cavell during World War I by the Germans to get more fight out of the British troops (and she was an adult who wasn't raped, just arrested, convicted, and executed). She's still seen as a martyr almost a century after her death.

http://www.edithcavell.org.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell

I'm sure that the Powers That Be over here don't want to turn the 14-year old rape-murder victim into a martyr to be used as an icon to "rally the troops" against our troops. (Not to mention that admitting the "truth" would contradict our assertions that our guys don't rape and murder Iraqi girls who didn't commit any provocation against anybody.)

[KitSileya]

10. Do you have a link to an article where the Iraqi girl is called a woman?

I want to point out the hypocrisy of the framing in an LJ post. I've found that it's an efficient way of opening people's eyes to the truth of George Lakoff's points.

[NNN0LHI]

12. Here is one from today

Army discharged 1,000 for personality disorders in '05

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-army09.html

WASHINGTON -- The Army discharged more than 1,000 soldiers last year for personality disorders, the reason it gave for this year's discharge of a private now accused of raping a young Iraqi woman and killing her and her family.

That total represents about 1.2 percent of the 83,000 soldiers given early discharges in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2005. That was a bit higher than less than 1 percent discharged for that reason in the 2001 fiscal year before the war in Iraq began.

Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army's surgeon general, said Friday that the disorder usually is not associated with combat trauma and may be a lifelong problem not always easy to identify in military screenings.

Many still perform well

[KitSileya]

14. Thank you very much.

It's all about dripping water drops on stones - it's more efficient than just telling them Bush is a fascist neo-con dictator. In one respect, it's like that old saying - Give a man a fish, and he'll have dinner that day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll have dinner every day. In other words, teaching them to think for themselves is better than just pushing knowledge on them - that's what the rightwingers are doing, and if we do the same, they'll forever be weather wanes following the wind.

[helderheid]

13. She's not brown.