Dirty Secrets (n): A Continuing Laundry List

If you want to know what's wrong with the media coverage of this so-caled war, you can't do worse than look at this story. I posted on the subject almost two years ago. Only today, however, have I heard anything about the subject, and it comes from NPR. Well, at least they have the courage (I guess) to cover a story that's been out there for two years.

Then there's the statistic that makes the soul reel and the gorge rise in bitter gall: over 28% of US women soldiers report incidents of sexual misconduct, mostly rape. That's from their own comrade in arms. Where do you start when it comes to this kind of hypocrisy?

NPR reports:

A 2003 survey of women using the Veterans Administration health care system reports that 28 percent experienced at least one sexual assault during military service.

I was just thinking about this last night. If there's one thing I hate it's a rapist. Someone who preys on women and takes advantage of them. I still remember scenes from Romero where the young nun is taken out and gang raped and then shot and left dead in the garbage dump. The rape camps of the former Yugoslavia have made their way into my poems and nightmares. The stories that Ken Knange did on the women raped in civil war seared my soul.

I have n irony for this kind of thing. I have no sarcasm left. This either strikes too close to home or I am simply sick of the bestiality that people breed in their souls. And my most lasting bile will be spit in the direction of the men and women who put our daughters and loved ones in these circumstances.

You want to know what betrayal is, Rex Judas? It is that wherein you send people to war and have your shining lies betray them with scars that will never die, never fade, because they are invisible.