This boggles my mind, Folks! What is going on with the Army that I love and respected? Rep. Jane Harman wrote an Op-Ed in the LA Times and at Jane starts off with this quote: "Women in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. When will Congress and the DOD take notice?" Good question! This statistics she cites are astounding:

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004. The DOD's newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.

If that's not bad enough, check this out:

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment," which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of "insufficient evidence."

That is appalling, where's CID? Where's the Commanding Officers' morality and sense of ethics, up and down the chain of command? Where's the congressional oversight? This is another black eye that parallels Abu Ghraib, with the same pathetic white wash!