The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on Monday regarding sexual assault in the military. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand (Democrat of New York), pictured below, and her colleagues have presented legislation that would allow military judges and prosecutors the freedom to choose when to investigate and prosecute cases. Currently, these decisions are made by military personnel in the chain of command, which Gillibrand, among others, argue allows for corrupt decisions.
Evidence for these assertions is abundant. 500,000 men and women in service have been sexually assaulted since 1991 despite the so-called “zero-tolerance” policy. Only a fraction of these crimes are officially reported, and an even smaller fraction—1 percent last year—are prosecuted, according to the NY Times. All previous attempts at legislation, including at least 4 since 1991, have failed.
Possibly the most inflammatory aspects of this week's hearing, however, had more to do with opinion than fact. According to Yahoo, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued that the military can “fix this through the commander—not around him,” and implied that to do otherwise would be unreasonable.
Perhaps more embarrassingly for the GOP, Fox News reports that Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Republican of Georgia) said, “The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22, or 23…Gee whiz, the level—the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur.” Fellow senators were outraged.
image: Tumblr