The Nation.

Another KBR Rape Case

By Karen Houppert

April 3, 2008

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  • I feel sick to my stomach after reading this article. Any time I see something like this it causes this reaction in me.

    In all of these types of reports there are people talking about helping the victims, which is monumentally important. There are people talking about not allowing this to happen again, which is and should be the goal.

    Where is the outcry to the perpetrators to get help for their sick behavior? Where is the outcry to those who did not perpetrate, but have full knowledge of it occurring. Where are these men (and some women) who are the ones who can really put a stop to this?

    I want to call out to all the men(and women) who witness rape (or any sexual assault), who have heard that rape has occurred, or who know of a plan to rape, and ask you to speak out. Save your sisters and wives and daughters and friends, and even the women you don't personally like. Nobody deserves this kind of treatment.

    Trista Rajaratnam

    San Francisco, CA

    04/08/2008 @ 3:43pm


  • There is a relationship between the atrocities committed by military and contract personnel in their 'private' lives and what they do in fulfilling their volunteered or contracted duty.

    It is hard to reconcile the hope that some remnant of humanity surely remains in people in an organization whose purpose is to kill or to support those who do the killing on one hand and at the same time wonder how naive a person is to expect civil norms of behavior and justice to exist within such organizations at any organizational level. The terrible thing done to these women is analagous to the terrible thing done to Iraq by the US invasion or by rioting Iraqis.

    Both reveal a lack of preparedness to deal with consequences because of either bureaucratic avoidance or individual willful neglect. Some may try to soothe us with statements like 'a few bad apples are involved' or 'mistakes were made'. I don't believe those rationalizations any more.

    The US government is in The Twilight Zone of Alice in Wonderland finding itself unable to do right because it has done so much so wrong. When it tells itself over and over that certain terrible acts must be committed and are justifiable, it eventually becomes numb enough to belief it; and then what can't been done and justified? It sure casts more shame on this administration!

    Tom Hardenbergh

    Bath, MI

    04/03/2008 @ 10:49pm


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