Good news!!!!!
"Along with working directly with the elite of NSW surfing, Hamish will be implementing a new National Development Plan, working closely with surfers and mentoring coaching state-wide."
The State Coaching Director will implement the National High Performance Development Program, an initiative of Surfing Australia. The intent is to develop surfers and provide ongoing support, using the world's best practice in all regional coaching, training camps, and competition setting, with the ultimate aim being to maintain Australia's number one ranking in global surfing.
NSW has the largest resident surf population in Australia and with junior surfers dotted all over the most accessible surf coastline in the country, the funding will provide more opportunities for NSW surfers.
www.aspworldtour.com
www.surfingnsw.com.au
Monday, January 17, 2011
Hell or High Water
...we've got to end the Afghanistan war.
Hey kids,
This excerpt is pretty terrific.
Fake feminism NATO-style
NATO’s attempts to master the dark arts of spin cannot be allowed to conceal the brazen opportunism of the alliance
By David Cronin
Back in 2002, the Indian writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly satirised the official excuses for the invasion of Afghanistan . “It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas,” she said. “We are being asked to believe that the US marines are actually on a feminist mission.”
Afghan women buy jewelery at a roadside in Herat (Photo: EPA/JALIL REZAYEE)The effort to rebrand militarism as compassionate and motherly continues today in NATO’s Brussels headquarters. Stefanie Babst, a senior official in the alliance working on “public diplomacy” (a synonym for propaganda), keeps busy trying to raise the profile of a decade-old United Nations Security Council Resolution on gender, peace and security. It is “extremely encouraging” that NATO is committed to this resolution – number 1325 in case you were wondering – and its call that women and children be shielded from violence during armed conflicts, Babst has declared.
Can it really be the case that NATO is sparing women from the horrors of the war it is waging in Afghanistan? Of course, it can’t.UN data published in December stated that 742 civilians were killed or wounded by NATO or by Afghan forces loyal to Hamid Karzai’s government in the first ten months of last year. Most of these casualties – including 162 deaths – were attributed to air strikes, a NATO speciality.
Documents made public through the heroic work of WikiLeaks have helped give us a glimpse of what Afghans have to endure. On 16 August 2007 Polish troops mortared a wedding party in a village called Nangar Khel. Four women and one man were killed. A pregnant woman in attendance was among those wounded by shrapnel. Though an emergency caesarean was performed, her baby died.
NATO’s attempts to master the dark arts of spin cannot be allowed to conceal the brazen opportunism of the alliance. When the Soviet Union started to collapse, there was much nervousness among NATO staff that their beloved institution would go out of business. After a lengthy period of scrambling around for reasons why the alliance was still relevant now that the Cold War was supposed to be over, it was given a new lease of life with the implosion of Yugoslavia. In 1999, NATO celebrated its fiftieth anniversary by raining down cluster bombs – weapons so dangerous that over 100 governments have subsequently agreed to ban them – on Serbia. No soldier, general or political leader serving the alliance has ever been held to account for that monstrous war crime.
Afghanistan has helped ensure that NATO will remain alive and kicking for the foreseeable future. In August 2003, NATO took charge of the US-led “stabilisation force” occupying Afghanistan. Karl Eikenberry, now US ambassador to Afghanistan and a former deputy commander of NATO’s 28-nation military committee, stated in 2007 that “the policy of turning Afghanistan over to NATO was really about the future of NATO rather than about Afghanistan, one that could ‘make’ the alliance. The long view of the Afghanistan campaign is that it is a means to continue the transformation of the alliance.”
Transforming NATO “means in the first place expanding it into a global military force, one able to wage wars like that in Afghanistan and others modeled after it,” Rick Rozoff has observed on his excellent “Stop NATO” blog.
In his New Year’s message, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, rejoiced in how there are now nearly 140,000 NATO soldiers deployed around the world: in the Balkans, Iraq, the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean (off the Horn of Africa), as well as in Afghanistan. Rasmussen would like us to think that all these men and women are working tirelessly to bring peace and stability to trouble spots. But closer inspection of NATO’s track record shows that their primary purpose is to ensure that the US and Europe will have access to energy supplies and other resources that our myopic governments regard as essential for our economies.
NATO’s activities in Africa, for example, have received only a fraction of the media coverage given to Iraq or Afghanistan. But the bit of information that we have available to us is illuminating. James Jones, who stepped down in October as the US national security adviser, paid a considerable amount of attention to Africa when he was a high-level NATO commander a few years previously. In 2006, Jones signalled that NATO was thinking about using the fight against piracy as a pretext to launch a mission off the Horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Guinea.
The aim of this mission would be to avert any perceived threats to the energy supply routes for Western nations, he said. It is about time that journalists grew more sceptical than we have been towards the whole industry of think tanks and self-appointed experts in Brussels and Washington who praise NATO at every available opportunity.
Hey kids,
This excerpt is pretty terrific.
Fake feminism NATO-style
NATO’s attempts to master the dark arts of spin cannot be allowed to conceal the brazen opportunism of the alliance
By David Cronin
Back in 2002, the Indian writer Arundhati Roy brilliantly satirised the official excuses for the invasion of Afghanistan . “It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas,” she said. “We are being asked to believe that the US marines are actually on a feminist mission.”
Afghan women buy jewelery at a roadside in Herat (Photo: EPA/JALIL REZAYEE)The effort to rebrand militarism as compassionate and motherly continues today in NATO’s Brussels headquarters. Stefanie Babst, a senior official in the alliance working on “public diplomacy” (a synonym for propaganda), keeps busy trying to raise the profile of a decade-old United Nations Security Council Resolution on gender, peace and security. It is “extremely encouraging” that NATO is committed to this resolution – number 1325 in case you were wondering – and its call that women and children be shielded from violence during armed conflicts, Babst has declared.
Can it really be the case that NATO is sparing women from the horrors of the war it is waging in Afghanistan? Of course, it can’t.UN data published in December stated that 742 civilians were killed or wounded by NATO or by Afghan forces loyal to Hamid Karzai’s government in the first ten months of last year. Most of these casualties – including 162 deaths – were attributed to air strikes, a NATO speciality.
Documents made public through the heroic work of WikiLeaks have helped give us a glimpse of what Afghans have to endure. On 16 August 2007 Polish troops mortared a wedding party in a village called Nangar Khel. Four women and one man were killed. A pregnant woman in attendance was among those wounded by shrapnel. Though an emergency caesarean was performed, her baby died.
NATO’s attempts to master the dark arts of spin cannot be allowed to conceal the brazen opportunism of the alliance. When the Soviet Union started to collapse, there was much nervousness among NATO staff that their beloved institution would go out of business. After a lengthy period of scrambling around for reasons why the alliance was still relevant now that the Cold War was supposed to be over, it was given a new lease of life with the implosion of Yugoslavia. In 1999, NATO celebrated its fiftieth anniversary by raining down cluster bombs – weapons so dangerous that over 100 governments have subsequently agreed to ban them – on Serbia. No soldier, general or political leader serving the alliance has ever been held to account for that monstrous war crime.
Afghanistan has helped ensure that NATO will remain alive and kicking for the foreseeable future. In August 2003, NATO took charge of the US-led “stabilisation force” occupying Afghanistan. Karl Eikenberry, now US ambassador to Afghanistan and a former deputy commander of NATO’s 28-nation military committee, stated in 2007 that “the policy of turning Afghanistan over to NATO was really about the future of NATO rather than about Afghanistan, one that could ‘make’ the alliance. The long view of the Afghanistan campaign is that it is a means to continue the transformation of the alliance.”
Transforming NATO “means in the first place expanding it into a global military force, one able to wage wars like that in Afghanistan and others modeled after it,” Rick Rozoff has observed on his excellent “Stop NATO” blog.
In his New Year’s message, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general, rejoiced in how there are now nearly 140,000 NATO soldiers deployed around the world: in the Balkans, Iraq, the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean (off the Horn of Africa), as well as in Afghanistan. Rasmussen would like us to think that all these men and women are working tirelessly to bring peace and stability to trouble spots. But closer inspection of NATO’s track record shows that their primary purpose is to ensure that the US and Europe will have access to energy supplies and other resources that our myopic governments regard as essential for our economies.
NATO’s activities in Africa, for example, have received only a fraction of the media coverage given to Iraq or Afghanistan. But the bit of information that we have available to us is illuminating. James Jones, who stepped down in October as the US national security adviser, paid a considerable amount of attention to Africa when he was a high-level NATO commander a few years previously. In 2006, Jones signalled that NATO was thinking about using the fight against piracy as a pretext to launch a mission off the Horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Guinea.
The aim of this mission would be to avert any perceived threats to the energy supply routes for Western nations, he said. It is about time that journalists grew more sceptical than we have been towards the whole industry of think tanks and self-appointed experts in Brussels and Washington who praise NATO at every available opportunity.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Chris Cook from Pacific Free Press has this.
16 Jan 2011
Afghanistan: The War is Over, but the Killing Goes On PDF Print E-mail
written by Conn Hallinan
Killing Peace
by Conn Hallinan
In spite of a White House declaration that "progress" is being made in Afghanistan, by virtually any measure the war has deteriorated significantly since the Obama Administration surged troops into Kandahar and Helmand provinces. This past year has been the deadliest on record for U.S. and coalition troops.
Civilian casualties are on the rise, and, according to the Red Cross, security has worsened throughout the country. U.S. allies are falling away, and the central government in Kabul has never been so isolated. Polls in Afghanistan, the U.S. and Europe reflect growing opposition to the nine-year conflict.
So why is the White House pursuing a strategy that is almost certain to accelerate a descent into chaos, and one that runs counter to the Administration's stated goal of a diplomatic solution to the war?
It is not an easy question to answer, in part because the major actors are hardly being straight with the public.
For instance, while U.S. commander Maj. Gen. David Petraeus says his strategy of counterinsurgency is making headway, in fact the military abandoned that approach long ago. Instead it has ramped up the air war and replaced the campaign to win "hearts and minds" with "night raids" aimed at assassinating or capturing Taliban leaders and supporters.
"Night raids" have more than tripled, from an average of 5 a night to 17, and they more and more resemble the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Phoenix was aimed at decapitating the leadership of the National Liberation Front (NLF) and dismantling the NLF infrastructure in the countryside. It ended up assassinating somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 people.
As in the Phoenix Program, night raids are directed at destroying "shadow governments" the Taliban have established in virtually every province in the country. Over the past three months, U.S. and NATO forces claim they have killed or captured 360 "insurgent leaders," 960 "low-level leaders," and some 2,400 fighters.
The Taliban have responded by assassinating government officials in Kandahar and increasing their cooperation with the two other insurgent groups, the Hizb-i-Islami and the Haqqani Group.
In spite of the raids, United Nation's maps show that the central battlegrounds of Kandahar and Helmand provinces are still considered "very high risk" and the situation has grown considerably worse in the north and east.
The White House argues that the only solution to the long-running war is a diplomatic one, but the administration seems bent on systematically sabotaging that outcome by trying to kill the very people who will be central to any negotiated peace.
"By killing Taliban leaders, the war will not come to an end," former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttwakil told the Nation's Jeremy Scahill, "on the contrary, things get worse." Indeed, according to former Taliban leader Abdul Salam Zaeef, the killings push more radical leaders to the fore. "It will be worse for everyone if the [current] Taliban leadership disappears," Zaeef told Scahill.
The US has also sharpened its criticism of Pakistan to the point that a recent intelligence analysis essentially says the Islamabad is the major problem. There is even talk about sending U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the special 3,000-man Afghan army organized by the CIA into Pakistan to attack insurgent camps near the border, an act that would almost certainly further inflame anti-Americanism in that country.
In reality, there is not a whole lot Pakistan's 600,000-man army can do. It is already fighting a homegrown Taliban, and its tense relations with India require it keep substantial forces on their mutual border. It has also largely taken over the job of dealing with Pakistan's devastating floods last year. But even were it use all its forces, it is doubtful it could control the mountainous, 1553-mile border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis argue that current U.S. policy, not the border, is the problem. They point to the fact that the Americans have hitched themselves to the corruption-plagued Karzi government and have little to show for the billions spent to train the Afghan Army and police. "The Americans are looking for a scapegoat," says leading Pakistan politician Mushahid Hussain.
Is the problem that Obama has turned the war over the military?
For all of Petraeus' talk about "hearts and minds," the military's job description is to kill people. That is why Karl von Clausewitz, the great theoretician of modern war, pointed out that war is much too important a matter to be left in the hands of generals.
The Obama Administration seems paralyzed by a combination of those in its ranks who support a muscular foreign policy, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the late Richard Holbrooke, a fear that the Republicans will brand them as "soft" in the 2012 elections, and an unwillingness to confront the generals.
The tragedy here is that many of the pieces for a deal are already in place. The Taliban and its allies are not tightly organized groups with a common ideology other than expelling invaders. They range from dedicated jihadists to local people fighting over turf or for revenge. And while Afghans have a reputation for being fierce, they actually excel at the art of the deal. If they did not, the country would have been depopulated long ago.
Of course, there are substantial roadblocks to overcome. The Taliban insists all foreign troops must leave, and the U.S. and Karzi demand the insurgents accept the Afghan constitution and put down their weapons. None of the above is likely to happen.
But the Taliban said back in 2008 that they would accept a "timetable" for foreign troops to leave. Of course both sides would have to agree to a ceasefire.
The U.S will have to back off from its insistence that the insurgents accept the current constitution. The document establishes a powerful centralized government, a form of organization that flies in the face of the country's history and which few Afghans outside of Kabul support. A constitution based on strong local autonomy would garner more support. In turn, the insurgents would have to guarantee that groups like al-Qaeda could not set up shop.
The Americans insist they will not talk with the Haqqani Group or others they consider "irreconcilables," but you have to negotiate with the people you are fighting. No party has the right to veto the participation of another.
Any agreement will have to take into account regional security issues, including Islamabad's fear that India will make Afghanistan a client state, thus surrounding Pakistan on both sides.
The polls are on the side of those who want to end the war.
A recent survey found that 83 percent of Afghanis want negotiations, (though 55 percent show little sympathy with the insurgency). According to an ABC/Washington Post poll, 60 percent of the American public say the war "is not worth fighting." Opposition to the war is much higher in Europe, reaching 70 percent in Germany.
The U.S. polls suggest that any Republican charge of the administration being "soft" is not likely to make much headway with voters.
Further, the conflict is hemorrhaging money at a time of severe economic crisis. The war is costing $8 billion a month, not counting the tens of billions the U.S. has spent training the Afghan Army and police. So far, the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars is $1.1 trillion, but, according to economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmer, the long-term costs of both wars will be $3 trillion.
One thing Democrats in Congress can do is to press for a troop drawdown starting this year. Again, the polls show 55 percent support withdrawals starting in summer 2011, with another 27 percent saying it should begin sooner.
According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, delaying the withdrawal date from the end of 2011—the President's original goal—to 2014 will cost an extra $125 billion. As a comparison, the House Republicans pledge to cut $100 billion from the domestic budget—excluding the military, Homeland Security, and veterans—would require a 20 percent across-the-board cut in all programs.
The war is lost. We are broke. Many of the key protagonists are prepared to talk. It is time to silence the guns and seek common ground.
Conn Hallinan can be reached at: ringoanne@sbcglobal.net
16 Jan 2011
Afghanistan: The War is Over, but the Killing Goes On PDF Print E-mail
written by Conn Hallinan
Killing Peace
by Conn Hallinan
In spite of a White House declaration that "progress" is being made in Afghanistan, by virtually any measure the war has deteriorated significantly since the Obama Administration surged troops into Kandahar and Helmand provinces. This past year has been the deadliest on record for U.S. and coalition troops.
Civilian casualties are on the rise, and, according to the Red Cross, security has worsened throughout the country. U.S. allies are falling away, and the central government in Kabul has never been so isolated. Polls in Afghanistan, the U.S. and Europe reflect growing opposition to the nine-year conflict.
So why is the White House pursuing a strategy that is almost certain to accelerate a descent into chaos, and one that runs counter to the Administration's stated goal of a diplomatic solution to the war?
It is not an easy question to answer, in part because the major actors are hardly being straight with the public.
For instance, while U.S. commander Maj. Gen. David Petraeus says his strategy of counterinsurgency is making headway, in fact the military abandoned that approach long ago. Instead it has ramped up the air war and replaced the campaign to win "hearts and minds" with "night raids" aimed at assassinating or capturing Taliban leaders and supporters.
"Night raids" have more than tripled, from an average of 5 a night to 17, and they more and more resemble the Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Phoenix was aimed at decapitating the leadership of the National Liberation Front (NLF) and dismantling the NLF infrastructure in the countryside. It ended up assassinating somewhere between 40,000 and 60,000 people.
As in the Phoenix Program, night raids are directed at destroying "shadow governments" the Taliban have established in virtually every province in the country. Over the past three months, U.S. and NATO forces claim they have killed or captured 360 "insurgent leaders," 960 "low-level leaders," and some 2,400 fighters.
The Taliban have responded by assassinating government officials in Kandahar and increasing their cooperation with the two other insurgent groups, the Hizb-i-Islami and the Haqqani Group.
In spite of the raids, United Nation's maps show that the central battlegrounds of Kandahar and Helmand provinces are still considered "very high risk" and the situation has grown considerably worse in the north and east.
The White House argues that the only solution to the long-running war is a diplomatic one, but the administration seems bent on systematically sabotaging that outcome by trying to kill the very people who will be central to any negotiated peace.
"By killing Taliban leaders, the war will not come to an end," former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttwakil told the Nation's Jeremy Scahill, "on the contrary, things get worse." Indeed, according to former Taliban leader Abdul Salam Zaeef, the killings push more radical leaders to the fore. "It will be worse for everyone if the [current] Taliban leadership disappears," Zaeef told Scahill.
The US has also sharpened its criticism of Pakistan to the point that a recent intelligence analysis essentially says the Islamabad is the major problem. There is even talk about sending U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and the special 3,000-man Afghan army organized by the CIA into Pakistan to attack insurgent camps near the border, an act that would almost certainly further inflame anti-Americanism in that country.
In reality, there is not a whole lot Pakistan's 600,000-man army can do. It is already fighting a homegrown Taliban, and its tense relations with India require it keep substantial forces on their mutual border. It has also largely taken over the job of dealing with Pakistan's devastating floods last year. But even were it use all its forces, it is doubtful it could control the mountainous, 1553-mile border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis argue that current U.S. policy, not the border, is the problem. They point to the fact that the Americans have hitched themselves to the corruption-plagued Karzi government and have little to show for the billions spent to train the Afghan Army and police. "The Americans are looking for a scapegoat," says leading Pakistan politician Mushahid Hussain.
Is the problem that Obama has turned the war over the military?
For all of Petraeus' talk about "hearts and minds," the military's job description is to kill people. That is why Karl von Clausewitz, the great theoretician of modern war, pointed out that war is much too important a matter to be left in the hands of generals.
The Obama Administration seems paralyzed by a combination of those in its ranks who support a muscular foreign policy, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the late Richard Holbrooke, a fear that the Republicans will brand them as "soft" in the 2012 elections, and an unwillingness to confront the generals.
The tragedy here is that many of the pieces for a deal are already in place. The Taliban and its allies are not tightly organized groups with a common ideology other than expelling invaders. They range from dedicated jihadists to local people fighting over turf or for revenge. And while Afghans have a reputation for being fierce, they actually excel at the art of the deal. If they did not, the country would have been depopulated long ago.
Of course, there are substantial roadblocks to overcome. The Taliban insists all foreign troops must leave, and the U.S. and Karzi demand the insurgents accept the Afghan constitution and put down their weapons. None of the above is likely to happen.
But the Taliban said back in 2008 that they would accept a "timetable" for foreign troops to leave. Of course both sides would have to agree to a ceasefire.
The U.S will have to back off from its insistence that the insurgents accept the current constitution. The document establishes a powerful centralized government, a form of organization that flies in the face of the country's history and which few Afghans outside of Kabul support. A constitution based on strong local autonomy would garner more support. In turn, the insurgents would have to guarantee that groups like al-Qaeda could not set up shop.
The Americans insist they will not talk with the Haqqani Group or others they consider "irreconcilables," but you have to negotiate with the people you are fighting. No party has the right to veto the participation of another.
Any agreement will have to take into account regional security issues, including Islamabad's fear that India will make Afghanistan a client state, thus surrounding Pakistan on both sides.
The polls are on the side of those who want to end the war.
A recent survey found that 83 percent of Afghanis want negotiations, (though 55 percent show little sympathy with the insurgency). According to an ABC/Washington Post poll, 60 percent of the American public say the war "is not worth fighting." Opposition to the war is much higher in Europe, reaching 70 percent in Germany.
The U.S. polls suggest that any Republican charge of the administration being "soft" is not likely to make much headway with voters.
Further, the conflict is hemorrhaging money at a time of severe economic crisis. The war is costing $8 billion a month, not counting the tens of billions the U.S. has spent training the Afghan Army and police. So far, the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars is $1.1 trillion, but, according to economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmer, the long-term costs of both wars will be $3 trillion.
One thing Democrats in Congress can do is to press for a troop drawdown starting this year. Again, the polls show 55 percent support withdrawals starting in summer 2011, with another 27 percent saying it should begin sooner.
According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, delaying the withdrawal date from the end of 2011—the President's original goal—to 2014 will cost an extra $125 billion. As a comparison, the House Republicans pledge to cut $100 billion from the domestic budget—excluding the military, Homeland Security, and veterans—would require a 20 percent across-the-board cut in all programs.
The war is lost. We are broke. Many of the key protagonists are prepared to talk. It is time to silence the guns and seek common ground.
Conn Hallinan can be reached at: ringoanne@sbcglobal.net
Out today.
by Tod Ensign
One of the greatest achievements of the Vietnam antiwar movement was its creation of a GI coffeehouse and counselling network. The first coffehouse was opened outside Ft. Jackson, S.C. in late 1967, two and a half years after America troops invaded Vietnam. Within weeks, hundreds of GIs had visited during their off duty hours. Over the next year, similar projects sprang up outside twenty other major U.S. bases.
These projects embodied the "counter cultural" spirit of the times. Sex, psychedelic drugs and rock and roll coexisted with a strong anti-war message. Civilian activists, mostly recruited from the anti-war movement, worked in tandem with active duty GIs, some of whom had just returned from Vietnam. At some projects, the soldiers played a leading role in setting political goals, providing counselling and putting out the anti war newspaper that was a staple of every coffeehouse project.
Today, antiwar organizers are again discussing how active duty GIs can be recruited to play a more active part in the struggle against the war. A Stars and Stripes newspaper poll of soldiers fighting in Iraq, reported in March 2006, that 72% of them wanted to be withdrawn within a year, while 29% favored immediate withdrawl.
Organizers from Citizen Soldier, a GI/veterans rights advocacy group (www.citizen-soldier.org) recently met with anti-war veterans and GIs in Fayetteville, N.C. , home to Ft. Bragg, where 40,000 combat troops are stationed. They discussed the prospects for establishing a coffeehouse and counselling project near the base--the largest in the eastern U.S. Their hope is that a successful pilot project at Bragg could stimulate the creation of similar efforts at other key posts.
Both the US military and American society have experienced enormous change since the Vietnam era. Foremost here is the transformation of a conscript-driven military to one that is entirely composed of "volunteers." This has made the armed forces much less representative of American society as a whole. One of the primary reasons why advocates of an "all volunteer" military wanted to junk the Draft was their belief that it fueled much of the anti war opposition--especially among young people. When one compares the size and intensity of today's movement against the war in Iraq with that of the Vietnam war, this analysis appears to be accurate.
The transition to a volunteer force has had two other significant consequences. One, women were integrated into most military jobs, except for the infantry and armor. Today, every sixth soldier is female, except in the Marine Corps. Second, the shrinkage of active duty force levels, which became necessary once competitive wages were being paid has meant that reservists and Guard troops must shoulder a much greater combat burden when the military deploys into combat. Today, one out of three GIs serving in Iraq is a reservist. These soldiers are older, have family obligations and are less accustomed to the rigors of military life.
These demographic changes are central to any discussion of how a coffeehouse project could attract the participation of GIs today. During Vietnam, the average low ranking soldier was paid less than $300 a month. They lived in austere barracks and ate their meals in dingy chowhalls. These conditions made an off base coffeehouse seem attractive as an off duty refuge from the tedium of the "green machine" and its grinding routines.
Today, half of all soldiers are married and many have children. Their relatively good pay and benefits allow them to buy expensive cars and vans and many choose Applebee's and Mickey D's over the messhall. To counter serious problems with recruitment and retention, the Pentagon now offers a series of robust bonuses which range from $10,000 to $40,000, payable over the life of an enlistment hitch. Elite "Delta Force" troops can get up to $100,000 if they'll sign for another tour. (A note to those who believe that recruiting shortfalls may force a reinstitution of the Draft: the Pentagon has shown that it will spend whatever it takes to induce (bribe?) low income youth to fill its combat slots.
One of the main attractions of the Vietnam era coffeehouse was that GIs identified them with the "counter cultural" changes that were sweeping America at the time. Psychedelic paraphenalia and drugs fanned the latent anti authoritarianism of soldiers. This,in turn, sparked challenges to all forms of authority--sexual mores, gender roles, social conventions, and the military's vaunted chain of command. One key demand of the American Servicemen's (sic) Union was; "an end to siring and saluting." Explicit anti war organizing, while important, was only one item on the projects' agendas.
Popular culture today is much more diffuse, blending many different strands; rap, punk, heavy metal, goth, hippy, traditional rock and roll, and even country-western. In lifestyle , openly gay couples (not on a military base, however!) co-exist with super straight engaged couples who flaunt their pre-marital chastity.
Organizers concluded that a coffeehouse/counselling project could succeed in attracting significant numbers of soldiers assuming that it provided internet access, good latte, and plenty of free parking. Many young soldiers today quest for intellectual, cultural and political fulfillment today, as they always have. A coffehouse which combines an alternative bookstore with a lively mix of free musical performances, stand up comedy and poetry (with some political speechifying thrown in) could become highly popular with a significant minority of GIs.
A number of important questions remain. Who will finance the cost of one, not to mention a dozen such coffeehouse projects today? Certainly GIs can't be expected to provide more than a small portion of the budget. During Vietnam, the United Servicemen's (sic) Support Fund, raised substantial sums, which it then parcelled out to the local projects to help them pay rent and staff saleries. Nothing like the USSF exists today, but something along these lines will be needed if these projects are to thrive. Important first steps have been taken, but much more needs to be done. Contact Citizen Soldier for additional information.
by Tod Ensign
One of the greatest achievements of the Vietnam antiwar movement was its creation of a GI coffeehouse and counselling network. The first coffehouse was opened outside Ft. Jackson, S.C. in late 1967, two and a half years after America troops invaded Vietnam. Within weeks, hundreds of GIs had visited during their off duty hours. Over the next year, similar projects sprang up outside twenty other major U.S. bases.
These projects embodied the "counter cultural" spirit of the times. Sex, psychedelic drugs and rock and roll coexisted with a strong anti-war message. Civilian activists, mostly recruited from the anti-war movement, worked in tandem with active duty GIs, some of whom had just returned from Vietnam. At some projects, the soldiers played a leading role in setting political goals, providing counselling and putting out the anti war newspaper that was a staple of every coffeehouse project.
Today, antiwar organizers are again discussing how active duty GIs can be recruited to play a more active part in the struggle against the war. A Stars and Stripes newspaper poll of soldiers fighting in Iraq, reported in March 2006, that 72% of them wanted to be withdrawn within a year, while 29% favored immediate withdrawl.
Organizers from Citizen Soldier, a GI/veterans rights advocacy group (www.citizen-soldier.org) recently met with anti-war veterans and GIs in Fayetteville, N.C. , home to Ft. Bragg, where 40,000 combat troops are stationed. They discussed the prospects for establishing a coffeehouse and counselling project near the base--the largest in the eastern U.S. Their hope is that a successful pilot project at Bragg could stimulate the creation of similar efforts at other key posts.
Both the US military and American society have experienced enormous change since the Vietnam era. Foremost here is the transformation of a conscript-driven military to one that is entirely composed of "volunteers." This has made the armed forces much less representative of American society as a whole. One of the primary reasons why advocates of an "all volunteer" military wanted to junk the Draft was their belief that it fueled much of the anti war opposition--especially among young people. When one compares the size and intensity of today's movement against the war in Iraq with that of the Vietnam war, this analysis appears to be accurate.
The transition to a volunteer force has had two other significant consequences. One, women were integrated into most military jobs, except for the infantry and armor. Today, every sixth soldier is female, except in the Marine Corps. Second, the shrinkage of active duty force levels, which became necessary once competitive wages were being paid has meant that reservists and Guard troops must shoulder a much greater combat burden when the military deploys into combat. Today, one out of three GIs serving in Iraq is a reservist. These soldiers are older, have family obligations and are less accustomed to the rigors of military life.
These demographic changes are central to any discussion of how a coffeehouse project could attract the participation of GIs today. During Vietnam, the average low ranking soldier was paid less than $300 a month. They lived in austere barracks and ate their meals in dingy chowhalls. These conditions made an off base coffeehouse seem attractive as an off duty refuge from the tedium of the "green machine" and its grinding routines.
Today, half of all soldiers are married and many have children. Their relatively good pay and benefits allow them to buy expensive cars and vans and many choose Applebee's and Mickey D's over the messhall. To counter serious problems with recruitment and retention, the Pentagon now offers a series of robust bonuses which range from $10,000 to $40,000, payable over the life of an enlistment hitch. Elite "Delta Force" troops can get up to $100,000 if they'll sign for another tour. (A note to those who believe that recruiting shortfalls may force a reinstitution of the Draft: the Pentagon has shown that it will spend whatever it takes to induce (bribe?) low income youth to fill its combat slots.
One of the main attractions of the Vietnam era coffeehouse was that GIs identified them with the "counter cultural" changes that were sweeping America at the time. Psychedelic paraphenalia and drugs fanned the latent anti authoritarianism of soldiers. This,in turn, sparked challenges to all forms of authority--sexual mores, gender roles, social conventions, and the military's vaunted chain of command. One key demand of the American Servicemen's (sic) Union was; "an end to siring and saluting." Explicit anti war organizing, while important, was only one item on the projects' agendas.
Popular culture today is much more diffuse, blending many different strands; rap, punk, heavy metal, goth, hippy, traditional rock and roll, and even country-western. In lifestyle , openly gay couples (not on a military base, however!) co-exist with super straight engaged couples who flaunt their pre-marital chastity.
Organizers concluded that a coffeehouse/counselling project could succeed in attracting significant numbers of soldiers assuming that it provided internet access, good latte, and plenty of free parking. Many young soldiers today quest for intellectual, cultural and political fulfillment today, as they always have. A coffehouse which combines an alternative bookstore with a lively mix of free musical performances, stand up comedy and poetry (with some political speechifying thrown in) could become highly popular with a significant minority of GIs.
A number of important questions remain. Who will finance the cost of one, not to mention a dozen such coffeehouse projects today? Certainly GIs can't be expected to provide more than a small portion of the budget. During Vietnam, the United Servicemen's (sic) Support Fund, raised substantial sums, which it then parcelled out to the local projects to help them pay rent and staff saleries. Nothing like the USSF exists today, but something along these lines will be needed if these projects are to thrive. Important first steps have been taken, but much more needs to be done. Contact Citizen Soldier for additional information.
War Resisters Support Campaign Launches
'Let Them Stay Week' on Saturday
by Resisters.ca
More than a dozen events will be taking place in communities across Canada until January 22, including in: Grand Forks, BC; Vancouver, BC; Windsor, ON; Victoria, BC; St. John's, NL; Newmarket, ON; Winnipeg, MB; Halifax, NS; Fredericton, NB; Peterborough, ON; Sudbury, ON; and Toronto, ON.
The War Resisters Support Campaign is launching 'Let Them Stay Week' on Saturday, January 15
- Majority of Canadians want Iraq War resisters to stay
- 12+ events across Canada urge Stephen Harper to give resisters status
The Week begins with an information picket at Market Square in Windsor, ON and a film screening and discussion with Rodney Watson, an Iraq War Resister who is marking his 70th week (more than 480 days) living in sanctuary in Vancouver, BC:
Information picket in support of US Iraq War resisters
Saturday, January 15
11:00 am to 12:00 noon ET
Ottawa Street (across from Market Square)
Windsor, ON
Film screening and discussion with Rodney Watson, Iraq War resister in Sanctuary
Saturday, January 15
2:00 to 4:00 p.m. PT
First United Church
320 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Iraq War resisters and their supporters in Toronto will also be available for interviews throughout the weekend.
For a full list of Let Them Stay Week events, please see the Resisters.ca website.
"The majority of Canadians have spoken out in support of Iraq War resisters being allowed to stay in Canada," said Michelle Robidoux, spokesperson for the War Resisters Support Campaign. "These young men and women made the difficult decision to cease participation in the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. They have shown tremendous courage, leaving behind their homes, their family and friends."
Yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney — both of whom wanted Canada to participate in the Iraq War — are deporting Iraq War resisters.
War resisters Robin Long and Cliff Cornell were sentenced to significant prison terms because the Harper government refused to respect two House of Commons motions (passed June 3, 2008 and March 30, 2009) that directed the government to immediately stop deporting U.S. Iraq War resisters and to facilitate the resisters' requests for permanent resident status from within Canada.
On July 6, 2010, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Jeremy Hinzman. The Court unanimously found that immigration officers must consider war resisters' sincerely-held beliefs and motivations for coming to Canada. The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and immigration officers have consistently ignored resisters moral, political and religious beliefs, issuing cookie-cutter decisions that conform to the Immigration Minister's prejudicial comments rather than fairly considering each case based on its merits and the individuals' circumstances.
Jeremy Hinzman's case will be sent back for a new humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds decision. Hinzman was the first U.S. Iraq War resister to come to Canada. Along with his wife Nga Nguyen and their son Liam, he arrived in Canada on January 3, 2004. Jeremy and Nga's daughter Meghan was born in Toronto on July 21, 2008.
Later in July, Citizenship and Immigration Canada issued Operational Bulletin 202, flagging US Iraq war resisters as potentially “criminally inadmissible” to Canada.
Peter Showler, former chair of Canada’s IRB, has written to Minister Kenney urging that the prejudicial directive be rescinded: “The bulletin implies that military deserters from the US should be treated differently than deserters from other countries. There is no basis in law for that proposition.”
Amnesty International Canada has also written to Minister Kenney, calling for the withdrawal of Operational Bulletin 202 because it “misstates the law and seeks to intrude on the independence of both IRB members and Immigration Officers.”
-30-
Media Advisory/Photo Opportunity
For Immediate Release
January 14, 2011
'Let Them Stay Week' on Saturday
by Resisters.ca
More than a dozen events will be taking place in communities across Canada until January 22, including in: Grand Forks, BC; Vancouver, BC; Windsor, ON; Victoria, BC; St. John's, NL; Newmarket, ON; Winnipeg, MB; Halifax, NS; Fredericton, NB; Peterborough, ON; Sudbury, ON; and Toronto, ON.
The War Resisters Support Campaign is launching 'Let Them Stay Week' on Saturday, January 15
- Majority of Canadians want Iraq War resisters to stay
- 12+ events across Canada urge Stephen Harper to give resisters status
The Week begins with an information picket at Market Square in Windsor, ON and a film screening and discussion with Rodney Watson, an Iraq War Resister who is marking his 70th week (more than 480 days) living in sanctuary in Vancouver, BC:
Information picket in support of US Iraq War resisters
Saturday, January 15
11:00 am to 12:00 noon ET
Ottawa Street (across from Market Square)
Windsor, ON
Film screening and discussion with Rodney Watson, Iraq War resister in Sanctuary
Saturday, January 15
2:00 to 4:00 p.m. PT
First United Church
320 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
Iraq War resisters and their supporters in Toronto will also be available for interviews throughout the weekend.
For a full list of Let Them Stay Week events, please see the Resisters.ca website.
"The majority of Canadians have spoken out in support of Iraq War resisters being allowed to stay in Canada," said Michelle Robidoux, spokesperson for the War Resisters Support Campaign. "These young men and women made the difficult decision to cease participation in the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. They have shown tremendous courage, leaving behind their homes, their family and friends."
Yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney — both of whom wanted Canada to participate in the Iraq War — are deporting Iraq War resisters.
War resisters Robin Long and Cliff Cornell were sentenced to significant prison terms because the Harper government refused to respect two House of Commons motions (passed June 3, 2008 and March 30, 2009) that directed the government to immediately stop deporting U.S. Iraq War resisters and to facilitate the resisters' requests for permanent resident status from within Canada.
On July 6, 2010, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Jeremy Hinzman. The Court unanimously found that immigration officers must consider war resisters' sincerely-held beliefs and motivations for coming to Canada. The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and immigration officers have consistently ignored resisters moral, political and religious beliefs, issuing cookie-cutter decisions that conform to the Immigration Minister's prejudicial comments rather than fairly considering each case based on its merits and the individuals' circumstances.
Jeremy Hinzman's case will be sent back for a new humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) grounds decision. Hinzman was the first U.S. Iraq War resister to come to Canada. Along with his wife Nga Nguyen and their son Liam, he arrived in Canada on January 3, 2004. Jeremy and Nga's daughter Meghan was born in Toronto on July 21, 2008.
Later in July, Citizenship and Immigration Canada issued Operational Bulletin 202, flagging US Iraq war resisters as potentially “criminally inadmissible” to Canada.
Peter Showler, former chair of Canada’s IRB, has written to Minister Kenney urging that the prejudicial directive be rescinded: “The bulletin implies that military deserters from the US should be treated differently than deserters from other countries. There is no basis in law for that proposition.”
Amnesty International Canada has also written to Minister Kenney, calling for the withdrawal of Operational Bulletin 202 because it “misstates the law and seeks to intrude on the independence of both IRB members and Immigration Officers.”
-30-
Media Advisory/Photo Opportunity
For Immediate Release
January 14, 2011
Nine killed by Afghan bomb en route to wedding
Nine killed by Afghan bomb en route to wedding AFP/File – A policeman stands guard at Pul-e Khumri in the Baghlan province of Afghanistan in 2009. Nine civilians
by Enayat Najafizada Enayat Najafizada – Sun Jan 16, 10:40 am ET
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AFP) – Nine civilians including a child were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan as they travelled to a wedding on Sunday, police and local officials said.
Six women, two men and the child died in the blast, which happened as the vehicle they were travelling in headed from Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, to a local village on a road often used by foreign forces.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blast. The Taliban did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"A mine struck a civilian minibus," provincial governor Abdul Majeed told AFP.
"Nine civilians -- six women, a child and two men -- have been killed. The road is often used by the PRT (provincial reconstruction team) soldiers. All the casualties are civilians."
Hungarian soldiers are stationed in the province as part of the PRT, which aims to help local government work more effectively.
The incident was also confirmed by Major Qudratullah, a spokesman for police in Baghlan province.
The incident came a day after six civilians were killed by a roadside bomb which hit a minibus in the Sangin district of southern Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province.
Helmand provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said that those killed Saturday dead were all relatives of a local tribal chief, Haji Zainullah, and that three more people were wounded in the incident.
Afghanistan's interior ministry says that last year 2,043 civilians died as a result of Taliban attacks and military operations targeting the militants.
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or home-made bombs are the weapon of choice for insurgents and are a frequent cause of death for civilians in Afghanistan.
There are around 140,000 international troops, two-thirds of them from the United States, in the country fighting the Taliban insurgents who were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion.
International troops are due to start a limited, conditions-based withdrawal from Afghanistan from July, and Afghan forces are scheduled to take over responsibility for security in 2014.
Last year saw the highest death toll yet for international troops serving in Afghanistan. According to the independent iCasualties.org website, the toll stood at 711, while a total of 18 have died so far this year.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, warned last week that levels of violence in Afghanistan "will be worse in 2011 than it was in 2010 in many parts".
He added that gains made so far were "tenuous and fragile", echoing comments by President Barack Obama in his review of war strategy last month.
Nine killed by Afghan bomb en route to wedding AFP/File – A policeman stands guard at Pul-e Khumri in the Baghlan province of Afghanistan in 2009. Nine civilians
by Enayat Najafizada Enayat Najafizada – Sun Jan 16, 10:40 am ET
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (AFP) – Nine civilians including a child were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Afghanistan as they travelled to a wedding on Sunday, police and local officials said.
Six women, two men and the child died in the blast, which happened as the vehicle they were travelling in headed from Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, to a local village on a road often used by foreign forces.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blast. The Taliban did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"A mine struck a civilian minibus," provincial governor Abdul Majeed told AFP.
"Nine civilians -- six women, a child and two men -- have been killed. The road is often used by the PRT (provincial reconstruction team) soldiers. All the casualties are civilians."
Hungarian soldiers are stationed in the province as part of the PRT, which aims to help local government work more effectively.
The incident was also confirmed by Major Qudratullah, a spokesman for police in Baghlan province.
The incident came a day after six civilians were killed by a roadside bomb which hit a minibus in the Sangin district of southern Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province.
Helmand provincial spokesman Daud Ahmadi said that those killed Saturday dead were all relatives of a local tribal chief, Haji Zainullah, and that three more people were wounded in the incident.
Afghanistan's interior ministry says that last year 2,043 civilians died as a result of Taliban attacks and military operations targeting the militants.
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or home-made bombs are the weapon of choice for insurgents and are a frequent cause of death for civilians in Afghanistan.
There are around 140,000 international troops, two-thirds of them from the United States, in the country fighting the Taliban insurgents who were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion.
International troops are due to start a limited, conditions-based withdrawal from Afghanistan from July, and Afghan forces are scheduled to take over responsibility for security in 2014.
Last year saw the highest death toll yet for international troops serving in Afghanistan. According to the independent iCasualties.org website, the toll stood at 711, while a total of 18 have died so far this year.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of staff, warned last week that levels of violence in Afghanistan "will be worse in 2011 than it was in 2010 in many parts".
He added that gains made so far were "tenuous and fragile", echoing comments by President Barack Obama in his review of war strategy last month.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Australian Women Report Sexual Abuse in Victoria Psychiatric Wards
by Cara on October 4, 2010
in Australia,International,disability,human rights,misogyny,patriarchy,rape and sexual assault,sexual exploitation and harassment,violence against women and girls,women’s health
Trigger Warning for discussions of violence against women with disabilities, and discussions of sexual violence particularly within the context of psychiatric units.
Last week, news broke in the Australian state of Victoria that women who are patients in psychiatric wards are being routinely sexually harassed and assaulted by men who are patients in those same wards. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports:
The Victorian Women and Mental Health Network is calling for more wards to be segregated after reports of patient harassment and sexual assaults.
Victorian wards were de-segregated in the 1960s because of a perception that sharing spaces with women would help male patients.
The network’s chairwoman, Heather Clarke, says the assaults hinder the victim’s ability to cope with and recover from mental illness.
“Threats and intimidation, unwelcome sexual advances, sometimes males entering bedrooms and at times even sexual assault,” she said.
“This is very concerning when it’s recognised that a majority of women, 70 per cent of these women, already have past histories of physical or sexual abuse so these volatile environments are re-traumatising.”
Ms Clarke says while some facilities have female-only spaces, a lack of resources means it is not always enforced.
“Some wards have created women’s corridors, but there a number of issues with those corridors,” she said.
“There may not be enough beds in them for all women to be admitted and when they need extra beds for men they sometimes admit men to those those corridors.”
Well, it would have been nice if, when desegregating wards because of a perceived benefit to male patients, someone had bothered to ask what the impact might be on the women. That said, very few people with even a passing familiarity with these issues will be surprised by such revelations and accusations, and readers of this blog might recall that I’ve written about this very subject before. Unfortunately, a passing familiarity is much more than most people seem to have.
Julie Dempsey, a woman who has been a patient at various psychiatric units in Victoria spoke to the Age about her experience of being assaulted in a ward and witnessing other sexual assaults. Her comments offer invaluable insight:
”You’re told to go to hospital so you will be safe, but people are often put into vulnerable positions,” she says.
”I no longer feel comfortable even visiting someone in hospital, let alone voluntarily putting myself in as an inpatient to a psychiatric facility.
”Something needs to be done to make them safer.”
Like the rest of this story, what Dempsey has to say is not surprising, but it is devastating. It’s no secret that sexual violence almost always has a negative impact on the victim’s mental health, not infrequently going so far as to cause or otherwise trigger a mental illness (such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, to name only a couple of examples), or exacerbate one that’s already present. And, as the ABC articles note, 70% of women who are patients in Victoria psychiatric units already have a history of physical or sexual abuse, due both to the link between victimization and mental illness and women with disabilities’ particular likelihood of being chosen as victims by perpetrators of violence. That sexual violence is not good for women already struggling with mental illness is one hell of an understatement.
But clearly, this violence is not only having a direct negative impact on mental health, it’s also preventing women with mental illness(es) from seeking out treatment and services that they may otherwise feel would be beneficial to them. Inpatient psychiatric treatment is definitely not for everyone. But it certainly should be an option for those to whom it does look appealing. And if a woman feels that such treatment may be appropriate and helpful for her, but she is too afraid for her personal safety to seek it out, that is an enormous violation. I highly doubt that Dempsey is the only woman whose prior experiences with violence inside psychiatric facilities has caused this option to be taken entirely off the table for her.
Further, the fact is that not all patients in psychiatric units have freely chosen to be there. This is an issue that needs addressing outside the scope of this post and my knowledge base. But being forcibly placed in treatment against your will is usually traumatic and can be damaging enough to one’s sense of safety. Forcibly confining people in treatment against their will while placing them in an environment that subjects them to the constant threat of sexual violence is unconscionable on a whole new level.
I can’t claim to have the answers. While sex-segregated wards will strike many as an obvious and easy solution, they’re not without their problems, particularly as it concerns trans* patients. Wherever sex segregation is enforced, trans men and women are much too frequently placed by cis people in the units inappropriate for their genders, not only denying their identities but also placing them at risk of violence. Further, non-binary identifying trans patients are put between a rock and a hard place, and forcibly identified with a gender that does not belong with them as well as placed in an environment that may not be safe. While sex segregation almost certainly would reduce the rates of sexual violence by cis men against cis women, there’s a large possibility that it would come at the price of increased rates of violence (sexual and otherwise) against trans* people of all genders (or non-genders), when they likely face some of the highest rates of violence already. And that is a trade off that should be considered unsettling at the absolute least.
The fact of the matter is that gender integrated wards are also hardly the only cause of the problem here. Indifference and rape culture are also major issues:
Network chairwoman Heather Clarke said several sexual assaults had been reported to the network recently, including the rape of an 18-year-old woman by a male patient in an acute adult psychiatric unit.
”She had previously told staff that he was harassing her but they had dismissed her concerns,” Ms Clarke said.
Segregating by gender won’t ultimately have the full desired impact if abusers are still not being dealt with once they have been identified. Rather, the abusers will just get craftier or pick new victims. Further, in addition to failing to address violence at its roots, this strategy alone lets abuse enablers off the hook. Everyone deserves safety, no matter what their mental health or disability status. But there is an extra responsibility to keep safe those who have been placed in restrictive and vulnerable environments. That staff in many (quite possibly most) units are not up to the task, and indeed are sometimes abusers themselves, is a part of the problem and needs to be addressed if freedom from violence is actually to be accomplished.
by Cara on October 4, 2010
in Australia,International,disability,human rights,misogyny,patriarchy,rape and sexual assault,sexual exploitation and harassment,violence against women and girls,women’s health
Trigger Warning for discussions of violence against women with disabilities, and discussions of sexual violence particularly within the context of psychiatric units.
Last week, news broke in the Australian state of Victoria that women who are patients in psychiatric wards are being routinely sexually harassed and assaulted by men who are patients in those same wards. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports:
The Victorian Women and Mental Health Network is calling for more wards to be segregated after reports of patient harassment and sexual assaults.
Victorian wards were de-segregated in the 1960s because of a perception that sharing spaces with women would help male patients.
The network’s chairwoman, Heather Clarke, says the assaults hinder the victim’s ability to cope with and recover from mental illness.
“Threats and intimidation, unwelcome sexual advances, sometimes males entering bedrooms and at times even sexual assault,” she said.
“This is very concerning when it’s recognised that a majority of women, 70 per cent of these women, already have past histories of physical or sexual abuse so these volatile environments are re-traumatising.”
Ms Clarke says while some facilities have female-only spaces, a lack of resources means it is not always enforced.
“Some wards have created women’s corridors, but there a number of issues with those corridors,” she said.
“There may not be enough beds in them for all women to be admitted and when they need extra beds for men they sometimes admit men to those those corridors.”
Well, it would have been nice if, when desegregating wards because of a perceived benefit to male patients, someone had bothered to ask what the impact might be on the women. That said, very few people with even a passing familiarity with these issues will be surprised by such revelations and accusations, and readers of this blog might recall that I’ve written about this very subject before. Unfortunately, a passing familiarity is much more than most people seem to have.
Julie Dempsey, a woman who has been a patient at various psychiatric units in Victoria spoke to the Age about her experience of being assaulted in a ward and witnessing other sexual assaults. Her comments offer invaluable insight:
”You’re told to go to hospital so you will be safe, but people are often put into vulnerable positions,” she says.
”I no longer feel comfortable even visiting someone in hospital, let alone voluntarily putting myself in as an inpatient to a psychiatric facility.
”Something needs to be done to make them safer.”
Like the rest of this story, what Dempsey has to say is not surprising, but it is devastating. It’s no secret that sexual violence almost always has a negative impact on the victim’s mental health, not infrequently going so far as to cause or otherwise trigger a mental illness (such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, to name only a couple of examples), or exacerbate one that’s already present. And, as the ABC articles note, 70% of women who are patients in Victoria psychiatric units already have a history of physical or sexual abuse, due both to the link between victimization and mental illness and women with disabilities’ particular likelihood of being chosen as victims by perpetrators of violence. That sexual violence is not good for women already struggling with mental illness is one hell of an understatement.
But clearly, this violence is not only having a direct negative impact on mental health, it’s also preventing women with mental illness(es) from seeking out treatment and services that they may otherwise feel would be beneficial to them. Inpatient psychiatric treatment is definitely not for everyone. But it certainly should be an option for those to whom it does look appealing. And if a woman feels that such treatment may be appropriate and helpful for her, but she is too afraid for her personal safety to seek it out, that is an enormous violation. I highly doubt that Dempsey is the only woman whose prior experiences with violence inside psychiatric facilities has caused this option to be taken entirely off the table for her.
Further, the fact is that not all patients in psychiatric units have freely chosen to be there. This is an issue that needs addressing outside the scope of this post and my knowledge base. But being forcibly placed in treatment against your will is usually traumatic and can be damaging enough to one’s sense of safety. Forcibly confining people in treatment against their will while placing them in an environment that subjects them to the constant threat of sexual violence is unconscionable on a whole new level.
I can’t claim to have the answers. While sex-segregated wards will strike many as an obvious and easy solution, they’re not without their problems, particularly as it concerns trans* patients. Wherever sex segregation is enforced, trans men and women are much too frequently placed by cis people in the units inappropriate for their genders, not only denying their identities but also placing them at risk of violence. Further, non-binary identifying trans patients are put between a rock and a hard place, and forcibly identified with a gender that does not belong with them as well as placed in an environment that may not be safe. While sex segregation almost certainly would reduce the rates of sexual violence by cis men against cis women, there’s a large possibility that it would come at the price of increased rates of violence (sexual and otherwise) against trans* people of all genders (or non-genders), when they likely face some of the highest rates of violence already. And that is a trade off that should be considered unsettling at the absolute least.
The fact of the matter is that gender integrated wards are also hardly the only cause of the problem here. Indifference and rape culture are also major issues:
Network chairwoman Heather Clarke said several sexual assaults had been reported to the network recently, including the rape of an 18-year-old woman by a male patient in an acute adult psychiatric unit.
”She had previously told staff that he was harassing her but they had dismissed her concerns,” Ms Clarke said.
Segregating by gender won’t ultimately have the full desired impact if abusers are still not being dealt with once they have been identified. Rather, the abusers will just get craftier or pick new victims. Further, in addition to failing to address violence at its roots, this strategy alone lets abuse enablers off the hook. Everyone deserves safety, no matter what their mental health or disability status. But there is an extra responsibility to keep safe those who have been placed in restrictive and vulnerable environments. That staff in many (quite possibly most) units are not up to the task, and indeed are sometimes abusers themselves, is a part of the problem and needs to be addressed if freedom from violence is actually to be accomplished.
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