Posted on 11/25/2005 1:35:30 AM PST by kipita
JEDDAH, 25 November 2005 — The alleged rape of the young Filipino woman several weeks ago by a group of drunken US Marines on R&R leave in Subic Bay has raised more questions than it has answered.
The main question in my mind is why would any woman in her right mind hook up with a group of six young and, let’s be honest here, horny soldiers in a bar of all places? After news of the rape broke out into the media, the woman’s family was at pains to insist that their daughter was of “boa familia” and was definitely not a prostitute. In fact, they rushed to emphasize that she’s a college graduate. Which just makes me wonder even more about what happened to her common sense that night when she agreed to join the Marines in their drinking spree?
Unfortunately, as we all know, a good education is no guarantee of having common sense, and in this case it is sadly doubly true.
The other troubling question is how this whole case is being exploited by the media, especially the tabloid newspapers, to whip up blind anti-Americanism. For sure the Visiting Forces Agreement, which the Philippines signed with the United States after the American pull-out from the Clark and Subic Bay military bases in 1992, heavily favors the United States. This is the case with all agreements the US signs with allies in terms of jurisdiction over American citizens who commit crimes on foreign soil while serving in the US military.
Nevertheless, as recent rape cases involving US servicemen in Japan and Korea have shown, the United States has a good track record of keeping the accused soldiers in the country where the crime was committed, and has punished those found guilty of committing rape.
This case has also served to polarize public opinion between the feminist camp, which views the woman in this case as a total victim who must find vindication at all costs in the courts of law and public opinion, and the skeptical camp that is probably mostly male, and which wonders why a woman who voluntarily offered herself to the six Americans is now complaining that they took advantage of her.
The legal teams of both sides is indicative of this split: The victim’s team is all female, headed by the high-profile Katrina Legarda, who appeared on ABS-CBN television’s “Pipol” program Wednesday night saying that the Marines didn’t have to rape the girl, as they could have paid a prostitute for a good time.
I was amazed when I heard that, as obviously the woman involved was not a professional lady of the night, but was still obviously sleazy enough to get blind drunk with the American soldiers and then even agree to go with them into their van, where they allegedly raped her as they drove around Subic.
The US Marines for their part, are being represented by an all-male team of older lawyers, many former diplomats who have served in Philippine embassies abroad, including the lead lawyer Raul Rabe, who served at the Philippine Embassy in Washington.
Some observers have commented that the woman claiming rape seems to just be after money that she could gain in some sort of settlement with the accused. I for one still feel unsure about many aspects of this case. It is just unfortunate that many in the media have decided to pre-judge the case before the accused have even had the chance to present their side of the story in a court of law.
Let’s judge this case in a court of law, and not be hasty and pre-judge it in the media.
Having been a hockey groupie in my much younger days, although under the protection of a well behaved player who steered me away from trouble rather than into it, I bore witness to many young women who worshipped the players and found it difficult to believe what they were about to do until it was past too late -- and who found out then that their buddies were willing to testify to anybody that she was a slut who had done a lot of disgusting things and was only after money. My player friend warned me that this was common among even the top tier of players and that any girl who walked into a bar where more than a few players were hanging out was walking into the lion's den. Plenty of those women and girls were "nice girls from good families" and a lot of those families were rabid hockey fans. I have the feling that the Marines aren't much different in their attitude and the way they hang together to vilify the woman or girl they've attacked. Yes, it is stupid to imagine that some men are of better calibre than they prove to be, but that doesn't mean that you are therefore free game to any man who wants you.
Look, you get stupid drunk with a bunch of horny men and go driving around in a van with them and get even a little slutty and you expect to be treated virtuously?
Are you stupid or just live in la la land?
Oh but she comes from a good family? Get real.
RApe is unacceptable where ever it occurs. This young lady trusted the goodness of these young soldiers, and they failed to vindicate that trust. In doing so these soldiers have failed their country and further discredited our nation as unpure and uncivilized.
SOldiers should no better that conset for group sezx , if given in this cadse, is aften retracted when parents and clergy become involved. So not only where the soldiers
lacking in manifest goodness, they also were significantly disintelligent. [They likely would not survive long in the battlefield.]
As to the feminists in the USA who seek to tar all US soldiers with the same mbush, they are using the same PC approach by skewing the context for simple political gain. I believe that the majority of US soldiers are good men,
and a single incident like this doesn't shake that believe on iota. The feminists are also absurdly disintelligent in not realizing that the eventual cost of their defamation of the military, will be to be mounted by a hairy Arab stud and be throuroughly raped and sodomized "in extremis".
Duh ?
[Thats how the House of Saud established its preeiminance to rule after killing all of its male adversaries, and preserving the women for breeding purposes , with the end result that amost everyone became relatives, the desired result of arab rape and polygamy]
Raped by six Marines? You're saying that not one of these guys seen that she was not diggin it at the time and decided to bail? All six?? C'mon....
It will be interesting to hear their side, and how much money they gave her....
It doesn't matter what she did. Whewtehr she was paid by sixc marines as a prosititute of not, either way these young soldiers were acting dishonorably, and have fueled the furnace to discredit the military in the eyes of liberal wing nuts and muslims alike. That makes our job in Indsonesia all the more difficult and dangerous.
Thats what these soldiers have done wrong, a lot more than they bargained for by trolling in muddy water. "The decadance of Western infidel soldiers will radicalize Muslims in the Phillipines, to protect their women from the infidel soldiers!"
Keep it in your pants soldier!
Muslims in this case have something of a projection problem. There are muslims and "everyone else." You are either a conquered slave, an enemy or a muslim.
Muslim warfare explicitly allows rape of captured women. They don't have any standing to boo-hoo or point fingers over this incident.
As a matter of fact, you can observe some real life muslim behavior toward women in Thailand. Lots of Iranians and Gulf Arabs there. A lot of them couldn't fly there directly and better not show back up in their home countries with Thai visas in their passport but it certainly was a favorite destination.
Arab husbands don't necessarily take the wife on vacation with them and the Arab Times occassionally has some helpful advice to them on how to prevent their (weak) men from sinning.
Are you living in liberal never-never land? Have you no concept of reality?
Read the article again. All it asks for is to get the facts out on the table before deciding guilt or innocence.
Do you believe in guilt before proof before all trials? Or is just when white males are involved?
Without hearing a word of evidence, I believe that she willingly went with the Marines, took their money and provided them a good time. Then she yelled after they parted. She suddenly becomes the good little girl abused and raped by this gang of Marines. Now how easy is that scenario to construct? Damned easy.
The Marines seem to have a good team of defenders. I hope they can get a satisfactory solution. If the facts show they did in fact gang rape an innocent woman, they should go to the US Navy prison at Portsmouth NH. If the evidence shows the sex was consensual, they need to be sent back to duty. However, there is a message in here to other military....watch your step!
With all do respect, rape is a very relative term and especially so when applied to teenagers and 20 somethings. I once heard a young business executive say "I love attractive women but the laws are so complex and the games are so deceitful that I'd rather pay for sex and remain single". On the other side of the spectrum are single women who can't find dates and travel to Alaska in search of "love". For me, rape needs to be proven in a court of law.
Please read comment #11.
Portsmouth Naval Prison closed in 1974.
Nice of you to give these Marines the benefit of the doubt; innocent until proven guilty. It's obvious that you've never spent any time observing life in Olongapo, RP.
None of this would be so seriuos if there was not a battle going on in the media for the support of the American people for the war in Iraq. Whether we are successful in Iraq depends on the outcome. We have the slime media lined up against us. Whether it was rape or not matters little, the fact is the media has already achieved the creation of an image that illustrates US servicemen as uncivilised
and unworthy to be overseas trying to establish freedom.
The real battle is here at home in the news and rather than respond as baldly supporting our servicemen hanging with whores as the next best position to rape, we need to actually rethink that. Servicemen looking for whores should keep it private rather than a group activity, and if they can't then stay out of it.It hurts the image of our military in the World, as torturers and rapists, when in fact the majority of our service men and women are really fine people.
Hell, there doesn't need to be an investigation or trial. Since you know exactly what happened we should just send you to the PI and have you act as judge, jury and executioner. Let's just s***can jurisprudence and the presumption of innocence which these six Marines, not soldiers, Einstein, are entitled to.
Everybody who's ever been to Olongapo, which obviously excludes you, knows that the local populus is of exemplary character and integrity. No one there, particularly the women, ever lies about US servicemen or tries to shake them down.
Lets get on with it then , kill as many Muslims men as we can and rape as many of their women as we can?
Recruitment should go up?
/sarc off
I tend to strongly agree!
"However, there is a message in here to other military....watch your step!"
That is the simlpe point I was trying to make.
Because of the battle for the support of the Iraq war carried out in the media, our soldiers need to know that context and act accordingly. Stay out of the group sex scene, and watch you six for cameras and rape set up stings!
Business as usual won't cut it.
I tend to agree but the 22-year old woman started the whole affair. I agree Rape is a horrible experience for a woman, but the misuse of Rape is also harmful (albeit less) to men. Which explains why Internet pornography, strip clubs and prostitution are skyrocketing in America and in the UK. In my humble opinion (and I'm happily married and have one child--a daughter) there needs to be a rational balanced with what is deemed as Rape or men will start seeking interest elsewhere.
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