Military Rape

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New World Notes News
Vol. 4, No. 5 -- January 28, 2011

This week in New World Notes, radio program #152, February 1, 2011:

Military Rape

In brief

Award-winning journalist Dahr Jamail--interviewed by Dori Smith, of Talk Nation Radio--discusses the extraordinarily high level of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) in the U.S. armed forces today. Essentially, MST is the rape of a soldier by a fellow soldier. Victims are of both sexes, but women soldiers are extremely likely to be victimized. Victims who report the assault are persecuted and denied therapeutic care; their rapists are promoted; and the Pentagon does nothing to fix the problem.

Jamail attributes the epidemic in part to changes in military training, which now "dehumanizes" soldiers much more than in past generations. Jamail also associates dehumanization with another military epidemic, PTSD.

Finally, distinguished journalist Robert Fisk, speaking in 2008, searches for the causes of U.S. soldiers' newfound delight in torturing people. He finds one in the same dehumanization produced by the new military training.

Most graphics: Click to enlarge.

Notes, credits, & links

http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/
http://www.talknationradio.com/
Fisk excerpt courtesy of TUCradio.org

This week's music: Bruce Springsteen, Bring Them Home. See the music video here. Pete Seeger's Vietnam-era version is here.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "thumb") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Top: Dahr Jamail. Bottom: The Pentagon's response to the epidemic of rape and other sexual assault: a small P.R. campaign.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut dates shown)

• February 8 -- Controlling the People (1): On the Job .

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

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Cell Phones

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New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 32 -- August 7, 2010

This week in New World Notes, radio program #127, August 10 & 13:

Cell Phones

In brief

Trying to lighten up a bit, I look at consumer electronics, especially cell phones--and find myself in the midst of a bloodbath in Congo. There rival factions rape, mutilate, and slaughter the citizens, attempting to control the mines that produce minerals our gadgets require--tungsten, tin, tantalum, gold, and coltan. 5+ million have died. Consumers are pressuring electronics manufacturers to monitor their supply chains and to avoid purchasing Congolese "conflict minerals."

Contributors to this installment include Lisa F. Jackson, Nicholas Kristof, John Prendergast, Mac vs. PC, and Janis Joplin.

Top: Soldier or militiaman in Congo, 2008.
Bottom: human-rights crusader John Prendergast. (Yes,
the resemblance is striking.) Most photos: Click to enlarge.

Notes, credits, & links

Clarification: Coltan is the ore from which the metal tantalum is refined. I didn't understand this when I recorded the program.

www.raisehopeforcongo.org

Passage by Lisa F. Jackson courtesy of Mike McCormick's program, Mind Over Matters. Nicholas Kristof's, "Death by Gadget" appeared in the New York Times "Week in Review" section, June 27, 2010, p. 11.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "counter") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. New World Notes' main audio archive is at radio4all.net. Installments beginning with #90 are archived also at The Internet Archive, in a variety of file formats. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Top: Children, reported to be slaves, mine coltan in Congo.
Bottom: Cell-phone recycling center.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)

• August 17 -- Dr. Susan Rosenthal, on the causes and cures of North America's bad health-care systems (Part 2).

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/
• Saturdays, 5:00 to 5:30 PM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Women, War, & Violence

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Lisa F. Jackson filming The Greatest Silence

This week, New World Notes revives an early show you may have missed: "Women, War, & Violence" (originally NWN # 16, from April 2008), with a new introduction. In the chaotic fighting to grab the mineral resources of Congo, the armies have made the bodies of civilian women military targets. This psy-ops strategy is obscene but not illogical. Documentary filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson explains.

Jackson created the award-winning 2007 documentary film, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.

Jackson receives Special Jury Prize at the Sundance
Film Festival, January 2008, for The Greatest Silence.

Then Ynar Mohammed explains to Amy Goodman why the plight of women in Iraq today is much worse--and women are much much more oppressed--than was the case under the dictator the Americans "liberated" the Iraqi people from.

The humanitarian crises in Congo and in Iraq remain greater and graver than the sad situation in Darfur, Sudan. So why is all our attention being channeled to Darfur? Could there be oil under the (increasing) sands of Sudan? Would a little "humanitarian military intervention" do any great harm to Exxon-Mobil? (Answers: [1] yes; [2] probably not.)

www.womenstandwithiraq.com/

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

• Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford, CT) & http://wwuh.org/ (Noon to 1:00 PM on October 13)
• Saturdays, 6:30 to 7:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs, CT) & http://www.whus.org/ (Note new day & time!)
• Saturdays, 7:00-7:30 PM, KRFP-FM 92.5, Radio Free Moscow (Moscow, ID) & http://www.radiofreemoscow.com/
• Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New+World+Notes

Coming up in NWN (central Connecticut Tuesday playdates shown):

• October 20 -- # 85: Can We Save the Environment? -- Maybe. But not by selling the car, turning off the electricity, eating vegan, and taking shorter showers, argues Derrick Jensen.
• October 27 -- #86: Michael Parenti Special