What is so disgusting about the media coverage of this story is that it follows exactly the attitudes of the male military itself: there IS almost no coverage (it is treated with such dismissive contempt), only Nancy Grace that I have heard at all; the rape is never referred to, when it was the reason for the murder, not the fact that she was pregnant, alone; the fetus (wrongly referred to as a "baby," when it is not) is wept over more than the woman, and is more the reason why there is any legal action taken at all now, than the actual woman victim.
Maria Lauterbach was raped on the military base where she once lived, it was ignored and she was made the target for complaining, as always happens to women, by a male with other charges and multiple aliases, until she could not stand it anymore, being harassed by a rapist that the military would not even take action on, and moved off base to a civilian area. Exactly when she vanished, she was going to talk to investigators who, after all these months, were finally opening an investigation of the rape. She was gone before she got to the investigators' office. Then local authorites claimed, on the basis of exactly nothing, that she had "run off" because she "felt embarrassed because she had falsely accused some poor guy" and now couldn't face it. Then of course, she was found murdered. Just like the case of Nicole Brown and a billion others, no male ever helped her, and then she was dead. Witnesses from the neighborhood of the murderer's home, where the burned, buried corpse was discovered, described a fire being burned in a pit in the backyard, and a deeper hole dug by a whole group of males, no doubt also marines/friends. This raises the question yet again, that they never deal with--how common is all this, among the military? This bastard was allowed to escape, all the way to Mexico, where now, (heard on a later Nancy Grace again) these same local authorities have admitted, that they are making no special effort to find this person.
June of 2006, when Republicans still controlled Congress (some think they still do), Christopher Shays of Connecticut held a hearing on Rape, Sexual Assault, and Sexual Harrassment of Women in the Military. There was riveting and outrageous testimony from women, and military experts, on the "rape culture" (actual expression used) of the military, and hostility and bigotry toward women at all levels. The current policy of the military is to strongly discourage (by way of threat) women from ever filing charges of rape, no matter how violent and sadistic was the attack, but only taking "psychological counseling" for it, as the rapist goes on working next to them--or the victim's own career will be destroyed with "fraternization," etc., charges. The most spellbinding witness of all at this hearing was former Air Force cadet Elizabeth Davis, who described the atmosphere of hate that all women suffer under:
"I was raped and assaulted repeatedly my freshman year by a superior cadet in my squadron. In earlier sexual assault briefings during my training,” she testified, “upper-class women cadets informed us that it was very likely that we would be raped or sexually assaulted during our time at the academy, and they instructed us that if we were attacked, to not report it to authorities because it would effectively destroy our career."
"Davis says when she finally reported the rapes, she was branded mentally ill by an academy psychologist who told her he had been ordered to do so by an academy commander. She was then charged with serious infractions and forced to resign.
“To my shock and dismay, the demerits were for ‘sex in the dorms,’ because my rapes took place in the dormitory,” she testified, “‘fraternization,’ because my rapist was an upperclassman, and ‘alcohol’ because I had included in my charges that my perpetrator had been buying alcohol for my underage peers. As my world and everything I believed in crumbled before me, I realized I was being castigated and thrown out of the academy for reporting the heinous crimes that had been committed against me."
"Several top Air Force Academy officials retired or were reassigned after accusations by Davis and several other female cadets became public in 2003. But none of the military officials has been disciplined for Davis's treatment. Congressman Shays and several committee members expressed outrage. “The testimony I've heard today,” Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney told the hearing room, “is that if you're raped, you're thrown out of the military with charges against you so you cannot get a job in the military or government again. Yet if you're the rapist, you just might get a promotion. Or if you're discharged, you're quietly discharged."
From
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-06-30voa22.cfm No one has ever been convicted of rape. Shays, of course, made a great show of being "outraged," etc., as they always do, as John Conyers did again recently at the hearing on the woman raped in Iraq by fellow Halliburton employees there, than kidnapped and held hostage by management so she could not report the attack. They always pledge sincerely to do everything they can, blah blah, then, as always, do nothing. Nothing ever happened with any of these incidents; there has been no action of any kind.
No outrage, no Congressional investigations, no charges against authorities for making this whole thing happen, no media coverage, no "Countdown" with prick Olbermann, no one calls it a lynching or a hate crime, and yet it was, and now they give her a big "military" funeral...God bless you, terrified victim no one helped. God comforts you now.
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