KBR Rape Case: Justice, What Justice?
Justice? What Justice?
You’re walking down a dark alley and you feel a little scared, right? That’s normal, so don’t worry. Well how many of you feel that same way while standing next to a government agent or a security guard? I can’t name many, but the number is rising. American women working in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be sexually assaulted while their assailants go free. The very same men that travel hundreds of miles to “protect us” are the ones who are committing some of the most heinous crimes, against US. It has to stop. These people are in Iraq working for our government as privately hired security and abide by no law, so in the end most of these men go free. NOT OK.
Within the borders of Iraq, KBR’s agents are generally free of the bounding of any laws form both our country and theirs and are using that very fact tp their own benefit. But the truths of their immoral actions are being revealed and should be stopped. Dawn Leamon, who worked for a branch of KBR and had told her excruciating story to The Nation a week before, told them “With my back to the packed room and my voice (mostly) steady—I was being sodomized and forced to have oral sex with a KBR colleague and a Special Forces soldier two months earlier”. When she reported the incident to her KBR supervisors, instead of receiving justice and help, she hit a series of obstacles. She was told to stay quiet about it or they’d tied to make it seem as if she’d brought it on herself or even lied about it.
But that’s only one story. Take Mary Beth Kineston’s experience for example. She worked as a commercial trucker for KBR in Iraq, and testified that she had been raped in the cab of her truck by a KBR subcontractor employee at night while she was waiting in line to fill her water tanker truck. When she immediately reported the incident to her supervisors not one person did a rape kit test, referred her for medical treatment or even offered to escort her back through the dark to her quarters
You’re walking down a dark alley and you feel a little scared, right? That’s normal, so don’t worry. Well how many of you feel that same way while standing next to a government agent or a security guard? I can’t name many, but the number is rising. American women working in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be sexually assaulted while their assailants go free. The very same men that travel hundreds of miles to “protect us” are the ones who are committing some of the most heinous crimes, against US. It has to stop. These people are in Iraq working for our government as privately hired security and abide by no law, so in the end most of these men go free. NOT OK.
Within the borders of Iraq, KBR’s agents are generally free of the bounding of any laws form both our country and theirs and are using that very fact tp their own benefit. But the truths of their immoral actions are being revealed and should be stopped. Dawn Leamon, who worked for a branch of KBR and had told her excruciating story to The Nation a week before, told them “With my back to the packed room and my voice (mostly) steady—I was being sodomized and forced to have oral sex with a KBR colleague and a Special Forces soldier two months earlier”. When she reported the incident to her KBR supervisors, instead of receiving justice and help, she hit a series of obstacles. She was told to stay quiet about it or they’d tied to make it seem as if she’d brought it on herself or even lied about it.
But that’s only one story. Take Mary Beth Kineston’s experience for example. She worked as a commercial trucker for KBR in Iraq, and testified that she had been raped in the cab of her truck by a KBR subcontractor employee at night while she was waiting in line to fill her water tanker truck. When she immediately reported the incident to her supervisors not one person did a rape kit test, referred her for medical treatment or even offered to escort her back through the dark to her quarters