The recent stories about pictures of women being raped by American soldiers in Iraq is disturbing.  Some people want the pictures publicized, others like myself would rather that they not be.  Who wants pictures of her sexual assault all over the web?  Even if they're "anonymized" it's possible for people to figure out who's who.  And where this happened, a woman who's been raped has been "dishonored" and should die.  And might get help dying from family members who don't want their family honor tarnished.

This got me thinking about what could have been done to reduce the likelihood of such things happening again.  While it is certainly important to tell men not to rape, it might be easier to remember that if a large percentage of the soldiers you serve with are women.  Enough so that they're not goaded into acting "macho" to prove they're good enough to serve.  Was Lynndie England trying to be one of the boys when she was laughing and joking around the naked prisoners stacked like cordwood?  I don't know, but I know that kind of thing does happen.

Some people don't want women in war.  Unfortunately, they're already there.  If they're all unarmed, then woman automatically equates to powerless and they are then easy pickings to become victims.