Cleveland Police or the Air Force: Which Failure Is Worse?

Two breaking stories — heartbreaking — of violence on girls and women tell us it walks around in uniform and lives on your street. We are reaching a breaking point. And in the end, I'm going to ask where you were, Mr. President.

Thanks so much, Cleveland and the Air Force, for crystallizing how bad it is out (or in) there, even for our warrior class. In civilian and military life, males prey upon females in vicious ways that often stay hidden in the dark. Anyone who thinks things are getting better for us should see me after class.

Which is worse? The Cleveland police's failure to find three missing women locked up as captives in a derelict house — with a porch light on — for 10 years? Connie Schultz, a columnist for Creators, wrote that the City on the Lake is reeling, grieving, searching for answers.

Or is it the Air Force, whose chief of sexual violence prevention is a lieutenant colonel just charged with sexual battery in a parking lot?

It's a close call, for nobody suffered more than three Ohio women found on Seymour Street. However flawed their investigation, Cleveland police didn't conspire to do harm.

So my vote for the most shocking story goes to the Air Force for systemic actions against its own. Ironically, the service known for having the most Christian conservative officers is lately the focus of the worst sexual violence in the military.

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, 41, is a shiny Air Force Academy graduate, apparently a gentleman officer. How he got his post in the Air Force mystifies me. How excruciating his mug shot (showing signs of a struggle) must be for the Pentagon's elite high command. At least, I hope so.

This comes on top of a recent sex scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where 33 drill instructors faced trial for roughly 60 assaults.

The crowning blow of Air Force "culture" this week came from Mark Welsh, the top general, blaming "hookup culture" for the high rate of military sexual assaults as he faced the Senate Armed Services Committee. A glib remark, mister, staggering under the circumstances.

Writ large, we are talking about an estimated 126,000 sexual assaults in the military in 2012, according to a Pentagon survey, a huge jump since 2010. (A small fraction are man-on-man assaults.) It didn't make the paper, but enlisted women were raped on the job in Iraq. Strange, this tide of hostility — or hatred — toward women serving their country. Or have we been blind or lenient to our "all-volunteer" military during the fighting of two wars?

To take arms against the epidemic violence on military women, human rights groups visited the White House Office of Public Engagement during President Obama's first term. They felt frustrated at the commander in chief's failure to speak out on the outrage of military sexual assaults.

Obama just broke his silence at long last, reacting to a reporter's question.

He declared, "If we find out somebody's engaging in this stuff, they've got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged — period."

The statement soared, but Obama's words don't cut it quite like they used to.

For leadership on this issue, look to the seven women on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Political representation is one area where women's lot is getting better. Seven is far more than ever before — and why this breaking, burning issue won't die in the dark.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

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