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trying to find some holes in it, I just can't. I seems like they genuinely screwed up on this. What a flipping outrage!

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is a very good idea. This woman may well have been gang-raped, and we should take that very seriously.

But Rusty is right to suggest that when a story has this many pieces that just perfectly fit the political narrative, and when we have a fairly long history of seeing stories that fell apart once probed, you have to wonder if perhaps at least some parts of the story are not as they seem.

Some people say a lot of rapes go unreported, because it's so hard for victims to stand up and make the accusation. Some say rape is perhaps the crime most commonly falsely charged. Both are probably true. Tread carefully, but let's not just buy what the media is selling without asking questions.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

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"I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Saint Thomas More.

...is that - OK, let's back up. There are two questions here:

1). Was Jamie Leigh Jones raped?
2). Did Group X cover it up the way that Ms. Jones claims that they did?

I think that Ace and Rusty's BS detectors are going off so loudly regarding Question 2 (again, see here for earlier court documents) that they are assuming that Question 1 is probably BS as well. Which does not logically follow, of course.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

1) Regardless of how Kos & Co try to portray this issue, there's nothing about this case that suggests it could only have happened in Iraq, or that some undefinable quality about the Iraq War made it more likely to happen here than elsewhere. We use military contractors like KBR in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Korea, Germany, and many other places. Combat did not play a role in this incident, and there's nothing about the war in Iraq that makes incidents like this more likely to happen there than at U.S. installations elsewhere.

2) If Ms. Jones's accusations are not true, KBR and the State Department have sure taken an awfully long time in dealing with this issue. As far as KBR goes, if Jones's story is wrong, they could only benefit from a full and complete investigation. That's not to say that her story is definitely true, but somebody at KBR probably thinks it could be true.

3) Hopefully, the fact that KBR has now ceded responsibility for investigating this incident to the U.S. Government means that someone in either the State Department or the Defense Department wants to make this right. On the other hand, if they only want to make it go away Congressman Poe and Jones's family can and should raise an unholy racket to keep this from being swept under the rug. If necessary, Jones and her family should consider a civil action against KBR.

4) Ted Poe deserves credit for how he has handled this so far. He has been a good advocate for Jones and her family without politicizing the issue. As the ABC story makes clear, his prompt action brought about the quick release of Ms. Jones from her unlawful confinement in Iraq, and his steady pressure on the State Department to resolve this issue has been firm but fair. In short, he is a good congressman and a good advocate for his constituents.

Hang all traitors and secessionists! Hang them high!
- Me

I'm sad because due to the cacophony of leftist complaints both real and imagined my initial reaction was that this was just another hit piece and that Halliburton had come back in vogue as the right wing demon of the week.

Wait and see is the best approach. You can take the accusations seriously while also not jumping to conclusions.

As with the Duke Lacrosse case, this is a case that some will want to hastily fit into a political narrative for motives of their own. The charges should be investigated--and that's the extent of it (at this stage).

Wait for the facts. Demand that the Government get to the bottom of this. Everyone needs to do their job for a change.

Why create one?

Right bloggers have an opportunity to calmly hear out the facts of this case and discuss it in terms of compassion and justice.

The really dumb approach is to spontaneously address every perceived inconsistentcy with alarms sounding from 'The BS Sniff Detector'. Hold your fire against the presumed victim until her story is refutable by overwhelming facts.

And don't rush to defend Halliburton. It's too late to bother in the court of public opinion. You'll be hearing enough about Halliburton in Dem campaign commercials. Let's not add to the buzz.

But there is no political narrative here. Unless the RNC itself or the Bush WH tried to conceal this case, there's no political angle here.

"Unless the RNC itself or the Bush WH tried to conceal this case, there's no political angle here."

Would you say that there was no political angle to the Plame affair either because Bush wasn't found to have "outed" a CIA agent?

An actual airing of what occurred is not how this works--it's not how it worked with Plame, the justice dept firings, Katrina, or any of the other cooked-up scandals.

The details of such a thing as this will quickly get lost in a deafening amplification and blurring of the words "rape," "Halliburton" and "Iraq."

Who for example, will be the first at a White House Press Conference to ask "When did the President know about the Halliburton rapes in Iraq, and when did he know it?" The facts don't matter to these people--it's all about the show that they can put on.

I think an important point to remember is the legal grey area in which the contractors work. They're immune from Iraqi law (or at least were when this happened) and my understanding is, it is unclear how they are to be prosecuted under US law. For example here is a NY Times article from a few months ago saying that US law will apply to contractors (implying it did not before,and considering the whole ex post facto thing, won't apply in this case). Clearly I am no expert, but the fact that punishment under the law would be difficult might have meant that the deterrent that the law normally provides wasn't there this time. And, as the NY Times article says, lifting of immunity was opposed by the White House, though the bill had bipartisan support in Congress.

That, and this will remind people of a general sense of corruption and incompetence that seemingly has tainted the Republican Party/administration for awhile.

KBR has tried to regulate the crazed atmosphere somewhat - restricting employees with curfews, rules about alcohol and co-ed activity and the like - but it is extremely difficult to enforce such restrictions.

I thought these people were supposed to be America's best and brightest. Why is there a crazed atmosphere that needs to be restricted with rules about alcohol, curfews, etc. in the Green Zone?

Wasn't the Green Zone supposed to be the place where the Americans were going to help the Iraqis start their new government by example?

But for anyone who knows any woman who has worked in the green zone, either under the protection of the Department of State, or as a contractor, it is not at all surprising.

So what have we established over there? Mos Eisely spaceport? You know, when I hear reports like this, and then I read statements like that (presumably from people who should know) I start to seriously question whether this country should be involved in doing *anything* -- *anywhere* in the world. If we can't send our own citizens into the Green Zone in Iraq without curfews, regulations to rein in the "crazy atmosphere" and reports of gang rape and kidnapping, we shouldn't be sending them. Maybe Pat Buchanan was right after all. Maybe Paul Cella was right, also.

If this turns out to be true, this country is broken. Perhaps irreparably. It's time to pack our bags and leave. And start stashing money and ammunition under our mattresses, because we can't even trust ourselves.

The worst part is that my father has to keep reading things like this on the Drudge Report and elsewhere. Because when this war started, he was in complete agreement with it, and he supported it as a patriotic American. When the Americans arrived in Iraq and liberated Baghdad so easily, he positively beamed. When the WMDs weren't found, he honestly believed that the DoD was just keeping things under wraps for a while, waiting to pull them out of their hats in a very spectacular, public fashion. He honestly believed that one of the main reasons we went to war *couldn't possibly* have been so wrong. Surely, we would find *at least one* large cache of real WMDs there. Surely this Administration couldn't be that stupid.

Then came the pictures of Abu Ghraib, with unsupervised and derelict American servicepeople humiliating prisoners for their personal photo albums. Surely, that couldn't be happening. Surely American soldiers were better than that morally.

Now we get the gang rape allegations about KBR, and stories about how they've needed curfews to rein in "crazed atmospheres" in the Green Zone. Stories about how unescorted women are basically walking targets for rape -- by American contractors.

How does anyone square all that against the things they believed when this war was launched? The most you can say is that America has taken its flawed intelligence and used it to launch a war of occupation and then populated the conquered country with criminals, knaves, moral degenerates, and rapists. And people wonder why this culture is becoming more nihilistic.

Yes, this is a tragedy if true and it will absolutely be used by the BDS crowd to excoriate Bush, which is absurd.

However, women know that we are at risk everywhere, including at a party with men we know well who are drunk. There is a human nature factor at work here, plus in the Green Zone you have an overwhelmingly testosterone-infused atmosphere, danger, risk, weapons, stress, a surrounding environment overtly hostile to females, etc. It doesn't matter if the attackers are friends or enemies; all males are alike in that environment to a woman. As it turns out it's no different than a military academy (we know what has happened at those).

I find this sad but not shocking. This is the way of the world unless women are all trained in self-defense from an early age (something I strongly believe in). Even then, there is no defense against a gang. What I find truly disturbing is the widespread outrage at this, while the overt and ongoing sexual predations by U.N. peacekeepers (people one could also supposedly be able to trust) continue against Third World women and children and garner virtually no attention or concern. Because it cannot be laid at Bush's door or the eeeeeevil Halliburton.

The dichotomy between the 2 is disgusting and revolting. I am no bleeding heart but the fact that the moral outrage is always over a Western, usually white woman, is what I, as a woman, find so detestable. There is nothing about Leigh's case that is unusual in the grand scheme of things. This is a tragedy, and human nature can be a tragic thing. Let's just spread the moral outrage around a bit more evenly.

Speaking of KBR and Halliburton, why are the Drive-Bys so concerned about a female contractor when they ignored (and lefties praised) the torture, murder and mutilation of 4 male contractors is Fallujah in 2004? Female contractors are a protected class but male contractors are fair game?? The stink of hypocrisy is just overwhelming.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

An experienced Judge and Congressman, I would write this off completely. It frankly sounds too fabricated and her foundation is just too cutesie. I am suggesting that here and elsewhere, until a lot more evidence comes in, that this be referred to as an 'alleged rape'.

I would urge everyone not to jump to conclusions either way. Yes, this is the ideal lie some radical lefties would love to tell, but is it possible? Certainly.

And as Moe has so well observed, if this is true, then the truth is out there. Let's give things time to ripen before we make any conclusions, or attack anything.

Patience may run counter to the trend set by the mainstream press and its continuous news cycle, but it is best.

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I think that the Duke case should guide us in refraining to comment until the whole story is out.

SteveLA - Yeah that was my initial reaction until actually read what was available on it. In either direction, I just hope justice is served.

"May 31, 2007- Lynn Falanga called me to tell me that the AUSA took on my case as an “intake” so that they could investigate my case diligently. In regards to the missing pictures and doctor's notes that were taken in Baghdad Lynn Falanga and I both called the doctor that performed the rape kit. The doctor stated to both of us that “I have no idea which rape victum you are because so many young contractor girls were raped after drinking with the guys” she also stated that “I performed so many rape kits in the six months that I was stationed there that there would be no way to recall whom yours was."

http://www.jamiesfoundation.org/Jamie.htm

printed above (Kowalski is particularly creative) about the state of the union are true. Maybe not.

But as to the case itself, it naturally evokes concern and sympathy. It also naturally evokes suspicion, for reasons enumerated above, and also because it develops like a Donald Bellisario script for NCIS.

Given the careful record-keeping apparatus that is the US military, it should not be that hard to determine the identities of many of the people involved. Given the numbers of innocent people peripherally involved, once they are found it's only a matter of time (and a couple of reminders about the fates of Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart) before some or all decide to make sure they are on the record with the truth, and the whole truth at that.

This is now public. Good. Let's allow the investigation to proceed without a pre-emptive decree that somebody's head has to roll, and that it can't be the accuser.

As for the unfairness of some attention being turned to the possibility that the story might not be true, Jamie can thank Mike Nifong and his protege, and Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley, and the reputation for partisan and shoddy reporting by the networks for that.

The "Third Worst Person in the World" and aiming higher.

explicitly sets out arbitration as the remedy for any "disputes arising from her employment," the common phrase, she likely will never see the inside of a civil court room. There is a pretty good line of USSC cases supporting court deferal to private arbitration even on claims based in statute, e.g., discrimination. (I'm not going to spend the money to query WestLaw, but if anyone is interested they should be easy to find; as I recall Litton is one of them.)

I've lived in remote construction camps with a lot of bored, horny men and a few women, some of whom were just there to do their job, some of whom weren't averse to making a horizontal career move, and some of whom were essentially prostitutes. I've also conducted investigations and imposed discipline for all sorts of sexual shenanigans in such environments as well as in prisons and on ships - both of which offer similar dynamics. Some are outright contrivances, some are sexual harrassment, some are "morning rapes," and a few, a very few, are truly forced or coerced sex. Only a thorough investigation will sort that out, and in my experience, the first liar doesn't have a chance; most are decided on circumstance and I'm not at all sure that some of the people I was a part of firing on a circumstantial case were truly guilty of the conduct asserted. They did put themselves in circumstances where you could believe that they did it, and that is enough for employment purposes and probably enough for a civil judgement. Whether or not the facts are as she asserts, were KBR my client, I'd tell them to get out their checkbook and write however big a check it took to satisfy her. Relying on a preemptory defense based on the arbitration provision is very risky business.

But look at it this way: the female informs management that she has been forcibly gang raped in a closed environment like the Green Zone's living and working quarters; management takes her complaint seriously, begins an investigation, and isolates the alleged victim both for her safety and to avoid any taint to the investigation; who knows about the "no food or water" piece, but containers are often used as living quarters, so setting her up in secure living quarters with guards is not an unreasonable measure. Her own statement is that she was so quartered for about 24 hours, not an unreasonable period of time, and in that time she managed to contact her family which secured the intervention of a Congressman. I don't have enough facts to take it from there, but I find the actions to that point completely understandable.

In Vino Veritas