Feminists have long nursed the hope that women in combat would create a kinder, gentler military’you know, more sharing and caring, less belligerence. An Associated Press report carried in the Navy Times seems likely to dash this forlorn feminist hope:
“Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man’s face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider’s written account.
“A draft manuscript obtained by The Associated Press is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a planned book that details ways the U.S. military used women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.
“It’s the most revealing account so far of interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques.
“’I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case,’ the author, former Army Sgt. Erik R. Saar, 29, told AP.
“Saar didn’t provide the manuscript or approach AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages AP obtained. He requested his hometown remain private so he wouldn’t be harassed….”