Here are some comments from my Facebook page:

Chris:
The thing that is overdue is the need to examine the issue. I have known female soldier to try to use these things as a weapon. The soldier I am referring to did not like one of her male NCO's so she lured him into her room and then tried t...o bust him with a sexual harassment complaint. I think she lost because two things came out during the investigation, the first was that she did not like the man before the incident and the second was that she had asked him up to her room. She used the lure of needing help with "remedial PT" to get the sergeant up to her room.

It was pretty common for female soldiers to file rape charges during the opening phases of OIF. There was almost a set pattern that was heard over and over again. Female soldier has her male soldier friend in her quarters after hours when there are supposed to be no males in the female barracks. She is watching movies and eating pizza and drinking beer with her male friend. She gets drunk, passes out and then in the morning shows up at the MP station to report the rape and get the rape kit done. As a result the army loses two soldiers. In those instances both knew that the male soldier was not supposed to be in the female barracks after hours, both knew the army policy on drinking etc. both had broken several direct orders and general orders....and yet as a "rape" it gets lumped into the numbers with the other rapes, the real forced rapes that were perpetrated as an assault, the date rapes, and the "rapes" that were reported as rapes but may have been something else. Of course when the woman goes through the process and has a "rape kit" done, signs of force are documented, but even when it was the result of violence the "rape kit" is not 100% and often the victim does not report actual rapes or waits to long to report and the "rape kit" is not conclusive.

There are rapes in the service, and its not just heterosexual rapes, there are homosexual rapes too. The services have a lot of people and with that many people there are going to be a few bad actors.

The question that is often missed is the question of how reliable is the report. Whose fault was it? The reported perpetrator is almost always to blame, for them not to have the blame the report would have to be a completely false report, and the number of false reports are small but false reports are still possible and do happen. But there are also situations where the victim is somewhat to blame also. While there is nothing that can justify sexual assault, in cases such as the too often repeated pizza and beer after hours in the female barracks case, what blame does the young woman have for breaking rules and going against direct orders and inviting the male soldier to her barracks room after hours and mixing alcohol into the situation?

For those situations complicated by the presence of alcohol, too much alcohol may take from her the ability to give consent, but I don't believe that any court would view his intoxication as a mitigating defense.

But all of those complicated situations that often end up with a young woman filing a complaint at the MP station almost always end up costing the army two soldiers as both the perpetrator and the victim are lost.

So what is the solution the only way to be sure to make it impossible for female soldiers to be raped would be to have no female soldiers. That is just not possible. To make female soldiers the "ever victim" where they are assumed to have not possibly have also played a role only opens the door, extremely small though it may be, for a female soldier to use this as a weapon. This has to be one of the more difficult problems and it will only be made worse now that DADT has need scrapped.

I'm certainly not smart enough to figure out what the services should do, I just hope there is someone who is.

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Kathy:
Blame the victim is a common refrain. Way more rapes go unreported than falsely reported. I can't imagine how ending the legislated discrimination of people based on their sexual orientation will make the problem of women being assaulted by their male peers or superiors worse. I'm not sure what to think of the lawsuit, but I do believe an anti-female culture exists in many organizations that makes it all too easy to blame the victim and to make some men believe these acts wouldn't be dealt with too harshly.

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Ronald:

It's sad it had to come to a lawsuit, which I think is ridiculous. But the truth is there are epidemic amounts of sexual assault and harassment.

But does anybody think about what we train these men to do on these combat missions? How they ne...ed to act? Then we want them to return to the barracks and stand down. Give them alcohol and put young inebriated women in their path? Not a recipe for success.

Whatever we need to do to maintain the LETHALITY of our forces...while protecting all of our troops, men or women, from violent attacks and sexual assaults, is what we need to do. NOW. if that means a draft, and no females in combat zones, so be it.

Here's a dissenting comment from a friend of mine who didn't want to "call me out" in public:

"There's a difference between a woman who holds rallies to fire up followers and uses words like don't retreat, reload and puts a map with targets on her website and a guy who wrote a book about climate change. At some point, she DOES become responsible for advocating radical action - esp when she fabricates things like "death panels" knowing that kind of rhetoric will hit a nerve.  There is no evidence so far to point to anything definitive ... but I do believe when someone goes over the edge (whether this is the guy or there's still a guy to come), people who mouth off like Limbaugh, Beck. and Pain hold some responsibility for yelling fire in a crowded theater. They know someone's going to get trampled." 

Uh.. guilty as charged. I could use a few dozen copy editors.

Here's a good follow up on the the media myths of Murrow and Cronkite:
http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/likening-jon-stewart-to-murrow-ignorant-garbage/

I kinda c what ur sayin'...

It seems like the investigation went out of its way to avoid blaming the aircraft, but it's clear with out the engine failure the pilot would have had more options than to "press ahead" with the landings. More thoughts and the full accident reports at http://www.lineofdeparture.com/2010/12/17/v-22-osprey-an-unforgiving-bird/

Ah, yes, but in 1989 CNN was all-news all the time. Now it's part-news, part of the time.

Never found it in 16 years of wondering the 17 and 1/2 miles of corridors...
Maybe if I had one more year...

So Jim how does this not equally apply to the New York Times, or CNN, or ME?

Two interesting takes:
Why Bloomberg Won's Run - Daily Beast - Dec. 12, 2010 http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-11/why-new-york-mayor-michael-bloomberg-wont-run-for-president-in-2012/?om_rid=Nsfl4W&om_mid=_BNBOFcB8WI20DR
And
A Decade after Bush v. Gore - George Will -- Dec. 12 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121007438.html