“The mission trumps every other aspect of military life, including sometimes, legal justice and moral standing,” wrote Russell, now a professor at Antioch University in Seattle, in an email.
“A climate emerges, whereby individuals may feel they can act with impunity, especially in the case ... where it may be ‘he said, she said,' with ‘good workers' often given the benefit of the doubt.”
Many of the Japan cases involved an accuser who said he or she was sexually abused while too drunk to consent, or even unconscious. That makes it all the more difficult to determine whether a crime occurred.
“Weakness is a great fear in the military and something to be avoided,” Russell wrote. “Therefore, women (or men) who go out drinking and are raped are often viewed as culpable for having been ‘weak and vulnerable.”'
The documents analyzed by the AP do not reveal whether certain commanders had a tendency to punish outside the courts-martial process. Names of the accusers, the accused and commanders are all deleted—for privacy, the military said.
When compared with broader statistics released annually by the Pentagon, the documents suggest that U.S. military personnel based in Japan are accused of sex crimes at roughly the same rate as their comrades around the world.
But bad behavior here by American sailors, Marines, airmen and soldiers can have intense repercussions in this conservative, insular country, an important U.S. ally. This is especially true on the island of Okinawa, home to barely 1 percent of Japan's population but about half of the roughly 50,000 U.S. forces based in the country.
Sex crimes against Okinawans have become major news stories, and added fury to protests against the U.S. military's presence on the island.
But the documents show that, as it is at U.S. bases everywhere, U.S. service members who commit sexual assaults are most likely to abuse their own comrades.
