The Jerry Sandusky Rape Case

put in context by Terry Pluto, the amazing columnist for The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer.  How dangerous is child rape for society?  Some chilling statistics:

According to the Department of Justice, about 3 percent of incarcerated men and 25 percent of women report being sexually abused as children. The state of Maryland found 1-in-3 women and 1-and-5 male inmates admitted being sexual abused as children.
Based on a dozen years of weekly jail ministry in Akron, I'd guess at least 25 percent of males that I've encountered had some type of damaging sexual experience at a young age. Men hate to admit what happened to them as children.
It does not excuse their crimes.
But there is so much truth in the saying, "Hurt people hurt people."

Read the whole thing.

I originally called this post "The Penn State Rape Case," but I changed it because think that title is unfair to a great university like Penn State (not necessarily its administrators), its students and alumni.  The biggest crime here was (allegedly) by Jerry Sandusky.  Without his (alleged) actions, none of this would have happened.

Meanwhile, in Syria

otherwise known as "Not Happy Valley," things get worse and worse:

Syrian troops on Monday routed government opponents in a neighborhood of Homs that had emerged in recent weeks as a center of armed resistance to the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad, dealing what appeared to be a serious setback to the protest movement and to an Arab League peace initiative designed to end the violence.
Homs residents and human rights groups said security forces stormed the Bab al-Amr neighborhood in the small hours of the morning, concluding a six-day assault in which dozens were killed and scores injured, many of them in tank bombardments.

Defected soldiers who had been defending the protest hot spot either fled to the surrounding countryside or were captured or killed, said residents and activists. Syrian troops combed through the neighborhood Monday detaining all the young men they encountered, and government supporters staged a noisy demonstration through the deserted streets.
The assault came as Assad’s government braced for the potential fallout from its failure to abide by the terms of an Arab League-sponsored peace initiative agreed to last Wednesday. Under the deal, Syria was to withdraw troops from cities, allow peaceful protests and release detainees.

And before anyone else asks ...

No, I did not go to Penn State and have no affiliation with that school.  I am a proud alum of The Ohio State University and its marching band (by far the finest in the land).  And, yes, I do think that Jim Tressel and Ohio State have been royally screwed by the NCAA, an arrogant, hypocritical, two-faced organization that is beyond despicable.

Much of my family comes from Pittsburgh, and some of them are Penn State graduates.  So we have always paid attention to Penn State.  Even though our schools are rivals, we have always had the highest respect for Penn State and Joe Paterno.  When we went to Happy Valley in 2001 to see Ohio State play (and blow a 17-point lead to lose the game), we had a great time.  Great ice cream.  Fans were friendly and knowledgeable.  They love football and know the game as well as anyone.  Their respect for Joe Paterno was palpable, and his respect and love for them was obvious as well.  The Penn State Blue Band was a first-rate marching band, and the Silks were an excellent dance team. 

They had something really special in Happy Valley. 

Now that is all gone.

A few words on Mike McQueary

I originally posted most of the following in response to comments concerning the conduct of Penn State Assistant Coach Mike McQueary made in response to my post In defense of Joe Paterno.  But the issues facing McQueary are a bit different than those facing Paterno, so I think it deserves its own post and discussion. 

McQueary is taking an incredible amount of heat himself for his relative lack of action in the Jerry Sandusky case.  That he did not immediately run into the shower and, apparently, beat the crap out of Sandusky to protect the boy very near the top of that criticism.

And, indeed, McQueary bears far more "moral" culpability than Paterno does, because he witnessed the actual incident.  Maybe legal culpability as well.

That said, I'm going to play Devil's Advocate again.  Keep in mind a few things.

In defense of Joe Paterno

It is with shock and tremendous sadness that I am following the events coming out of State College, where Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant coach under Joe Paterno at Penn State, is charged with sexually assaulting at least 8 boys.  The grand jury presentment can be found on the website of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.  Be warned: it makes for very disturbing reading.  In my decades of historical research, I've read about some of the most brutal atrocities in history, and this document made even me uncomfortable. 

The charges against Sandusky are so disgusting, so vile that it can and does easily become a case of guilty until proven innocent.  For anyone associated with them.

Before I continue, let me tell you three stories from my personal experience:

More on army control of Egypt

No sooner does Barry Rubin do an article on how the last chance for civilization in the Middle East is the army than he writes another one, focusing on Egypt.  He starts out:

This is of tremendous importance. Only hours ago I wrote about how the Egyptian military felt forced by circumstances to play a bigger, longer political role in order to stem anarchy and prevent Egypt from becoming an Islamist state. Now there’s more evidence of that happening.
In an editorial that reflects also the Obama administration’s position, the Washington Post explained that the army having political power is bad and civilian rule is good:

The generals’ justification for their proposed decree will sound familiar to any student of the Mubarak regime: They claim to be protecting the country from Islamic fundamentalists, who appear likely to capture a plurality of seats in parliament.

The armies are the last bastions of civilization

Barry Rubin asks the question, Will Their Armies Save (Some) Arab States from Islamism?

Nowhere in the world is Mao Zedong’s dictum that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun truer than in the Middle East.
The armed forces have been the basis of power in the Arabic-speaking world and in Turkey, too. That’s why the nationalist dictatorships and traditionalist monarchies, which had seen so many coups and coup attempts in the 1950s and 1960s, had to find special ways to control the armed forces. They did so by special privileges, close intelligence watches, promoting officers on the basis of loyalty to the regime, and many other measures.
One of these was the creation of elite, parallel military formations. Examples include the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Iraqi Republican Guard, the Saudi “White Army,” and others.

Speaking of allies from Hell

What's Turkey doing these days? I had always wondered why the Islamist regime agreed to host US missile defense installations.  Now we know: to hamper it.

In September 2011, America engaged Turkey in missile defense by providing Ankara with the same type of X-Band radar system that Israel was given in September 2008 by former U.S. President George W. Bush.  The deployment of that radar system into Turkey, later this year, will be located in the eastern part of the country, close to the Iranian border.
These radar systems are designed to alert technicians of incoming enemy missiles.  The U.S. Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) in Europe is to be the data hub for all U.S. supported European and Middle Eastern radar systems, including those in Romania, and in a U.S. Aegis ship in the Mediterranean.
However, the current U.S. agreement with Turkey has become problematic, according to Scheinmann.  "The Turks are saying that what they get from the radar site in their country will not be shared with Israel.  This is supposed to be a European-wide missile defense system, but, they have maintained their strong objection to anything Israeli.  If there were an Iranian missile launched towards Israel, they would not allow the sharing of information from their radar to help Israel."
What this means, Scheinmann explained, is that an incoming Iranian missile that would target Israel would probably go over Syria, south of the Turkish radar site.  It would be easier for technicians to track the precise location of the missile in milliseconds because they would be seeing the side view of it from Turkey, rather than a frontal view from Israel.  But Turkey is now planning to hinder such cooperation.  This inhibits protection for Israel from Iran's ballistic missile arsenal.

With a title like ...

... "The Ally From Hell," you know the article is about Pakistan.  And this article, a joint venture by The Atlantic and National Journal, is a doozy.  Most disturbing section:

There is evidence to suggest that neither the Pakistani army, nor the SPD itself, considers jihadism the most immediate threat to the security of its nuclear weapons; indeed, General Kayani’s worry, as expressed to General Kidwai after Abbottabad, was focused on the United States. According to sources in Pakistan, General Kayani believes that the U.S. has designs on the Pakistani nuclear program, and that the Abbottabad raid suggested that the U.S. has developed the technical means to stage simultaneous raids on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities.
In their conversations, General Kidwai assured General Kayani that the counterintelligence branch of the SPD remained focused on rooting out American and Indian spies from the Pakistani nuclear-weapons complex, and on foiling other American espionage methods. The Pakistani air force drills its pilots in ways of intercepting American spy planes; the Pakistani military assumes (correctly) that the U.S. devotes many resources to aerial and satellite surveillance of its nuclear sites.

Like chocolate sauce and sauerkraut

... some things are just not meant to go together.  Like, a dump and Hadrian's villa:

The noble descendant of a 17th century pope is fighting a battle against government plans to dump Rome's garbage at a site near one of the western world's most celebrated archeological sites - Hadrian's Villa.

Prince Urbano Barberini, whose bloodline is traced to some of Italy's most storied nobles families and individuals - including Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII in 1623 - says disposing of the capital's trash in a quarry near Hardian's Villa in Tivola could keep tourists at bay when the wind passes over the tons of garbage in the direction of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Who wants to bomb Iran?

Or, given recent media reports, I suppose the better question is, "Who doesn't?" Because there seems to be a line forming to do just that.

Israel (not surprising):

Over the past several days, Hebrew media reports have been engaged in intense speculation regarding a possible imminent Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared to have made a veiled reference to the issue again on Tuesday, when he told the Knesset that Israel may have to protect its vital interests alone, while other reports focused on comments by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who stated this week that difficult decisions were “keeping him up at nights,” without elaborating further.

Israel is believed to have a fully prepared plan to launch such a strike, which would likely involve at least several hundred aircraft.

When Greeks and Turks agree

... given their history (Trojan War, Persian Wars, Alexander the Great, Seljuks v. Byzantines, Ottomans, etc.), it should perhaps give one pause.  Yet that's what seems to be happening.  Just after the Turkish government cleans out the top brass in its armed forces, the Greek government is now doing the same thing:

In a surprise move, on Tuesday evening the defence minister replaced the country’s top brass. An extraordinary meeting of the Government Council of Foreign Affairs and Defence (Kysea), which comprises the prime minister and other key cabinet members, accepted Defence Minister Panos Beglitis' proposal that the following changes be made to army, navy and air force and the general staff:

Sorry for the light posting

Been extremely busy this week, but also completely engrossed with The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin & Nashville, by Wiley Sword.  I hope to have a big post on it this weekend.

But ... but Obama said he was a "reformer."

Michael Totten on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's latest gambit:

The Syrian opposition is slowly arming itself—inspired, I presume, by the disposal of Moammar Qaddafi—and Bashar al-Assad is spooked. He thinks the West may want to gun for him next. And he says if the West does come after him that it will set off an “earthquake” in the region.
“Syria is the hub now in this region,” he said. “It is the faultline, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake. Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region.”
In other words, he’ll set Lebanon and Israel on fire again. It’s what he does. And it’s why he needs to go.

Against thug dictators, peaceful resistance usually doesn't work.

The Line of the Night

After last night's Catastrophe in Kansas City, a Twitter pal of mine had this to say:

Jocelyn (@legalesque)11/1/11 1:05 AM
Saw this on Facebook: the flight home for Philip Rivers is going to be longer than Kim Kardashian's marriage.