(Reuters) – No one talks tougher against
prostitution than the U.S. military.
Even in countries where prostitution is legal, military personnel violating a
seven-year-old Department of Defense policy against paying for sex face up to a year in jail and dishonorable discharge if
caught.
U.S. President Barack Obama departs on the Marine One helicopter for travel to Colombia for the Summit of Americas, from the
White House in Washington April 13, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Officers and troops are taught about the links between human trafficking and prostitution. They also
face country-specific instructions at bases like the U.S. installation in South Korea, where the policy describes prostitution as “cruel and
demeaning.”
But the involvement of U.S. military personnel and Secret Service agents in a raucous April outing with
prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, has underscored the gaps between the written policies and real-life experiences at
military assignments around the world.
While the Secret Service has acted promptly and openly, even announcing Friday
new ethics training and policies for traveling agents, the military has stayed mostly mum about how it is addressing possible
violations of its prostitution rules.
After the Colombia scandal broke, initial attention focused on the dozen agents
from the Secret Service, a civilian agency, for fear safety of the president or other officials might have been compromised.
Eight agents have since left the service, one had his security clearance revoked and three were
cleared.
“INCOMPATIBLE” WITH MILITARY VALUES
Last week, Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate
Armed Services committee, criticized the Pentagon for offering too little information about the errant behavior of personnel
who were helping prepare for a Cartagena summit visit by President Barack Obama.
Unlike the Secret Service agents, who
were ordered to return home and were swiftly disciplined, the military personnel were initially confined to quarters in
Colombia for what the Pentagon called “curfew violations.” The Pentagon says those involved have had their security
clearances suspended while an investigation proceeds.
Defense officials have said that moving the military personnel
from Colombia before the summit there was ended would have been disruptive to their mission. The military service members had
been sent to Cartagena as part of advance preparations for a summit that was attended by President Barack
Obama.
Defense officials have also said they cannot speculate publicly about what disciplinary actions may be taken or
discuss details of the allegations, saying this could jeopardize the integrity of the investigation.
But last week a
Pentagon spokesman pledged to keep McCain and other lawmakers as informed as possible as the investigation
proceeds.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the armed services committee, said he doubts that the military is
enforcing its strict prostitution rules.
“The honest truth is probably no,” said Graham, a former Air Force
lawyer.
McCain said that while the Senate committee examined issues of sexual assault after the 1991 Tailhook scandal
involving allegations of sexual abuse by Navy and Marine pilots, the panel has not been called upon to investigate the use of
prostitutes. He rejected the notion that patronizing prostitutes is a fact of military life.
“I certainly did not
believe that. Ever,” he said. “And I spent 26 years in the military.”
The military toughened its prostitution rules in
2005 after President George W. Bush signed an executive order adding patronizing prostitutes to the Manual for
Courts-Martial.
The order spelled out offenses and penalties and gave the military a tough enforcement tool – if it
chose to use it – for behavior that, as Graham said, had “been around military bases as long as there has been a
military.”
Lawrence Korb, a former defense official, said that while he has heard stories of wayward military
personnel since his time in Vietnam, “we’ve never heard anything about the Secret Service before.”
Korb, now a senior
fellow at the Center for American Progress, said it is unclear how often the military services impose the harsh written
policies for personnel using prostitutes.
“I’ve never seen anybody go to jail,” he said.
Nevertheless,
training continues. Both the Pentagon and the State Department, which also has tough internal policies on prostitution, teach
personnel that prostitution is often a form of human trafficking, with strong ties to underworld crime.
The
military’s general awareness and law enforcement training can be found on its website at ctip.defense.gov/
Country-specific training also stresses criminal links.
A
U.S. Forces Korea policy states: “Prostitution and human trafficking shall not be facilitated in any way.” It further says
that hiring prostitutes is “incompatible with our military core values.”
Graham said one reason for the effort is that
military personnel assigned to other countries must adapt to local customs and morals. “If there was an effort to visit
prostitutes in Afghanistan, we
would come down hard. Simply because it’s a cultural no-no in Afghanistan, it would bring wrath upon us,” he
said.
Graham said the Senate Armed Services Committee should look into the issue further.
“The commonality
seems to be when the Secret Service and the military get together, in kind of exotic locations, things are going bad,” Graham
said. “So the military and Secret Service need to address: what is it about these trips?”
(Additional reporting By
David Alexander; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Jackie Frank)