The Bush Administration is calculating that this type of damage is worth it in pursuing their goal of a market based Middle East.

They are not happy when the media puts a focus on the damage being done by their chosen strategies.

Albright once said she thought a million deaths were worth it to contain our former ally Saddam Husein.

Here in New Orleans our local "Traumatised Veteran" cut up and cooked his girlfriend.

Let us remember that Tim McVeigh was a veteran of Gulf War I who came back disturbed by the experience.

This has been a hugely successful presidency.

Their donors have had returns far beyond any dreams a casting bread on waters story could have suggested.

Jiggering the tax regime, choosing what regs to enforce and which not to enforce, leg pretending to help all, but helping the corporate board room, have all combined to make a massive shift of wealth from the population to the very wealthy.

The public purse has funded corporate wealth accumulation abroad, especially by funding a military that ensures that the USA based corporations can level the playing fields abroad to their liking. Future control of the oil and gas of Central Asia has been assured. A fair chunk of the public buys the cover story of 'war on terrorism' as the rationale for all this militarism.

And all it has cost is a few thousand lives of working class people in USA.

And best of all, the front runner candidates to inherit this policy all suggest to continue.

The land of the free and the home of the brave= those at the top.

Perhaps this might have more to do with the type of people that predominate in today's US military? As a drafted Army veteran of 1967-69, what I see of our current soldiers is frighteningly reminiscent of what we got when Macnamara lowered the standards temporarily, and not at all like 'GI Joes' of former wars. Our supported troops are probably a whole lot like the Roman legionaires of the late empire period ......... oops.

This behavior of some returning troops is predictable. Every war has seen the same maladjustment.

This administration knew that some troops would have trouble "coming home." They did nothing to prepare for those who would need help.

The malfeasance of this administration continues. They have betrayed those who trusted them most.

It might get worse, if and when the troops are brought home, especially if the Blackwater troops tag along. Inhaling nano particles of DU will damage brain cells, it usually takes a few years for the symptoms to appear.

It makes me cry.

Imagine coming back from the murderous hell of Iraq to a country full of plump,'happy', oblvious consumers whose biggest 'problems' are lining up for sales (and maybe getting trampled). And to a gov't that could care less for 'disposable' grunts. Enough to drive anyone over the edge.

The mental and physical injury of fighting a useless war is bad enough without the insult of being tossed aside on return.

Too bad the soldier's rage is so often misdirected at family and friends, instead of at the real villains.

How many have committed suicide? Wasn't it several hundred so far?

Sy Hersh says this is the most brutal army we have ever raised ---

That it does damage finally to the the soldier is clear -
that it does damage in the end to all of society is clear -

We are all being tortured by this administration ---

Good point Paddy. It's be great to see our soldiers invade washington and drop 40,000 lbs of bombs on the white house and capital hill!

------------------------------

The ruling elite have made the USA the headquarters for horror in the world, the #1 obstacle to world peace.

So, who in this hell wants a revolution?

I had forgotten that PJD, excellent point.

~Youbetterwork~ Is that what is known as Gumbo? Or was it green fried tomatoes.

But are we willing to do without cheap oil to stop this?

Good point about Timothy McVeigh!

RE: - It makes me cry.

Ditto

How does the Military treat soldiers with PTSD - what does it do to help them before things get this bad?

Man killed by Winnipeg police a former Canadian Forces member

A man who was shot and killed by Winnipeg police on Monday was a former member of the Canadian Forces who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Police confirmed Wednesday afternoon that Roy Thomas Bell, 44, was the person who confronted police officers as they responded to a 911 call about a man threatening residents at an apartment block in Winnipeg's West Broadway neighbourhood.

Matthew Gray, a retired soldier, told CBC News that Bell, known to many as Tom, had long struggled with mental-health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, following a training deployment overseas as part of his military service.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/12/19/police-shooting.html

Matthew Gray, the friend of Bell who committed "Suicide by Cop" was in the news earlier:

Manitoba man sues RCMP over Taser use

(link omitted)

Strange how issues seem to interconnect.

The documentary "Why We Fight" was on TV yesterday. It was about war, propaganda and the power of the Military lobby in the US:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/whywefight.html

Kem, your dark humor makes me wonder if you worked in an emergency room. I knew before the Iraq invasion that the returning vets would be abandoned just by how many homeless Vietnam vets were still out on the streets. It's obscene that we use them up and throw them away.

kathyodat

i was just about to ask: but weren't the vietnam war vets treated equally as bad upon their return?

Did anyone here really believe that "support the troops" crap has ever meant what it implies? They've been considered expendable since day one. They've used up their usefulness if they can't be sent back to that hell hole, and what happens after that is their own problem. They can take their lives, vegitate in falling apart hospitals, or end up in jail for life, or on death row if they kill anyone in this country.

Good old Huckabee had it right when he made the comment while talking to someone in a crowd after a debate, saying there would be a lot more "blood sacrifices" before the wars we start are ended. That's how our troops are thought of - nothing more than blood sacrifices to big oil!

I think we should require that returning Vets spend their first year readjusting to American Society, hanging out in Washington DC, right next to the White House and the Congressional Buildings. Just build nice little housing units and let them socialize and mingle with the lawmakers for a year. If they kill a few, well... that is the price we pay for freedom. If they only scare the bejesus out of them... maybe our politicians will get off their cash-stuffed butts and do something meaningful for this country.

KEM -- Much worse my man, by orders of magnitude:

127 veterans every week commit suicide

You'll find this impassioned Iraqi's plea impressive (especially her inclusion of DU issues). It starts with a short Ron Paul at the debate blurb, but most of the several minutes is Dr. Dahlia Wasfi speaking for the tens of million displaced and dead: Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

I think that the short Ron Paul Leader (Let me see if I got this right?) is well positioned to introduce the utterly profound and extremely powerful Dr. Dahlia Wasfi.

This woman's passionate plea for Iraqi justice for tens of millions suffering now, and nearly as many dead, is wondrous and very moving.

This heroic lady's words and thoughts deserve everybody's attention:

¿ Why do we so humanely expect that Geo the inferior had the intention to re-deliver well adjusted and healthy soldiers ?

Perhaps it was all along his intention to use so many battle wherry, PTSD'ed, and devastatingly torn veterans as internal sources of terror and emotional torture (actually using Americans to attack Americans).

They certainly were of little threat any longer to the Iraqi's.

¿ Can we at least raise the status of our heroic ex-soldiers
to something above welfare families ?

"But are we willing to do without cheap oil to stop this?"

For this and those two other good reasons, we are long overdue to start doing without oil at all, to the extent we can. For me, what works is, when pumping gasoline, I imagine the Iraqi childrens blood mingled in the fuel. Then I do something about it.

quousque January 14th, 2008 1:22 pm
Perhaps this might have more to do with the type of people that predominate in today's US military? As a drafted Army veteran of 1967-69, what I see of our current soldiers is frighteningly reminiscent of what we got when Macnamara lowered the standards temporarily, and not at all like 'GI Joes' of former wars. Our supported troops are probably a whole lot like the Roman legionaires of the late empire period ……… oops.

Thank you. I have been noticing this for quite awhile. I was in the Navy in the early 80's and at that point it was still relatively sane. But since that scene in Farenheit 9/11 where the soldiers being interviewed talked about turning up the heavy metal music and running tanks over women and children made my blood run cold. It is as if these kids join the military not for the benefits or shot at an education but just for the chance to live out murderous video game fantasies.
They say support our troops. I guess if it were an honorable war, where we were defending some lesser nation or the like I just might. But support these lunatics, are you kidding me?! It wouldn't surprise me if the killings after they returned arent intentional.
I really think "support the troops" slogans have been reduced to meaning nothing more than you support republican policy.

I agree johnwyclif. All wars have been about the poor dying so the rich could profit. Bush Inc. has refined this practice to an art. If I hear one more Bush apologist talk about how well the economy is doing or how low unemployment is I'm going to cry.

The people at the top don't see a problem. Even the middle class is living well because slave labor at home and abroad keeps everyone with a voice silent.

We are living in a society not unlike Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa. In both cases those who were comfortable were shocked that anything untoward was going on. They didn't know because they didn't want to know, and when their privileged and pampered lives were history, they whined about how THEIR country was a thing of the past.

If anybody thinks all this spilled blood and grinding poverty is about cheap oil for we, the masses, they are stupid at best and at worst complicit in the most immoral and corrupt administration in the history of the USA.

As it was with the civil rights movement, now rapidly losing ground under Republican Rule, the real killers don't lie awake nights figuring out how to "sell the needy for a pair of shoes", they just don't care. And because they don't care the super rich can continue to threaten them with an increase in oil prices.

What is the real cost of a high quality tee shirt on sale for three dollars? Or should we not look a gift horse in the mouth?

If you follow the link below you can see that some locals were investigating if it was a local gumbo season salt...

That case was only one of four recent cases where a young man cut up and cooked his girlfriend, but this was the only one that I know about that involved a war vet.

But dark humor aside, I think anyone who has been around the activist block could have predicted these murders would happen. We all knew. Just like we knew about WMD. We knew about all the lies because we know they are lying. the question is, why doesn't everyone know these things that we all just know by instinct?

http://blog.nola.com/tpcrimearchive/2006/10/boyfriend_cut_up_corpse_cooked.html

Yes "CoCo", the Vietnam vets were treated just as badly. Far fewer suffered from PTSD, many did but we weren't inhalig DU over there. We had the Agent Orange poison which is bad enough, but little if any DU. We all know over 65% of the Gulf War vets are now permanently disabled.

Most are suffering from PTSD, which is a generic medical term, used when doctors know there is a medical problem, but they don't know exactly what is wrong. The troops are suffiering from the classic symptoms of radiation poisoniing, which may create numerous diseases which were intiially caused from DU contamination, primarily from inhaling the microscopc dust. That can unarguably seriously damage brain cells. The fact that so many are committing suicide is an obvious clue of that problem.

http://www.gulfwarvets.com/du_howkilling.htm

And many of those 180,000+ serving in Iraq right now, have already done two, three, and four tours of duty there. They will need a lot of help when they eventually return.

Thanks nspire, I knew the number of vets killing themselves was over 100 per week, and I was just about to look up the exact number when I saw your comment.

How many troops would we need to take our government back?

If there is a fight I would support, it is that one.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security!!!!!!

But when a long train of abuses

and usurpations, pursuing invariably

the same Object evinces a design to

reduce them under absolute Despotism,

it is their right, it is their DUTY!!!!,

to throw off such Government,

and to provide new Guards

for their future security!!!!!!

WE have the right for REVOLUTION!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution

How could anyone live with themselves after taking part in the torture and killing of defenseless people who never harmed them or their country?

Didn't we see all of this before? After the Viet Nam war? You know, the one Dubya skipped by going AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard?

"How could anyone live with themselves after taking part in the torture and killing of defenseless people who never harmed them or their country?"

They can't that's the point.

We train them to be killers have them kill and then expect them to come back and be normal after it all.

It's sad. The true sick ones are the ones that lead them into a illegal war to die for corporate profit and a lie.

The ones that did this should hang for crimes against humanity.

The tip of the iceberg.

I suppose that's what they mean by the slogan "We'll make them 'Army Strong.'"

I agree ma77hew. And the same logic extents to anybody trapped in the justice system. With over half of people in prison serving time for smoking a joint, or some other non-violent drug offense, and everyone aware of the near certainty that they will come out angry, broken, and with a degree in criminal activity, who is really responsible for crime?

It's not enough that corporate profits demand wage slaves whose only alternative is crime against property which is a product of their labor in the first place. Corporations want to make a buck by doling out punishment a la private prison corporations.

Half of us are going to end up paying for the other half to be beaten into submission or incarcerated. We are already.

ezeflyer we can buy our oil a lot cheaper via trade after the costs of this war. The real reason for the war is the PNAC/Clean Break agenda and US-Israeli hegemony over the Middle East.

How we hate our children ....

From the CBSnews.com website:

CBS News' investigative unit wanted the numbers, so it submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Defense asking for the numbers of suicides among all service members for the past 12 years.

Four months later, they sent CBS News a document, showing that between 1995 and 2007, there were almost 2,200 suicides. That's 188 last year alone. But these numbers included only "active duty" soldiers.

CBS News went to the Department of Veterans Affairs, where Dr. Ira Katz is head of mental health.

"There is no epidemic in suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem," he said.

Why hasn't the VA done a national study seeking national data on how many veterans have committed suicide in this country?

"That research is ongoing," he said.

So CBS News did an investigation - asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.

And what it revealed was stunning.

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That's 120 each and every week, in just one year.

Dr. Steve Rathbun is the acting head of the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. CBS News asked him to run a detailed analysis of the raw numbers that we obtained from state authorities for 2004 and 2005.

It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)

One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)

coco: "... but weren't the vietnam war vets treated equally as bad upon their return?"

No, the VA worked pretty well then, and if there was any hostility towards vets, then I never experienced it or heard others mention anything. The stories of spitting and such appear to have been made up for propaganda by Righties, since a lot of the vets got active in anti-war activities and were welcomed everywhere. I don't think the Vietnam War would have been stopped without the large veteran opposition, and I predict the same will apply to this one. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this current group of vets will do so in significant numbers, and it might never end?

It's the same old story over and over, off to war go the troops; let's have a parade and lots of cheering, wave those flags, "be victorious brave lads (and lassies now)". And on they march, only to return crippled, maimed, distraught, disillusioned, or dead. Society says "never again". But "again" raises it's ugly, brutish head once more. After the wailing dies down, greed and fear once again take root, and the flags start flying.

Is there an end to this cycle? Has there EVER been a time where humans worked out their differences with mutual respect and with a sense of the sacredness of life? Are we doomed to repeat this idiocy ad infinitum?

They are all volunteers
Some would say they were nuts before they went over.

Each and every one of those support the troops stickers that is not followed up by a demand to Congress for greatly increased veterans benefits and facilities is treason.

I joke about a lot of serious things but as a son of a (now deceased) disabled veteran I saw my father's life what service to your country really means there is no joke here.

It makes me sick to think of the elite who joined the military in some form to avoid actual war service, (Bu$h the inferior, Dan Quayle) or avoided service with cheap educational or family dodges, (Shotgun Dick, John Wayne) while vigorously supporting war and empire. These slimy scumbags act brave as others are sent to be maimed or killed in their place. They do not even have enough honor to see to it that real veterans are helped as they deserve.

The United States is destined to provide the world's security. We provide security for Japan and Germany - those are our key contracts. We also provide security for Taiwan, South Korea and other European states - secondary but still vital. Third tier are the Middle Eastern states, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, now including Afghanistan and Iraq. We also have security pacts with the UK, Canada, and Australia. We'd like to expand our responsibilities so that these states may rely much more on our military industrial complex in the future. We'd like to provide for the complete security of the entire world, though admittedly Russia and China, and probably France and Iran are unlikely to join the fold. We look forward to a future with hundreds of millions of Americans employed in the great American military industrial security surveillance control complex. Collateral damage is inevitable.

the "collateral damages" have arrived in the U.S. now

This line from early in my 14+ years in the US Military: If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't volunteer.

We now have an all volunteer military. That makes Iraq a bad joke but the worst joke is our education (read my lips indoctrination) system which produces a population prepared to believe lies from the Potomic. . . Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, Tonkin Gulf Incident, Attack on America and the list will likely go on.

Today I gave money to a homeless vet begging on a street corner (Vietnam I would say from his age), and drove away crying because our vets are living on the streets and begging. Most of the homeless people I see are older men (around my age) whose cardboard signs claim they are vets, and studies bear that out. If you judge a society by how it treats it's vulnerable citizens, then the US is a shithole.

kathyodat

The following quote, from retired Special Forces master sergeant Stan Goff, rushes to mind:

"To preserve your own humanity, you must recognize the humanity of the people whose nation you now occupy and know that both you and they are victims of the filthy rich bastards who are calling the shots.

They are your enemies - The Suits - and they are the enemies of peace, and the enemies of your families, especially if they are Black families, or immigrant families, or poor families. They are thieves and bullies who take and never give, and they say they will "never run" in Iraq, but you and I know that they will never have to run, because they f***ing aren't there. You are...

They get the money. You get the prosthetic devices, the nightmares, and the mysterious illnesses."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/111703D.shtml

I must be in a downward spiral because I've just found myself agreeing with DOD.
The report makes a huge jump when expressing PSTD as a sole reason
for the increase in violence committed by current or former military personal.
What is certain is the increase in murders. Certainly there will be individual
cases were PSTD will be argued as a defense, but to lump all of these
examples of homicide in one category is sensationalism.

As an example of sensationalism, the BTK killer was a former airmen stationed oversees
during the Vietnam conflict. "Son of Sam", Shawcross, Dahmer, and the beltway sniper
were all former military.

Closer to home, slaughterhouse workers have an appalling record of violence--often engaging in spousal abuse. I am ignoring the incidents of workers deliberately torturing animals for fun and out of frustration--see Gail Eisnitz Slaughterhouse for more information(written years before Schlosser infant-friendly version).

It is such a good quote by Tolstoy the hunter turned vegetarian, always worth repeating:
We will always have wars as long as we have slaughterhouses.