Traumatised Veterans ‘Have Killed 120 in US’
While public anger is directed at the Pentagon for sending American soldiers ill-prepared to fight in Iraq, an equally troubling problem is rearing its head at home. Military veterans are returning from the war zone just as ill-prepared for civilian life and dozens suffering from post-traumatic stress are committing murder and manslaughter.
A new study has identified more than 120 killings committed by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as psychologically troubled soldiers slip through the net of an overextended military mental health system.
The study, which was conducted from examining local news reports, and which may well dramatically understate the scale of the problem, suggested that killings by military veterans have almost doubled since the start of the wars.
Although the Pentagon immediately questioned the accuracy of the figures, the mounting number of incidents across the US add up to a social problem akin to the traumas of returning Vietnam veterans a generation earlier.
The stories are harrowing. About a third involve the killing of a spouse, girlfriend or other relative, among them two-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating from a bombing near Fallujah that blew off his foot and damaged his brain.
Many others implicate drink and drugs, an increasing refuge for veterans traumatised by deaths they have witnessed or caused during the counter-insurgency led by American troops. The US government is being sued by relatives of 25-year-old Marine Lucas Borges, who became addicted to inhaling ether after a tour of Iraq at the beginning of the war, and who was convicted of second degree murder for crashing his car into an vehicle while driving the wrong way down a motorway, killing the other driver and injuring four others.
Collectively, the stories attest to the inadequacies of the US military mental health system, which a Pentagon task force last year described as “woefully understaffed”, poorly funded and undermined by the stigma still attached to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The disorder has been a major concern since veterans’ associations found that 15 per cent of Vietnam vets still suffered from PTSD a decade after the conflict ended in 1975.
“To truly support our troops, we need to apply our lessons from history and new-found knowledge about PTSD to help the most troubled of our returning veterans,” Brockton Hunter, a criminal defence lawyer specialising in these cases, said in a recent lecture.
The study of killings by military veterans was conducted by The New York Times. It showed an 89 percent increase - from 184 cases to 349 - in the six years following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in the number of homicides involving active-duty military personnel and new veterans. About three-quarters of these cases involved Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
More than half of the crimes involved guns while the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bath drownings, the report said. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.
A Pentagon spokesman questioned the methodology of the study, which examined local press reports to identify cases, and rejected the comparison of post-9/11 coverage with the previous six years. The rise might be due to newspaper reporters increased awareness of military service, a spokesman suggested, and questioned the “lumping together” of different kinds of crimes.
The New York Times said its study was conservative. “This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail,” it added.
© 2008 The Independent
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.
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?
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 —
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.
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.
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.
Let us remember that Tim McVeigh was a veteran of Gulf War I who came back disturbed by the experience.
Here in New Orleans our local “Traumatised Veteran” cut up and cooked his girlfriend.
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:
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:
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.
“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.
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
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?
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.
Yes these results were forseable, and many in the army and civil service want to address them and prepare for more returning troops, but again I agree there is a stigma- as a portrayal of weakness and denial- for PTSD, and hush-hush things in the army just don’t get funding. Not that funding would be the cure. No war maybe. You cannot imagine the stress and strain of being over there, of being in a fire-fight. Gang members lead a comparably easier existance. As for recruiting standards, I’m not sure that is a significant enough factor. It may skew a survey number, if good numbers were taken- mainly because some of those lower standard recruits may have been predisposed to violent crimes anyway, but that’s just a suspicion. The fact is, we won’t know the number of violent crimes, especially spouse abuse, and how it has increased. And the Army definetley doesn’t want to talk about it, or seemingly acknowledge it with proper VA hospital care. I was in Ft. Bragg when the troops came home from Desert Storm, and it was crazy and absolutely tense- and that was a ‘light’ war. Just image hundreds of thousands of americans in hell for 5 years, so far,… how would you come home?
My only answers: learn from vietnam, and don’t go to war. Chances of that happening…..
“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.”
This is significant (BTW - please always call it: “the so-called war on terror”)
I for one believe that a cognitive psychologist could easily explain these statistics. It is obvious that most GI’s go over there are from small towns, know little of teh world, and have with a deep, sincere belief in the shining goodness of the USA. But soon realize once they ar over there that they are just paid thugs, senselessly murdering a people who had absolutely no quarrel with them until they invaded their home. The resulting cognitive dissonance then leads to severe PTSD, crippling, extreme forms of somatoform disorder, major depression, inability to find employment, and suicide.
The ones that spook me are the ones who come back perfectly mentally healthy, and go into politics, like Kerry did after his murderous marauding in the Mekong Delta. They have teh potential to kill millions.
~QUOUSQUE~ You never heard of Vietnam vets being poorly treated? Have you ever heard of the Agent Orange problem, how the vets were, and still are treated by the VA and the government about that. __ Coogle agent orange.
COCO wasn’t asking about the sptting on returning vets and I never experienced that myself. And Vietnam vets recieve preferential treatment when appling for state and government jobs. It is the medicl treatment we were discussing, and indeed the vets of the Vietnam era were treated almost as badly as the Gulf war vets are.
We also didn’t have a near as many PTSD cases and there were a lot more vets who returned from Vietnam than from the Gulf wars, over 50,000 never did come home alive. Those who did make it, didn’t have a major suicide and murdering problem either. This is different, and you should read that prior link I posted, it takes less than two minutes to read it all. There are other links available on the subject if you google depleted uranium.
This line is from early in my ten years+ US military career: If you can’t take a joke, don’t volunteer.
We have an all volunteer military. That makes Iraq a bad joke but a worse joke is our compulsory school (read my lips - indoctrination) system which continues to produce a population capable of telling and believing obvious lies.
Most of our elected officials have spent time in the public school system. Those in the Senate and House both believe and tell lies. The white house is bald-faced. The low-ranking military apparently believes lies. The (stars) pass on lies from above.
Voters REALLY believe lies. Evidence: Wilson(WWI), FDR (WWII), HST (Korea), DDE (Bay of Pigs), JFK (Bay of Pigs, too), LBJ (Guns and Butter), RMN (Trickle-down Economics), GHWB (Iraq I), WJC+Hilliary (”I did not have . . .” (not that I care)), and GWB (Afganistan andIraq II). Nobody voted for Ford, Carter probably believed what he said and St. Ronald knew a good script when he saw it. Not a very good record.
Insist Ron Paul be nominated and hope he asks Hukabee or Kucinich to be his VP. Yes, yes I know Kucinich is a democrat but so what?
What’s missing from the discussion? Drugs. No, not the illegal kind. Weren’t the US airmen who shot up the Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan given drugs to keep ‘em in the air longer?
Then there’s Mefloquine. It’s an anti-malaria medication that has been given to troops overseas. Manufacturer Hoffman-LaRoche’s own warnings included side effects such as aggression, depression, and suicidal thoughts. So, after DU, all they’ve seen, and after administering such a drug to stressed individuals in war zones (and expecting sound judgement on the battlefield!) we’re surprised that these vets aren’t adjusting well to being home?
Predictable and preventable? Well, you’d think so, but only by people who actually respected the individuals sent to war. Apparently, not to folks who just thoughtlessly repeat catchy slogans like, “support the troops.” Ick.
Gee~PJD~, where do you get the idea that most of the volunteer troops come from small towns? You have some data on that comment?
Actually a good percentage of the troops serving in this current mess, (Bush’s War) are National Guard troops, or people who served three or four years in the military, had their honorable discharge and were working Americans who were forced back into active duty, some over 53 years of age. Many are parents of young children or are single mothers or fathers, etc. Most of those troops have now served more than one tour of duty in Iraq or Afganastan and will be called up again to go.
We don’t have a draft. Wish we did, the shit would hit the fan.
Kids are offered top notch job training, see the world, excellent educational opportunities and that was the only way a high percentage could ever afford to go to college. They are given huge sign on bonuses now and the recruiters make it sound sooooo good. The military recruiting school is the best salesman school in the world. That is a fact BTW. So don’t put all of these volunteer troops into one basket, most didn’t join up with the thought of they will be allowed to kill someone. __ Far from it.
Oops. Trickle-down Economics belonged to St. Ronald. RMN said “I’m not a crook.” and carpet bombed.
Unfortunately, I predicted this months ago, even before the so-called war on terror began. I am a VietNam Vet, 1968, and I am well aware of the way the military “prepares” soldiers for return to “civilization”…they don’t. And, yes, PTSD is stigmatized because it is “unmanly” to ask for help for “invisible” wounds. And, the use of “feminine” terms to pejoratize(is that a word?) behavior, ie, pussy, girlie, sissy, be a man about it, etc. It is clear that the military does not accept women as equal and valuable. When I was in the Army, there were no women in combat training, so we got constant messages berating anyone who didn’t perform up to standards, as a woman. So, though women are now legally a part of the military combat units, they are still not accepted fully in that role. And, the fact that women soldiers are dying in Iraq from toxicity because they are afraid to go to the latrine at night for fear of being raped by their own comrades(”men?”) is a telling commentary on this old paradigm.
This is a very serious situation for all of us, and we have to take responsibility for holding our politicians and educators responsible for spreading this information.
peace,
st john
A friend of mine was killed in Iraq back in early November. Some nights I am jolted suddenly awake with thoughts about what it must have been like for him when it happened, and this terrible, stark feeling of terror.
I didn’t see or experience anything, I was busy here in the U.S. ranting to people about the murderers who control our government. I only found out that my friend had been killed - but it’s had a pretty traumatic effect on me, considering the night terrors I’ve been having.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for those who were there, and witnessed it, or for anyone else who is over there witnessing the brutality, dismemberment, and deaths both sudden and prolonged going on all around them.
The amount of people psychologically traumatized by this despicable hell of blood and terror must be so vast. Family members and friends of those who have been killed, and friends and family of those who come back injured, or psychologically ill.
It’s so sad.
“Military veterans are returning from the war zone just as ill-prepared for civilian life and dozens suffering from post-traumatic stress are committing murder and manslaughter.”
I’ve been wondering when these statistics would surface.
As usual, when you live under a government that denies every and any reality that confronts their misguided and treacherous foreign policy, the information had to reach us via the UK/Independent.
To the above, thank you all for your comments Thank you for discussing the problems of this country that was once, a bastion of freedom, some truth, and the willingness to come to the aid of disadvantaged people in the world, but has now descended into the pits of a distorted capitalist democracy that cares only for the exacerbation of greed and the ascendancy of power at any cost.
Having lived this form of hell in my past life, that the government meets out to its young generation, I remember in my young life, after being drafted to serve during Nam era, I actually accepted my service as a payment to this society. I remembered the “Ask not” phrase of JFK ringing in my ears.
It took a long time to overcome what I had to do there. It took a longer time to become educated as to what power was all about. It also required many years to see through the cynical media and Hollywood propaganda. I had to work there, to fully understand the culture that I would die to save. We all see how this bunch at the Capital in Washington has changed the methodology to hoodwink the entire population. Have you found the terrorists hiding under your bed? Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Obama in some sense see this game. They see how these old men, practicing their confidence game and criminality, aimed at capturing the ignorant public and youth who are looking for a reason for existence and heroism that the advertising industry sells to them and the power elite fabricates with illegal lying wars.
I meet the people serving our troops at the VA they also having children one with a girl that is a triple amputee and fathers waiting to hear about their son’s who are in Iraq, finally getting on to it that this game was put in motion by a group who creates the fiction for the young people to buy about saving their country. While they pay for it with blood, legs and arms and shattered lives for the ‘made in China” and also protecting the oil that supports it. The hydrocarbons they fight also destroying the world for those who are left!
I read here that some would like to take up arms, and take the government down they are so angry. But my friends the Blackwaters and huge police forces would stop any of that 1776 fervor and it is why they have been created. This is over, what is not yet over is the world but that is coming too very soon. I am sorry for the final gift to these people who fought and believed. The only hope left is that in the end the old corporate giants and their servants in the government will go down with the world they helped to destroy.
The unfortunate thing is, the life that remains for these vets returning, will be further destroyed by the environmental agenda they fought to continue, such a ruthless and cynical end for such noble, misplaced sacrifice and bravery. Many of you feel so badly, as do I and must empathize and say to all of you your comments make me sad.
You, Nietzsche, and the lady above make such kind references and show so much hurt, and frustration as do so many others as I perused your comments. With my work in film I comment on this state of affairs in my way but I know regardless of my efforts and many others, we will not stop this madness! We will not triumph because the system is too heavy with the so called truth of the western world’s globalized, capitalized system of government and the security forces paid for its continuance.
The erosion of civil liberties has finally arrived in this so called democracy, the media is bought, one sees this buffoon on CNN shouting about 12 million people doing the slavery for Americans who must be thrown out. He is one of the bunch that shouts for the continuance of American hegemony and fight for more wars to continue this rubbish called democracy in what once was truly becoming a great world democracy but is no more. All of you here responding to a paper in the UK for the real news and views that would never have this editorial in the US news network. This friend is the state of affairs.
Keep shouting this is the only so called freedom that are left.
I think to most Americans “supporting the troops” means placing another $3.oo Chinese made magnet on their vehicle.
If “we the people” would do something other than wring our hands and say “what a shame” perhaps we could bring about the changes needed to really help our vets.
On another note, does anyone really believe campaign promises.
Ya gotta wonder.
“How in the world could such a group of the world’s most dangerous bastard’s get together?”
You might start by ‘googling’ “George Bush United Fruit” to see the long dirty history of this crime family.
The first problem in the White House is inexperienced and Non_Veteran personnel, the President and Vice President;(Bush/Chaney) attempting to direct a military force in a mickey-mouse encounter.(The occupation of Iraq is not a War.)
Secondly, the people that are in bed with this administration are all self serving, inhumane, incompassionate thieves using the US military as a tool for their personal gain.
We need to have every “Troop”, now Veteran, that served in this Iraq fiasco confiscate all of the gain or profits realized by the MSM, Corporate Execs,President, Vice President, Congress, The House of Reps, and all NeoCons as restitution for their lost of time, lives, body parts and honor.
Let the American People support the Troops in this endeavor to secure justice from this unjust regime.
Remember, Johnny and Harry, and Sue, and Larry were all innocent kids that were trained by this Government to murder, plunder, and terrorize weak nations worldwide. Now, these damaged Kids return home to the USA to murder and plunder and terrorize such as they have been trained.
Let this be a lesson to all future generations. If these Warmongers want to War, let them send their sons, daughters, neices and nephews and or go themselves.
The honor for the Veteran has now become dis-honor. SHAME ON US–SHAME ON AMERICA
“Gee~PJD~, where do you get the idea that most of the volunteer troops come from small towns? You have some data on that comment?”
I worked in the Pittsburgh Federal building, often joining protests downstairs at the front entrance during lunch and often encountered the (invariably white) kids in the lobby or in the elevator, getting shipped out of the Mil. Entrance Processing Sta. (MEPS) on the 17th floor to boot camp. Based on their gawking at the tall buildings and crowded sidewalks, their reaction in the elevators (it was apparently their first multi-story elevator ride) and occasional conversations, they were far-disproportionately from small towns around western Pennsylvania, or some outlying suburbs. No city people, especially no black people.
I can’t remember anytime during the Iraq war that the majority of the people living within the Pittsburgh city limits weren’t against the war. But boy, oh boy, we didn’t dare try holding an antiwar protest in the suburbs or, say, up in Punxsutawney.
At least we know without a doubt this time that American soldiers, and Blackwater mercenaries are baby killing, child raping murderers…
KEM PATRICK: America’s treatment of its veterans is about the best one can expect, all nations and times considered. We really should make it more clear to young folks that war is a racket and they are suckers to join the military. The scene from “All Quiet On The Western Front” where the wounded ‘hero’ returns to his school just about sums the reality of it all up. As to today’s veteran problems, we’ll probably straighten up the worst abuses, and in a little while forget about the rest until next time, as always ……… so it goes.
If this administration is allowed to walk away from their positions and not face prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity, America will exist in name only and its greatness will forever be only a memory. A dear friend of my deceased mother, at the age of 87 or so, told me today that she believes this administration is satanic … I certainly can’t argue with that assessment.
There have been many suicides by Vietnam era vets. And in the years to come, we’ll continue to see them from Iraq vets too.
The effects of Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium and the resistance to acknowledging the harm caused are obscene. Of course the Vietnamese and Iraqis as a whole have been exposed to more and for a longer duration.
When you add to that the brutalizing and killing of ordinary people in lads occupied, and peoplle who have held onto some semblance of their humanity are going to manifest things like PTSD, other psychological illnesses along with physical injuries due to questionable vacines, combat and non-combat physical injuries.
To quote Ben Harper ” You’re too young to know that you’re too young to go, there’s no freedom to be found lying face up in the ground.” (gather Round the Stone)
Damn the fucking veterans groups acting as background for Bush, Cheney and the rest of the Chickenhawks. Then of course there are the Neo-Brown Shirts Gathering of Eagles.
Another bogus story. There are 1.5 million Afghan/Iraq vets. The murder rates for the vets, assuming the average vet has been discharged for only 2 years is 4.02 per 100 K population, while it 5.8 in the general population. So they are less dangerous than the at large population.
So whats up?
http://www.moveamericaforward.org/index.php/MAF/MAFNews
Part of it is the government is doing what it can to destroy the US Army (not the Navy or Airforce) under the Revolution in Military Affairs plan and replace it with a private mercenary army (Blackwater) . See Lyndon LaRouche’s “Private Armies, Captive People,”
http://www.larouchepac.com/material/2007/08/09/stop-shultz-rohatyn-cabal-behind-halliburtons-war.html
This would explain the shoddy treatment of our troops, many of whom were National Guard and Reserve who return home only to find their jobs replaced, despite laws to protect them. Those who are wounded, physically or emotionally or both, are coerced into accepting disability ratings designed to reduce their benefits and access to health care. Whatever you may think about our wars, and I am against them (but do understand our need for the oil), our treatment of the troops upon their return is beyond outrageous.
http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/2007/04/lead-ft-lewis-army-lawyer-military.html
We have also gutted the National Guard, those returning home to resume their duties do so after having left their equipment behind, so are not very well prepared to respond to emergencies like Katrina.
The other issue is HR 2640 that passed and is about to be signed by Bush. Some have argued it’s intent is to disarm veterans who have had PTSD (about 1/4 of all veterans), although this is denied. The NYT misleading article makes me question this.
Well they may not give a shit ,since they plan on thinning the herd a bit anyway:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
Maybe we should do something?
Maybe that’s why the Defense Dep. is in no hurry to bring the troops home any time soon, they’ll need time to desensetize them before turning them loose on the streets of America. As a Viet Nam Vet., I was just dropped off the boat with a heightened sense of aggression, we didn,t even know PTSD was. I displayed some very unhealthy behaviors in ways both toward others that I cared about,perfect strangers ,as well as toward myself.
Drinking is what you do over there to deal with the stess,so it stands to reason that when you get home that monster is still in your being. Not only that everybody at the bars wants to buy you drinks,[they mean well, but it doesn,t help] Nobody that has not gone through it can even get close to knowing how injured your psychic is. There is no normal!Drinking and drugs are the only way to cope at first. Then the lucky ones get help, the others end up in jail,or dead.
Only a sociopath could send men and woman into such hell.
The number of ground troop vets who have been exposed to large amounts of DU, is not anywhere near a million. The government lies. Of course. The number of Vietnam vets who committed suicide is not anywhere near the 5,000+ a year that the Gulf war vets suicide numbers are.
The US Army and department of Defense, the VA have regulations to treat ALL veterans who suffer from DU exposure and they have blatently ignored them. We are only seeing the tip of the iceburg as someone else here stated. Over two thirds of the Gulf War vets who served ‘ON the ground’ in Iraq, are permanently disabled. Nothing such as that has ever occurred in our history and there will be thousands more filling that role within a short period of time. Hell, we have guys who have serious brain damage still on active duty, they don’t even know they’re sick. These guys who are murdering their girl friends and cooking them are nuts, but they probably didn’t or don’t realize it.
http://www.traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_3_ques.html
Lets see if that link is still available.
This article may or may not be accurate in it’s conclusions but, in either case, there is a certain superficiality exhibited by such statements as: “Collectively, the stories attest to the inadequacies of the US military mental health system…” as if, where the military mental health system more adequate, we could send people to commit crimes against humanity by invading and occupying a helpless country already ravaged by ten years of war and sanctions and then expect our “heroic” troops to return home and have their guilt and trauma treated with psychology and pharmaceuticals so that they could resume their “normal” lives.
They are SO NOT KIDDING when they say PTSD stigma is an issue. According to all the troops I’ve talked to, “if you can’t hack it, you shouldn’t be in the military”, and “if you have a problem, you can’t talk about it, everyone will make fun of you”, and even “they’ll find ways to demote you and make your life miserable”.
Oh yes. Stigmas are alive and well.
And soooo many people are dead or will die because of it, suicide, homicide, or civilian in a war zone.
How many human sparks will this war machine snuff out before we dismantle it?
Anyone remember the story a few months back about the CBS producer that looked into Vet suicides- the VA told him they don’t record those numbers…
cbsbews.com/….
I thought this story shoulda brought down the house… but nope, just another outrage buried by britney & dogfighting pablum.
I’d hoping to see a hundred citizens march on their tv station with this story- demanding this and the many other outrages receive the attention they deserve… remember in Ukraine it was one tv station where all the newscasters quit on the same day, “we refuse to broadcast your lies.” and that burst the dam… maybe there is a decent news crew out there… ha ha ha?
Did you ever try to talk a young man or woman not to join up? So many have stars in their eyes, and if their parents don’t warn them of the dangers, and the reality of their blindness to “duty”, then more will join up and then come home crippled physically and mentally. Wish more people would be able to prevent these younsters from joining the miitary. But where will they learn the truth? Who is out there warning them not to be foolhardy? Instead you hear words from jerks like McCain who believe we have to ’stay the course’. Even so, most just won’t listen. young folks don’t want to listen to the elders. Instead,the young prefer make fun of the old ones.
I would imagine that no war leaves a participant untouched in some way. My father and his brother served in WW2, two uncles in Korea and I served in Viet Nam. There was never much talk of any of our experiences when family gatherings brought us all together. Yet there were certain instances when we shared what the rest of the family could not.
If this horrid little war for profit in Iraq was being fought via a draft, so that every single family shared in at least the possibility of being touched personally by it, I think we would be seeing tens of thousands in the streets as we did during the Viet Nam conflict. If the sons and daughters of our politicians were serving there we might see a lot more of them voting against continuing to fund this criminal undertaking.
The crap about supporting the troops fails any legitimate litmus test, and very badly. It was not the liberals who sent too few into that nation. It was not the progressives who sent them with no armor and in vehicles designed for military police use not for battlefield conditions. It was no leftist who left the armories unguarded, allowed the hospitals to be looted while posting guards only at the oil ministry in Baghdad! If the Democrats had a spine that garbage would have backfired all over the Cheney Presidency.
Support the troops - Vote Kucinich, vote Paul.
earlier today c.d. was not available for a few hours (well not for me anyway) so i hopped over to: www.informationclearinghouse.info and watched the 4 minute video: ‘we are trained killers’. everyone has a choice.
I’m sick and tired of hearing people effectively pass blame to the soldiers for having “volunteered.” Volunteered to be killed. Volunteered to kill. Volunteered to be wounded. Bullshit. Our military recruiters are liars, con-men. Our educational system fails to build minds capable of rational decision-making abilities. Our culture and society is so FUBAR towards the very idea of what patriotism means. Our economic structure is set up to deny opportunity to sufficient numbers to die for the welfare of those who may financially benefit. Our media are largely nothing less than a propaganda division of the monied interests that started this whole mess, and it doesn’t even need to be delineated between business and politics, because the lines that divide them pretty much don’t exist anymore.
They were tricked. Misled. Fooled. Lied to. Pressured. Corralled. Those who would call a returning soldier a baby-killer or a murderer for what they have been through are the ones who really make me sick to my stomach. What was done to them by our nation (that includes all of us, no exceptions) is reprehensible.
Quite literally, we must stop adding insult to injury.
thewonderingyou
NAILS IT!
The proof is in the pudding.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
Maybe we should just point returning soldiers towards the White House
So the entire nation is responsible for the war, with the exception of the soldiers? Everyone is a mass murderer except for those who pulled the triggers, who bear no responsibility?
The fact that something sickens you doesn’t mean it’s not true. Believe me, I have the same problem.
Unfortuantly Doug, those in the White House do the pointing.
Hi ardee. No war leaves anybody untouched. The notion that “the war” is something happening in the mid east from which we at home are protected is a version of the lie that we are fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here.
I have never fought in a war but Viet Nam and now Iraq are realities I can’t accept. The broken minds and bodies, the missing limbs, the squandered resources needed so desperately at home—and for what?
The ruling class could make money from education, welfare, aid to poor countries, etc. IF they had the imagination and were not to lazy to think.
Y’all elected the village idiot, now its time to reap the harvest.
We did NOT elect him. But we got him and we share the blame because of however he reached his elevated position.
barely human (11:40 am)
Not once did I exclude soldiers from responsibility in my post. My point is that dumping the blame on the soldiers is cowardly and cruel. KEM is correct: we all share the blame. And it’s not just about who you voted for. It’s about what you buy, what you drive, whose corporate pockets you are lining, and whether or not you (this is the “general” you, not you specifically, by the way) are prepared to take on the heavy burden of making the necessary (if not sometimes unpleasant) changes in your lifestyle to make this tragedy impossible in the future.
Does George ever meet one-on-one with any of these semi-sane, shell shocked, professional killers? I wonder.
My friend Erik Nair was not a number or a statistic; he was a loving human being. He was also a Marine who handled DU-tipped weapons in the first Gulf War. He was left with a number of problems, not the least of which was an unresponsive VA. Rather than be a burden to others, Erik took his life on September 26, 2007. Rest in peace Erik, you are gone, but not forgotten: http://usmcforum.com/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi?read=31497
thewonderyou, your words are exactly right. Better said than I could have done.
Nietzsche, it’s not about lack of imagination or laziness, it’s about the highest return for investment. Consequences mean nothing to corporations. Only humans have personhood with consequences.
kathyodat