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Ghost of Haditha Haunts American Shooting Spree in Iraq
New American Media Editor's Note: When a US Army Sergeant went on a shooting spree in Iraq, killing five fellow soldiers, his targets were different from the victims of previous rampages like Haditha. But NAM contributor Aaron Glantz says the source of the trauma and the rage is the same. Aaron Glantz reported extensively from Iraq from 2003 to 2005 and is author of The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans.
Now we know how the Iraqi people feel. For six years, nearly 150,000 exhausted, traumatized American soldiers have occupied the country governed by loose rules of engagement.
The result has been a series of massacres: a squad of angry Marines on their second tour kill 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha; in nearby Ishaqi, US troops are caught on video storming a house, machine-gunning eleven civilians to death. In Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, an American soldier who displays symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, rapes and murders a young Iraqi girl after being prescribed sleeping pills and sent back into combat.
In each of these cases, the victims were Iraqi, the perpetrators American. But that all changed Monday, when John Russell, a US Army Sergeant on his third tour in Iraq walked into a mental health clinic at Camp Liberty in Baghdad and went on a shooting spree, killing five of his fellow soldiers.
Russell's killing rampage is getting a different kind of treatment from our government and the media, but long-time observers of America's military know both types of killings come from the same place in the human psyche.
"The rage to kill out of control" is how Vietnam veteran Shad Meshad describes it. A licensed social worker, Meshad helped found a national network of storefront mental health clinics in the 1970s and now runs the National Veterans Foundation.
"These are situations where someone made the choice in a controlled environment to be uncontrolled and to kill," Meshad said. "I don't see any difference whether the victim is a civilian or an enemy prisoner of war, or a fellow soldier. When someone snaps and they go from anger to rage which is uncontrolled then anything can happen."
While there is still much we don't know about Sergeant Russell's history and motivations, a picture is beginning to emerge of a soldier pushed to the brink of insanity by repeated and consistent exposure to war.
The 44-year old Russell had spent many years of his life at war when he allegedly opened fire and killed five of his fellow soldiers. Russell was drawing to the end of his third tour in Iraq and had also served deployments in Bosnia and Kosovo.
And while it's not yet clear what experiences Russell had during those deployments, veterans and mental health professionals have long drawn a link between these types of shootings by veterans to a combination of PTSD and a permissive attitude by the military command structure which looks the other way when American soldiers commit war crimes.
It's for these reasons, they say, that crime statistics among Vietnam veterans are so frightening. By 1986, the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey reported that almost half of all Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD had been arrested or jailed at least once - 34.2 had been jailed more than once, 11.5 percent had been convicted of a felony.
"Every atrocity strengthens the enemy and potentially disables the service member who commits it," psychiatrist Jonathan Shay wrote in his landmark book Odysseus in America. "The overwhelming majority of people who join the armed services are not psychopaths; they are good people who will be seared by knowing themselves to be murderers." Calling out politicians who say we need to support the troops by bending the rules of international law, Shay says, "you do not ‘support our service men,' by mocking the law of land warfare and calling it a joke."
Nearly 800,000 soldiers have served at least two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and the non-partisan Rand Corporation estimates more than 300,000 suffer from either Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or major depression.
Last May, USA Today reported the Pentagon had illegally deployed 43,000 soldiers deemed medically unfit for combat during the first five years of the Iraq war.
We are only now beginning to see the violent effects of these tragic decisions. So far, most of the victims have been Iraqis, but this week's Baghdad shooting shows that increasingly we will see dead Americans as well.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllI really cannot buy into the argument that "stress and PTSD" leads to someone raping and murdering a young girl.
Nor can invading a home and gunning down women and children be seen as "stress".
A thug is a thug. While I understand PTSD is real I would hope it suddenly not be used to excuse what can not be excused.
Beat me to it and thanks for saying so. You are absolutely correct. The "I'm a victim too" argument is absurd.
War cannot help but twist the psyches of the warriors. It seems that you either become a killing machine, justifying your slaughter, or go crazy with fear, stress, and guilt.
Not true at all....sorry.
Yes, Thomas, it is. Killing another has a negative effect on the psyche, especially those who are more sensitive. Even if you do not kill, staying in a war zone in a constant state of fear and stress has it's own consequences. In Vietnam, drug usage and addiction increased dramatically. And many of those returning from war are deeply scarred, psychologically. Look at the suicide rate among military personnel, you think that is due ONLY to long tours of duty? In a country that glorifies the military and militarism, many do not want to see what is right in front of their noses. War is always a curse and never a blessing, even if many think otherwise. Some would say that this does not apply to WW2, but those who fought in it were damaged as well. I remember how the military experience hardened my father. True, not everyone responds the same, and the 'damage' is not always evident. The long history of war has brought great sorrow to the United States, and lately the rest of the world, though you are free to believe what you will.
About 10 minutes into this video Amy Goodman and Doug Peacock talk about Doug's PTSD after Vietnam. In essence Doug says that moving too many dead children and betraying trust destroyed his soul. He could not be in (US) society when he came back. He camped for 2 years and came alive because of Grizzy bears.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/12/doug_peacock_on_walking_it_off
Think about this: eventually all of the vets (and mercenaries) of 2-3-4-tours in Iraq and Afghanistan (and who knows where else), will be back in the US. When their neighbors say how shocked they are at the shooting sprees I won't be shocked.
For the first time in my life I think I may live to see the destruction of this planet by the actions of my birthplace.
Aaron - thank you for Winter Soldier.
The U.S. policy in Iraq has failed and has been failing since 2004. Since there is no military draft, not to mention a huge decline in military recruiting, the military has continuously redeployed thousands of soldiers - this is unnatural and unhealthy to say the least. And add to that, thousand of soldiers that have fled to Canada, deserted or gone AWOL has led to a U.S. military policy that is in shambles. We have lost in Iraq but the govt will not accept or admit it. Yet, Obama is prepared to send thousands of these war-damamged soldiers from Irag into Afganistan. This will not continue.
The only possible benefit of Americans killing Americans is you need to aim higher. Your buddies are not the villains, the real villains are the Generals and politicians, and heads of major Multinational corps. A good target would be the so called security types mercenaries etc but remember the leaders. Do enough of that and the war will be over and you can go home. Guilty of nothing but setting it right!!!
The article begins with:
QUOTE:
New American Media Editor's Note: When a US Army Sergeant went on a shooting spree in Iraq, killing five fellow soldiers, his targets were different from the victims of previous rampages like Haditha. But NAM contributor Aaron Glantz says the source of the trauma and the rage is the same. Aaron Glantz reported extensively from Iraq from 2003 to 2005 and is author of The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans.
Now we know how the Iraqi people feel. For six years, nearly 150,000 exhausted, traumatized American soldiers have occupied the country governed by loose rules of engagement.
END QUOTE
I agree with Aaron Glantz, but not with respect to this shooting spree by a U.S. aoldier against other U.S. soldier making or permitting Americans to now "know how the Iraqi people feel". That was surely said in well intended terms, but I just don't agree. This shooting spree certainly will permit the families and other loved ones of the soldiers who were killed in this spree to have a feeling of how Iraqis have been feeling for years, but NOT most Americans, most of whom are not personally affected by this shooting spree, or the extreme losses and hardship the Iraqis have been forced into bearing.
Want Americans to get a "good" taste of how Iraqis have been feeling? Well, bomb the f*ck out of the USA, bomb wedding celebrations with many innocent people present, destroy their towns, cities, water and other civilian infrastructure, archaeological museums, etcetera. Then they'll begin to start to [know] how Iraqis have been feeling.
Most Americans don't care about other Americans. An American who is innocent is aggressed, violently, on the street, in public, with plenty of passersby, and what will be the general reaction. The passersby will keep on passing by, not stopping, not caring. I have some personal experience from there, several or more years of my young youth years; and yes, it was always in public places.
Similarly, unfortunatley, in Canada. There was a TVA or TQS (both Quebec tv stations) news reporting crew on Ste Catherines street in downtown Montreal a few years ago, during "broad" daylight, and while they were reporting and the cameraman was filming, suddenly a poor guy across the street was violently attacked by two others, for a savage beating. The main news reporter turned this into something tha appeared like he thought tv viewers would appreciate this like some WWF stage act, almost, saying words to the effect of, "Oh, viewers, look over there across the street, a guy is being savagely beaten by two others, ..." yada yada yada; instead of saying, f.e., "Oh, sorry viewers, I and my tv news reporting team must temporarily interrupt because there's a poor guy across the street being savagely beaten by two others and the group of us from this news crew are going to head over there to intervene". There were also passersby on the sidewalk, who just walked past the guy and the two aggressors, while they beat the other guy.
He was there stabbed to death!
Like I said, "Similarly, unfortunatley, in Canada"!
It's not five U.S. soldiers being killed that's going to move Americans, in general, much. Well over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war on Iraq, alone, so far.