Colonel Ted Westhusing died in a military installation trailer near Baghdad airport in June of a single gunshot wound to his head.
His death, whether a suicide, (as ruled by by the Army), or by other means, is a tale of the questions raised by Iraq in general. Why are we there, what is our mission, and how should we conduct ourselves there.
Westhusing, 44, was no ordinary officer. He was one of the Army's leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor.
This was a man who had a 'safe' job, teaching at West Point, but he chose to go to Iraq. There, his job was training Iraqi security forces to take over from the Americans, overseeing USIS, an American contracting firm. By all accounts, he was doing an excellent job, garnering high praise from General Patraeus, who was in charge of training.
But Colonel Westhusing was not happy.
In e-mails to his family, Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.
In addition, Colonel Westhusing received an anonymous letter detailing corruption and human rights violations by USIS in Iraq. He reported it to his senior officers, and there is an ongoing 'investigation'.
Found at the scene of his death was a letter, written by him, which included this:
"I cannot support a msn [mission] that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars. I am sullied," it says. "I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored.
"Death before being dishonored any more."
Here is a man who felt strongly about ethics and honor, and found it so lacking in Iraq. What's a few human rights violations, a bit of torture, corrupting contracts? Even lies about why we did this?
A military psychologist, Lt. Col. Lisa Breitenbach, reviewed Westhusing's emails and interviewed colleagues, and had this to say (emphasis mine):
She said that Westhusing had placed too much pressure on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking. Westhusing struggled with the idea that monetary values could outweigh moral ones in war. This, she said, was a flaw.
There you have it, folks. Monetary values outweigh moral values. Thanks Lisa, for articulating what is exactly wrong in this Iraq picture.
Colonel Westhusing, you have it right, and Lisa Breitenbach, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and all their followers have it wrong.
We honor you.
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