Like many of you, I read about this goddamn war just about every day. It never ends:
three members of a special forces unit based at Fort Carson, in Colorado Springs, have committed suicide.
I thought those Special Ops guys were tough. Suicide? Did we lower the bar to meet recruiting goals? I think not. Things must be tough.
The NYT has an article on the psychological cost of this war. Here's how it ends:
"The great change among American troops in Germany during the Second World War was when they discovered the concentration camps," Dr. Marlowe said. "That immediately and forever changed the moral appreciation for why we were there."
As soldiers return from Iraq, he said, "it will be enormously important for those who feel psychologically disaffected to find something which justifies the killing, and the death of their friends."
54% of soldiers say that morale is low or very low. I don't think they'll find the justification they need when they come home. Another consequence of this adventure.
The article is well worth reading, but that last segment was quite a revelation. In retrospect, it seems obvious (like many good ideas, once it's pointed out) that soldiers during WWII would find their suffering and the deaths of their brothers in arms justified when they learned about the Holocaust.
Our men and women serving in Iraq, as well as their families, know that the president and his administration, lied to the country. One of the goals of the war was to make George Bush appear to be a strong leader. Our soldiers must be sad that their mission failed. Colin Powell is a particular traitor in this respect, in part because if anyone had the ability to halt this madness, it was him, and because he shelved his doctrine requiring the necessity for a clear goal and an exit strategy. What is our goal? What is the goal for our soldiers? What is supposed to motivate them on a daily basis, away from their families for far longer than they had ever imagined, with sand in their weapons and the enemy everywhere? Democracy? A new map of the Middle East? Great. Great goddamn plan for a new century of American decline.
The article notes that the situation in Iraq is particularly vicious for many reasons, one of them being the lack of frontline: it's a 360-degree war and soldiers are always on edge. Those situations have long-term consequences. We will pay for this dearly as a society, for a long time. Ask a homeless Vietnam vet. Ask a homeless Iraq vet.
I've seen my share of mental illness among relatives and friends. Mental illness is contagious: one family member who is irrational, depressed or suicidal or all of the above affects the entire family and beyond. I know what it means to be obsessed with irrational thoughts that just repeat and repeat and repeat ad nauseam and drive you crazy, like the woman soldier describes in the article. Sometimes war is necessary. This war wasn't.
I was just watching Uncovered, and I was sickened by watching that fucker strut around that aircraft carrier in his flight suit. I've never been a soldier, but I understand that a leader should not ask of his soldiers what he or she could not do himself. W certainly didn't learn that in AWOLabama, or at Harvard Business School, for that matter. I wonder how many soldiers salute him or Rumsfeld or five-deferments-other-priorities Cheney because it's their duty, but think, "you hollow piece of shit, you pathetic excuse for a man".
Any soldiers in Boston? I'd like to buy you coffee, shake your hand, and thank you and your family and your buddies for your sacrifices. I want to hear whatever you want to talk about.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, and especially you, Powell: fuck you all.
Cindy Sheehan, Joseph Wilson, Kos, Patrick Fitzgerald, you reading this: you and this place give me hope.
In closing, words of despair and words of hope:
Here is the history of human ignorance folly war and waste recorded by human intelligence for the admonition of wiser ages still to come.
Here is the history of man's hunger for truth goodness and beauty leading him slowly on through flesh to spirit from bondage to freedom from war to peace.