Bill Moyers: Andrew Bacevich on Sgt. Robert Bales

[marmar]

Historian Andrew Bacevich appears on Bill Moyers' new show, Moyers & Company, this weekend on most PBS local stations. Bacevich and Moyers explore the futility of "endless" wars, and provide a reality check on the rhetoric of American exceptionalism. Check local listings: http://billmoyers.com/schedule

In this web exclusive video clip, Bacevich -- a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran-turned-scholar -- talks about Robert Bales, the army staff sergeant who allegedly killed 17 Afghan civilians on March 11. Does Bales symbolize a larger problem in our military ranks? Bacevich comments on Bales' accountability, the stress of repeated tours on soldiers, and how war itself "compromises our humanity."

[BrendaBrick]

1. K&R

Here is an excellent Vanguard documentary entitled: "War Crimes":

In this episode of Vanguard, correspondent Kaj Larsen investigates the alarming rise in the number of soldiers who have been traumatized by war and are now accused of bringing the violence home. Of the more than 2 million men and women who have served in the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as many as a third of them may now have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. A growing number of these vets are being charged with violent crimes, and Kaj travels to prisons and mental health facilities in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon to hear their stories.

"Vanguard" is a no-limits documentary series whose award-winning correspondents put themselves in extraordinary situations to immerse viewers in global issues that have a large social significance. Unlike sound-bite driven reporting, the show's correspondents, Adam Yamaguchi, Kaj Larsen, Christof Putzel and Mariana van Zeller, serve as trusted guides who take viewers on in-depth real life adventures in pursuit of some of the world's most important stories.

http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92532800_war-crimes.htm

About 45 minutes.

[xtraxritical]

2. Besides four tours of duty an the ensuing ptsd

Bales was also exposed to melfloquine which is known to have devastating psychotic side effects. [link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/robert-bales-malaria-drug_n_1378671.html|

[BrendaBrick]

3. Thanks for the link

Very interesting to read some of the comments following this article regarding this drug, especially from those that have had first-hand experience:

"Hey, mefloquine was also the drug of choice to give to Peace Corps Volunteers (still is, for the majority). I took it every week for 2 years, between 1997 and 1999. That was before they started saying it was contraindicated for people with family history of mental illness (which I have). A lot of Peace Corps Volunteers were messed up from that drug. I had night terrors for several years starting during Peace Corps, for no other reason- until I took mefloquine I had never had one. I slept-walked a few times while hallucinating, and I'm lucky that I didn't do anything destructive. One woman I knew got her arms all cut up on her bedroom window because she dreamt that the walls were closing in on her and she had to break her windows with her bare hands to escape.

It is bad stuff and I can't believe they are still doling it out and pretending it's good for you."

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"I wrote you Huffington post, and all the other media outlets - as well as the congressmen and senators warning about this drug - both from it's causing the high suicide rates in the troops, and the potential to have a troop with a load weapon completely go off the deep end! One dose of this had my son hallucinate for 2 days! If fact - on every article where the media discussed the high suicide rates on the troops and "couldn't understand the cause" - I posted over and over. NO response ... I even told all of you that this drug was so bad, even Law & Order did an entire episode on it in 2005!! It takes something as bad as this - with a soldier and his family that will never recover - as well as the dead - for folks to finally pay attention to what has been told for over a decade on this drug! THIS is Government Healthcare - take the cheapest pill - shove it down the throats of all the troops - even with the known side effects to prevent malaria so that they don't have to pay for the recovery on the remote chance that they get malaria. (Note- there are 4X+ fewer cases of malaria in Afghanistan than in many orient located bases where military families even live - without anti-malaria drugs and low problems)."

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"The medication in question in the article is a pill. While it has never been admitted, it does cause strange side effects in some people. My own DH took it when deployed to Somalia and Haiti and was never the same person. I found out that he was part of a pilot program to study the medication. It has never been officially admitted that there were problems, but I KNOW for certain that the changes did bring about the personality changes in him and the end of our 40+ year marriage."

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More exposure of and discussion on this drug is definitely in order!!!