They weren't born monsters, Bush created them . . .

[flamin lib]

What’s a four letter word for Viet Nam? Answer: Iraq. What’s an seven letter word for My Lai? Haditha.

Viet Nam was a different kind of war. The enemy didn’t always wear a uniform. They blended in with the civilians, sometimes with the cooperation and support of the locals. Booby traps both sophisticated and primitive could strike at any time. Soldiers were under constant stress even in rear areas, never knowing if Papa San on the bike might be carrying a satchel charge or if the flower girl might toss a grenade into the coffee shop. Soldiers in the field were routinely ordered to violate the Geneva Conventions with “free fire zones” and “search and destroy missions”. Napalm, Agent Orange and carpet bombing, all in violation of International Law, all authorized by top leadership. After a few years of this and an ever changing mission it became increasingly difficult to tell right from wrong. Words like gooks, slopes, Charlie and sleepers all served to de-humanize the Vietnamese People. These things made it a possible to do what Lt. William Calley did.

You would think we would have learned.

Come Iraq. Soldiers on back to back tours. Insurgents that look like the civilian population. Troops don’t speak the language and interpreters are in short supply. Different civilian factions fight among themselves. After awhile every Haji looks the same. Just another rag head. IEDs explode without warning. No idea when the end of your tour will come. Mission creep and then mission disintegration. No clear strategy beyond staying the course and driving around being IED bait. Take a village and pull out. The insurgents move back in. Go take the same village. The Attorney General signs a memo calling the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and no longer relevant. Private contractors and the CIA at Abu Ghraib have orders from the Secretary of Defense authorizing torture. The troops hear about “rendition” and secret prisons. “Shake & bake” missions are routine using white phosphorous and napalm, both banned by the Geneva conventions, to drive Habib out and High Explosives to clean him up. Another Camel Jockey bites the dust.

Then an IED blows your buddy apart.

There is no training on Earth that will prevent what happens next. It isn’t excusable. It isn’t defensible. It is, however, predictable.

Haditha is a repeat of history and like My Lai those at the bottom of the chain of command will become the scapegoats while those at the top will remain uncharged and untouched by it all.

You would think we would have learned.

By the way, ever wonder what happened to Lt. Calley? After repeatedly asserting that he had orders from above he alone was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 200 civilians. He spent a few days in Ft. Leavenworth before being transferred back to Ft. Benning and placed under house arrest. For some reason the military courts kept quietly reducing his sentence until in 1974, four years after his conviction, President Nixon commuted his sentence to time served. He went into the Insurance business and was last known to be working in his father-in-law’s jewelry store.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. This will happen over and over, This is a war about the control

of Iraq's oil. They don't care how many people from either side get killed. The rw is all for this shit, they were all for it in Vietnam too.

[dmr]

9. You're right, here's one way they patch them up and send them back out

I am so sick at heart at what we are doing to our military. Bush* and Rummy stood inside Arlington yesterday 'honoring' our fallen?? Let us please honor those who are still with us too... I've a 17 year old son, and it scares me to death.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2670/

In Iraq and Afghanistan, when “suck it up” fails to snap a soldier out of depression or panic, the Army turns to drugs. “Soldiers I talked to were receiving bags of antidepressants and sleeping meds in Iraq, but not the trauma care they needed,” says Steve Robinson, a Defense Department intelligence analyst during the Clinton administration.

Sometimes sleeping pills, antidepressants and tranquilizers are prescribed by qualified personnel. Sometimes not. Sgt. Georg Anderas Pogany told Salon that after he broke down in Iraq, his team sergeant told him “to pull himself together, gave him two Ambien, a prescription sleep aid, and ordered him to sleep.”

Other soldiers self-medicate. “We were so junked out on Valium, we had no emotions anymore,” Iraq vet John Crawford told “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross. He and others in his unit in Iraq became addicted to Valium.

The issues around mental health and medication are exacerbated for the more than 378,000 troops who have served multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. Post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) caused by a previous tour are cropping up in later ones.

- snip -

In many cases, their problem is labeled stress. “Army docs have told me that commanders pressured them not to diagnose PTSD because it would cut into combat power—the ability to project men and women into war,” says Robinson. “The docs admit that the decision (to misdiagnose) is unethical, but are unwilling to take the huge career risk of becoming a whistle blower.”

“The military has an obligation to ensure your readiness,” says Raezer. “It is in its long-term benefit to have the person healthy.” But those goals may conflict with themselves and with reality. Ready for deployment is not the same as mentally healthy, and the army’s long-term interests smack hard against its need for warm bodies, no matter how dangerous continued action may be to an individual’s mental health.

All these factors promote that classic American solution: Better living through chemistry. When effective, antidepressants and sleeping pills can enable a soldier to get back in action—either from a huddle of terror and disgust, or increasingly, from back home to serve an additional tour.

more ...

[ShortnFiery]

2. Agreed. When a true man of courage like Murtha suggests

what you have described above, the asinine Chickenhawk mentality is to disrespect the messenger.

The right wing can continue to shout down those who disagree with perpetual WAR, but I believe that the USA will be out of all sources of "cannon fodder" (even the civilian type) BEFORE the 2008 elections. The times will be a changing at that time.

Hold on fellow Democrats, it's going to be a rough (and perhaps horrific) ride. :scared: :grr: :hi:

[JeffR]

3. They took a clean-cut kid...

Clean-Cut Kid
Bob Dylan

Everybody wants to know why he couldn't adjust
Adjust to what, a dream that bust?

He was a clean-cut kid
But they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

They said what's up is down, they said what isn't is
They put ideas in his head he thought were his

He was a clean-cut kid
But they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

He was on the baseball team, he was in the marching band
When he was ten years old he had a watermelon stand

He was a clean-cut kid
But they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

He went to church on Sunday, he was a Boy Scout
For his friends he would turn his pockets inside out

He was a clean-cut kid
But they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

They said, "Listen boy, you're just a pup"
They sent him to a napalm health spa to shape up

They gave him dope to smoke, drinks and pills,
A jeep to drive, blood to spill

They said "Congratulations, you got what it takes"
They sent him back into the rat race without any brakes

He was a clean-cut kid
But they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

He bought the American dream but it put him in debt
The only game he could play was Russian roulette

He drank Coca-Cola, he was eating Wonder Bread,
Ate Burger Kings, he was well fed

He went to Hollywood to see Peter O'Toole
He stole a Rolls Royce and drove it in a swimming pool

They took a clean-cut kid
And they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

He could've sold insurance, owned a restaurant or bar
Could've been an accountant or a tennis star

He was wearing boxing gloves, took a dive one day
Off the Golden Gate Bridge into China Bay

His mama walks the floor, his daddy weeps and moans
They gotta sleep together in a home they don't own

They took a clean-cut kid
And they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did

Well, everybody's asking why he couldn't adjust
All he ever wanted was somebody to trust

They took his head and turned it inside out
He never did know what it was all about

He had a steady job, he joined the choir
He never did plan to walk the high wire

They took a clean-cut kid
And they made a killer out of him,
That's what they did


Copyright © 1985 Special Rider Music

[gademocrat7]

4. Will any commander stand up and say enough?

The US looks more evil everyday to the rest of the world. Our credibility has gone down the tubes.

[atreides1]

5. No they weren't

But in truth all BushCo did was open a door, the Marines were the ones who made the decision to go through it, with that choice they became monsters!!!!

Everyone needs to stop trying to find a reason to look the other way and to pat these "boys" on the head and say we know it's not your fault, it is their fault, they allowed it to escalate to murder,
they killed without hesitation or remorse.

And if you saw the MSNBC poll you know that over 20% of those polled would have no problem with shooting women and children, and let's not forget the atmosphere around Camp Pendleton, it would seem that the SS didn't die, they just changed location.

They murdered innocent people and now we're supposed to feel sorry for them, we're supposed to be understanding? Then after they were done they tried to cover it up, but like most killers they blew it they left witnesses, and that mistake is now going to bite them in the ass!

If someone had done this to your family would you be "understanding", I know what I would want, their heads on pikes, and for their families to know what it feels like, but then again I'm not the forgiving, turn the other cheek sort of guy!!!!

They weren't monsters, but they let themselves be controlled by the situation and became monsters.

[flamin lib]

6. It isn’t excusable. It isn’t defensible. It is, however, predictable. nt

[Laurab]

8. With all due respect

I don't see anything in the OP saying "look the other way" or "pat these boys on the head". I see it as an explanation as to why it COULD happen, why it did happen, but not asking for sympathy at all.

I do agree that *Co opened the door, but I also think they kicked them through it a few times. Multiple tours of duty, no sleep, wondering every second if you're going to die....I would think would become a stressful condition unlike any a "normal" person has ever experienced, or could even imagine.

Yes, they murdered innocent people, and yes, they should pay for it, but they had more than a little help in becoming the killing machines they became. * & his pals deserve JUST as much blame as the men who pulled the triggers IMO.

[IndyOp]

7. This Is US Standard Operating Procedure - Please Wake Up!!

Why do they hate US? Because we send our the US CIA and military all over the world to terrorize and kill people to control markets and resources.

Killing Hope: 250 Military & CIA Interventions Since World War II

"Far and away the best book on the topic." - Noam Chomsky

"I enjoyed it immensely." - Gore Vidal

"I bought several more copies to circulate to friends with the hope of shedding new light and understanding on their political outlooks." - Oliver Stone

<http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html>
<http://members.aol.com/Bblum6/American_holocaust.htm>


What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3453261789658676035

[Faryn Balyncd]

10. Any trial should include the commander-in -chief who.....

sent men into an impossible situation, with "Rules of Engagement" and orders that were impossible to morally implement.

[Ksec]

11. Youre correct

This war was a war of choice by our "president"

He lied to get it started. He lied saying he was listening to the Generals . He lied and said soldiers could go home when their gigs were up. He sent them back into Hell repeatedly, and then he lied about Haditha happening at all. I would bet my ass he and asscroft were doing their best to cover this up.

This monster in the white house is to blame for Haditha. Right alongside the soldiers who killed the women and children.