Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Killers on the Road

This is the story Link

If you have a weak stomach - or if tales of torture and murder upset you - please read another post. This one is sickening.

"The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.

In the suffocation, soldiers covered the man's head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord for a "stress position" they insisted was an approved technique."


These are actions of some of the poorly-trained, ill-equipped and over-extended troops in Iraq.

"Considered against recent cases, including soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division convicted of killing detainees in Samarra, Iraq, last year and the ongoing courts-martial of Marines accused of killing 24 civilians in Haditha, these new examples shed light on the frequency soldiers and Marines may disregard the rules of war."

What frightens me about all this is... this. We are fighting with all our might to get these kids back home where they belong. But do they still belong? Have they been so warped, so jaded, so brainwashed and ruined by the Bush Regime and its evils that they are likely to continue their rampaging violence and insanity?

Are we fighting a war for peace that will only bring more violence to our own shores - not in the form of "Terrah-ists", but from our own damaged returning troops?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think there will be all kinds coming back. Ones who can't get out of bed and ones who can't go to sleep. Ones who will continue the violence back home and ones who will survive with all their marbles in a row.

No matter what, wars ruin soldiers and their families for generations.

John Good said...

I don't know how Bush sleeps at night. Oh yeah, he doesn't give a flying f*ck, I remember now.

BBC said...

And unlike my father who came back from WW 11 and went on with his life, many will come back and freeload of of the taxpayers for the rest of their lives. But you are not handicapped unless you think you are.

Well, or if you just want to work the system and sit on your ass and let everyone else support you for the rest of your life because you went to a stupid fucking war for someone else.

It's amazing how many ex military people we support that fucked up their brains with drugs or suffered an injury that really doesn't keep them from being productive.

But hey, they can drive a rig worth fifty grand and park it in a handicapped parking spot. All on your dime. How do you feel about that?

BBC said...

Are we fighting a war for peace that will only bring more violence to our own shores - not in the form of "Terrah-ists", but from our own damaged returning troops?

We are fighting a war for peace? Hey, who started this?

Anonymous said...

You are a moron, BBC. Just thought I'd drop that little fact out there.

1stly, very few guys who saw frontline fighting in ww2 just came back and went on with life. Like most social issues of the time, post traumatic stress syndrome was something rarely ever brought up at the dinner table. There's a decent chance your dad did his share of suffering, just your dumb ass was never privy to it.

2ndly frontline combat wrecks people. As babzy states.. it has the potential to ruin lives for generations. This is no understatement. For most it's also not an excuse to live off the government tit, though one must also remember that a lot of the kids today join the service specifically to reap the bennies that military service offers. I guess it's that whole risk vs. reward thing that you would have clue about.

3rdly.. Mouse.. are you suggesting that we not bring the kids back home? It's a situation that is beyond their control. The shit that they go through is beyond their control. There is no way to predict or gauge how people will react to something traumatic such as pitched combat. The best way is to not put them in that position in the 1st place, but it is too late for that now.

It is vitally important to bring them back home regardless.. save who we can. The war and its effects are not thier fault. Fault belongs with the government that put them there.

The Future Was Yesterday said...

But do they still belong?
I hope so. Otherwise, I've got to go back to Vietnam. You don't want to know some of what happened there, either. What do you suggest? Leaving them there?

Visionary - he was given that on his aborted birth certificate. He's a bad fart. Ignore him, and eventually he looks for other places to stink up.

Sewmouse said...

No, Visionary, I"m not suggesting we leave them there. I'm suggesting what I have felt since Vietnam - that we need to DE-program the killers that we have programmed. We need to have these folks spend 6-8 months in isolation learning how to become NON-killers after we have brought them back.

Not every soldier that is over there is committing atrocities. Those who are need serious deprogramming before they are returned to "normal" society.

Anonymous said...

The post-traumatic stress that the kids coming home will have to go through will be appalling for them and their families. It'll be a kind of hell they can't get away from, or at least not for a long time and without a lot of help. So Bush doesn't only have the fcuked-up lives of the "foreigners" on his conscience, but also his own citizens.

What a waste.

BBC said...

Visionary, if I'm a moron what does that make you? :-)

There are people that do get me and agree with me.

Anonymous said...

Jeez Sew, months of therapy and medication for soldiers would cost the government money. They would rather spend the money on wars or send money to other countries who apparently need it more than their own damaged citizens.

(FYI - I'm in Canada but the same thing goes on here.)

Anonymous said...

"Visionary, if I'm a moron what does that make you? :-)"

That makes me not a moron.

"There are people that do get me and agree with me."

That's nice. That also doesn't make it automatically right. They are morons as well.

Hope Walls said...

~drive by snickering @ vis and bbc~

Sew, it's a damn shame what the boys overseas go through, what they see, what they are trained to do before being dumped back in their homes with their wife and kids and no clue what to do, how to be an 'ordinary' man. The military 'breaks' these kids when they sign up just like you'd break a horse. And why do you break a horse? So that you can control it. And once a horse is broken, the owner is responsible for it. We bring them home and teach them how to plough intead of run races. But when a horse can't be retrained he's put out to pasture and left to rot, or if he's lucky he is put out of his misery. Nice legacy to leave your people, Bush.

One would think previous wars would have taught the US government this. One would think.