Gift of Vision

The Topics

Weddings - I’m for hire nationwide, no travel fee.Please visit my Amazon store - books, CDs and more I have & recommend. You can also order anything from Amazon if you click to Amazon through one of my links

Heart of Darkness. Barack Obama’s abortion stance

The Darker Legacy of Iraq

Psst, America did you forget about Iraq?

We hate to interrupt this Hillary -Obama- McCain fixation, your focus on an economic down turn, high health care cost, exorbitant gas prices, death of the dollar or your latest dance team or worst yet American Idol, but put down the beer and chips or Ice cream and tune in. We are being driven to ruination daily by a war that is ignored.

Measuring the damage suffered as a nation in this dark Iraqi conflict is a vast undertaking of numerous variables that all speak of failure and future cost. We are aware of the over four thousand American servicemen deaths, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, millions displaced and refuges created in surrounding countries. Weapons lost or stolen, billions literally misplaced, strategies failed, torture allowed and mercenaries encouraged.

Billions of interest loaded cash thrown into the desert pit monthly and the Chenyburton war with no real agenda goal or reason and we ignore it like an embarrassing distant cousin.

All this is obvious, yet the hidden cost to our neglected infrastructure and the psychological impact of returning injured, over worked, battled fatigued, homicidal or suicidal people is vastly underrated.

Military personal placed in occupied areas, with insurgents that sneak attack their comrades in arms with guerilla tactics, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, creates extreme prejudice and hatred in the minds of the occupying troops.

Soon the locals are no longer viewed as humans, and the general population becomes suspect, those circumstances place these military people in an, “Atrocity Producing Zone.”

In this hostile environment surrounded by people that may or may not be the enemy, everyone is potentially dangerous. A simple act of walking into a place of business to purchase cigarettes or a soda could result in ones death, this anxiety breeds mental anguish and that turns into violent or depressive reactions. Military Service people in Iraq serve in constant defensive postures, tension breeds animosity and death of one’s service mate’s produces intense reactions and off hand revenge.

The Green Zone in Baghdad is the safety base and outside is viewed as enemy territory and all civilian people as possible enemies; creating an acute trepidation that can verge on or become paranoia. Atrocities of rape, mass murder and other dark scenarios have been laid at the feet of our own people both in Iraq and now in the USA, and as the bellum goes on and the tensions ebb and flow we will see additional atrocities on all sides.

Death and violence follow the troops home.

The result of all this wanton violence and unnecessary conflict is additional misery for the USA, in sociological terms we pay for the mental anguish produced by poor policy.

In January 08 the New York Times reported that at least 121 Iraq, Afghanistan veterans have committed homicide in the USA, or facing charges in crimes involving murder, after returning from combat. The Times tells us it also logged 349 homicides involving all active-duty military personnel or new veterans in the six years since US military invasion commenced in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. That statistic represents an 89% increase over the previous six-year period, according to the N.Y.Times. About three-quarters of these homicides involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, a pattern starts to develop here and it is not good.

Neither the Pentagon nor the federal Justice Department keeps up with such murder or crime statistics by returning vets, and they are generally prosecuted in local or state civilian courts, so few people follow the bouncing ball.

The NY Times did just that and the ball is bouncing to a violent beat.

Are we socializing or conditioning people to create violence in indiscriminate ways and when they return they continue to live out this reality?

“Socialized for atrocity” is the phrase that seems to fit this convoluted and sad scenario, and in Iraq and it is all for nebulous reasons at best. Some will bring this attitude home and become violent, others internalize it and grow suicidal and both are ticking time bombs of danger to the civilian population of both Iraq and the USA.

When bellum has a perceived and agreed on clear agenda, when ground is gained, people freed from oppression, political lessons learned, moral platitudes sought, war {while never desirable} can have some positive attributes that one can point out, and in general far …

Related posts: Jackie jackson, Zoltan, French s green bean casserole, Super pii pii, High times

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.