I've not addressed the Ft. Hood tragedy because it is such a raw nerve issue for me. If you have read this blog at all, you would know exactly where I stand. I oppose war to the core of my being because I truly believe it solves nothing.
All those slogans come to mind~
War is terrorism with a bigger budget.
There was never a good war or a bad peace.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
What a deep mess we are lost in. Two wars of choice that have equated to nothing more than Quagmire Accomplished.
I wonder if the original intent of these wars, never was to be won, just to get embedded in the region & to stay there?
I think it is a horrific experience, as one soldier put it,
"Seeing things a person should never see".
To think, Soldiers are required to return again & again for repeat tours of duty, to the front lines of the wars. Many of the suicides and times that pushed soldiers over the edge, was the notice of deployment.
We have no idea of the stench, and soul shattering experience a tour of duty is.
I can barely stand to watch the suffering scenes that make it to the news- and those are edited.
So it is no wonder Soldiers snap- they are pushed beyond their limits. They are required to take leave of their humanity. They spend months & years in heightened alert, witnessing the worst of humanity, and are left to try to figure out how to resume a "normal" life after living through hell.
So I have compassion for them all. For the innocents who were shot, killed & injured. Their lives cut short in a needless and random act of violence.
I also have compassion for the soldier gunman who lost it.
He must have had a tormented life, to wind up finding so little hope, that he went on this dangerous killing spree.
How very sad that a person charged with helping Soldiers deal with PTSD, winds up having an extreme case of it himself.
I saw some blurb that Congress will do hearings to investigate if he was a radical Muslim/Islamic. That will certainly be more divisive and inflammatory than looking at the real problem of PTSD, and the stress of military life.
For comparison, did they investigate Timothy McVey's Christianity after he blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? No they did not.
Why don't they investigate why they keep spending billions for endless wars that puts people in a state of fatal hopelessness? Something is seriously wrong when suicide is a better choice than deployment, for so many soldiers.
Of the war slogans, my favorite is:
What if they had a war & nobody came?
Because really, if all the soldiers laid down their arms and refused to fight these wars, they could not have the wars.
In fact, the people who started these wars have moved on into posh mansions of retirement, while the wars they started preemptively, by choice, illegally & immorally, rage on.
Because really now, all the War planners and mongers are never the ones doing the fighting and dying, are they? The Government uses soldiers as the pawns in their sick power games, and resource grabs. Just like they say history repeats itself, the wars we are in right now are very much so like the Vietnam war..... and for 8 long years we listened to Bush tell us Victory is at hand, and the insurgents are in their last throes. One of the most decorated soldiers- Marine Smedley Butler said "War is a Racket".
While Congress roars about having to spend money on something so frivolous as healthcare, another $681 billion dollars was approved for next year's war budget, without any debate I know of.
What a messed up society we have that fights tooth & nail while taking bribe money, to deny the people of this country a chance to have better access and rules to reform health care, while war money is never questioned.
I extend my deep and sincere sympathy for all those who have suffered this loss, and the agony that war brings. May their souls rest in peace.
May this inspire us to demand a stop to it all.
American Military Casualties in Iraq | ||
Date | Total | In Combat |
| American Deaths | ||
| Since war began (3/19/03): | 4362 | 3476 |
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list) | ||
| Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): | 3899 | 3171 |
| Since Handover (6/29/04): | 3503 | 2844 |
| Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): | 134 | 72 |
| American Wounded | Official | Estimated |
| Total Wounded: | 31557 | Over 100000 |
Latest Fatality Nov. 8, 2009 | ||
2 comments:
I couldn't agree more, Fran.
The number of bloggers who reporting on Ft. Hood and the nauseating coverage on cable just makes me sick to my stomach.
I'm surprised something like this hadn't happened sooner.
And now it looks like Obama is going the way of LBJ and he's agreed to McCrystal's request for 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan.
I said a year ago and I said six months ago and I will repeat here and now: Afghanistan will be Obama's Vietnam and it will be the reason why he serves just a single term.
if Obama sends another 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he may as well give back the Nobel Peace Prize, because he does not deserve it.
How would the perpetuation of these wars be any different than what Bush did militarily?
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