Iraq Veterans vulnerable to commit suicide

Honesty — in the form of objectivity — is one of the last things I would associate you with. For the record, I'm not ignoring or denying anything, either. I've commented about how terrible war is and what its effects can be.

However, another agenda is driving most of the comments here — one that is obsessed with its own viewpoint, being right and convincing other is right — and I've correctly dragged that agenda into the light. In other words, most of the people who claim they care for the troops — and that's why they want to end the war — are typically not honest brokers. That is, they find the troops a unique prop to further their ultimate political aims. This sort often like to run around and find casualty figures or suicide figures or some other such horror of war and wave that around as proof of the war's ills. Their main concern is stopping the war. That's it. The troops are a tool for them to achieve that end, not people that they really and truly care about.

 

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so i don't link you to honesty than i again i don't link anyone who defends bushes policies with honesty

 

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Now all you would have to do is confine your comments to those people who are claiming to be opposed to this war because of how much they care about the troops (if you can find any here), and you'd have a semi-relevant and marginally significant side point with a trace of honesty about it.

Instead of what you do have, which is a pile of irrelevant shit based on your uniquely ill-informed assumptions regarding other people's motives, your self-oblivious and comically self-referential reactions to those assumptions, and the consequential continuing obsession and continual tangent in each and every thread you enter.

Meanwhile, on topic: as Echo has pointed out, there are aspects to "supporting the troops" that appear to have been overlooked by the strategists and backers of this war - despite being common knowledge since the Korean War if not earlier.

These aspects have been the concern mainly of the radical left kook side of the US political spectrum - people like Feingold and Kucinich, and perhaps most effectively up until the beginning of the push for war (when he was killed in a plane crash on the eve of an election he was polled to win) Paul Wellstone, and the concerns of this side of the political spectrum have been effectively dismissed by the powerful for many years now.

Perhaps this dismissal is due for revaluation ?

 

But it's only an "unnecessary war" to you, not to the people who are supporting the troops and their mission.

I disagree. You've only thrown out numbers that have no relativity to other portions of lives in other situations. I.e., you "statistics" are worthless.

Baron Max

 

Unnecessary according to the stated reason for going to war--to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Even the revised reason, to free the Iraqi people from tyranny is highly suspect. Certainly the Iraqi people have very mixed feelings about this whole affair.

Is it that you don't read what other people say or just don't understand it?

 

no the people who support the troops want to get them out of iraq. you seem to think saying you support the troops is the equivlent to supporting them

 

Who's defending him? Not me. I think his policy in Iraq has been a disaster, and I've said as much on numerous occasions. Where I part from your ilk is that I don't think leaving Iraq is good for Iraq or good for the US.

I agree with the sentiment there, but not the particulars. Nobody sends people to their death. They send them to fight, knowing that death is a distinct possibility. I won't get into whether the war was necessary or not, but I will concur that the crowd that "supports" the troops is as bad about using them as the crowd I'm talking about. Echo alluded to that in an earlier post, and I agree with him fully. But this thread topic — and several commens herein — is clearly on the other side of the spectrum, which is the only reason I said what I said.

I didn't blankly dismiss it. In fact, I acknowledged it's a real problem. But I also questioned the pretense under which the question has been raised with this (still unsubstantiated) report. It's fairly obvious that information of this sort (or casulties figures, etc.) are often used as a crutch for people who want to put forward end-the-war-now arguments. (Typically, on this site, the same sort of people absolutely churn butter when topics like this come up and they fall over all each other to chime in and voice why this is another reason to pull out). I'm not disputing the data, I'm disputing the cause its being enlisted in, and in doing so, arguing that many of the people who drape themselves in "concern" for the troops are doing so only because they know it will help them score points rhetorically in the court of public opinion. I find that disturbing.

 

your not instrested in hearing anything that differs from your point of view if you did you would not refer to me as ilk

 

Perhaps I misinterpreted your statement "Let's just assume all these specious numbers are accurate and veterans (Iraqi and otherwise) really are killing themselves, what's the point of this discussion then?" It seemed like you were dismissing the importance of the data and there is real data from doctors in the VA if you care to look at it that shows (1) suicide rates for vets are increasing, and (2) rates are particularly high (in comparison to rates in the general population) for those who are 18 to 44 years. The CBS News analysis says the problem is even greater but if you want to raise actual objections to their methodolgy in finding those figures I'd listen (just claiming CBS is biased doesn't do it for me).

 

Forget the statistics--accurate or not--and all the ideologic posturing and blustering.

Here's a question that hasn't seemed to be considered: What are the servicemen and servicewomen who commit suicide trying to tell you and me--if actually anything at all?

"I can't take this?" "I didn't sign up for this?" "No one should be doing this?" "Better me than my buddies who I'd let down if I were to go off the deep end in the middle of a deadly situation?" "My panty wad is intolerable?" "I can't get Sam's blathering out of my head?"

Suicide is the ultimate expression of an individual's power to control the nature and course of their own life. To ensure no person commits suicide seems to require that everyone is strapped down and otherwise restrained from exercising their right of free will.

Which of you will endorse the loss for all of such an individual right--to serve your momentary situational political advantage?

 

Indeed. They also have a democratic government which represents them, at whose pleasure the US presence continues. If they want US troops out of their country, they have but to make this clear to their government and it will happen. So there's no need for you to pretend to speak for them.

 

:roflmao:

 

Mr. G "What are the servicemen and servicewomen who commit suicide trying to tell you and me--if actually anything at all?"

Most often not much at all, especially when not as public protest. As you say:

"Suicide is the ultimate expression of an individual's power to control the nature and course of their own life."

And despairing suicide is an intensely self-absorbed act.

"Which of you will endorse the loss for all of such an individual right--to serve your momentary situational political advantage?"

It's highly doubtful that anyone here would suggest something so ridiculous. You are raising a putrid red herring. There can be no rational or ethical advocating that we ignore the causes and treat the symptoms in some bizarre system of forced restraint.

We have been discussing here a distinct and documented increase in suicides among the Americans serving in Iraq as compared with peacetime, and as compared with Americans who have served in other conflicts. We have speculated on the causes of the epidemic, as we should, if we respect these fallen, and those to follow.

It is no mystery that psychological trauma, a deficit of purpose, and feelings of guilt can be devastating to the human psyche. The Soviets experienced similar casualties during their occupations and crackdowns in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. The most unprovoked and unpopular prior American wars (Vietnam and the Phillipines for example) produced similar casualties among our troops, unlike wars that were more decisive, and unlike wars that were more commonly perceived and accepted as necessary and justified.

Your red herring seems like a pitiable defense-mechanism to me, Mr. G: You may be experiencing difficulty in coming to grips with the concept that violence is most psychologically devastating for the aggressor; you seem to be masking if not avoiding the realization that sanity and unjustified violence are simply not compatible.

 

Reasonable.

But then you had to do the bluster-thingy.

Everyone's always got to score the points even when Nature has spoken well enough for itself.

 

Call it bluster if you like. To me, it's just taking life and death more seriously, which naturally demands expression.

I'll agree that adding up points is an easy way to miss them.

 

What I questioned was the initial story that started this thread, which most of us can't even read (it's in another language, and hasn't been substantiated). For the sake of argument, I allowed that the premise is true, and then asked someone to please explain the importance of it. I did this because I think the entire sentiment driving this thread (as I have alluded to several times now) is either anti-war or pacifist. Very few people have expressed (in any great detail) legitimate concern for the Vets, talked about deficiencies in their health care and proposed solutions to the problem I allowed exists (again, for argument's sake).

Instead, what we have is a lot of remarks about how bad war is (generally speaking) or how bad this war is and how that should prompt us to end it. To me, that makes no sense, and a leap of logic has occurred somewhere. You don't end a war or end all wars because people are suffering psychological effects from said war. You find a better way to help people deal with those effects. But again, nobody is really talking about that, because what this thread is really (for a lot of people) is using some scenario that involves the troops to drive home their political points about ending the Iraq War. There are plenty of logical argument for winning the war, but specious (perhaps even phony) sentiment dressed up as reason is both offensive and dishonest, and as Echo pointed out, it's exactly what people on both sides of the issue try to do: They try to use the troops as tools in their political stratagems, with one side trumpeting support while the other constantly throws all the ill-effects of war in our collective faces.

If this is what Spider posted, it was not conflict-specific, and as such, doesn't match up with the initial premise of the thread. I never said CBS was biased. That was someone else.

 

countezero: "...what we have is a lot of remarks about how bad war is (generally speaking) or how bad this war is and how that should prompt us to end it. To me, that makes no sense, and a leap of logic has occurred somewhere."

This discussion is about suicide in a particular war. It is not a leap of logic in this context to consider thoughtfully why this may be occurring, including the examination of the psychological implications of a war that is highly unpopular. It is a jumpier leap to avoid the investigation.

"There are plenty of logical argument for winning the war, but specious (perhaps even phony) sentiment dressed up as reason is both offensive and dishonest..."

Then let's be respectfully honest: This thread isn't about winning the war. This thread is about losing soldiers like we don't normally do.

"it's exactly what people on both sides of the issue try to do: They try to use the troops as tools in their political stratagems, with one side trumpeting support while the other constantly throws all the ill-effects of war in our collective faces."

Pondering the ill-effects leading to these suicides requires that we consider the psychology of stalemate, and even defeat. We have not vanquished our enemies in Iraq. The most notorious enemy, "al-Qaeda", was in fact our own invention. Instead of overcoming this phantom menace, we have made new enemies of multiplying groups of people. As a result, there is no sizeable faction within the Iraqi civil war that likes American intervention. This has an undeniable psychological effect on the troops who are tasked with perpetuating this bitter and often senselessly-violent occupation.

"If this is what Spider posted, it was not conflict-specific, and as such, doesn't match up with the initial premise of the thread."

Not true. Spider's link, and mine preceding it, pointed to the present GI combat-veteran suicide rate, which has been shown to have been grossly under-reported. That is of course pertinent to the subset of Americans serving in Iraq. Most of our casualties of every kind are occurring in Iraq. The Iraq war has been getting more deadly for our troops with time, while the Whitehouse and major US media try and pretend otherwise.

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It appears that suicides are even more steeply increasing on average, although information on that has been demonstrated by CBS and other reporting to have been under active government suppression.

 

The fact is that this problem of suicide among combat veterans isn't new, it is a problem as old as warfare its self, it has been not as sever in some war as others, but it has been present after all wars.

The difference seems to be in the expression of support for the fighting men by their countries at home.

Having been a survivor, and having been through treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, I have a great deal of knowledge about the why and wherefore of suicide in combat veterans, Been there and still recovering.