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Well, you're certainly being a good sport about it. Undoubtedly all you relativists would be similarly good sports if it were your children or siblings being raped or murdered.
You perfectionists are a constantly disappointed lot, aren't you? **** happens, you do what you can to mitigate it.
Good to hear. However, when someone trots out the, "Atrocities always occur in war," it usually is a thin;y-veiled vehicle for excusing reprehensible behavior.
9 times out of 10, when atrocities happen, it is not the soldiers that defend it but the arm chair rah rah rah warriors that never served a day in the military, but depend on the military for their job via contracts or government connections.
I have yet to see a fellow soldier condone some of the things other soldiers have done, but I have seen many excuses from non military aholes just because;.
This whole story stinks to high heaven. First, as mentioned by other posters, you CANNOT be tried for disobeying unlawful orders. Every Soldier knows that. Every Soldier receives mandatory "Laws of Land Warfare" briefings from their local Judge Advocate General's Office prior to each deployment. Therefore, no one can "force" you to do anything illegal, period. Second, the OPs running indictment of alleged atrocities is not referenced anywhere in the suicide note. That was taken from the decidedly biased source where the OP found the story. Having served multiple on combat tours to include OIF (Iraq), I will say that PTSD is a real thing. The negative connotation associated with PTSD has been largely eliminated and this has resulted in a massive increase in the ability of those that need help getting that help. PTSD is unpredictable. It can affect a combat hardened veteran with multiple tours just as much as it can effect a new Soldier on his or her first deployment. I have several friends that were fellow senior NCOs with multiple combat tours that experienced, and for some, continue to experience PTSD. It is always a shame that any Soldier gets to a point that they think taking their own life is the only way out. The one thing that absolutely repulses me about this thread and others like it is the fact that opponents of the war use a tragedy like this coupled with fake concern for the victim to advance their opposition. That is pretty reprehensible. If you oppose the war, that is perfectly fine, and well withing your rights. Stop short of trying to capitalize on the tragic event of one former Soldier's suicide to push your point of view.
When we are truly under attack, I would support whatever it is to preserve "our country" When it is ran by corporations and banks for their global adventures and self interests with my taxdollars, and not for our own self defense and border protection, then it is wrong and they can go to Hell.
That's a nice idea, I wonder why we don't try isolationism again, it worked so well in the past..
We've never tried isolation (there is in fact no such doctrine as isolationism; the word is a slur, not a denotation of anything) but neutrality worked very well when we've actually practiced it.
I don't recall any blowback from our non-participation in the Crimean War or the Taiping Rebellion.
Somers’ suicide note is a powerful indictment of the invasion of Iraq and how it ruined the lives of both countless millions of Iraqis as well as innumerable US troops sent in to do the dirty work of the military-industrial complex.
“The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity,” wrote Somers. “Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.”
However, the root causes are laid bare in Somers’ suicide note. US troops are being ordered to commit atrocities so vile that the only way many of them can cope with the horror of what they have done is by killing themselves.
Examples of atrocities aided directly or indirectly by US troops in Iraq include;
- Torturing detainees – many of whom had never engaged in combat and were totally innocent - at grisly prison camps across the country;
- Raping and torturing children at the infamous Abu Ghraib detention facility while they shrieked in terror. Women forced to watch later begged to be killed.
“This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing,” wrote Somers, adding that him living “any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand.”
Read Somers’ full suicide note below, obtained by Gawker and published with his family’s permission
Somers’ suicide note is a powerful indictment of the invasion of Iraq and how it ruined the lives of both countless millions of Iraqis as well as innumerable US troops sent in to do the dirty work of the military-industrial complex.
“The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity,” wrote Somers. “Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.”
However, the root causes are laid bare in Somers’ suicide note. US troops are being ordered to commit atrocities so vile that the only way many of them can cope with the horror of what they have done is by killing themselves.
Examples of atrocities aided directly or indirectly by US troops in Iraq include;
- Torturing detainees – many of whom had never engaged in combat and were totally innocent - at grisly prison camps across the country;
- Raping and torturing children at the infamous Abu Ghraib detention facility while they shrieked in terror. Women forced to watch later begged to be killed.
“This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing,” wrote Somers, adding that him living “any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand.”
Read Somers’ full suicide note below, obtained by Gawker and published with his family’s permission
I fell sorry for the poor guy, but do you think someone so turned around that he'd take his own life maybe just maybe has a less than full grasp of reality?
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