What is Digg?185 Comments
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -17/+197American soldiers are dying, they are losing limbs and are suffering disfiguring burns to their faces and bodies. The miracles of modern medicine are saving the lives of many soldiers who would have died in any other war that we have waged. But who is there to help the legless soldier find a full and meaningful life? How does the young man with his face hideously scarred with burns hope to marry and live a normal life? Modern medical miracles are creating a new set of terrible problems that will present a "recovered" soldier with a lifetime of distress.
And there is something even more terrible that is unique to the occupation of Iraq. Combat soldiers, mostly very young men are not fighting against an enemy army. They are trying to control an occupied country where they do not understand the customs, the language, the history or the relationships between people. All the young soldiers understand is that some of these exotic people that they must try to control have weapons and kill American soldiers. They don’t know which people and they don’t trust the Iraqi informers to tell them the truth. Each American soldier has friends have been killed or wounded and with time they begin to hate all the Iraqis.
So what happens every day in Iraq are "incidents" where American soldiers shoot and kill Iraqis and sometimes (more frequently than we might suppose), sometimes the Iraqis in a car that gets "lit up" is a family with children. The young soldier who reacted wrong after months of constant stress walks up and sees his mistake. Sometimes the people in a house that supposedly holds an insurgent are a mother and her daughters and they are in the wrong place. The young soldier who enters after the smoke clears sees his mistake.
This happens every day and this will destroy thousands of young Americans. For their sake we must end this idiocy and bring these men home. - CAPITALLETTERS, on 04/10/2008, -7/+77A long, well thought-out comment on Digg? You must be new here.
- sny1120, on 04/10/2008, -1/+66Cheney: "So?"
- kh99, on 04/10/2008, -7/+50This must be inaccurate. According to McCain, they all want to be over there.
- liuite, on 04/10/2008, -5/+45it's not too late for our commander in chief to commit seppuku for his honor
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -8/+46Aha.
I was thinking that the number of 'non-combat related deaths' seemed a bit high lately...
The scumbags that sent them there of course will never kill themselves out of guilt. They have no feelings. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -5/+33Dubya has repeatedly said that he sleeps fine every night, that his conscience is clear. He feels no guilt at all, he doesn´t even suffer from self doubt in the dead of night.
He is either profoundly stupid or a sociopathic liar. - bicyclethief, on 04/10/2008, -3/+30Another yellow ribbon sticker on the bumper should take of this.
- sodade, on 04/10/2008, -4/+28Face it America - the only way having the biggest war machine is going to accomplish anything is by turning opposing nations into parking lots. In other words, all that ***** money and energy we spent over the last 60 years building a war machine has been a waste. The real "superpowers" of the 21st century are going to be the countries that are economically superior. We used to have economic superiority, but now we have pissed it away on pointless military "adventures."
Name one military action by the US in the last 60 years that has had any positive impact on the people of America. Hmmm - that would be "none."
How did this shift happen? Well Eisenhower warned us about it, but we have been too drunk on pride from "saving the world" in 1945 to pay attention. - Kikinou, on 04/10/2008, -6/+28Yah, plus it portrayed U.S. troops as error-prone victims of the war themselves, rather than villains who randomly shoot up civilians for fun, definitely not a Digg regular.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -8/+28They are sent to fight yet another illegal war:
"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm - doomsdayshopper, on 04/10/2008, -0/+16This is really sad. They put these glamorous commercials on television, incite patriotism and power instincts and then these innocent young people join up and find out that war and killing and having your life in jeopardy every day is not what they sold you. Someone should do a youtube video commercial preaching against joining the military. And NO, I am not Anti-American I just think that useless wars should be fought by the politicians who start them.
- moxley, on 04/10/2008, -2/+17This is what happens when you have people who have joined the military to serve their country and enhance their own lives, then force them into an illegal war of occupation where they are subjected to inhumanity 24 hours hours a day for months on end and have to worry about getting blown up and see innocent people suffering - sometimes as a result of their actions.
All of our soldiers deserve so much better than this, and this country deserves better than this.
Until people are willing to get a little outside of their comfort zone, speak up and take action when necessary.
It isn't just the war - the entire country is being driven into the ground and forced to choke on things that are completely antithetical to our constituion, spirit, and everything the country supposedly stands for. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+13Also, according to most McCain/Iraq War supporters, the Iraqi people want us there.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -1/+14 What a GONG show America has become! It's beyond pathetic.
- synthpop, on 04/10/2008, -0/+13Bush: "I must say, I'm a little envious.. I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines..It must be exciting for you...in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -7/+20He is simply consumed with evil, literally. He is a Luciferian occultist working to establish a global oligarchy, and to him it makes no difference if the loss is American soldiers under his command or innocent Iraqi families, or if the loss is American sovereignty or freedom and liberty of we the people. None of these things matter in the larger picture of the elite's Master Plan. This is how the President of the United States can come to say as Bush said that the Constitution is "just a God-d*** piece of paper".
And this evil agenda will not end simply by President Bush leaving office and a new President stepping in. The elite would not surrender decades and decades of work toward their agenda to a President who would work to undo it. They've made sure that all the horses in the race are their own, which is how we ended up with McCain, Obama, and Hillary, all puppets of the elite behind this New World Order. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+13It's a shame because the military, particularly the navy (I was in the Marine Corps, so medically that's who we went through) have very good and open mental health wards.
The issue is, there is a stigma to seeing these doctors, just like in civilian life, but more magnified. You are made to feel like if you see one of these doctors that you are less then or weaker then the rest of your unit.
Like I said, it's truly a shame, because help is there for those he need it. Service men and women are just heavily persuaded to not get it, not directly so, but they are. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+12Nonsense - there is no evidence that proportionally more "bottom of the barrel" people are killing themselves.
- reuscel, on 04/10/2008, -2/+14This is so infuriating. While Bush and his cronies talk about how the war is going so well and that the surge is working, we have this to show us the true cost of this war. I have this feeling we're going to see a huge increase in the number of homeless, mentally ill veterans living on the streets of our cities in the next few years, much like we did after Vietnam. Hopefully, the next president will care about our troops long after their selfless service to this country, and not only when it's plitically expedient to do so. All of these greedy crooks need to be put in front of the firing squad and made an example of.
- banderwocky, on 04/10/2008, -1/+12this can't be true, General Petraeus just said a few days ago that military moral was high....oh wait...maybe he was just talking about himself when he looks at his paycheck...
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+10We might as well leave, as there IS no end in sight. I realize its a delicate and messy situation, but I do not believe it will become any stronger, and I don't believe those militia groups will pose any threat to us if we leave them alone.
If something happens, it probably would happen anyway even if we'd stayed there.
The longer we stay there, the more complicated it gets. (We should've not gone in the first place) - lolbotomy, on 04/10/2008, -0/+10A lot of people wont believe it was ever called O.I.L.., but luckily there's proof right on the whitehouses own website. Read the first paragraph if you have any doubts: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20 ...
- Winston84, on 04/10/2008, -1/+11Instant karmas gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon youre gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin to do
Its up to you, yeah you - tehmacuser, on 04/10/2008, -0/+9we can dream.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+8Go F*ck yourself mister Cheney.
- pintomp3, on 04/10/2008, -6/+14mission accomplished!
- kh99, on 04/10/2008, -0/+8We're trying to fix it but, unfortunately, complete ***** morons like you get to vote, too.
- sweetholymosiah, on 04/10/2008, -0/+8He's just daring you people to ***** do something about it. Like impeach. This election is a ***** scheme to turn the pages of history over to the new masters. Impeachment and prosecution of war crimes is a necessary step toward democratic renewal.
- stinkingfish, on 04/10/2008, -0/+7Everybody knows george bush is tied with the sith.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -4/+11So should we continue "supporting" the troops by keeping them over there?
Wait until you see the suicide spike when McCain wins. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -2/+9A better idea: stop telling kids that joining the military defends Americans in any way. It doesn't. Americans could easily defend themselves against any army in the world that would dare set foot on our soil...on our own streets, without an army, we could repel anyone.
All joining the military does is allow a government that doesn't represent the people or its interests to throw our sons and daughters into a very expensive meat grinder (which we pay for) to defend bad foreign policy.
Kids should be taught that patriotism doesn't include defending the financial assets and interests of the well-connected few. - Fallout911, on 04/10/2008, -3/+10If the soldiers are blowing their brains out due to stress and the horrors of war imagine the Iraqis.....
- sodade, on 04/10/2008, -2/+8"Luciferian occultist" sounds way too groovy for a douchebag like bush
- culturedredneck, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6on a related point, few people realize that the air force is actually involuntarily separating many of their airmen and officers. all of these volunteers are fully qualified and willing to stay... but the air force has decided that they don't have the budget to allow them to serve even as they unload untold millions to contractors.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6@djdingo - I realize that your comment was meant as sarcasm, but I think that it is a very good idea.
This war is only possible because we do not have a draft. We have an army that is (or is being treated as) a professional military force.
I guarantee that if we had a draft and Securitymom's little Junior might be drafted and sent to Iraq to have his legs blown off, that this war would never have been approved by the Senate. If it had been approved, it would certainly not still be killing young Americans. Securitymom would have voted all the war party out of office by now. The Imperialists know this and will never impose a draft. - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+6We could help him.
- RC212V, on 04/10/2008, -1/+7Well a lot of these problems are not new at all, the travesty is that we seem to have learned little since Vietnam and WWII. The treatment for mental trauma that soldiers suffer from war is still woefully inadequate and the VA medical system is still broken. Throughout the military attitudes towards mental health are still bass ackwards and as a result soldiers who are at risk are hesitant to even bring up the fact that they are struggling.
Unfortunately an organization as large as the military moves glacially slow on its own. It is up to the lawmakers and the public to start pushing for change in the military.
And of course that's not even getting into the fact that we should not be in this war in the first place and that this war has been terribly mis-managed from the start. - BohicaTwentyTwo, on 04/11/2008, -1/+6You mean the suicide level has reached the same the record level it was back in the 90s.
- sigg14, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5maybe this trend will find its way all the way to the top of the executive branch
- stinkingfish, on 04/10/2008, -4/+9Am I the only one who wants to see this shown on tv more often? I'm getting tired of the E.
- djdingo, on 04/10/2008, -2/+7Hopefully they bring back the draft!
/sarcasm - Intercon, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5It wouldn't be a hyperbole to call the current conditions in the country the worse Iraq has seen since well before even the British strolled in to Baghdad in what, 1914? Genghis Khan had an impact like you see today in 1258, when he burnt down the House of Wisdom. Sort of how the museums got looted and torn to bits at the beginning of the current occupation. But Iraq now? They never saw a country this ***** under Hussein, even during that ***** war with Iran. This is a whole new American level of catastrophe. Welcome to the 21st century! It's just like the last 21st century...B.C.! Zing!!
- warriorscot, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5Nobody in their right minds really can, people have a natural inclination not to kill other human beings, its difficult to break that and once it is broken it takes allot of other things with it. Nobody can just deal with it, very few have personalities capable of withstanding wars and occupations without any adverse effect. Part of being in the armed forces is an understanding of you will get looked after when you are wounded and we now understand wounds don't have to be physical to kill you.
- inactive, on 04/10/2008, -5/+10well according to the rather high percentage of people still supporting the war (exact numbers, anyone?), "We must pwn dem iraqistanians"
The other sad part is that most people of this country sending these young men and women off to war have absolutely no idea of what this war's about, the groups of people participating in it, or of the Iraqi people themselves. They have no knowledge of its culture, religion, traditions, past conflicts, or even the reasons for our presence in Iraq.
The #1 reason for our presence in Iraq (not Afghanistan), is in the ORIGINAL name itself (you'll find out why the administration didn't use it in the first place): OPERATION IRAQI LIBERATION, or OIL.
I personally believe that Afghanistan is sort of a lost cause, although the troops that are there DO have a legitimate reason to be there. - Disregard, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5This refrain now seems to be the final defense of the neocon : "Sure, the invasion of Iraq was a massive criminal ***** up, but imagine if we take some action to fix the situation - it could get even worse! And then it will be all your fault!"
- RC212V, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5For what it's worth I've read that the actual number of veteran suicides is wildly underreported because they are not accurately tracking those who leave the service after they return from Iraq.
- RC212V, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5Actually I work in the Pentagon and I have a security clearance. I would have followed the established military doctrine of overwhelming force rather than the politically expedient and farcical "shock and awe". I would have listened to my senior military leadership when they told me how many troops they needed in the first place. But more importantly I would not have gone to war based on the dubious intelligence our Commander in Chief did.
As for the VA and mental health in the military, those are issues that are well known and there are a lot of obvious problems there that can be easily corrected. There have been steps in the Army at least to start addressing combat stress but sweeping change has to come from the very top (like the President or the SecDef). - inactive, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5I absolutely agree with serif's comment, however it is tough to decide what to do because the main reason they hate us is because we're there. So to keep troops there to stop violence is hard, because as long as there are troops there, violence will occur. I've been torn on this issue for a while now, but I definitely think it's time to go... And not just Iraq, I wouldn't mind leaving the middle east entirely. I know the terrorists who committed 9/11 are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but if we had nothing to do with the middle east would they have attacked us in the first place? Does Canada have these problems? I think it has more to do with the oil than safety. I also know that Israel has a lot to do with this, but the relations we keep with them are coming at what I believe is a very high cost, not just the danger it provokes, but the loss of rights we have suffered with Bush looking to fight terrorism. Everyone seems to be concerned with the fact that we're hated in the region, but nobody asks why. I don't support the guy, but I think it's rediculous the way Ron Paul was attacked for trying to bring this up. Just my opinion.
- lewhich, on 04/10/2008, -0/+5Extremely well put.
Is it only me ... but I think there should be a way to "digg & Save" comments you read here on digg. Like caferrell's above. -
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