Army sees worst month for suicides ever.

[Rogers]

"More soldiers killed themselves last month than any other month on record. There were 21 active-duty and 11 reserve soldier suicides in June, including seven in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Army reported on Thursday."
http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central-1.8040/army-sees-worst-month-for-suicides-ever-1.111237

[Rogers]

Hold On to Your Humanity

An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq

By STAN GOFF
(US Army Retired)

"Dear American serviceperson in Iraq,

I am a retired veteran of the army, and my own son is among you, a paratrooper like I was. The changes that are happening to every one of you--some more extreme than others--are changes I know very well. So I'm going to say some things to you straight up in the language to which you are accustomed."

"When I started hearing about weapons of mass destruction that threatened the United States from Iraq, a shattered country that had endured almost a decade of trench war followed by an invasion and twelve years of sanctions, my first question was how in the hell can anyone believe that this suffering country presents a threat to the United States? But then I remembered how many people had believed Vietnam threatened the United States. Including me."

"I changed over there in Vietnam and they were not nice changes either. I started getting pulled into something--something that craved other peole's pain."

"So we finish our tour, and go back to our families, who can see that even though we function, we are empty and incapable of truly connecting to people any more, and maybe we can go for months or even years before we fill that void where we surrendered our humanity, with chemical anesthetics--drugs, alcohol, until we realize that the void can never be filled and we shoot ourselves, or head off into the street where we can disappear with the flotsam of society, or we hurt others, esepcially those who try to love us, and end up as another incarceration statistic or a mental patient."

"I live with the rage every day of my life, even when no one else sees it. You might hear it in my words. I hate being chumped."

"They are your enemies--The Suits--and they are the enemies of peace, and the enemies of your families, especially if they are Black families, or immigrant families, or poor families. They are thieves and bullies who take and never give, and they say they will "never run" in Iraq, but you and I know that they will never have to run, because they fucking aren't there. You are.

They'll skin and grin while they are getting what they want from you, and throw you away like a used condom when they are done. Ask the vets who are having their benefits slashed out from under them now. Bushfeld and their cronies are parasites, and they are the sole beneficiaries of the chaos you are learning to live in. They get the money. You get the prosthetic devices, the nightmares, and the mysterious illnesses."

"Come home safe, and come home sane. The people who love you and who have loved you all your lives are waiting here, and we want you to come back and be able to look us in the face. Don't leave your souls in the dust there like another corpse.

Hold on to your humanity.

Stan Goff

US Army (Ret.)"
http://www.counterpunch.org/goff11142003.html

YouTube- The Levellers Another mans cause (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBVtVR7Nme0)

[Rogers]

In Vietnam-era files, parallels of anxiety
Kerry releases records to spur Afghan debate

The Boston Globe
July 15, 2010

"Many of the documents involve the so-called Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was passed by Congress in 1964 and gave Johnson authority to send US forces into combat against North Vietnam. The resolution was approved after the Johnson administration reported that a US Navy ship operating in international waters was attacked by North Vietnamese boats — reports that were later called into question.

By 1968, when the committee heard testimony from naval officers that directly refuted the version of events provided by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, some members of the committee said they regretted voting for the resolution.

“The final conclusion we draw from these cables is that Mr. McNamara misled the committee,’’ the panel’s chief of staff at the time, Carl Marcy, said in one secret session in 1968."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/07/15/in_vietnam_era_files_parallels_of_anxiety/?page=1

YouTube- Seymour Hersh about Osama & Al 'Qaeda's Afghanistan escapes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_BS83BmTIQ)

[Rogers]

Remembering the US Soldier Who Committed Suicide After She Refused to Take Part in Torture
http://www.thenation.com/blog/154649/remembering-us-soldier-who-committed-suicide-after-she-refused-take-part-torture (http://www.thenation.com/blog/154649/remembering-us-soldier-who-committed-suicide-after-she-refused-take-part-torture)

"General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think."
- Bertolt Brecht
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-a-german-war-primer/

YouTube - The Great Dictator - speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvPIWzQcUY)