Invincible! Immortal? Soldiering (dys) Functionally

Not so long ago we had taken a peek at stuff like PTSD and the psychological costs of sending our young people to war. John Doyle, over at Ktismatics has actually been working with Veterans and their unique problems for quite some time despite the VA's refusal to allow outside psychologists in.

Now, new research indicates that there is also a very significant amount of actual brain damage being found in returning soldiers and recent Vets. The figures indicate that this happens FIVE TIMES more frequently than the army has been willing to admit to.

Listen to the NPRs interview (title link) with USA Today reporter Gregg Zoroya on his findings on the presence of brain trauma in soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. The army had reported only 4,000 so affected, but this study indicates that the numbers are 20,000 (so far), and that the vast majority of war returnees have not even been screened yet!

Another startling 'statistic' on veterans indicates that 1/3 of all the homeless in the U.S. A. are veterans. A rough estimate puts that at nearly a million vets (estimates range from 780,000 to 970,000 depending on who-take a look at some typical stats here, here and on Oldtimer.). A rough conservative calculation indicates that there are over 30 million Americans who could be classified as poor and of all of these about 1 in 10 is homeless. Another horrifying fact is that another one third of the homeless are children! One can expect that these stats will only get worse as the Iraq war returnees have experienced much longer tours of duty (than their Vietnam Vet friends) and will probably reach the crash out points that much faster. Add to that the spate of failed mortgages and the effects on families of losing their homes and their savings and you have a recipe for disaster.

I am not surprised that war veterans have suffered injuries that are both physically debilitating and mentally incapacitating. The chances of these sacrificial lambs successfully making it back into 'normal' life is always slim. What is surprising, very surprising, is that the army loudly touts it's ability to "take care of its own", but very obviously does not.

Soldiering has thus become just one more functionality in postmodern America. The lack of ideology is not as horrifying as the show of absolute callousness. It is quite impossible to believe that our armed forces do not know, did not anticipate, the sort of damage that our kids would be facing. Certainly, over four years into the war, they cannot only now be 'discovering' brain damage in returned vets. One naturally wonders how many of those in-service now are already suffering from such brain damage and either do not know it or are afraid to have it found out? The scenario is likely very similar to what is still the case for PTSD - denial.

Typically, the Neocon response has been to laugh it all off, with the Democrats not far behind, for this is a scandal of betrayal on a massive scale and it has been perpetrated in a singularly nonpartisan manner.

People, we are not talking about spin!

This is something much more like an information black hole - And with an election coming up too!

Guns N Roses

It used to be that the worst we could do was to kill off a few of our own species by instigating nasty but localized disasters...


think: Chernobyl, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, Cambodia's Killing Fields, Bhopal, WW1, Iraq...

with a little minor 'collateral damage' thrown in such as loss of habitats and some consequent reduction in biodiversity.

Global evils are a relatively new creation of mankind.

It all started somewhere in the 1950s when we created enough nuclear firepower to completely destroy all life on earth.

Now, that's definitely global!

Of course, TODAY the United States of America can be proud of having the ABILITY, and all on their lonesome, to destroy a hundred earths.

Russia may have more, or less and China? Then there's Israel, India, South Africa, Great Britain, France, Germany, Ukraine and now Brazil too and maybe a few others.

So, let's say, for the sake of argument, that's another few hundred worlds worth... and now we know why the forward thinking astronomers are so excitedly looking for habitable earthlike planets. We have to do something with all this 'globalicidal' firepower, something extra-terrestrial.

Well, when we do get started, (on using all of that lovely firepower) but hold on a minute, what if we don't majestically unleash?

It's six of one to a half a dozen odds on that the other global reality that we have produced will get us later if not sooner. That's the reality where we pressed an anonymous red button a while back and without ever realizing it.

We never had intended any such harm, nonetheless, we are well on our way to warming our own little globe so much that it will destroy all of life - at least life as we now know it.


The exciting part of that is that it does give evolution a fresh start, and maybe (just maybe) something as purely self destructive as humankind will not result the next time round. But then, it is nature, "red in tooth and claw"(1) that we are talking about! Heaven forbid, It could even be worse - maybe, we're not so bad after all?

So, this is not ultimately about survival. It looks like sooner (odds on), or later (also odds on), we will most certainly cease to exist, by our own hands desist forever.


So, it certainly is now about what we are going to be doing in the meantime.

I think it would be nice if we could go out in a blaze of glory. I really do think that here is something that despite our dark side we can perhaps manage. What I suggest is that knowing we're going to go, if only for a few short instants, let's try for a change not to do any more harm to any others for whatever little time we have left.

Now, is that such a big deal?

Think of posterity.

Think of what some species in the year 3,000 is going to find as they sift through the archaeological dust. Era after era of nastiness, wars, destruction, one-upmanship, weapons of destruction and then weapons of mass destruction and then wars based on spin about WMD that never existed, and then... peace.

Peace,

did I hear someone say

PEACE????

And the Ngobel Prize in History for the year 3,001 goes to - #$(*&%)@@*!!!, for the discovoverery of "Peace"...

"The History of Peace"

A richly and horrifyingly illustrated guide to the heroic end of what can only be termed as the most unimaginably uncivilized species to have ever gained intelligence.

It all began in the year 2007, when the species Humanus selfdestructivus realised that they were soon to no longer exist.

#$(*&%)@@*!!! finally succeeded in translating the digital data after almost 300 years of deciphering in base 2, and the result is the publication of a truly remarkable document that has been miraculously preserved. The story recounts how, when this realisation of imminent and irrevocable demise suddenly spread on the WWW, the entire Humanus selfdestructivus decided, mysteriously, and courageously, to spend their last years alive on the planet Ge, in PEACE...



(1) Canto LVI, Alfred Lord Tennnyson, "In Memoriam"

The Other Side of 'The WAR'

John Doyle at Ktismatics just pointed out this article. It is important that you read it IF you have any interest in the truth about the conduct of the Iraq War.

Sometimes, perhaps too often, having an interest in the truth can be very painful. This is one of those instances. The collage on the right makes me feel physically ill, but i've posted it here.

If you prefer to feel safe, please do NOT click on it to enlarge!

When the loss of 3,600 young people is sooo sickening, what does one make of the loss of the 300,000 non-combatants in Iraq? Their pics are not posted anywhere, yet they are just as real and just as dead.

Follow the title link to a rather detailed article in The Nation where they have interviewed 50 Iraq war veterans in order to get a closer, if stomach turning, look at the real war in Iraq.

Not for the faint hearted!

A few posts down, I spoke of PTSD; well now you know.

It is also worth pondering the fact that George Bush Junior is planning on a permanent "occupation" of Iraq, since it is obvious that the puppet government there is completely incapable of holding that nation together on its own...

Pity the fate of the Iraqi people - how many do you think will now be wondering if Saddam was not the better of the two evils?

In case the link leads to an ad, click the "skip to" on the bottom right to go to the article itself.