Use Em Then Spew Em - The Abuse of Soldiers For Profit
"If I've got a soldier who's on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don't want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they're a risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those conditions and is gambling that they can be successful."
Thought it may be a good idea to post this whole dialogue to the list as there is considerable fodder for thought that obviously escapes most of us as such things are simply not discussed in the media at large....
At the same time I should like to introduce Paul de Burgh-Day from down under (if you are from the northern hemisphere). Paul does not have a website at the moment. You can read about him in the body of this dialog. If you should like to be on or add a friend to his list, please contact him at the email at the end of this note.
Thanks too to Arun Shrivastava, who got this ball rolling...Chris Gupta
-----------------January 4, 2007
Iraq Vets Come Home Physically, Mentally Butchered
by Aaron Glantz
On New Year's Eve, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq passed 3,000. By Tuesday, the death toll had reached 3,004 – 31 more than died in the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
But the number of injured has far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting that more than 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war are receiving disability benefits.
Advances in military technology are keeping the death rate much lower than during the Vietnam War and World War Two, Dr. Col. Vito Imbascini, an urologist and state surgeon with the California Army National Guard, told IPS, but soldiers who survive attacks are often severely disabled for life.
"If you lost an arm or a leg in Vietnam, you were also tremendously injured in your chest and abdomen, which were not protected by the armor plates back then," he said. "Now, your heart and chest and lungs and heart are protected by armor, leaving only your extremities exposed."
Dr. Imbascini just returned from a four-month deployment to Germany, where he treated the worst of the U.S. war wounded. He said that an extremely high number of wounded soldiers are coming home with their arms or legs amputated. Imbascini said he amputated the genitals of one or two men every day.
"I walk into the operating room and the general surgeons are doing their work and there is the body of this Navy SEAL, which is a physical specimen to behold," he told IPS. "And his abdomen is open, they're exploring both intestines. He's missing both legs below the knee, one arm is blown off, he's got incisions on his thighs to relieve the pressure on the parts of the legs that are hopefully gonna survive and there's genital injuries, and you just want to cry."
According to documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, 25 percent of veterans of the "global war on terror" have filed disability compensation and pension benefit claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration.
One is a Jul. 20, 2006, document titled "Compensation and Pension Benefit Activity Among Veterans of the Global War on Terrorism," which shows that 152,669 veterans filed disability claims after fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of the more than 100,000 claims granted, Veterans Administration records show at least 1,502 veterans have been compensated as 100 percent disabled.
Pentagon studies show that 12 percent of soldiers who have served in Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The group Veterans for America, formerly the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, estimates 70,000 Iraq war veterans have gone to the VA for mental health care.
New guidelines released by the Pentagon released last month allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders.
According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, servicemembers with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.
"As a layman and a former soldier I think that's ridiculous," Steve Robinson, the director of Veterans Affairs for Veterans for America, told IPS.
"If I've got a soldier who's on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don't want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they're a risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those conditions and is gambling that they can be successful."
Robinson said problems with the policy are already starting to arise.
On Christmas, for example, Army Reservist James Dean barricaded himself in his father's home with several weapons and threatened to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, authorities told the Washington Post.
Veterans for America's Robinson told IPS that Dean, who had already served 18 months in Afghanistan, had been diagnosed with PTSD. He had just been informed that his unit would be sent to Iraq on Jan. 14.
"We call that suicide by cop," Robinson said.
After his death, Dean's friends told the Washington Post that the reservist enjoyed hunting and fishing but had lost much of his enthusiasm for life when he found out that he was being deployed to Iraq.
"When Congress comes back in session we're looking forward to accountability hearings," Robinson said. "We want to see veterans helped in the first 100 hours of the new session. We want to see the word 'veteran' somewhere in that first hundred hours."
Robinson says his organization has also documented the existence of at least 1,000 homeless veterans of the Iraq war.
"We need to get on top of the problem of homelessness," he said. "It's too soon to be seeing homelessness. I want to be seeing a commitment from the Democratic Congress to dealing with the war and the needs of the soldiers in the first hundred hours of them coming to power."
(Inter Press Service)
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Chris replied as followsHello, Arun and Paul,
This is not surprising, given that Military Industrial complex incorporates the pharma group as one of the major cogs in making money and advancing the plundering agenda. The easiest group to experiment on is the army. It is routine to try vaccines and drugs on this captive and essentially disposable group (regardless of the lip service to their soldiers - one only needs to look at the way they are treated once the war is over or when they have been injured and are of little use). The largest employer in the US is the army and with more and more jobs going overseas the army often is the only place to work hence a constant flow of new soldiers. People are reactive by nature and don't react till it is too late. Suspect once their sources start to dry up they may look into looking after them.
Chris
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At 02:57 AM 11/01/2007, Paul de Burgh-Day wrote:Hello Chris,
Your timing is perfect - I have just emerged from having to focus on an important task - to the exclusion of all else.
The Aaron Glantz article is on the mark. It is just so obvious, for anyone prepared to see. The breathtaking hypocrisy of being seen with cheering troops, then having congress slash funding for the VA. Just so much that has made this so obvious - but what is new? It was ever thus. The Bush junta are just more in your face about it. The troops would be within their rights to put Bush and his thugs in front of a firing squad.I agree with your comments - except for one thing - where you say 'once their sources start to dry up they may look into looking after them'. They won't have to do that - for four reasons off top of my head,
a) NAU is bent on combining USA with Canada and Mexico. Expect to see a lot more Hispanics in the military.
b) Already, citizenship is being offered to various central American nationalities - if they join the US military!
c) Military is being rapidly privatised. Probably about 100,000 corporate mercenaries in Iraq - doing the same job. Nobody counts them, or reports their death. Lot of the best soldiers quit to join Blackwater and their ilk. They get paid more - lots more.
d) The US economy and currency is about to be tanked - deliberately. Housing bubble is about to blow. Bankruptcy laws have changed to make it impossible for people to take shelter in bankruptcy. Banks have lent vast sums to anyone. The rug is about to be pulled. This will create millions of indentured serfs - who will do what they are told. Like go into the military to work off their debt.
I will send you a couple of very recent and highly relevant reports on this.
The ramifications of all this will be horrific. I have been warning my email friends of this for several years. More than anything, I have told people to do whatever they have to do to get out of debt. NO BANK BORROWINGS! Of course, this has been in the face of a deliberate strategy to seduce people into debt. I've no idea who has heeded my warnings.
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ABOUT MEI'm an ageing activist - from about 2000. Before that, I was pretty much a liberal voting conservative. I even supported John Howard - lord preserve me! Came to Tasmania - the corrupt state. Corruption is everywhere of course, but few places in the west so in your face! We came to a remote valley in the mountains of Tasmania to a beautiful and powerful place. We soon found that it was under attack from a system that had destroyed almost all of this island's small rural communities. Tasmania is a forest industry triumvirate - monopoly corporation runs Forestry Tasmania which is owned by the people. The government - both sides - in the pocket of the industry. Our 'sustainable' forestry is very third world. We put a lot of effort into fending off the forces of darkness who are trying to destroy Lorinna. They very seriously would like to wipe us off the map - especially as we have had a habit of beating them!
9/11 really got me going. Right from the beginning I thought 'inside job'. Of course that was pure conspiracy theory then. Not any more! There is so much hard evidence now that the laughable official version is the real CT.
So, I started researching, reading, looking, listening. Soon realised that the Mainstream media was complicit in the whole thing. Has been for many, many years. If you have an interest in reality - truth - you know that they spin a story they want you to buy. Thank goodness for the internet - that wonderful anarchic global communication medium (no wonder they are bent on seizing control of it).
I started posting reports to a few friends here in Australia. Now I have quite a few Americans on my list, and a scattering of people around the world - including Arun. My objective has been to try and open a few eyes. I get the idea I have had a little success with that - which has extended beyond those actually on my list.
Along the way, I've come to understand how the minds of the people have been controlled. How they have been turned into fearful zombies. Who are the central puppeteers - the ones who run Bush, Blair, Howard - your Stephen Harper. The ones who have the US congress and senate by the short and curlies - and politicians here, Europe, all over.
I have discovered how and why most people simply don't want to see - they don't want to know. The enormity of what has and is being done is too much for them to grasp. Easier to be dumbed down by Fox News and to hate Muslims.I do not have a website. Nor a blog. Many times I have been told I should. Maybe, but I have chosen not to. Partly because I don't want to become a high profile target.
Most of what I post is reports from others, usually preceded by my own comments - often very brief, sometimes quite long. I've not written any reports of my own. I guess I could, but I doubt I would come up with many profound insights of my own.
I've had a quick look at your site - read your biog. there is no doubt, there are many areas of common interest.
This family has as little as possible to do with the conventional medical profession - which these days means zero. We have some good natural healing friends. We dowse for what we need - or what to avoid. I have long had Type II diabetes. If I'd relied upon the medicos, I'd be pushing up daisies years ago. Mostly we self diagnose - listen to what our bodies tell us. Recognise we are animals too, so much of what is valid for our animals applies to us. We are certified organic and almost totally live off our own food.I have walked a tight-rope because of diabetic damage. Clear to me now that a lot of my problems arise from a youth on a conventional farm. When I was a young lad, various chemicals were called safe - so we treated them accordingly. Dieldrin for flystrike of sheep for example!
Tasmania's brand is "Clean and Green". Load of bulldust of course. Why else do we have the worst state of health in Australia?
I have to wind up now - dinner time!
I look forward to further dialogue. I will do some more exploration of your site.
Best wishes
Paul
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From Chris today .
Thanks Paul, for this most enlightening post. You answered the puzzle about the sources drying up quite nicely, this makes imminent sense as long as they don't have to send the mainstream Americans the pressure will be off and they will have a hay day! Think you have summed this up pretty well and it may be good idea to post this whole dialogue to the list as there is considerable fodder for thought that obviously escapes most as such things are simply not discussed in the media at large*.
*The human mind is like a computer, no matter how efficient it may be, its reliability is only as great as the information fed into it.
If it is possible to control the input of the human mind, then no matter how intelligent a person may be, it's entirely possible to program what he will think. And yes it's even possible to program people to laugh at the mere mention of the word 'conspiracy.'
We are under total control, yet we think we are 'free.'
Can you say 'con-spir-a-cy'?
Extracted from: The Truth Will Set You Free
You have probably already read: War Is A Racket By Major General Smedley Butler - Free book on the net ?
Here is another that you may find interesting: Lesson from Austria.
Of course we never learn! As most are just too comfy being scamed left right and centre. As long as the masses can put bread, however rotten, on the table and get their daily entertainment they can be controlled and will do little if anything to change things until it's to late. A measly beer is all that is needed to bribe for a vote - now we have all the vote fraud and they don't even have buy beer for you!
The only hope is to blind sight the buggers. See: Re: If Content Wants To Be Free, How Can I Be Sustainable Robin?
Looking forward to your reports - assume posting all this is OK - with due credits of course?
Chris
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --- Margaret Mead
We can be those citizens.
Chris
-------------------Paul de Burgh-Day
Box 132 Sheffield Tasmania 7306 Australia
Tel: 61(0)3 6363 5060 Fax: 61 (0)3 6363 5065If you would like to add a friend to this list, please send me their address.
Or ask them to email a request to me.
posted by Chris Gupta on Sunday January 21 2007
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2007/01/21/use_em_then_spew_em_the_abuse_of_soldiers_for_profit.htm
