The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing. The savagery and brutality of the occupation is tearing apart those who have been deployed to Iraq. As news reports have just informed us, 115 American soldiers committed suicide in 2007. This is a 13% increase in suicides over 2006. And the suicides, as they did in the Vietnam War years, will only rise as distraught veterans come home, unwrap the self-protective layers of cotton wool that keep them from feeling, and face the awful reality of what they did to innocents in Iraq



American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed within the confines of this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish.




The reality behind the myth, however, is very different. The reality and the ideal tragically clash when soldiers and Marines return home. These combat veterans are often alienated from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. They confront the grave, existential crisis of all who go through combat and understand that we have no monopoly on virtue, that in war we become as barbaric and savage as those we oppose.

"This unit sets up this traffic control point, and this 18 year-old kid is on top of an armored Humvee with a .50-caliber machine gun," remembered Sgt. Geoffrey Millard, who served in Tikrit with the 42nd Infantry Division. "And this car speeds at him pretty quick and he makes a split-second decision that that's a suicide bomber, and he presses the butterfly trigger and puts two hundred rounds in less than a minute into this vehicle. It killed the mother, a father, and two kids. The boy was aged four and the daughter was aged three.

"And they briefed this to the general," Millard said, "and they briefed it gruesome. I mean, they had pictures. They briefed it to him. And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, 'If these f---ing hajis learned to drive, this sh-t wouldn't happen.'"

Prophets are not those who speak of piety and duty from pulpits -- few people in pulpits have much worth listening to -- but are the battered wrecks of men and women who return from Iraq and speak the halting words we do not want to hear, words that we must listen to and heed to know ourselves. They tell us war is a soulless void. They have seen and tasted how war plunges us into perversion, trauma, and an unchecked orgy of death. And it is their testimonies that have the redemptive power to save us from ourselves.

Posted by Nalod:

IMagine how bad it was for the Veterans of Vietnam.

At least our society honors our Iraqi vets as noble even if not eveyone agrees with our policy there.

We had boys coming home, every bit as patriotic and honorable os these guys but getting spit on and called "baby killers".

War War 2 vets were "the greatest generation" and only recently has that glorified war been delt with some accuracy regarding that generation whom really were taught to not talk much.

Killing in the name of your country is bad business and the hardships are brutal.

We at home are told to support our troops by supporting the ecnomy but our collective mindset is not supporting this war, but we at the same time are not supporting the troops as a society.

In the last few years on Veterans day I was at an NFL game and they did the jet fly by, the honor guard, the proper pregame emotional "tribute" to our troops and then when the whistle blew it was back to commercialism at its best and pushing 8 dollar draft beers down our snouts and other hype.

IT was like sooth the guilt then show the T&A an sell more SUVs!

Granted, this has been going on for some time and is nothing new, but the dycodomy of it all was not too cool.

On the other hand, while George BUsh is an *******, we can't forget there are some pretty evil muthaphuchers over there that just need to chill their sh!t also and leave some things alone. We can get so critical at time that the US is guilty one here, but thats not entirley true.

While our country has much to be ashamed of, we can also be proud of a few things also.