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Title: Suicide claiming more Americans than Afghan battlefields
Source:
World Socialist Website
URL Source: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/suic-j06.shtml
Published: Jan 16, 2011
Author: James Cogan
Post Date: 2011-01-16 09:20:03 by Tatarewicz
Keywords: None
Views: 253
Comments: 21
American military personnel are continuing to take their own lives in unprecedented numbers, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drag on. By late November, at least 334 members of the armed forces had committed suicide in 2009, more than the 319 who were killed in Afghanistan or the 150 who died in Iraq. While a final figure is not available, the toll of military suicides last year was the worst since records began to be kept in 1980. The Army, National Guard and Army Reserve lost at least 211 personnel to suicide. More than half of those who took their lives had served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The Army suicide rate of 20.2 per 100,000 personnel is higher than that registered among males aged 19 to 29, the gender age bracket with the highest rate among the general population. Before 2001, the Army rarely suffered 10 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. The Navy lost at least 47 active duty personnel in 2009, the Air Force 34 and the Marine Corp, which has been flung into some of the bloodiest fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 42. The Marine suicide rate has soared since 2001 from 12 to at least 19.5 per 100,000. For every death, at least five members of the armed forces were hospitalised for attempting to take their life. According to the Navy Times, 2 percent of Army; 2.3 percent of Marines and 3 percent of Navy respondents to the military’s own survey of 28,536 members from all branches reported they had attempted suicide at some point. The “Defense Survey of Health-Related Behaviors” also found “dangerous levels” of alcohol abuse and the illicit use of drugs such as pain killers by 12 percent of personnel. The trigger for a suicide attempt varied from case to case: relationship breakdowns, financial problems, substance abuse, tensions with other members of their unit, a traumatic event. What is clear, however, is that military service has seriously impacted on the physical and mental health of the victims. The suicide figures for serving personnel are only one indication. The most alarming statistics are those on mental illness related to the hundreds of thousands of veterans of the two wars who have left the military and sought to reintegrate into civilian life. While there is no exact figure, studies estimate that as many as 20 to 30 percent of veterans suffer some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), hindering their ability to hold down jobs, maintain relationships, overcome substance abuse and, in some cases, maintain their will to live. The worsening economic conditions facing working people in the US are aggravating the difficulties. A survey last year found that at least 15 percent of former soldiers in the 20 to 24 age bracket were unemployed. An article by the Florida Today site on January 3 reported that 450 of the 800 homeless in Brevard County were Iraq or Afghanistan veterans. Shelters in California are reporting twice as many requests for assistance from new veterans compared with 2007. At the current rate, they will eventually outnumber the more than 100,000 homeless Vietnam vets. A study of veterans with PTSD published last August by the Journal of Traumatic Stress found that 47 percent had had suicidal thoughts before seeking treatment and 3 percent had attempted to kill themselves. The US Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has been compelled to substantially upgrade its services. Since its 24-hour, seven-days a week suicide hotline was belatedly established in July 2007, it has counselled over 185,000 veterans or their families and claims to have prevented at least 5,000 suicides. It now has 400 counselors dedicated to suicide prevention though even the Pentagon admits far more are needed. People who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan make up a growing proportion of the 6,400 veterans that VA estimates take their own lives each year. A 2007 CBS study put the rate among male veterans aged 20 to 24 at four times the national average—more than 40 per 100,000 per year. The suicide estimates do not include the hundreds of young veterans who die each year in auto accidents, many of which are linked with excessive speed or driving under the influence and kill or injure others as well. In 2008, veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan were 75 percent more likely to die in an auto accident than non-veterans and 148 percent more likely to die in a motorcycle crash. Suicide statistics also do not count deaths that are classified as accidental drug-related overdoses. American society will continue to pay for the harm caused by the Iraq and Afghan wars for decades to come. There is a growing medical consensus that a significant factor in PTSD is actual physical damage to the brain. Developments in vehicle and body armour, combined with advances in medical treatment, have enabled thousands of soldiers to survive bomb blasts that might have taken their lives in earlier conflicts. They survive with trauma to their brain however. The Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury estimated in early 2009 that between 45,000 to 90,000 veterans of the two wars had been left with “severe and lasting symptoms” of brain injury. Overall, the Defense Department estimates that as many as 20 percent of veterans had suffered some degree of brain injury due to bomb blasts while in Iraq or Afghanistan—a staggering 360,000 men and women.
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#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
Last presidential election American voters voted for more war. Someone has to pay for it.
Finian Cunningham Gulf Daily News January 12, 2010 Here is a shocking statistic that you won’t hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide – more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org). Since 2001, when Washington launched its so-called war on terror, there has been a dramatic year-on-year increase in US military suicides, particularly in the army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is nearly double the national average. * A d v e r t i s e m e n t * iphone app A growing number of these victims have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. What these figures should tell us is that there is something fundamentally deranged about Washington’s “war on terror” – which is probably why western news media prefer to ignore the issue. How damning is it about such military campaigns that the number of US soldiers who take their own lives outnumber those killed by enemy combatants. What is even more disturbing is that the official figures only count victims of suicide among serving personnel. Not included are the many more veterans – officially classed a civilians – who take their own lives. Most likely, these deaths are reported in some small-town newspaper in “a brief” news item with no context or background as to what drove these individuals to take their own lives. It is estimated that the suicide rate among veterans demobbed from fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq is as high as four times the national average. The US Department of Veteran Affairs calculates that over 6,000 former service personnel commit suicide every year. Many of these men have come home to a country they have fought for only to find no jobs, their homes repossessed by banks that have enjoyed trillion-dollar bailouts and broken relationships. Meanwhile, President Obama – the erstwhile peace candidate – has taken on the role of Commander in Chief with gusto, telling his countrymen and women that they are fighting a “just war” to “defend American lives”. Only a year ago, he was campaigning for the presidency on a ticket to end such wars. Now, more than his predecessor, George W Bush, Obama is committing to wars without end. How soul-destroying is that for a grunt holed up in a bunker, with his young family back home probably telling him that they have just signed up for food stamps? In their guts, these US soldiers must know – as many other ordinary people around the world do – that these wars are nothing but a desperate, pathological bid by a dying power to salvage its crumbling empire – an empire that enriches a tiny elite and impoverishes the majority. Is it any wonder that many of them simply lose the will to live?
It certainly appears that suicides or nothing else will stop the steamroller of perpetual war.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. .... Yeats
icon... Sometimes one has to wonder just what it will take to awaken Americans, if indeed it is not already too late. War is coming, war that this country has never seen, God awful war.
In fairness to the American voter, Obummer ran as a "peace candidate" and had opposed the Iraq war. He did a 180 quite quickly. Something in the water in D.C.?
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. .... Yeats
Your thoughts on my recent posts here, if you care to. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. .... Yeats
The war for Obamas usefulness is but a sidelight. One billion dollars appeared to make him President, for that the elite expect much more for their money.
What's to say they didn't get what they paid for?
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. .... Yeats
We have two years to to go for them to call in their debt..
I'm not sure that's what they voted "for" ... but it's definitely what they got !
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities also has the power to make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
The nite McKooK and the pubs laffed Paul off the stage I knew Americans were going to be screwed once again. The audience took great merriment at Pauls embarrassment. He was the only one that said bring the troops home, the rest being war mongers.
No other war had Big Pharma doping up the soldiers on and off the battlefield......but that little fact certainly wouldn't have anything to do with increased suicide rates. No correlation despite suicide being a side- effect of the pills.
" If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11
I wouldn't hazard a guess as to where the elites will shower their contributions but I believe both parties will suffer overall decrease as the little folk choose to send their money to individual candidates. I think that already has had more to do with the Pubbies books being in the red than ineptness of Steele.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. .... Yeats
That was the republicans (only) debate ... the peeps elected a Demon-crap !
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities also has the power to make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
Yes... Paul was the only candidate of any stripe to call for the troops to come home. When his own people ridiculed him, it was all over. In all 130 million people voted for more war and we have it.
He did a 180 quite quickly. Something in the water in D.C.? Actually he did no such thing. He made some vague statements that he allowed the sucker class to interpret as they would but they were as meaningless as his vague and never defined: and Not to mention the Phamaceutical Company Enrichment Plan known as Obamacare which ended up even worse than I predicted. "“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” ~ Gautama Siddhartha — The Buddha
I don't vote so I don't have a dog in the fight ... but I'd have to disagree that all of those dems thought Obummer was Bush II.
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities also has the power to make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
Not too bad, considering that it's only 50 or so guys running around with a few Soviet-era Kalasnikovs that have managed to bring "The World's Greatest Military" to its knees, to the point where they're blowing their own heads off in their barracks, rather than face another day. Imagine what a quarter million or so patriots could do in this country.
What aboiut the pubs that supported Obama????? The Eisenhowers and Nixons, any explanation for that?????
The Eisenhowers and Nixons, any explanation for that????? Hey man, I don't vote so I'd be the last person to try to justify or legitimize the process. (Hahahaha !)
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities also has the power to make you commit atrocities." Voltaire
Actually they voted for the "peace" candidate as heralded by no less than the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Politically though the office of POTUS is of little relevance; Congress is where the action is. As for war and other current policy issues the American voter has long been taught to depend on the "free press" for information and guidance, not really knowing that Jews have turned main stream media into a pro-Israel propaganda agency through ownership, advertising and staffing to serve the crucial interests of Israel. Since Israel needs America to keep fighting potential/"existential" enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq, even to the detriment of American interests, and to keep world attention off Israeli thefts of Palestinian land the Zionist-controlled media avoided making the wars an issue, dwelling instead on staged fights between capitalist, small government Republicans and the socialist, big government Democrats, both of which overwhelmingly depend on Organized Jewry's scam arrangement of channeling taxpayer funds into candidates' election campaigns (through the $3-billion annual gift Congress votes to Israel). So like the media, the main party politicians did not raise the issue of wars or if they did it's to stress the importance of winning, something the "patriotic" voter has to go along with, especially when told Iraqis would welcome their liberation from Saddam. Last week an Iraqi soldier being trained by Americans showed his appreciation by sneaking in live ammo (to replace blacks used in training) and wiped out two American trainers. Can you see why war is referred to as theatre? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and a third injured when an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops during training in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the U.S. military said. The incident occurred while U.S. soldiers were training Iraqi security forces at al-Ghazlani U.S. military camp in southern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. "Two U.S. service members were killed by small arms fire when an Iraqi soldier attacked them at the Ghazlani Training Center located south of Mosul at approximately 8:30 a.m. Saturday," the U.S. military said in a statement. It said the Iraqi soldier who had opened fire was killed during the incident. A third U.S. service member was wounded, the U.S. military said. "Until now, we don't have any information on why the two Iraqi soldiers opened fire," a senior Iraqi police official, who declined to be named, said. Separately, another U.S. service member was killed while conducting operations in central Iraq, the U.S. military said in a separate statement on Saturday. It gave no further details and did not specify where the incident occurred. Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq since the United States officially ended combat operations last August. The remaining soldiers are focused on advising and assisting Iraqi security forces as they take the lead in the fight against a weakened yet resilient insurgency. Bombings and attacks remain a daily occurrence in Iraq, although violence has fallen since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006-7 unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Mosul remains one of the most dangerous cities in the country, where Iraq is still fighting a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency. (Reporting by Jamal al-Badrani; Writing by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Michael Roddy)
#2. To: All (#0)
#3. To: Cynicom (#1)
Last presidential election American voters voted for more war.
#4. To: iconoclast (#3)
#5. To: Cynicom (#1)
Last presidential election American voters voted for more war.
#6. To: Cynicom (#4)
War is coming, war that this country has never seen, God awful war.
#7. To: iconoclast (#5)
He did a 180 quite quickly. Something in the water in D.C.?
#8. To: Cynicom (#7)
One billion dollars appeared to make him President, for that the elite expect much more for their money.
#9. To: iconoclast (#8)
What's to say they didn't get what they paid for?
#10. To: Cynicom (#1)
Last presidential election American voters voted for more war.
#11. To: noone222 (#10)
I'm not sure that's what they voted "for" ... but it's definitely what they got !
#12. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
#13. To: Cynicom (#9)
We have two years to to go for them to call in their debt..
#14. To: Cynicom (#11)
The nite McKooK and the pubs laffed Paul off the stage I knew Americans were going to be screwed once again.
#15. To: noone222 (#14)
(Edited)
That was the republicans (only) debate ... the peeps elected a Demon-crap !
#16. To: iconoclast, Cynicom, Robin, all (#5)
In fairness to the American voter, Obummer ran as a "peace candidate" and had opposed the Iraq war.
HOPE
CHANGE
#17. To: Cynicom (#15)
In all 130 million people voted for more war and we have it.
#18. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
Suicide claiming more Americans than Afghan battlefields
Mike Flaherty: Yeah, it's been there a long time. I wish I knew which corner.
My Man Godfrey (1936)
#19. To: noone222 (#17)
but I'd have to disagree that all of those dems thought Obummer was Bush II.
#20. To: Cynicom (#19)
What aboiut the pubs that supported Obama?????
#21. To: Cynicom (#1)
(Edited)
Last presidential election American voters voted for more war.
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