MILITARY SUICIDE RATES SURPASS GENERAL PUBLIC

Last week, I got an email from the Kingston Times through the Ward Nine Group service which asked all subscribers: "What do you think should be in the surplus package?"

The last of my 10 point response, was a plea to upgrade of the way we serve our returning troops. It's a disgrace!

Yes, the US economy is a factor, but the system these young men & women are left to navigate once home, is heartbreakingly disfunctional. Mainly through the lack of funding.

This week, the shocking news of the increased rate of military suicides and the grim reality that these numbers surpassed the number of losses through combat, shook the public. I think we all took a few deep breaths once we stopped to think about it.

Alarmingly, at least 128 soldiers killed themselves in 2008, up 20 from last year, and the Army suicide rate surpassed that for civilians for the first time since the Vietnam War.

Army officials said: "The suicide count, which includes soldiers in the Army Reserve and the National Guard, is expected to grow."

An AP source in the NY Times stated: The Army did not identify a specific reason for the increase, but officials said 15-month deployments to war zones played a role. These deployments, which have allowed for little time away from the battlefield, have contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, alcohol abuse and family problems. Seven suicides took place in Afghanistan and 31 in Iraq.

In my response to the local paper, I noted that we do not have a specific program to help our returning hero's to the workforce, partly because of the downturn in the economy, but also because we have left them out of the equation when the administration decided to invest our bravest souls into combat for a war of choice.

According to several articles that came up when I searched the web: Thirty percent of the suicides in the last four years took place during a deployment. Thirty-five percent took place after a deployment. The remaining 35 percent of those who killed themselves had never deployed.

In recent months, the Army has increased their hiring of mental health care providers. Hundreds of them! Obama has pledged to hire plenty more, but Veterans’ and mental health advocates have been critical of the Army, saying it has been too slow to recognise and treat the tide of soldiers struggling with mental health problems after returning from Iraq or Afghanistan.

The executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Paul Rieckhoff, said: “The suicide numbers released today come as no surprise to veterans who have experienced firsthand the psychological toll of war, since the Iraq war began, suicide rates and other signs of psychological injury, like marital strain and substance abuse, have been increasing every year.”

I posted an interview of Paul Rieckhoff moments ago, right below this article.

You can learn more about the efforts of this Veteran's advocacy group, by going to www.IAVA.org

If you would like to help the families of the youngsters who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, you can go to www.operationhomefront.net

U S TRUTH COMMISSION OVERDUE

Retired General Antonio Taguba, was responsible for investigating the physical and mental abuse of the alleged accomplices of national terrorism in Iraq. Upon retirement, this distinguished American military commander accuses the United States of committing war crimes in its handling of said detainees.

One quote in his final report states: “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes, the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Taguba, has said as much in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights which he has injected a plethora of experiences from his tour of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Taguba has asked that we need a national Truth Commission to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing. (we’ve heard this for years)

When I looked up the term Truth Commission on Google, I discovered: That was what South Africa did after apartheid, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it is what the United States did with the Kerner Commission on race and the 1980s commission that examined the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

So, I would ad my voice to the list saying, we need a similar Truth Commission, with subpoena power to better investigate the internal abuses following the attacks on 9/11. What our government got away with in the name of national security went beyond the pale when it comes to our personal civil rights.

According to the AP: more than 100 inmates have died in American custody in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo and many of the people we tortured were innocent .

In a recent editorial in the NY Times by Nick Kristof, (pictured right)he points out that the McClatchy newspaper group has just published a devastating series on torture and other abuses, and it quotes Thomas White, the former Army secretary, as saying that it was clear from the moment Guantánamo opened that one-third of the inmates didn’t belong there. Oops!

Kristof goes on to say: “These abuses happened partly because, for several years after 9/11, many of our national institutions didn’t do their jobs. The Democratic Party rolled over rather than serving as loyal opposition. We in the press were often lap dogs rather than watchdogs, and we let the public down.”

The Truth Commission investigating these issues ideally would be a non-partisan group heavily weighted with respected military and security officials, including generals, admirals and top intelligence figures. Such backgrounds would give their findings credibility across the political spectrum.

Kristof continues: Both Barack Obama and John McCain should commit to impaneling a Truth Commission early in the next administration. This commission would issue a report to help us absorb the lessons of our failings, the better to avoid them during the next crisis.

I would have to agree. What has been done to the civilians and the accused in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in our name, by Blackwater and KBR, will diminish whatever efforts we’ve made across the middle-east in the way of aid.

The Truth Commission would offer the world a glimmer of hope that America could once again rise to her image of justice and glory world wide.

Nicholas D. Kristof Go to Columnist Page »

UNARMED IN AFGHANISTAN

If you were sent to defend a foreign country against Al Qaeda forces, wouldn’t you want weapons and ammunition? Well, our young soldiers are struggling without ‘em.

Since 2006, the Afghan government has been dependent on American military support against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.



Most of the ammunition has come from an upstart company in Florida called AEY Inc. Get this…our government awarded a $300 million contract to this company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur. Just who handles these arms deals?

Since January of 2008, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc made in the early 70’s.



The US State Department and NATO have determined these munitions to be unreliable and obsolete, and should have been destroyed years ago.

This Kid even created a shell company which is already on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking. So who is responsible?


The New York Times reported that these arms were manufactured in China, which is a violation of American law. The company's president, Efraim E. Diveroli, was also secretly recorded in a conversation that suggested corruption in his company's purchase of more than 100 million aging rounds in Albania.

Hundreds of Hudson Valley men & women are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and else-where to manage conflicts that threaten US interests. You would think that our own government would do a little research first. I bet our new Landlord DATAbase would do better.

If AEY Inc. is found in violation of the contract the company will be permanently barred from doing business with the U.S. government. The House Oversight Committee is currently reviewing this in hearings all this week.

I met this young man at the Midtown Center the day the troops came home last month. He told me of his training and where he hoped to be posted. Which makes the question local. When we send a local reserves cadet into harms way (pictured right) shouldn't he be prepared with all the means to protect himself?