war is hell

and we all know that. of course this one is especially so since it is for NO cause what so ever EXCEPT to line the pockets of a few in the good ol' white boy network. please don't EVER believe (and a great many do. i don't know why but they really do) iraq had ANYTHING to do with 9/11. THEY DID NOT. look it up if you don't believe me.

yet, even with the horrors of war we're all familiar with, there are even deeper darker secrets.

i'm not a psychiatrist and i never was in the service. i cannot perport to know what it's like to be 18, to be in a foreign country where you don't know the language. where MANY people not only don't want you there, but are trying to kill you. where and why you're there you JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND. where you've seen your friends hurt or killed. where the customs are just not in the realm of your comprehension.

well i'm not sure how i would do under those conditions either. I AM IN NO WAY CONDONING criminal acts or war crimes. i'm just saying those men and women, OUR men and women NEVER should have been put in that place to begin with



The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

Chris Hedges & Laila Al-Arian

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit. The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported--and almost always go unpunished. ....