This is what happens when soldiers fight wars and go against their soul/conscience in the time of the soul.

Concern mounts over rising troop suicides

* Story Highlights
* Average of 5 soldiers per day tried to commit suicide in 2007, Army figures show
* Sen. Jim Webb introduces legislation to improve care for soldiers
* Army psychiatrist says soldiers must overcome stigma of treatment
* Psychiatrist: "We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care"
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. Before the Iraq war began, that figure was less than one suicide attempt a day.
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A U.S. soldier patrols the streets of Baghdad in January.

The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007.

"Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist.

Concern over the rate of suicide attempts prompted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, to introduce legislation Thursday to improve the military's suicide-prevention programs.

"Our troops and their families are under unprecedented levels of stress due to the pace and frequency of more than five years of deployments," Webb said in a written statement. Video Watch CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre on the reasons for the increase in suicides »

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, took to the Senate floor Thursday, urging more help for military members, especially for those returning from war.

"Our brave service members who face deployment after deployment without the rest, recovery and treatment they need are at the breaking point," Murray said.

She said Congress has given "hundreds of millions of dollars" to the military to improve its ability to provide mental health treatment, but said it will take more than money to resolve the problem.

"It takes leadership and it takes a change in the culture of war," she said. She said some soldiers had reported receiving nothing more than an 800 number to call for help.

"Many soldiers need a real person to talk to," she said. "And they need psychiatrists and they need psychologists."

According to Army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war.

Last year's 2,100 attempted suicides -- an average of more than 5 per day -- compares with about 350 suicide attempts in 2002, the year before the war in Iraq began, according to the Army.
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The figures also show the number of suicides by active-duty troops in 2007 may reach an all-time high when the statistics are finalized in March, Army officials said.

The Army lists 89 soldier deaths in 2007 as suicides and is investigating 32 more as possible suicides. Suicide rates already were up in 2006 with 102 deaths, compared with 87 in 2005.

Cameron-Ritchie, the Army psychiatrist, said suicide attempts are usually related to problems with intimate relationships, but they are also related to problems with work, finances and the law.

"The really tough area here is stigma. We know that soldiers don't want to go seek care. They're tough, they're strong, they don't want to go see a behavioral health-care provider," Cameron-Ritchie said.

Multiple deployments and long deployments appear to exact a toll on relationships, thereby boosting the number of suicide attempts, she said.

Traditionally, the suicide rate among military members has been lower than age- and gender-matched civilians. But in recent years the rate has crept up from 12 per 100,000 among the military to 17.5 per 100,000 in 2006, she said. That's still less than the civilian figure of about 20 per 100,000, she said.

The "typical" soldier who commits suicide is a member of an infantry unit who uses a firearm to carry out the act, according to the Army.

Post-traumatic stress disorder also may be a factor in suicide attempts, Cameron-Ritchie said, because it can result in broken relationships and often leads to drug and alcohol abuse.

"The real central issue is relationships. Relationships, relationships, relationships," said U.S. Army Chaplain Lt. Col. Ran Dolinger. "People look at PTSD, they look at length of deployments ... but it's that broken relationship that really makes the difference."

To reduce suicides, the Army said it is targeting soldiers who are or have been in Iraq for long periods and teaching them to notice signs that can lead to suicide.

That training came too late for Army Specialist Tim Bowman. The 23-year-old killed himself in 2005 after returning from Iraq.

"As my family was preparing for a 2005 Thanksgiving meal, our son Timothy was lying on the floor, slowly bleeding to death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound," said his father, Mike Bowman, in testimony to a House Veterans' Affairs committee hearing in December. "His war was now over."
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He said veterans return home to find an "understaffed, under-funded, under-equipped" Veterans Affairs mental health system.

"Many just give up trying," he said.

ya war eats the soul of people. thanks OP.

Next time post about something you know about. As a soldier and a vetran of the Iraq war I can tell you that it has nothing to do with soldier's conscience. I and all my friends feel fine about going there and what we have done. You are not there. You do not know what Al Queda was doing to these people before we got there in the surge. We have killed a lot of Al Queda fighters and they are now thankfully on the run. The kids would come out everyday smiling and waving to us. The additional suicides are caused by the stress of battle and some of the horrific things we have seen. It also is sometimes caused by long tours and comming home to find that the wife/girlfriend left you for someone else. Also dealing with the death of a close friend can be hard to deal with.

So when I go back this next fall if I can look over and see you standing there besides me, then maybe you can expound upon what it is like to be a combat soldier. Until then you have not earned that right.

Let's see... Using this type of reasoning, only bank robbers can comment correctly on other bank robbers' mental health, only rapists can comment on other rapists, only politicians can comment on other politicians, etc...

OP

what's your point?

war is HELL?

ya think?

Soldiers are bad?

NOT

Humans are stupid?

DUH

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU DID SOMETHING OUT-OF-THE-BLUE-NICE that would change the destiny for ONE OTHER HUMAN?????

One life at a time....this world can be changed. I suppose it's easier for those who criticize, to sit around and BITCH about it and watch and be sideline players, than to risk even a little bit and add something positive to a life.

I'm curious to know what makes you think you're an expert? Do you have military experience?....loved ones in the military?.....friends?......

Did it ever occur to you that 1) soldiers FIGHT because they HAVE to....or they become targets. 2) soldiers are given ORDERS. These are not choices...(but would make for good conversation...."Soldier...whatdaya think? These guys have guns and are firing....and that last bomb was just NASTY!....think we should do something this time?>...or just let it go.......?????) 3) Do you really think that for example, the soldiers who really are finding it difficult to deal with in a combat situation really have an option to just catch the next flight home?

toxic66 is absolutely correct! These KIDS are taken from the levels of society where they really believe they can make a difference for their fellow citizens....and in THIS case, THOUGHT they were doing a good thing....gettin the bad guys......

You play both sides of the coin here OP. Don't slam the soldiers.....
those who exercise their option to stay home are criticized by "those like you", and those who choose to go are blamed.
That makes you a coward and a spoon in my eyes. Say something intelligent next time, when you quote a random news story that is OBVIOUS

MOM

My parent taught me that war and killing is wrong. I guess not all parents are like that.

I didnt slam the soldiers. I just believe that it is a very bad time to kill anyone in this world. This is a very bad time to fight. This time we are living is not like any other time in human history.

This world has seen too many wars and too much killing ...it is about time it stopped. It cannot go on forever. That is a fact. Every book of great faith predicts the end of the world for a reason.

Now is the time our souls are on the line.

My parents taught me that war was only a final option. Ironically, of my three children, the one who enlisted was the one I always referred to as "my peacemaker". Go figure THAT one! He believed he would be DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM. Did your parents teach you that if your family was under attack, then you should give your violator your weapon so they could do further damage? Did YOU know what was going on with all this war-mongering 5 years ago? Did you have a handle on all the emotion and hind-sight we now have in 2001?

OF COURSE WAR AND KILLING is wrong. Perhaps a better response might be "war and killing is an inappropriate response to WHAT IS REALLY WRONG".

The POINT IS, that once soldiers are ON THE GROUND in a war situation, it is NOT a good time to tell them they cannot do their job.

If you believe war is wrong, YOU begin changing things NOW to avoid another one. Problem is (as I see it) MOST parents who throw out the "war is wrong" card, are too busy believing that Jesus is gonna come save them from all their woes to pay attention to what is going on right across town from them. Do YOU know anyone who is angry with another? BUILD A BRIDGE!

So what are you doing about it destiny? besides judging people from your pc that is.

I never called any soldiers bad. Dont put words into my mouth. That in itself is evil. Anyone anywhere in this world ...any country can come up with reasons to fight and kill...it has to end somewhere at some time. Saying this makes me courageous ..not a coward. Check your own heart and mind.

In the worlds eyes America is appearing to be the bad guys. Would we not fight if another country invaded our country ? See my point. Where does it stop ? When does it stop ? Ill tell you when it stops. It stops at the end of the world. Brought on by so much righteous killing and so much righteous war. But that is a no brainer....it is easy to predict the end of the world. Very easy.

Yea the Bush administration tried sooooooooooooooo hard to make the Iraq war a final option ....fuck no ...no way did they make it a final option ..they rushed us head long into it based on lies. If war was really the final option for any country it would never be fought. Why didnt we attack saudi arabia since most of the 9/11 attackers came from there ?

Well it makes no difference really ..this war will lead to the next one ..probably with Iran and the whole world will get involved and that will be the end of that. Same old story. Round and round we go. Good guys vs bad guys. Cowboys and indians all over again. Cops and robbers.

Living with the truth day in and day out ...as i always have done and always will do. What more do i have to do ? What more can i do ? Join a protest rally ? They dont work. War folks are always gonna get their war. Always ...history has shown us this. Once the war drums start to beat they cannot be stopped. But this next war will be the last one. And the war folks will have destroyed their own world. The world they wanted so desperately to protect they will destroy. How ironic.

Yep that's the way it will be until you get of your ass and do something about it. whining will get you nowhere.

People no longer wage war against their neighbors or against other towns and cities with guns and clubs, and setting towns on fire, like in the Middle Ages. Someday it will be just as outlandish to go overseas and wage war against our nighbors there.
Love of war, fighting and killing is just in some people's blood, their DNA. The best thing anyone can do end war is to not participate in war. Those who find it a viable option to settling disputes can do what they wish. I am not their dictator. However, it's asking a lot to think I should admire them and call them my heroes. They have my pity, that's enough I think.

I never said YOU said "soldiers are bad", but that's what the article you quoted, suggests....it's too much for them, so they "step out sideways".....and of course the article didn't come right out and say THAT either!

In the world's eyes, America has had a problem since Dubya was RUNNING for President.

And there you go proving my point that "it stops at the end of the world." Perhaps if those who believed that Jesus was gonna save them from all sorts of trouble and tribulation would take the time to really make a difference...well...then...MAYBE it would

MAKE A DIFFERENCE?!?!

There is a difference between "the end of time" and the "major religions' " interpretation of the end of the world.

Are you old enough to drive? I'm not asking because I'm trying to be rude, it's just frightening to think that anyone over the age of - say - 25 who lives in the US would think this.

and

who has your pity?

FUNDAMENTALLY I agree with the above. If it were as easy as "nope....not gonna do war today guys.....sorry" wow....that'd be....well....simple!

Speaking of having pity..........ahem

Probably a good time to re-post this fine article.



Twilight of the Psychopaths
by Dr. Kevin Barrett

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.” – John Lennon, before his murder by CIA mind-control subject Mark David Chapman

When Gandhi was asked his opinion of Western civilization he said it would be a good idea. But that oft-cited quote, is misleading, assuming as it does that civilization is an unmitigated blessing.

Civilized people, we are told, live peacefully and cooperatively with their fellows, sharing the necessary labour in order to obtain the leisure to develop arts and sciences. And while that would be a good idea, it is not a good description of what has been going on in the so-called advanced cultures during the past 8,000 years.

Civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been based on slavery and “warfare.” Incidentally, the latter term is a euphemism for mass murder.

The prevailing recipe for civilization is simple:

1) Use lies and brainwashing to create an army of controlled, systematic mass murderers;

2) Use that army to enslave large numbers of people (i.e. seize control of their labour power and its fruits);

3) Use that slave labour power to improve the brainwashing process (by using the economic surplus to employ scribes, priests, and PR men). Then go back to step one and repeat the process.

Psychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, injure, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse. The inventor of civilization — the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers—was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies — especially military hierarchies.



Military institutions are tailor-made for psychopathic killers. The 5% or so of human males who feel no remorse about killing their fellow human beings make the best soldiers. And the 95% who are extremely reluctant to kill make terrible soldiers — unless they are brainwashed with highly sophisticated modern techniques that turn them (temporarily it is hoped) into functional psychopaths.

In On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has re-written military history, to highlight what other histories hide: The fact that military science is less about strategy and technology, than about overcoming the instinctive human reluctance to kill members of our own species. The true “Revolution in Military Affairs” was not Donald Rumsfeld’s move to high-tech in 2001, but Brigadier Gen. S.L.A. Marshall’s discovery in the 1940s that only 15-20% of World War II soldiers along the line of fire would use their weapons: “Those (80-85%) who did not fire did not run or hide (in many cases they were willing to risk great danger to rescue comrades, get ammunition, or run messages), but they simply would not fire their weapons at the enemy, even when faced with repeated waves of banzai charges” (Grossman, p. 4).

Marshall’s discovery and subsequent research, proved that in all previous wars, a tiny minority of soldiers — the 5% who are natural-born psychopaths, and perhaps a few temporarily-insane imitators—did almost all the killing. Normal men just went through the motions and, if at all possible, refused to take the life of an enemy soldier, even if that meant giving up their own. The implication: Wars are ritualized mass murders by psychopaths of non-psychopaths. (This cannot be good for humanity’s genetic endowment!)

Marshall’s work, brought a Copernican revolution to military science. In the past, everyone believed that the soldier willing to kill for his country was the (heroic) norm, while one who refused to fight was a (cowardly) aberration. The truth, as it turned out, was that the normative soldier hailed from the psychopathic five percent. The sane majority, would rather die than fight.



The implication, too frightening for even the likes of Marshall and Grossman to fully digest, was that the norms for soldiers’ behaviour in battle had been set by psychopaths. That meant that psychopaths were in control of the military as an institution. Worse, it meant that psychopaths were in control of society’s perception of military affairs. Evidently, psychopaths exercised an enormous amount of power in seemingly sane, normal society.

How could that be? In Political Ponerology, Andrzej Lobaczewski explains that clinical psychopaths enjoy advantages even in non-violent competitions to climb the ranks of social hierarchies. Because they can lie without remorse (and without the telltale physiological stress that is measured by lie detector tests) psychopaths can always say whatever is necessary to get what they want. In court, for example, psychopaths can tell extreme bald-faced lies in a plausible manner, while their sane opponents are handicapped by an emotional predisposition to remain within hailing distance of the truth. Too often, the judge or jury imagines that the truth must be somewhere in the middle, and then issues decisions that benefit the psychopath. As with judges and juries, so too with those charged with decisions concerning who to promote and who not to promote in corporate, military and governmental hierarchies. The result is that all hierarchies inevitably become top-heavy with psychopaths.

So-called conspiracy theorists, some of whom deserve the pejorative connotation of that much-abused term, often imagine that secret societies of Jews, Jesuits, bankers, communists, Bilderbergers, Muslim extremists, papists, and so on, are secretly controlling history, doing dastardly deeds, and/or threatening to take over the world. As a leading “conspiracy theorist” according to Wikipedia, I feel eminently qualified to offer an alternative conspiracy theory which, like the alternative conspiracy theory of 9/11, is both simpler and more accurate than the prevailing wisdom: The only conspiracy that matters is the conspiracy of the psychopaths against the rest of us.



Behind the apparent insanity of contemporary history, is the actual insanity of psychopaths fighting to preserve their disproportionate power. And as that power grows ever-more-threatened, the psychopaths grow ever-more-desperate. We are witnessing the apotheosis of the overworld—the criminal syndicate or overlapping set of syndicates that lurks above ordinary society and law just as the underworld lurks below it. In 9/11 and the 9/11 wars, we are seeing the final desperate power-grab or “endgame” (Alex Jones) of brutal, cunning gangs of CIA drug-runners and President-killers; money-laundering international bankers and their hit-men, economic and otherwise; corrupt military contractors and gung-ho generals; corporate predators and their political enablers; brainwashers and mind-rapists euphemistically known as psy-ops experts and PR specialists—in short, the whole sick crew of certifiable psychopaths running our so-called civilization. And they are running scared. It was their terror of losing control that they projected onto the rest of us by blowing up the Twin Towers and inciting temporary psychopathic terror-rage in the American public.

Why does the pathocracy fear it is losing control? Because it is threatened by the spread of knowledge. The greatest fear of any psychopath is of being found out. As George H. W. Bush said to journalist Sarah McClendon, December 1992, “If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us.” Given that Bush is reported to have participated in parties where child prostitutes were sodomized and otherwise abused, among his many other crimes, his statement to McClendon should be taken seriously.

Psychopaths go through life knowing that they are completely different from other people. They quickly learn to hide their lack of empathy, while carefully studying others’ emotions so as to mimic normalcy while cold-bloodedly manipulating the normals.

Today, thanks to new information technologies, we are on the brink of unmasking the psychopaths and building a civilization of, by and for the normal human being — a civilization without war, a civilization based on truth, a civilization in which the saintly few rather than the diabolical few would gravitate to positions of power. We already have the knowledge necessary to diagnose psychopathic personalities and keep them out of power. We have the knowledge necessary to dismantle the institutions in which psychopaths especially flourish — militaries, intelligence agencies, large corporations, and secret societies. We simply need to disseminate this knowledge, and the will to use it, as widely as possible.

Above all, we need to inform the public about how psychopaths co-opt and corrupt normal human beings. One way they do this, is by manipulating shame and denial — emotions foreign to psychopaths but common and easily-induced among normals.

Consider how gangs and secret societies (psychopaths’ guilds in disguise) recruit new members. Some criminal gangs and satanist covens demand that candidates for admission commit a murder to “earn their stripes.” Skull and Bones, the Yale-based secret society that supplies the CIA with drug-runners, mind-rapists, child abusers and professional killers, requires neophytes to lie naked in a coffin and masturbate in front of older members while reciting the candidate’s entire sexual history. By forcing the neophyte to engage in ritualized behaviour that would be horrendously shameful in normal society, the psychopaths’ guild destroys the candidate’s normal personality, assuming he had one in the first place, and turns the individual into a co-opted, corrupt, degraded shadow of his former self — a manufactured psychopath or psychopath’s apprentice.

This manipulation of shame has the added benefit of making psychopathic organizations effectively invisible to normal society. Despite easily available media reports, American voters in 2004 simply refused to see that the two major-party presidential candidates had lain naked in a coffin masturbating in front of older Bonesmen in order to gain admission to Skull and Bones and thus become members of the criminal overworld. Likewise, many Americans have long refused to see that hawkish elements of the overworld, operating through the CIA, had obviously been the murderers of JFK, MLK, RFK, JFK Jr., Malcolm X, ChÈ, AllendÈ, Wellstone, Lumumba, Aguilera, Diem, and countless other relatively non-psychopathic leaders. They refuse to see the continuing murders of millions of people around the world in what amounts to an American holocaust. They refuse to see the evidence that the psychopaths’ guilds running America’s most powerful institutions use the most horrific forms of sexualized abuse imaginable to induce multiple-personality-disorder in child victims, then use the resulting mind-control slaves as disposable drug-runners, prostitutes, Manchurian candidates, and even diplomatic envoys. And of course they refuse to see that 9/11 was a transparently obvious inside job, and that their own psychopath-dominated military-intelligence apparatus is behind almost every major terrorist outrage of recent decades.

All of this psychopathic behaviour at the top of the social hierarchy is simply too shameful for ordinary people to see, so they avert their gaze, just as wives of husbands who are sexually abusing their children sometimes refuse to see what is happening in plain view. If deep, deep denial were a river in Egypt, American citizens’ wilful blindness would be more like the Marianas Trench.

But thanks to the power of the internet, people everywhere are waking up. The only obvious non-psychopath among Republican presidential candidates, Ron Paul, also happens to be the only candidate in either party with significant grassroots support.

If “love” is embedded in the Revolution Ron Paul heralds, that is because Dr. Paul — a kindly, soft-spoken physician who has delivered more than 4,000 babies — implicitly recognizes that government is the invention and tool of psychopaths, and therefore must be strictly limited in scope and subjected to a rigorous system of checks and balances, lest the psychopath’s tools, fear and hatred, replace love as the glue that binds society together.

The decline in militarism since World War II in advanced countries, the spread of literacy and communications technology, and the people’s growing demands for a better life, together represent a gathering force that terrifies the pathocracy, (those alternately competing-then-cooperating gangs of psychopaths who have ruled through lies, fear and intimidation since the dawn of so-called civilization).

Since nuclear weapons have made war obsolete, the pathocracy is terrified that its favourite social control mechanism — ritualized mass slaughter — is increasingly unavailable. And if war was the great human tragedy, the pathocrats’ pathetic attempt at a war-substitute — the transparently phoney “war on terror” — is repeating it as sheerest farce.

Truly, we are witnessing the twilight of the psychopaths. Whether in their death throes they succeed in pulling down the curtain of eternal night on all of us, or whether we resist them and survive to see the dawn of a civilization worthy of the name, is the great decision in which all of us others, however humbly, are now participating.

yep
THAT'S the positive spirit!

Way to take action there bright star!

DO SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARILY NICE TO ONE PERSON TOMORROW! ONE PERSON!!! One person you don't know. Just listen real close...to your heart...and change one person's world! Extend yourself a little! No need to worry about the "rest" of the planet...just do something off the beaten path of your normal day! Take 5 twenty dollar bills to any laundromat and give them to the mom with 3 kids hangin on her, or the old man who doesn't have any teeth who you think looks unlovely. Go hang out by the check out in any grocery store and just pay $20.00 on someone's grocery bill! Fix a random neighbor a dinner and take it to them! Go to a thrift store and wait for the kid that needs shoes and BUY THEM FOR HIM OR HER!
I DARE YOU!!!!

see how THAT changes the world!

....thanks for sharing this article

I wish I'd have read this in....say.....2000

Ive helped many many people in my life. Helped them with money and wisdom and sure it led me to be flat broke (financially) but its ok. I am still here and very much pro life. And i will do what i can for anyone when i can. I carry the truth where ever i go ...to the store. While i walk my dog. At work. On the net. Whatever and whenever. I dont change what works for me. And i dont believe in protest rallies or joining organizations. They dont work.

Just be yourself and take the truth wherever you go.

And what is there to do ? War folks cannot be stopped ...Be they in America or Iran or Iraq or Israel or Russia or China or England or Germany or Australia....or where ever. Once the war drums start beating they cannot be stopped. No protest rally in the history of the world ever worked to stop a war.

The protest rallies didnt stop the vietnam war ...hence three million people killed and over 50 thousand American soldiers killed.

The only thing that will stop war is when the war folks want to stop it ...but of course they wont want to stop wars ..they believe in them (for righteous reasons). So it is pretty much a no brainer there will be another war and that war from many peoples point of view will be a super nasty one. Only the war folks ..who really want war can stop war. Peace lovers can not stop wars. Because peace lovers are very hated people where ever they are. Be it America or Iran or Russia or China ....they are considered cowards and unpatriotic. Same old story ...over and over and over and over again.

War is always in the hands of the war folks. It is up to you war folks. You know who you are. You brave courageous folks. The worlds fate is in your hands.

I still do not think most of you get it. They declared war on us. There was the small matter of planes crashing into buildings. When I was over there we knew who we were fighting. There was no question it was Al Queda. The Men there knew it, the women knew it, and even the children in the streets would tell you "Hey Mister Al Queda is in Duweb". Right now we have plenty of help fighting Al Quaeda. The Shias are helping us and now even the Sunnis have turned on Al Queda and are killing them. If you knew some of the atrocities commited by Al Queda that caused the Sunnis to turn on them you would not say some of the things that have been said in this thread. This is NOT Vietnam. If we give up there these people WILL come here to kill us.
Some of you are like a person standing on a road looking for traffic one way only to be run down from a car comming from the opposite direction. If you think Bush is the real enemy then you will miss it when Al Queda comes to America again looking to kill more Americans. Your hatered of Bush will be cold comfort on that day. This war was declared by them and was being fought by them before Bush was even in office. They tried to take down the twin towers the first time in 1993, they blew up two of our embasies, attacked the USS Cole, and many other attacks. We just didn't notice it until September 11.

For those foolish enough to think you can stop war by just refusing to fight. There is a HUGE hole in your theory!! If the other side doesn't stop fighting you end up dead. This is not my opinion. History is repleat with examples of people who did this... it ALWAYS ended badly for them. For example modern day Turkey used to be the Christian capital of the world... Byzantium. They believed they could hide behind the walls of Constantinople and leave the world be. A man tried to sell them huge cannon to defend their city. They refused. Their enemy the Ottoman Turks bought the cannon. With them they blasted the walls of Constantinople and killed all the men and enslaved all the women. That is what happens when you refuse to defend yourself. You should feel gratitude that there are some in this country willing to join the military and endure the hardships and hazards putting their lives on the line to make sure our enemies don't wipe us out.
You don't have to take my word for all of this. Just listen to our enemies and what they are saying and take them at their word. A reporter once asked a terrorist leader what it would take to bring peace between our people. The terrorist leader replied "We don't kill you because we want things from you, we kill you because we hate you, and want you dead."

War is bad. People die in war. And war never solves anything ...round and round we go ...BUT in all irony the next war will prove me right about many things in a very big way. And the beauty of it is .............LOL .....this is the part i love the most .................................The more i try to explain it to people and warn them not to do that bad bad bad thing called war they will only do it more. Such is the irony of life. No one ever listens to me LOL ....but im always right haaaaa

Have a nice day : )