More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.
For every one American soldier lost in combat, 25 are lost to suicide.
Cheney had his 1% doctrine: if there is a one percent chance of something bad happening; you declare war against the world.
I have a new doctrine: you have 25 American soldiers murdering themselves for every one soldier lost on the field of battle against 'the enemy'; you declare peace.
It's staggering. If we had the 25 to 1 ratio of suicides for Vietnam vets: 1,450,000 post-combat deaths.
We have remorseless soldiers peeing on corpses, burning rape victims, flushing Korans down the toilet; and 6500 soldiers a year lost in the fog of war. Are these just two sides of the same coin?
I suspect they are and the chief cause of our human time-bomb soldiers is the Big Lie they have been told about what we are doing over there so we don't have to fight them here.
The Big Lie is this: America fights for Freedom and the people we “liberate” are thrilled we have saved them.
The Real Truth is: we are not liberating but subduing a strategic region of the globe like many empires of the world have tried and failed before. We invaded Afghanistan after 911 and have been chasing the Taliban for more than 10 years – as Al Qaeda was mostly a mirage. We invaded Iraq after we were sold a pack of lies by war criminals bent on profit and power.
Our soldiers have been used and abused by the politicians who do the bidding of corporations. Our politicians have used grief and fear to spellbind the American befuddled to war and devastate innocent people.
Our soldiers see the folks they've been sent to liberate are trying to kill them. They see the facts on the ground are different than the bullshit they've been fed by their commanders. They see horrible things they can't get out of their minds. They do terrible things they can't get out of their minds. They carry guilt and shame for the way they were duped and used.
And sometimes they snap. Sometimes at others and many times at themselves.
After years spent fighting nobly for ignoble causes, fulfilling their sacred oaths for a pack of lies, experiencing an onslaught of unspeakable things, our military is at a breaking point.
25 soldiers commit suicide for every one killed in action.
After fighting in America's Big Lie wars, they can't live with themselves.
If Dick Cheney, the infamous, un-investigated, un-indicted, unrepentant war criminal, wants to do something for this country – he can go door-to-door to each and every family of each and every soldier who takes his or her own life and he can take someone's hand and say, “I'm sorry. I am responsible and I am sorry.”
That won't happen. We were attacked and we are at war. But something is terribly, tragically wrong in the course the nation is pursuing.
The numbers don't lie.