War—Bad; Peace and Love—Good

Joseph Bobrow has a piece out reacting to a recent 60 Minutes segment about Clay Hunt, a Marine who came home and committed suicide.

Pretty common act among U.S. military veterans.

What is uncommon, or at least is a new occurrence, is that PTSD victims such as Hunt are no longer openly ridiculed while they are still alive by the neocons and their medical mouthpiece, Dr. Sally Satel; prosecuted for filing for disability benefits; or belittled by official U.S. military reports for engaging in "risky behavior."

We have finally reached a place where the mainstream culture in several fields more often than not recognizes PTSD as a condition in which veterans are victims, not perpetrators; and it follows: War is the enemy.

We are moving away (not fast enough though) from the mindset that trauma is a personal failing, results from a lack of faith in God; is a dodge or fraud to a health-centered approach.

As recently as 2010, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli came under heavy criticism from veterans' advocates for his part in treating suicide and trauma in the neocon way—blaming the troops and treating this trauma "as a lack of moral character, and a lack of intestinal fortitude, when it is really a medical issue," as Steve Robinson wrote in August 2010 in angry reaction.

That 2010 Army report has been effectually killed now; it was commissioned by the Bush-Cheney administration that targeted veterans who give war a bad name.

We take issue at this site on occasion for President Obama's not moving fast enough in renouncing the many imbecilic policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.

On the issue of PTSD and how it is treated, we recognize that there has been a sea change.

War being war, this is not nearly enough for U.S. military veterans, and certainly not enough for the victims of war who are not American, and whose humanity remains.

UK Archbishop: U.S. ‘Worst’ Imperialist; Scorns God's-Chosen-Country Notion

Update: It’s the Oil, Stupid

What's obvious in other western countries would bring forth a storm of ridicule were simple truisms repeated by the major American presidential candidates or the major newspapers and television networks.
The obvious example is our illegal and imperialistic enterprise to establish a client oil state in Iraq, under the cover of well-crafted propaganda about democracy and deterring terrorism—aka lies.

In reaction, the Archbishop of Canterbury (England) said in a wide-ranging interview with the London Times published this morning that America is the single worst imperialist power, surpassing even Britain during its imperial apex.

From the (UK) Times online, Abul Taher reports:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.

Rowan Williams claimed that America’s attempt to intervene overseas by “clearing the decks” with a “quick burst of violent action” had led to “the worst of all worlds”.

In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.

He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”. ...


He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: “Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul.”

Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: “We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory: it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That’s not working.”

Read more at (UK) Times online.

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