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US Army Suicides Increased by 80% after illegal Iraq Invasion
by Captain - AFP Thursday, Mar 8 2012, 9:45am
international / peace/war / commentary

A study published in the British Journal of Injury Prevention has revealed that US Army suicides increased by a staggering eighty percent after the US led invasion of Iraq! This is the highest increase over the shortest period ever recorded, and it says much about the human cost of fighting illegal, unjust DISHONOURABLE wars for CORPORATE PROFIT. It is a particularly sobering statistic in view of the rancid propaganda that Zionist Hollywood dishes out to the young, the latest of which is 'Act of Valour,' a transparent glamourisation of the US Navy Seals.

War is the most primitive and barbaric activity that civilised humanity could engage in; the toll on the well being of everyone that survives immediate death on the battlefield is exceedingly high -- it seems that humanity has an innate AVERSION to unjust WARS. Only emotionally crippled sociopaths are able to survive in these horrific activities for any length of time. However, well adjusted human beings are destroyed for life when forced by circumstance to fight illegal, unjust wars for profit.

Regardless of the sophistication of modern indoctrination techniques and the personal efforts of soldiers to repress the truth and deny the immorality of invasive warfare, our conscience and collective psyches react adversely when we fight dishonourable, unjust wars for CORPORATE profit.

It has been known for some time that suicide is the largest single cause of America military deaths, however, we now have statistical PROOF of that very sad reality!

AFP report follows:

The number of suicides in the US Army rose by 80 percent after the United States launched the war on Iraq, American military doctors reported on Thursday.

From 1977 to 2003, the tally of army suicides had trended slightly downwards, and was far below civilian rates.

But it started to curve upwards in 2004, the year after the US-led invasion, according to their analysis, published in the British journal Injury Prevention.

In 2008, 140 army personnel committed suicide, a figure 80 percent higher than in 2004 when measured in “person-years,” a benchmark used by health experts, and much higher than in civilian society, it found.

“This increase, unprecedented in over 30 years of US Army records, suggests that 30 percent of suicides that occurred in 2008 may be associated with post-2003 events following the major commitment of troops to Iraq, in addition to the ongoing operations in Afghanistan,” says the paper.

Those who died were overwhelmingly male, young, white, in the lower military ranks and likelier to have had a history of depression and other mental disorders.

The rise mirrored an increase in consultations and hospitalisation for mental health. From 2003, these rates nearly doubled.

“The 2008 rate indicates that more than one-fifth of all active-duty soldiers had an ambulatory [walk-in] visit for a mental health disorder, implying a prevalent public health problem,” warns the study.

In 2008, nearly a third of the suicides occurred among troops who had never deployed, which highlights the need to provide counselling for young soldiers facing pre-combat stress, it adds.

The study was headed by Michelle Canham-Chervak of the US Army Public Health Command, using information from the Army Behavioral Integrated Data Environment.

This is a data bank that combines several national military sources, including details about medical consultations, diagnoses and treatment.

The study dissected the figures for 2007 and 2008, and compared these with previous years.

It did not include other branches of the US military, nor did it examine trends after President Barack Obama’s decision to pull out of Iraq, an operation that concluded last December.

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