What Are You Doing to Yourself America?

That's what people began to say around 1970. It was about the time that the sordid reality of the My Lai massacre came out in public. Also it was becoming clear, after the invasion of Cambodia that any attempt to pursue "victory" would only result in more carnage. Prolonging the war was futile and it damaged this country in ways that have never been repaired.

Recently a US army Sgt. named Robert Bales went on a killing spree in Afghanistan, murdering 16 civilians. Bales was stationed at the Lewis-McChord base outside of Tacoma Wa. Lewis-McChord has been the site of several crimes.

*In 2010 three members of the Stryker Brigade were convicted of committing "thrill killings" of Afghan civilians.

*In January 2010 a soldier named Benjamin Colton Barnes was involved in a shooting, fled to Mount Ranier National Park where he shot and killed a park ranger. Barnes himself later died of exposure.

*Nov. 30. 2011 Pvt. Dakota Wolf murdered 19 year old Scarlett Paxton outside of her Kirkland Wa apartment by stabbing her to death.

*Feb. 2009 16 year old Leah King died after ingesting Xanax and oxymorphone by soldiers at the base.

*2010 Staff Sgt. Nathan Ryan Smith was convicted of raping two women.

It's time we asked. What are you doing to yourself America?

The Full Extent of the Horror

There is lingering controversy over the US military's use of depleted uranium. The "liberation" of the Iraqi city of Falluja in 2004 has resulted in an abnormal number of birth defects in that city. Some of them are extremely gruesome: children born with severe deformities such a multiple limbs, two heads or even three. There are also reports similar birth defects from other Iraqi cities.

The official Pentagon story is that depleted uranium is harmless. The Pentagon has not adequately explained the relationship between depleted uranium and the Gulf War syndrome from the war of 1990-91. It seems reminiscent of the massive cover-up the Pentagon conducted about the effects of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Then the Pentagon insisted that the defoliant Agent Orange was safe for humans even as evidence mounted of the devastating harm that AO had upon the Vietnamese population as well as on US veterans. But if the Pentagon doesn't care about its own troops it probably won't care about the "natives."

More research probably has to be done about the relationship between depleted uranium and birth defects and other health problems. But this should be at last be the end that any good came out of the Iraq War.

The End of Iraq?

The departure of the last US combat brigade from Iraq means that, hopefully, no more Americans will die in Iraq. The problem is that Iraq doesn't have a real government. Nouri Al Maliki's Shiite regime is turning into a klepto-theocracy. That country is more divided than ever along ethnic and religious lines. Iraq will eventually fall apart just like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Those three countries were created at the end of World War I by politicians and diplomats who thought it "logical" to draw this border here and that border there. But they neglected to consult with the people who were going to live under the new arrangements. So it's no surprise that these "invented" states eventually collapsed.

When the end does come it's not going to be pretty. But hopefull we will learn the lesson we should have learned back in 1975. We have no business telling other countries how to manage their affairs.