A soldier in Iraq decided to write about his experiences. He never suspected he'd start a war

Beam us out of there, Scotty.

My ex-boyfriend went into the military when I broke with him. He told me that the guys he was training with all listened to death metal and couldn't wait "to run over people in their fighting vehicles." They all thought it was one big joke, like a video game since they wouldn't have the blood on them. While I respect the military, there is something fundamentally wrong with taking a human being and making it their job not to be human. Beauchamp is very brave to have written such an open account of what he experienced.

i like how we only seem concerned with the body count... lets just neglect the soldiers who come home with PTSD, commit suicide and other various mental conditions due to the war. as ive said before, violence begets violence.

You have an illegal invasion and an illegal occupation so where are the laws if there are any at all. You have more mercenaries than regular army who are not answerable to anyone what do you expect. This invasion has turned into a sick free for all with no laws or boundries. It is definitely an insane situation. If it were a legal war where America was attacked and our Army was defending America and its borders it would be a totally different story. When you have Bush and Co's total disregard for the Geneva Convention, the U.N. the laws of the American Constitution, kidnapping, secret jails, torture and no one holding Bush and Co. responsible what do you expext from a Army under this type of command where no one is held responsible for thier actions. Thank you Nancy Pelosi and a few others. Don't stop trying Dennis Kucinich. America must hold Bush and Co. responsible under the laws of our Constitution.

Normally I would add my insight, but everything I wanted to say was already posted, so great post

I'm a nurse in an ICU and one of the most important things I do is make sure people die with respect and dignity, but at the same time I can totally understand why some of the soldiers act like this because to a certain degree you disconnect yourself from the reality of the situation. Being asked to kill some one or in my case withdrawing care is not a natural thing to do. Thankfully my career as a lot of positives to offset this one negative. You can't expect that what these men /women are asked to do and see won't change them, for the better or worse. Facing your own mortality is hard especially when you are young.

It's like once you kill somebody, you don't feel as bad when you do other things that are morally wrong. You lose sympathy.

What the Hell do they think will happen to these solders when they send them into a killing field?

War is MURDER FOR PROFIT. That is all. If you don't believe me or if my comment pisses you off, you haven't been paying attention.

The past has been dissected and the reasons for almost all wars have been fought solely for greed and Imperialism.
The poor die, the rich thrive.

War is death.

PEACE NOW.

love that phrase at the end there,
pro-reality.

i'm going to start using that.

sorry peeved guy, beauchamp didn't recant.
COL. GIBBS: "He's standing by the stories, but the investigation from his buddies that worked with him and other investigations proved the allegations were incorrect, unfounded."

so everybody else says he's wrong.........

Your right Pericles, the article isn't about pro or anti troop. It also covers the dehumanizing aspect that war, any war, creates. More than anything though it is about lies. As is usually the case, people who send younger generations to war don't want to hear the grizzly details.

well said pericles

Apologies asherp, I took you seriously. Colbert is pretty damn good sometimes. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/30/1441/59811

which is why the man is unfit for command. the navy obviously recognized it......

"Reality has a well known liberal bias" by asherp, has to be one of the dumbest things I have read in a long time. Quit being stupid, do yourself (and the world) a favor and stop categorizing everything as either Liberal or Conservative...

i get to run dogs over!!
sht sign me up.

it would give me the opportunity to realy
act out the line from silence of the lambs

it puts the lotion on its skin (skull) !!!!

I think there is a big difference in the way an aggressive and illegal war affects soldiers and a defensive and therefore justified war does. Those who fight to defend their country, their families, etc., from pillaging aggressors do not act the same way as do those who fight on the aggressor and pillaging side.

VETERANS DEMAND CHENEY & BUSH CHARGED WITH WAR CRIMES

Now who will say these guys are unpatriotic...

The chicken hawks ?

* Iraq Veterans Against War seizes National Archives Building *

IVAW members seize National Archives Building in front of hundreds of surprised museum visitors. Response from visitors including teachers, students, vacationers was highly positive though there were a few horrified faces in the crowd. IVAW read the terms of our Citizens Arrest Warrant.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19713.htm

Reminds me that...

VERMONT TOWNS BACK INDICTMENT OF BUSH & CHENEY

In Vermont, voters in the towns of Brattleboro and Marlboro approved measures Tuesday calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for crimes against the Constitution. The symbolic votes instruct the police department in each town to arrest Bush and Cheney or to extradite them for prosecution elsewhere if they ever step foot in the towns. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/05/7476/

As if treason was not a reason enough anyway...

DYING REGIME 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNuefnjwbJ0

CHAOS = OPPORTUNITY = $$$$$

Greed & Fear Unlimited under the guise of Mindfuck Inc. rules…

"We must repudiate the structure of economic privilege and the tyranny of war makers" - George McGovern 1975

found nothing funny about what happened.. these men of war need to be brought home. I would imagine some of them will need mental help to cope , this war needs to end.

This behavior will be coming home at some point. If you think these men will be able to leave it all in the desert, keep dreaming. I think it's "trickle-down" morality. If the president can lie about the war, then.......anything goes.

Not true Asherp. Reality is really politically agnostic.

Our soldiers are our warriors. They are trained to kill people and break things. There has to be a disconnect between the value of human life and ones own physical, mental, spiritual and emotional survival if they are to be effective in a warzone.

My uncle fought under Patton in World War 2. He enlisted right after Pearl Harbor with my dad and my other uncles. He saw a lot of action.

When I was a child, I would ask him to tell me stories. He never would.

Dont start this "reality has a liberal bias" bullshit with me.

What does that mean? I guess you are being sarcastic?

That quip makes me think you are a product of the insane media driven compulsion to be one sided. I piss off my liberal friends and I piss off my conservative friends, but I listen to what they have to say and I learn things. I even agree with YOU most of the time right here on Current.

Just vote the story down like the sock puppet you are or open your mind to endless possibilities of free and critical thinking.

Look this up:

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' "

The article was interesting because it showed the disturbing (almost hysterical) disconnect Republicans and Conservatives have from reality.

War is hell and living with death and suffering everyday wears soliders down -- that's not a slanderous "attack" against troops but an indisputable reality that has been documented in every war from World War II to Vietnam.

Had the Conservatives simply read the accounts and said, "Yeah. War is hell and we wish we didn't have to do it." -- it would have been a resonable position. They could have even done themselves a favor and used the article to drum up more political support for offering MORE mental health services for soilders.

But instead of dealing with reality in a mature, adult manner they decided to plug their fingers in their ears and mutter itsnottrue! itsnottrue! liberalshateamerica! over and over again like mental patient that need to be medicated and strapped to a hospital bed.

War is hell.

When you hear bad things you deal with them and offer help, not go into hysterical denial mode.

Everything in war is barbaric... But the worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being. - Ellen Key

Pro-Reality, eh? Well, reality has a well known liberal bias.

This war dehumanizes not only the Iraqis but also the US, UK and coalition troops.