From a recent article by Juan Cole:---
"Memorial Day is about honoring those who have sacrificed themselves for the nation, in our armed forces. We cannot honor them properly unless we know the full extent of their sacrifice.
Investigative reporters at CBS News found that in 2005, 6,250 veterans took their lives, nearly 18 a day. Emanuel Margolis writes,
'Dr. Ira Katz, chief of mental health services for the Department of Veterans Affairs, sent an e-mail to a VA colleague this past February that read:
"Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before somebody stumbles on it?"'
Margolis charges that Katz covered up this startling statistic, showing 12,000 attempted suicides a year while in VA care, when he testified before Congress.
Have 30,000 veterans died of suicide in the past 5 years? Have 60,000 tried to? Shouldn't these deeply depressed men and women be added to the casualty tolls? Is war a plague on the mind of those who fight it?"
---
An SF Chronicle article confirms the story:
VA mental health chief sorry about 'Shh!' on suicidal vets.
Apparently, creating the conditions for 60,000 suicide attempts among American soldiers during the five year course of the Iraq occupation is what the current neoconservative administration calls "supporting the troops."
How long will the American people put up with the continual parade of these kinds of utter disgraces, one after the other, year after year? Have we finally had enough of this garbage? Will we Americans continue to choose this kind of insane, barbaric mis-leadership? Is this what we want? Is this who we are?
We may get the answers, this coming November.
Thank you.
Pass it on.
The Democratic Activist
Thanks, Chris.
ReplyDeleteThis disaster has not been getting enough attention.