Killers on and off the battlefield?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-riley21.html

Pierre Cole seemed high on killing. Cole, a soldier in Iraq, called his dad from overseas to boast about gunning down enemies in a firefight in 2003.

"He was on cloud nine," said his father, Willie Cole. "'Hey, I got a couple of them,' " he said. " 'I let loose.'"

Willie Cole -- a former military police officer who served in Panama when the United States deposed President Manuel Noriega in 1989 -- was shocked.

"It disturbed me, his reaction to the loss of life," said Willie Cole, a caterer in the south suburbs. "I said, 'Regardless of what you're over there for, the other guy is fighting for something, too. You have to respect that.'" snip

Now Pierre Cole, 22, is back from Iraq and facing a murder charge in Cook County Criminal Court for allegedly killing a West Side store owner, In Taik Jung, during a botched robbery Oct. 14.

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[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. But we don't have the money

to make sure returning vets have psychological counselling-we have to make sure Haliburton and other war profiteers are paid.

[atreides1]

5. Lack of Funds Is only part of the problem

The lack of money to provide psychological counselling is at the end of a tunnel.

The biggest part of the problem is that the military chain of command even before Abu Ghraib have looked the other way when violations of the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of War have been
broken.

It's the command that has placed emphasis on de-humanizing the Iraqi
people, when something occurs they look the other way. This leaves the message that it's okay, and as long as no journalist witnesses the act then don't worry about it.

A unit of the 4th ID out of Ft. Hood took as hostages the wife and daughter of an Iraqi general, this is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, but the commander and his unit were hailed as heros. The general later surrendered, but died while he was in US custody. This incident of taking hostages happened at least twice, but on one was held accountable.

Add to this an American public, at least that part which supports the war, believing that fighting in Iraq will really keep them safe.

So the lack of money to help the troops get through this is only the end of a very long and dark tunnel.

[LynnTheDem]

2. There's a big problem here at Ft Hood with armed robberies by US troops

Murder, rape, armed robbery.

Why stop killing people just because you're not in Iraq any longer?

Why do Americans seem to believe these KIDS who have never seen worse than a nosebleed in their young lives can be sent to Iraq to kill and kill and kill and kill and kill and kill and watch their friends be killed and maimed and die screaming, and then come back to America and just shut it all off and go back to being normal again?

Americans differentiate between killing Americans and/or killing in America as being murder, and killing in battle as being "just a job" and/or "heroism".

Killing is killing is killing; that one is declared "legal" doesn't change what it does to those who are doing the killing.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Unable to turn it off...

That's what happens when you send soldiers on open-ended tours of duty in a hell hole. Some of them come back and can't turn it off.

That's why war should ONLY be a last resort - because the damage extends far beyond the battlefield.

So much for the "best years of their lives..."

[bleedingheart]

4. No one is going to care until something mammothly horrific occurs

like one of these guys will go into a shopping mall or a daycare center and kill everyone.....sadly this nation has been so de-sensitized to violence that one death here and there doesn't seem to matter....

So sad that the father recognized the problem but that he didn't think his son needed help...

[Horse with no Name]

6. Ahh cmon what are you whining about?

Our government is gonna be their drug dealer and give them some xtc.
I'm wondering how long before all these murderous tendencies turn to violent rapes?
God this administration sucks.
I said this before and I will say it again.
How many Timothy McVeigh's are going to be created out of the debacle that is Iraq and how many are the US gonna concede?