Tormented sergeant's story remains untold For one Marine, torture came hom

[Judi Lynn]

Article Last Updated: 04/02/2006 8:17 AM PDT

Tormented sergeant's story remains untold For one Marine, torture came home

ABOUT a year and a half ago, a 40-year-old former Marine sergeant named Jeffrey Lehner returned from Afghanistan, phoned and asked to meet with me. Since his return, he had been living with his father, a retired pharmacist, in the Santa Barbara home where he was raised. I first heard about Jeff from an acquaintance of mine who was dating him and who told me he was deeply distressed about what he had seen on his tours in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East.
We met for lunch at a restaurant in downtown Santa Barbara. Jeff was focused, articulate and as handsome as a movie star. He was quite wound-up, but utterly lucid.

There was no way I could have known that day the depths of Jeff's unhappiness, no way I could have predicted the tragedy that would follow. I listened closely to his story and, while I was surprised by what I heard, I had no particular reason to disbelieve him.
(snip)

In the beginning, Jeff supported the administration's policies in the region. But over time, that began to change. As we talked, Jeff brought out an album of photos from Afghanistan. He pointed to a series of photographs of a trailer and several huts behind a barbed-wire fence; these were taken, he said, outside a U.S. military camp not far from the Kandahar airport. He told me that young Afghans — some visible in blue jumpsuits in his photos — had been rounded up and brought to the site by a CIA special operations team. The CIA officers made no great secret of what they were doing, he said, but were dismissive of the Marines and pulled rank when challenged.

Jeff said he had been told by military members who had been present that the detainees were being interrogated and tortured, and that they were sometimes given psychotropic drugs. Some, he believed, had died in custody. What disturbed him most, he said, was that the detainees were not Taliban fighters or associates of Osama bin Laden. "By the time we got there," Jeff said, "the serious fighters were long gone."
(snip/...)

http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/sanmateo/ci_3665498

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. So sad

we are paying a tremendous price for this illegal and immoral "war on terror" in Afghanistan where, it appears, we are the terrorists.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Winning hearts and minds.

I was briefly watching a news program on a US PBS station this morning. They showed US troops who had come under sniper fire while on patrol detaining some of the local Iraqi men and putting zip lock handcuffs on them along with hoods or blindfolds as they interrogated them and used some type of chemical to test for gunpowder residue on their clothing.

One trooper could be seen yelling at one detainee laying on the ground, "Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up." The treatment of the detainees as displayed wouldn't be considered torture or even overly brutal, but it was harsh and it could not have been pleasant to be subjected to it. The detainees were all released because their stories checked out an no evidence could be found that they had anything to do with the sniper attack.

On another occasion they showed troops walking unannounced and without a by your leave into peoples homes and searching through closets and personal belongings for unauthorized weapons and explosives (without finding any). As the narrator explained and what was clearly self evident, this must be all deeply humiliating to the Iraqi men.

If these Iraqis had been inclined to be supportive or just neutral to the US occupation of their country, these types of incidences would not be conducive to them remaining in that state of mind, and even if this wasn't enough to motivate them to actively take part in sniper attacks or planting the next IED, they could very well decide to just remain silent rather than tipping anyone off the next time they saw resistance activity in their neighborhoods.

After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

Ben Griffin told commanders that he thought the Iraq war was illegal

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

It immediately brought to an end Mr Griffin's exemplary, eight-year career in which he also served with the Parachute Regiment, taking part in operations in Northern Ireland, Macedonia and Afghanistan.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/12/nsas12.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/12/ixhome.html

[vickitulsa]

4. Thanks for your excellent post, JC. The scenes you describe

seeing on PBS could have easily been taken directly from Vietnam during American presence there, with Asian faces instead of Arabic ones for the locals.

I remember all too well how the behavior of our troops in Vietnam evolved after several years incountry to become like what you saw in the PBS program. I think the situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq reflects the frustration, indeed the exasperation, of soldiers who know their sacrifices are accomplishing nothing good or substantial.

Your conclusions were spot-on, too, regarding winning the hearts and minds of the people in these countries.

Also the article you excerpted and linked to was excellent ... I hope many people read it!

[vickitulsa]

3. Ms. Bardach summarizes very well the story of this Marine,

and tragically we can expect to hear more like it with increasing frequency as the Afghanistan and Iraq veterans try to resume to their lives in the U.S.

Because so many troops are redeployed time and again -- both for "stop-loss" purposes and to keep the experienced soldiers on the job -- it will be some time before the bulk of the PTSD problems being faced by these vets emerge. But they will emerge, and both the vets and their families will pay a terrible price for their service to a country they loved -- and a President and military leadership they trusted.

As the years pass, our society as a whole will end up paying a big price as well. I have long been a staunch friend and supporter of Vietnam veterans, and I have also been diagnosed with PTSD, due not to military service but to childhood abuse; so I can relate very well to the suffering of these vets.

To have the treatment facilities and personnel REDUCED instead of increased to help these tragic victims of an illegal and immoral war waged in two countries by this administration adds insult to injury and multiplies the culpability of the Bush cabal.

One other important point I'd like to make: The increasing UNpopularity at home of our military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq will make things steadily even worse for the troops with respect to their dealing with their experiences after they return home. It makes common sense, of course, that the less support there is among U.S. citizens for what our troops are doing overseas, the more conflicted our veterans will be after they've been home for awhile. They will feel isolated, turn more and more inward, find they are able to talk only with other vets who have "been there," and they'll suffer increasingly from the horrible effects of PTSD. At that point, suicide for many becomes a very realistic possibility.

PTSD is treatable, though it's not a problem quickly or simply dealt with, no matter how much treatment is made available. But to CUT FUNDING to these healing efforts is an abomination with no excuse! I can only hope Americans learned more from our Vietnam experience than our government has, and that all those who now proclaim loudly their support of our troops will raise hell to make sure the vets are properly supported and treated when they get home!

[UpInArms]

5. the price our country is paying for *Co's OIL war is horrific

Identities of Murder / Suicide Victims

December 8th, 2005

The victims of the incident at 1415 Twin Ridge in Santa Barbara have been identified. Jeffrey Lehner age 42, died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Edwin Lehner, age 77, died from multiple gunshot wounds, an autopsy is pending. Sheriff's detectives have confirmed that this was a case of murder / suicide. The motives behind the shooting are still under investigation; however, Jeffrey Lehner was being treated at a veteran's clinic for mental health problems.

:cry:

[cassiepriam]

7. Suicide or a set up? Is this what will happen to those who speak out? nt

[file83]

8. Yeah, that thought crossed my mind. But I don't think so because

there are so many thousands of these people that it would require an army in an of itself just to keep track of them and all the people they talk to. His severe psychological trauma more than explains the tragic ending.

The other reasons I beleive the suicide scenario and not the hitman one, is this guy would have been way to easy to discredit for the gov't. Not to mention, the information could have easily been blended into the rest of the "torture" media stories, hence, his story wasn't really that much of a threat to the gov't.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. We Were Soldiers

We Were Soldiers
by Steve O @ 1:11 pm

There has been some people over the last few weeks that have commented on this site that they do not hear one single veteran complaining about the war in Iraq. The reason they do not here them is because the United States media juggernaught will not air their dissent. So we have to rely on the BBC to report such anger and dissent from our veterans. Click the play button to view the following video.

(Contains a link to a BBC TV report of Iraqi antiwar vets marching to New Orleans)

http://www.teambio.org/2006/04/we-were-soldiers/

[Judi Lynn]

9. I just saw the program you linked. It's excellent.

What a colossal shame there has NEVER been anything remotely similar available directly to American citizens, the ones who are involved in this catastrophe, along with the VICTEMS of Iraq.

Those soldiers were all so serious, so concerned about what they'd been through individually and as a group.

It's well worth the 22 minutes or so invested in watching, very well worth it.