Gen. Petraeus Linked To High-Profile Suicide in Iraq

[kpete]

Gen. Petraeus Linked To High-Profile Suicide in Iraq

Col. Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar, put a bullet in his head in Iraq after reporting widespread corruption. His suicide note -- complaining about human rights abuses and other crimes -- was addressed to his two commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, now leader of the U.S. "surge" effort in Iraq. It urged them to "Reevaluate yourselves....You are not what you think you are and I know it."

By Greg Mitchell

(March 14, 2007) -- The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious, and seriously underreported, problem, as this column has observed numerous times in the past three years. One of the few high-profile cases involved a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing.

A portrait of Westhusing written by T. Christian Miller for the Los Angeles Times in November 2005 (which I covered at the time) revealed that Westhusing, before putting a bullet through his head, had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis.

His widow, asked by a friend what killed this West Point scholar, had replied simply: "Iraq."

Now, a new article reveals -- based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act -- that Westhusing's apparent suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on "corruption, human right abuses and liars." One of those commanders: the new leader of the "surge" campaign in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003558239

[blm]

1. Not surprised - they had Pat Tillman taken out, too. Anyone really believe these

deaths of military men who speak out AGAINST BushInc are just 'coincidence' still?

[Disturbed]

2. The Army claims that he killed himself.

Can they prove that he did so?

[reprehensor]

3. Open Letter to General Petraeus

"I am told by the Manchester Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that you have impeccable academic and battlefield credentials. Bush has appointed you “Commander of the Multinational Forces in Iraq”, and so you have the power to implement your highly publicized counter-insurgency theories.

You are nearly my namesake – having a Romanized version of my Hellenized name (Petraeus/Petras). You are dubbed a ‘warrior’ or ‘counter-insurgency intellectual’. I hold credentials as an ‘insurgency intellectual’ or as Alex Cockburn calls it ‘a fifty-year membership in the class struggle’. You publicists have billed you as ‘America’s last best hope for salvation (of the empire) in Iraq.’ Predictably the Democrats in Congress led by Senator Clinton went down to their knees in praise and support of your professionalism and war record in Northern Iraq. So let it be recognized that you enjoy an advantage: the support of both parties, the White House, Congress and the mass media, but still being an insurgent intellectual, I am not convinced that you will or should succeed in saving Iraq for the empire. Better still; I think you undoubtedly will fail, because your military assumptions and strategies are based on fundamentally flawed political analyses, which have profound military consequences.

Let us start with your much-vaunted military successes in North Iraq – especially in Nineveh province. North Iraq, particularly, Nineveh, is dominated by the Kurdish military and tribal leaders and party bosses. The relative stability of the region has little or nothing to do with your counter-insurgency prowess and more to do with the high degree of Kurdish ‘independence’ or ‘separatism’ in the region. Put bluntly, the US and Israeli military and financial backing of Kurdish separatism has created a de facto independent Kurdish state, one based on the brutal ethnic purging of large concentrations of Turkmen and Arab citizens. General Petraeus, by giving license to Kurdish irredentist aspirations for an ethnically purified ‘Greater Kurdistan’, encroaching on Turkey, Iran and Syria, you secured the loyalty of the Kurdish militias and especially the deadly Peshmerga ‘special forces’ in eliminating resistance to the US occupation in Nineveh. Moreover, the Peshmerga has provided the US with special units to infiltrate the Iraqi resistance groups, to provoke intra-communal strife through incidents of terrorism against the civilian population. In other words, General Petreaus’ ‘success’ in Northern Iraq is not replicable in the rest of Iraq. In fact your very success in carving off Kurd-dominated Iraq has heightened hostilities in the rest of the country.

Your theory of ‘securing and holding’ territory presumes a highly motivated and reliable military force capable of withstanding hostility from at least eighty percent of the colonized population. The fact of the matter is that the morale of US soldiers in Iraq and those scheduled to be sent to Iraq is very low. The ranks of those who are seeking a quick exit from military service now include career soldiers and non-commissioned officers – the backbone of the military (Financial Times, March 3-4, 2007 p.2) Unauthorized absences (AWOLs) have shot up – 14,000 between 2000-2005 (FT ibid). In March over a thousand active duty and reserve soldiers and marines petitioned Congress for a US withdrawal from Iraq. The opposition of retired and active Generals to Bush’s escalation of troops percolates down the ranks to the ‘grunts’ on the ground, especially among reservists on active duty whose tours of duty in Iraq have been repeatedly extended (the ‘backdoor draft’). Demoralizing prolonged stays or rapid rotation undermines any effort of ‘consolidating ties’ between US and Iraqi officers and certainly undermines most efforts to win the confidence of the local population. If the US troops are deeply troubled by the war in Iraq and increasingly subject to desertion and demoralization, how less reliable is the Iraqi mercenary army. Iraqis recruited on the basis of hunger and unemployment (caused by the US war), with kinship, ethnic and national ties to a free and independent Iraq do not make reliable soldiers. Every serious expert has concluded that the divisions in Iraqi society are reflected in the loyalties of the soldiers..."

James Petras

Continued...
http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1694&more=1&c=1

[bonito]

6. James Petras, well read

James Petras is the author and editor of 67 books in 31 languages. His latest book is "The Power of Israel in the United States" (Clarity Press). His writings can be found at petras.lahaine.org.

[lyonn]

9. Wow, that is powerful. Thanks for posting

This describes what most of us think is going on over there. It's called following the dumb leader.

[Octafish]

4. Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x126094

Col. Westhusing was a good soldier.
From what I understand, the same can be said of Gen. Petraeus.
As for the warmongers in the Bush "administration," I hold only contempt.

[fooj]

13. Poppy knows best.

KNOW YOUR BFEE.

[Octafish]

16. NEW article says 'SUICIDE' but spells M-U-R-D-E-R between the lines...

The suicide note was in all-block letters. Those are the EASIEST to forge.

Suicide Was the Only Way Out of Iraq for Col. Westhusing

By Robert Bryce, Texas Observer
Posted on March 16, 2007, Printed on March 16, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/49233/

Ted Westhusing was a true believer. And that was his fatal flaw.

A colonel in the U.S. Army, Westhusing had a good job teaching English at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was a devout Catholic who went to church nearly every Sunday. He had a wife and three young children.

SNIP...

While the promotion was important, Westhusing was increasingly isolated. He did not have, as his fellow officer from West Point put it, a "battle buddy," a person who "looks out for his friend both physically and psychologically." The lack of personal support began to wear on Westhusing. His friends in the U.S. began seeing his mood darken. His e-mails became less frequent and more ominous. Westhusing began having increasingly contentious conflicts with the contractors from USIS. There were ongoing problems with USIS's expenses, and Westhusing was forced to deal with allegations that USIS had seen or participated in the killing of Iraqis. He received an anonymous letter claiming USIS was cheating the military at every opportunity, that several hundred weapons assigned to the counterterrorism training program had disappeared, and that a number of radios, each of which cost $4,000, had also disappeared. The letter concluded that USIS was "not providing what you are paying for" and that the entire training operation was "a total failure."

Westhusing was devastated. Even if the charges were accurate, there was little that could be done. Iraq had no functioning judicial system, and there were questions about jurisdiction in case the contractors were indicted. Westhusing wrote to his family, telling them about the problems with the contractors, and said he needed to talk to a lawyer about the issues he was handling.

By late May, Westhusing was becoming despondent over what he was seeing. Steeped in -- and totally believing in -- the West Point credo that a cadet will "not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do," Westhusing found himself surrounded by contractors who had no interest in his ideals. He asked family members to pray for him. In a phone call with his wife, Michelle, who was back at West Point, Westhusing told her he planned to tell Petraeus that he was going to quit. She pleaded with him to just finish his tour and return home.

Westhusing quit exercising, started chewing tobacco, and was increasingly withdrawn. His co-workers noted that he was fidgety. On the night of June 4, one of the female contractors who worked with Westhusing said he appeared "very tired, almost like he hadn't been sleeping," and was "out of sorts" and scratching his legs "quite a bit." The same person said that Westhusing had begun to "play/examine his weapon" and that he seemed "mesmerized" by his pistol. The same contractor mentioned that Westhusing talked about an ongoing problem with the Iraqis coming into the counterterrorism training program. The program was always at risk of being infiltrated by members of Iraqi militias, criminal gangs, and other elements. Westhusing asked the contractor for her thoughts about "vetting the students prior to the course." The contractor said that after the conversation, Westhusing sat in the office and would "say aloud that he didn't know how to solve the problem with the vetting issue. ... Only once did he address me directly. He said, 'I just don't see a way to resolve this problem.'"

A few minutes later, the female contractor said Westhusing "stood up and started to examine his weapon again" for about five minutes. The next morning, on June 5, Westhusing had one meeting at Camp Dublin with the contractors and another with government personnel. At the second meeting he expressed his disgust with "money-grubbing contractors" and said he "had not come over to Iraq for this." Westhusing was slated to leave Camp Dublin after lunch. When he did not show up for a meeting, one of the contractors went looking for him. At about 1:15 in the afternoon, Westhusing was discovered in trailer 602A. Near his body was a note addressed to his commanders, Petraeus and Fil. Written in large, block letters, it read:

Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. -- You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff -- no msn support and you don't care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied -- no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential -- I don't know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs . You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.

SOURCE...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/49233/

The good colonel only had a couple of weeks to go before he was back with his family.
That would be the goal to keep him focused, no matter what.
IMFO, the bad guys dosed him with some suicide-inducing chemical.

[Blue_Tires]

5. ttt n/t

[IChing]

7. kick and nominated---good article n/t

[razors edge]

8. Sounds like bush

used a suicide note as a job reference. Just the guy they needed, and I'm sure bush would have seen that note.

[lyonn]

10. Your kidding, bush read it?? They had to show him video

of what happened in New Orleans. He is clueless and intends to stay that way. No possibility of comprehension.

[razors edge]

11. No I'm not.

I do believe he was briefed fully, or else someone else is running this country, and I don't mean dead eye dick.

His only safe audience is the military, and like it or not, he probably does care about them. (the officers that is, not the piss ant enlisted, thats below him.)

Wouldn't look good to have the commander in thief get an unscripted question about suicides that referenced Westhusing, and he have no knowledge of it at all.


If this info is being kept from him then we have bigger problems than we can imagine.

[lyonn]

14. If bush got word of the suicide he no doubt was told about his

suicide note explaining how he felt about his superiors, Petreus(sp?), and easily concluded the guy was a mentally sick wimp. Your point is well taken that it would be important, for the medias' sake, to inform him of this situation, but, they only tell the idiot what is absolutely necessary in case he was asked and then bush would do his usual non-answer answer, "this honorable officer made a mistake and we have looked into the allegations and found no evidence of poor conduct on the part of his superiors", or so I believe.

Sarcasm was heavy in my prior comment. No, I don't think he cares about the officers, only that they obey the Pentagon. So he patronizes them.

[razors edge]

15. I kinda think he is jealous

of the officers, they really do the job they signed on for.

Something he could never bring himself to do.

That is probably the beginning and end of his caring though.

[me b zola]

12. k&r