Slew of bad news out of Iraq
Wow, after several months of relatively good news out of Iraq, it seems that today was the day to pile on with the bad. Here’s a couple of choice ones:
First up - a suicide bomber, probably employed by Al Qaida in Iraq, blew himself up at a funeral for a pair of Sunni “Awakening” fighters.
BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber struck the funeral of two Sunni tribesmen who joined forces against Al Qaida in Iraq, killing at least 50 people Thursday and reinforcing fears that insurgents are hitting back after American-led crackdowns.
The sudden spike in bloodshed this week adds to the other worries now piling up in Iraq: violent rivalries among Shiites and persistent cracks in the Iraqi security forces.
(snip)
Thursday’s attack happened in the town of Albu Mohammad, about 90 miles north of Baghdad. A suicide bomber dressed in traditional Arab robes passed unsearched by guards into a tent of mourners. The occasion was a funeral for two brothers who belonged to the local Awakening Council and who were killed in an attack a day earlier.
The bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens more, said police in the nearby city of Kirkuk.
I may be getting cynical, but I don’t know what’s worse - U.S. soldiers in Iraq dealing with this, or U.S. soldiers out of Iraq and the barbarians running the show.
Next up - according to this story, 300,000 U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
WASHINGTON (AFP) - About 300,000 US military veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan currently suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression, an independent study released Thursday estimates.
The study by a team at the RAND Corporation also concludes that about 320,000 veterans of those conflicts experienced a “probable” traumatic brain injury (TBI) during deployment, but the long-term impact on mental health is unclear.
The findings were extrapolated from a survey of 1,926 recently returned servicemembers from across the military services. The sample was designed to represent the 1.6 million troops who have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.
My own deployment isn’t a good example of one that had a lot of injuries, or had to deal with a bunch of stressful situations - so I’m far from being any kind of expert here. However, from a pure SWAG, I would say these numbers are probably not that far off. It represents a small percentage of the total numbers deployed into the combat zone, but probably includes nearly all personnel who actually saw combat action. If you get shot at, or see real live humans getting blown apart, it kind of messes with your head.
Having said that, I doubt most of these cases are particularly serious. I’m sure there are U.S. servicemen and women out there who suffer some real issues from PTSD - and the U.S. government has a responsibility to help them. Most, however, are able to deal with the situation and go on with their lives. The problem with this kind of survey is that includes EVERYONE who might suffer some level of PTSD - even if it’s not affecting them particularly badly and they are going through life relatively unscathed.
We’re not all coming back eff’d up. After a few months transition time, I was back into my old routine and not thinking about where my firearm was all the time or looking cross-wise at every suspicious character I saw. Of course, maybe I should.
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