Soldier Suicides in Iraq?!?

[jackstraw45]

Two soldiers have committed suicide in Iraq just this week according to this article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20030710-0625-iraq.html

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"The military also reported that a soldier died Wednesday in what it described as a non-hostile gunshot incident. The military gave no more details. The names of the dead and wounded were withheld pending notification of next of kin.

An American soldier attached to the 101st Airborne Division died Monday in another non-hostile gunshot incident near Balad, 55 miles north of the capital. Soldiers at an air base near Balad said on condition of anonymity that the soldier had taken his own life. "

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I hope Smirk is damn proud of himself.

[bif]

1. I doubt they feed him info like this.

Keep him in the dark so he thinks his invasion is going just fine.

[TolstoyAndy]

3. They keep Smirk in the dark...

...so he doesn't blurt out the truth sometime when he's drunk or on whatever meds they have him taking.

This is a vile situation for our soldiers and every death there is just as if Bushler had pulled the trigger himself, because it is all based on lies.

Curse them all, these evil, heinous criminals.

[LibDemAlways]

2. I've also read that some of the "non-combat"

traffic accident deaths were actually caused by soldiers being run off the road or
deliberately rammed into by Iraqis - the kinds of "accidents" that would earn a
jail turn for vehicular manslaughter or worse. Calling them traffic "accidents"
keeps the combat death numbers artificially low, however.

And now soldiers seeing no other way out are killing themselves?

This is a terrible price to pay to satisfy the cabal's lust for oil and world domination.

[starroute]

7. It's also suggested that many "accidents" are combat-related

There was something on this the other day at iraqwar.ru. It said that most of the "accidents" were vehicles speeding on their way to combat areas, helicopters flying dangerously low and fast to avoid being shot at, etc. I'd like to see supporting evidence for this, but it does seem believable.

[Aristus]

4. My God! Did soldiers in Vietnam, even, ever kill themselves?

This is terrible! :grr:

[OrdinaryTa]

8. Suicide in Vietnam

Four thousand soldiers committed suicide in Vietnam. It was not rare.

[phillybri]

5. Man, this is soooooooo horrible...

"Bring 'em on" Bush did more to hurt troop morale than 15 million protestors ever could....

[karlschneider]

6. I just looked up some statistics on suicide...

In the USA there were almost 30,000 in year 2000 which works out to something like 1 for every 7000 people. If there were proportionality, with 140,000 troops, there would be about 20 a year. I know it's a very different population sample, but don't know whether one or the other would be different, or why.
Just some numbers to tinker with.

[Jacobin]

10. Yep.

It's one of those "quiet" statistics we in the U.S. don't like to talk about.....

"Here, cheer up....go get a credit card and go shopping!!!"

[IndianaGreen]

9. There was also at least one suicide in Kuwait

before the war started.

Casualties of war!

[Skittles]

11. depression is not a rare condition

add to it EXTREME stress, lack of available help, and guns already in hand and you have an easy recipe for suicide. It's very sad.