Succeed or fail, war is hell and everyone loses

[rodeodance]

".....Here's another thing: Those who work with victims of post-traumatic stress disorder say trauma is contagious. Just being constantly exposed to the descriptions of acts of extreme violence can give you shell shock, say the psychologists who study this phenomenon. In my terms that means, seriously, that "hell is contagious." As we Americans view the violence of war on our TV screens, as we read about military action in the newspapers, as we hear commentary on the radio, we all are a little bit shell shocked from it. It is common for Americans today to complain about the fact that everybody's temper is short, that we are not civil to each other, that we all are distracted and irritable. We were miserably uncivil to each other in this last presidential campaign. Shell shock.

Everything that led up to that incident in the Fallujah mosque is part of what happens when you decide as a nation to go to war. Let's not single out this Marine and distance ourselves from him. Every American bears responsibility for what is done in our name. Welcome to hell."

"http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=255996"

Succeed or fail, war is hell and everyone loses

By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president and professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary
Published November 21, 2004

Did we doubt that our American military men and women would be able to succeed in Fallujah, Iraq? No, and dangerously enough, the fact that Americans simply expect that their fighting forces can do anything we ask of them is one of our worst problems today. It can look too easy. We usually don't see the human costs.

[pnutchuck]

1. And the Admin makes sure we don't see

the caskets coming off the planes from Iraq. I agree, hell is contagious, and it doesn't just extend to war. When we have money in our pockets and all the luxuries capitalism can provide, we tend to forget the human cost that goes into our capitalist nature. From the shoes on our feet, to the gas in our cars, we not only share responsibility for this marine in Fallujah, but we are responsible for this war. It is because of our glutony of natural resources, and our apathy for the cost they entail that causes these wars. Only in hindsight, do we gasp in horror at the destrution that "they" have caused when it was our selfishness that gave them the power.