"I said a prayer, stood up and gunned them all down."

[MrScorpio]

>>Aiden Delgado, an Army Reservist in the 320th Military Police Company, served in Iraq from April 1st , 2003 through April 1st, 2004. After spending six months in Nasiriyah in Southern Iraq, he spent six months helping to run the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad.

The handsome 23-year-old mechanic was a witness to widespread, almost daily, U.S. war crimes in Iraq. His story contains new revelations about ongoing brutality at Abu Ghraib, information yet to be reported in national media.

I first met Delgado in a classroom at Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California, where he presented a slide show on the atrocities that he himself observed in Southern and Northern Iraq. Delgado acknowledged that the U.S. military did some good things in Iraq. “We deposed Saddam, built some schools and hospitals,” he said. But he focused his testimony on the breakdown of moral order within the U.S. military, a pattern of violence and terror that exceeds the bounds of what is legally and morally permissible in time of war.<<

http://www.blackcommentator.com/133/133_think_racism_military.html

[ixion]

1. any 'good' done in Iraq has been far out-weighed by the bad

I'm glad to see this person having an attack of conscience.

[rpannier]

2. Obviously this man hates America

He hates everything it stands for. He hates us for our freedoms.
Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I thought I was sean insanity for a moment.

[jbnow]

3. Horrifying

Permission to shoot unarmed prisoners?

He talks about the disconnect...the "moral" "Christian" kids who can't see the conflict between that and their brutality. I guess you can do that if you dehumanize your "enemy". But besides the ruin we wreak on Iraq, what happens when these "good" kids come home and they start to face the truth of their actions? The disconnect might work in group think at war, but these will be some messed up minds in coming years, whether they face it or repress it.

I still can't get over the murder of prisoners! That is hardly the heat of the battlefield where fear can trigger bad choices. It is cold blooded murder.

[MrScorpio]

4. A large percentage of troops are returning with mental illness issues

I've heard up to 25%.

To be sent into a hell such as this would explain a lot.

[soleft]

10. The brother of a guy in my office just came back, 21 years old

and by his brother's accounts "really messed up"

[Mist]

5. Thanks for posting this Mr. Scorpio- though it was hard to read

War does this to so many-even in WWII there were shocking stories of brutality, especially to Japanese combatants. Skull collecting was big in WWII in the Pacific, though one seldom hears of anyone from the "Good War" behaving that way. This kind of schizophrenia is what keeps troops operating day to day. Horrifying.

[fujiyama]

6. We're creating monsters

23--that's a year younger than me.

These people should be allowed to be graduating college...Then again, even if he were back home...he wouldn't find a job.

What a fuckin mess....What a Goddam fuckin mess.

[Bluebear]

7. Rescue kick

[mmonk]

8. Pretty sad eh?

My son over my dead body.

[earthboundmisfit]

9. And more than a few that return will become POLICEMEN in the US.

Complete with untreated mental illness courtesy of *sh's Iraq bloodbath...oh boy...

[slackmaster]

11. That would make pretty a good country music song

:argh:

[GliderGuider]

12. Kick

This deserves to be read.

[DemonFighterLives]

13. Interesting article

Apparently the crap went deeper than most of us imagined. You want fighting machines you have to program in hatred.
I sure hope rummy and dubby pay for their sins.

[mattclearing]

14. Thanks for this piece.

It is helpful to see that some real stories are getting through, especially regarding Abu Ghraib.

You'd think we would have learned some humanity after Vietnam, but it seems we have failed to learn from our mistakes.