Soldier kills self rather than face 9th deployment

A soldier committed suicide rather than be deployed again:

Ashley says her husband Jared tried to come to grips with what he’d seen and done on his eight deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“And there’s no way that any God would forgive him - that he was going to hell,” says Ashley. “He couldn’t live with that any more.”

I understand that progressives and neoconservatives alike will not shed a tear for the dozens of brown-skinned Muslims that are dying everyday in their name (the stage collapse in the Indiana State Fair is garnering more coverage on CNN than the six deaths and 60 wounded that occurred last weekend all across Iraq), but at least they are still moved by the deaths of their own combat troops.

Of course, the connection between soldiers being sent to brutalize and kill foreigners, and the massive psychological damage it incurs within those that must carry out this gruesome task seems lost to the American people, or else they would not be so eager to send their young people to war.

We do not know what kind horrors Jared Hagemann must have seen in his eight deployments to the Middle East, except that he believed that there was “no way that any God would forgive him” for what he has seen and done -- and that he took his life rather than continue to participate in this injustice.

This was Hagemann’s antiwar protest, his tragic stand against our endless wars.

Leading from the Front

I'll make a personal promise to President Barack Obama.  

I promise I will vote for Obama in 2012 if he would start each day with a hearty breakfast full of eggs, cheese, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns, several cured meats, a pot of black coffee and a jug of orange juice, then don an Iron Man suit, and fly over to Iraq and lead a patrol of soldiers through a town, killing anyone mercilessly and ruthlessly if attacked, fly back to the White House, descend through a secret helipad opening in the roof, debrief in a war room with generals, and then head over to the Oval Office to start his diplomatic and executive duties for the rest of the day.  

Mr, President, could you do that every day for all four years of your next term, dealing with most likely some level of PTSD and possible burns, bullet injuries, or amputations?  Try to imagine dealing with the personal damages of war while all the time keeping a straight face and a complacent will.  That's what you're asking and paying our soldiers to do, typically as a result of their loyalty to their country.  They are the brave ones willing to do violent and dangerous things in the night because you've told them that they are protecting their country. At the same time the rest of the country, for the most part, sleeps safe and sound at night.

Think, American Youth

(H/T Angela Keaton)

Punch vs. Judy

Gary North writes an excellent article on the contrivances of left vs. right (used with permission):

Obama Has Done to Far Left Democrats What Bush Did to Far Right Republicans: De-railed Their Agenda

Jan. 30, 2010

Obama was allowed to get the nomination in 2008 because the Council on Foreign Relations and related Insider groups saw him as a way to deflect any move by far Left Democrats to gain control over the government.

I have said this from the beginning. Here is what I wrote in November, 2008.

That Obama is in favor of Federal wealth distribution comes as no surprise. But notice how guarded his language is. He speaks like a lawyer. That's because he is one.

This man is not a revolutionary. He is a radical, but a radical of a special kind. He is a follower of Saul Alinsky. I first studied Alinsky's methods 25 years ago. He avoided violence. He analyzed the weakness of the opposition and then exploited this in a nonviolent way. He was a disciple of Gandhi's political methods.

Obama has mimicked Alinsky. He avoids direct confrontations. He avoided every vote in the U.S. Senate that might have created too much controversy.