Folks -

 

I’m currently reading Patrick J. Buchanan’s powerful "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War", which is subtitled: "How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World".

 

His Preface is especially powerful, and thought provoking. It starts with:

 

All about us we can see clearly now that the West is passing away.

 

In a single century, all the great houses of continental Europe fell. All the empires that ruled the world have vanished. Not one European nation, save Muslim Albania, has a birthrate that will enable it to survive through the century. As a share of the world’s population, peoples of European ancestry have been shrinking for three generations. The character of every Western nation is being irremediably altered as each undergoes an unresisted invasion from the Third World. We are slowly disappearing from the Earth.

 

          

What happened to us? What happened to our world?

When the twentieth century opened, the West was everywhere supreme. For four hundred years, explorers, missionaries, conquerors, and colonizers departed Europe for the four corners of the Earth to erect Empires that were to bring the blessings and benefits of Western civilization to all mankind. These empires were the creations of a self-confident race of men.

 

Whatever became of these men?

 

There were World Wars I & II, two phases of a Thirty Years’ War future historians will call the Great Civil War of the West.

 

The questions this book addresses are huge but simple: Were these two world wars, the mortal wounds we inflicted upon ourselves, necessary wars? Or were they wars of choice? And if they were wars of choice, who plunged us into these hideous and suicidal world wars that advanced the death of our civilization? Who are the statesmen responsible for the death of the West?

 

Buchanan’s premise is one that an increasing number of historians have studied: That World Wars I & II were not necessary – irresponsible, fratricidal battles which killed tens of millions of European peoples – but fatal to Western Civilization.

 

Human psychology is a fascinating study, when trying to comprehend how peoples can follow, lemming-like, the siren song of leaders seeking to rally their populations against one another.

 

Nicholson Baker’s "Human Smoke: The beginnings of World War II, the end of Civilization", also published in 2008, shows how politicians herd their peoples to the abyss; the darkest of human behavior; into lust of mass killing; all of which is justified on the highest moral grounds.  

 

Who among those peoples of the former British Empire has not heard that the soldiers, in our nations’ uniforms during these wars, "fought for our freedom", when there is precious little evidence that our freedoms were at risk? Such is the power of myth, that this message is continually spread to school children every Remembrance Day and Memorial Day.

 

In America, Canada, Australia and Britain, the Latin phrases of Horace, signifying the duty of young men to die for one’s country are rarely heard in school corridors today, but the sentiments are presented in modern terms, which are as powerful and seductive.

 

Young men have always been attracted to the concept of battle, like moths to a flame, in the hope of winning recognition for valor; to prove their worthiness for membership in their tribe. Ironically, the young men these days are joined by young women, too. What soldiers throughout history have failed to understand is that nations rarely fight for survival, but for the interests of the rich and powerful.

 

When some event or condition impairs the ability of soldiers to function, they are discarded like so much garbage after a political rally.

 

When wars are short, the damage to the youth of any society is limited. When wars drag on, the cumulative effect becomes a significant factor in that nation’s ability to function in a healthy, productive manner.

 

We are witnessing such a phenomenon develop in the United States. Given the added stress of economic crisis, diminishing production of fossil fuels, and an aging population, it becomes clear that a major tipping point is approaching.

 

It bears careful study. How that nation copes will have an impact on the resulting global power structure. We, on the sidelines, may do little but observe and ponder; it is important for us to do so, whatever else we accomplish.

 

For your contemplation.

 

Jim Szpajcher

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19herbert.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

 

 

May 19, 2009

War’s Psychic Toll, by Bob Herbert

 

I couldn’t have been less surprised to read last week that an American G.I. had been charged with gunning down five of his fellow service members in Iraq. The fact that this occurred at a mental health counseling center in the war zone just served to add an extra layer of poignancy and a chilling ironic element to the fundamental tragedy.

 

The psychic toll of this foolish and apparently endless war has been profound since day one. And the nation’s willful denial of that toll has been just as profound.

 

According to authorities, John Russell, a 44-year-old Army sergeant who had been recognized as deeply troubled and was on his third tour in Iraq, went into the counseling center on the afternoon of May 11 and opened fire – killing an Army officer, a Navy officer and three enlisted soldiers. The three enlistees were 19, 20 and 25 years old.

 

This is what happens in wars. Wars are about killing, and once the killing is unleashed it takes many, many forms. Which is why it’s so sick to fight unnecessary wars, and so immoral to send other people’s children off to wars – psychic as well as physical – from which one’s own children are carefully protected.

 

The fallout from the psychic stress of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been vast, but there was no reason for its destructive effects to have surprised anyone. There was plenty of evidence that this would be an enormous problem. Speaking of Iraq back in 2004, Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, who had been an assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration, said, "I have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going to be the medical story of this war."

 

I remember writing a column about Jeffrey Lucey, a 23-year-old Marine who was deeply depressed and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D., when he returned from Iraq after serving in the earliest months of the war. He described gruesome events that he had encountered and was harshly critical of himself. He drank to excess, had nightmares, withdrew from friends and wrecked the family car.

 

On the afternoon of June 22, 2004, he wrote a note that said, "It’s 4:35 p.m. and I am near completing my death." He then hanged himself with a garden hose in the basement of his parents’ home.

 

Because we have chosen not to share the sacrifices of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrible burden of these conflicts is being shouldered by an obscenely small portion of the population. Since this warrior class is so small, the same troops have to be sent into the war zones for tour after harrowing tour.

 

As the tours mount up, so do the mental health problems. Combat is crazy-making to start with. Multiple tours are recipes for complete meltdowns.

 

As the RAND Corporation reported in a study released last year:

 

"Not only is a higher proportion of the armed forces being deployed, but deployments have been longer, redeployment to combat has been common, and breaks between deployments have been infrequent."

 

Recent attempts by the military to deal with some of the most egregious aspects of its deployment policies have amounted to much too little, much too late. The RAND study found that approximately 300,000 men and women who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan were already suffering from P.T.S.D. or major depression. That’s nearly one in every five returning veterans.

 

The mass-produced tragedies of war go far beyond combat deaths. Behind the abstract wall of RAND’s statistics is the immense real-life suffering of very real people. The toll includes the victims of violence and drunkenness and broken homes and suicides. Most of the stories never make their way into print. The public that professes such admiration and support for our fighting men and women are not interested.

 

Other studies have paralleled RAND’s in spotlighting the psychic toll of these wars. A CBS News survey found that veterans aged 20 to 24 were two to four times as likely to commit suicide as nonveterans the same age. A Time magazine cover story last year disclosed that "for the first time in history, a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan."

 

We’re brutally and cold-bloodedly sacrificing the psychological well-being of these men and women, which should be a scandal. If these wars are so important to our national security, we should all be engaging in some form of serious sacrifice, and many more of us should be serving.