Thursday, August 16, 2007

Pay no attention to those suicides behind the curtain.


Back here, first commenter "nonny" is outraged -- outraged, I tell you -- about people trying to draw a distinction between long-term, crippling, debilitating exhaustion and being, well, you know, "tired":

What leftists fail to understand is that soldiers are ALWAYS tired when they are in the middle of significant military activities. This just goes to show that ignorance of the military and hatred of the US combine to make you look like an absolute fool.

Right now, you seem to forget, they are battling AQ. They don't get much sleep, so they take naps whenever and wherever they can. It's just wishful thinking on your part to imagine the US military is "crippled." It's sheer stupidity for you to argue that there's some sort of contradiction between Marines and soldiers' being tired and their being successful in their fight against AQ in Iraq.

In what must be totally unrelated news:

Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years

Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.

It's unknown what percentage of those suicides were perky and well-rested.

18 comments:

Rev.Paperboy said...

More from the same article that CC quoted, as reproduced at the Galloping Beaver. Further proof that the US Army is, as Colin Powell put it, "broken" and that Nonny is, as many have probably put it "an ignorant fool":

"And it is not only the soldiers that are worn out. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the destruction, or wearing out, of 40 per cent of the US army's equipment, totalling at a recent count $212bn (£105bn).

But it is in the soldiers themselves - and in the ordinary stories they tell - that the exhaustion of the US military is most obvious, coming amid warnings that soldiers serving multiple Iraq deployments, now amounting to several years, are 50 per cent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress.

The army's exhaustion is reflected in problems such as the rate of desertion and unauthorised absences - a problem, it was revealed earlier this year, that had increased threefold on the period before the war in Afghanistan and had resulted in thousands of negative discharges."



40% of their gear gone, worn out or destroyed. That's a lot of missing rifles and broken humvees, which as you may recall were in such short supply at the start of the war that grunts were welding steel plates onto the vehicles themselves and doing everything but holding bake sales to buy their own body armor.
But according to Field Marshall Nonny, everything is fine and the insurgents are running scared from the indestructable, terminator-like U.S. Army. And I am Marie of Rumania.

Ti-Guy said...

"Field Marshall Nonny"...that's good. Though I tend to think of Nonny as Reichsminister für ausländische Volksaufklärung und Propaganda.

Nonny said...

Key quote from the article: "In a service of more than a half million troop [sic], the 99 suicides amounted to a rate of 17.3 per 100,000 _ the highest in the past 26 years, the report said. The average rate over those years has been 12.3 per 100,000."

Oh, boy what a shocking development, an increase over a 26 year average of 62 suicides per year to 99, a rate not seen since the last Gulf War! The logical conclusion of the article: War is stressful. As I said, shocking and surprising. What's next from the Washington Post? War increases the likelihood of soldiers' getting shot at?

But, bravo! Really, well done.

And good job Rev and Ti-Guy for calling me a Nazi. That didn't take long. (Extra points to Ti-Guy for showing off his German language skills.)

M@ said...

Gee, I wish I supported the troops as much as Nonny. Then I could dismiss suicide rates and combat stress just as easily.

Ever notice that the ones who say things like "you don't know a thing about a soldier's fatigue" and "You don't know a thing about fighting a war" are the first to dismiss the effects of fatigue and combat stress?

How can they know so much and yet care so little?

thwap said...

m@,

Because they know so little.

But you knew that already! ;)

Nonny said...

Oh, yes, M@, you are right: I don't support the troops. I don't care about them @ all. But, tell me, M@, how do you square your current accusation with your prior one where you accused me of having a soldier "fetish"?

I swear, the only thing consistent about you girls is your mindless name-calling, but it's really quite funny how predictable you all are actually. I say, "The soldiers are doing a good job," and you say, "You have a soldier fetish." I say, "Combat causes soldiers to get fatigued," and you act as if this has never happened before and say, "You don't care about the soldiers."

Sometimes I think you people are borderline retarded.

The other times I just think you're a bunch of jerks.

M@ said...

First, Nonny, you might want to look up the word "fetish". I did not say sexual fetish. I was talking about your unquestioning, wide-eyed hero-worshiping attitude towards anything military. You were going a little further than "The soldiers are doing a good job" at that point, weren't you?

But what I like is that when I point out the contradiction in your views on the troops, you call me retarded.

But let me reconcile the contradiction for you. You profess to support the troops, but you don't actually have any empathy for what they go through when they fight. Therefore, for you, your "support" for the troops is actually a hollow and dishonest political tool, and does not indicate any meaningful support or respect for the men and women in the military.

By the way, if we're all suck a "bunch of jerks", there's an easy way to not interact with us. Door's to your left.

Nonny said...

Well, will you look at that. The national suicide rate for 2002-2004 was 14.2 per 100,000, at a time, it seems when the US Army suicide rate was about 12.3 (which is the 26 year average). So it seems that, in general, the Army is a pretty safe place to be, mentally (unlike, say, Canadiancynic.blogspot.com).


http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5625a5.htm?s_cid=mm5625a5_e

Ti-Guy said...

Sometimes I think you people are borderline retarded.

Sometimes? That's all you ever think, Novena...and that's because you hate Canadians.

What's laughable about you is that you spend so much time arguing with people who are not going to be persuaded no matter how hard you try. The other thing that's laughable is that you have this child-like faith in the good intentions of your government. I find that shocking. But, as we all know, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Nonny said...

M@,

You write for a living?! Do you read? CAN you read?

You said, "First, Nonny, you might want to look up the word 'fetish'. I did not say sexual fetish."

Where did I say "sexual"? And why would that be relevant to your inconsistency?

"I was talking about your unquestioning, wide-eyed hero-worshiping attitude towards anything military. You were going a little further than 'The soldiers are doing a good job' at that point, weren't you?"

No, I wasn't. Tell me where I was "wide-eyed and hero-worshiping." That's just your stereotypical spin on "neocons," just like the contradictory leftist spin that neocons don't support the troops because they cause the troops to fight wars where they get shot at, tired, and stressed.

M@ said...

neocons don't support the troops because they cause the troops to fight wars where they get shot at, tired, and stressed.

That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that you don't support the troops because you don't care that they get shot at, tired, and stressed.

I really am not going to search through the archives here and find the argument where I characterised your attitude towards the military fetishism. It's clear that you don't understand the meaning of the word, but if you'd like to dredge up the thread, I'll be glad to point out what made me use the term.

And yes, I'm a writer. I'm working on a book about the troops right now -- and you see, to form my opinions, I actually talk to the people involved. I don't just do armchair analysis on statistics I know nothing about, or dismiss things I dislike as "leftist" or "neo-con" spin.

Ti-Guy said...

Nonny won't shut up until this cock-up is finally over.

Nonny...how did you argue the reality of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction? Did you rely on "official sources" to make sure everyone who doubted their existence knew they were "retarded?"

Nonny said...
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Nonny said...
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CC said...

Go away, Nonny. You've overstayed your welcome.

Nonny said...
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Nonny said...
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CC said...

Jesus, Nonny, what part of "Bugger off" do you just not grok?

You've had your say, we all read it, we all understand you're an imbecile, so what's left?

Once again, you have your own blog, so stop leeching off of mine.