US Military Suicides: The Enemy from Within

Fighting needless wars and playing the role of the global policeman to fulfill the political and financial goals of neocon politics and the military industrial complex has apparently been taking a heavy mental toll on US military personnel

From Yahoo/Reuters

Twenty-six active-duty soldiers are believed to have committed suicide in July, more than double the number reported for June and the most suicides ever recorded in a month since the U.S. Army began tracking detailed statistics on such deaths.

During the first seven months of this year, there were 116 suspected suicides among active-duty soldiers, compared to 165 suicides for all of last year, the Army said. The military branch reported 12 likely suicides during June.

The monthly totals for 2012 include confirmed suicides and cases still under investigation, the Army said.

Twelve reserve soldiers who were not on active duty also appear to have killed themselves in July, bringing the yearly total for that group to 71 suicides.

The Army, which has collected in-depth monthly suicide data since January 2009, confirmed 118 suicides among members of the branch's National Guard and Reserve components in 2011.

"Suicide is the toughest enemy I have faced in my 37 years in the Army," General Lloyd J. Austin III, vice chief of staff of the Army, said in the report released on Thursday.

The above data affirms what seems to be an escalating trend.

As Congressman Ron Paul wrote last May,

Unfortunately, when presidents misuse our military on an unprecedented scale – and Congress lets them get away with it – the resulting stress causes military suicides to increase dramatically, both among active duty and retired service members. In fact, military deaths from suicide far outnumber combat deaths. According to an article in the Air Force Times this month, suicides among airmen are up 40 percent over last year.

This seems even a greater threat than the external enemies the US government has spawned or has been waging war against as the enemy has emerged from within: the loss of moral fiber (strength of character or firmness of purpose-dictionary.com)

This backlash from imperialist US foreign policies has not just been impairing the mental health of the US military but can likewise be observed in the developing “road to serfdom” political economic trends of the US (see links here, here and here).

All these seems ominous to a quote widely attributed to Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin but has been disputed by snopes.com

America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.