Today's depressing, quietly buried news bit about Iraq.......

The average suicide rate in New York City between 1977 and 1996 was 18.5 per 100,000. I didn't read that in the newspaper today though. Must be a conspiracy.

By contrast, Europe is a fucking disaster:

Below, the rates per 100,000 Males/Females in selected countries during 1994-95:

33.0/11.9 Austria
29.3/15.6 Denmark
31.6/11.5 France
55.5/16.8 Hungary
22.2/09.5 Sweden
30.9/12.2 Switz.
19.6/04.6 U.S.A

The article also points out that the figures Stuart cites above are misleading because they are for 12 months as opposed to the 9-10 months of the war/occupation, or the shorter period following the end of major combat during which most of the suicides have taken place.

???

http://optimusfilms.20m.com/directors/sk/w.full.jpg

Very sad, and obvious that someone in the chain wasn't paying close enough attention.

Less than 1 percent of the troops in Iraq are treated for mental issues during an average week, he said.

Something wrong with this, as that article says the "stress team" includes a psychiatrist. Aren't they trained to notice "mental issues"? Granted tis prolly at least 50 to 100 patients for every group of stress analysts, but if you see the same people [patients] over a period of time, wouldn't shifts in mood become apparent?

Haha why in the WORLD would somebody get the idea to kill themselves when they're stuck in a desert far from home with next to zero in the way of creature comforts and they're holding a loaded rifle? I suggest everyone read "Jarhead" by Anthony Swafford and then proceed to comprehend that the fact there aren't MORE troops offing themselves in Iraq is the news item here.

Jesus fucking Christ.

What is unfortunately more underreported than the suicides is the casualty rates. We keep hearing about 500 deaths, but nobody mentions the thousands of decapitations, blindings, etc that seriously affect lives. Nor does the president feel compelled to visit them in the hospital.. unless you know, he has to get his knee scoped or something like that.. than I guess a photo op would be alright.

How would a decapitation not be a death?

There were 4,557 American deaths in Vietnam in the first 11 months of 1966.

The Vietnam stat i listed came from http://www.aavw.org/served/casualty_1961to1966_abstract02.html via google so it could be wonky, i dunno.

Slightly offtopic, but does mention some info about the shrinking number of soldiers enlisting, especially for duty in Iraq.

A SLAVE NATION ONCE AGAIN

Once again the power elite are instituting actual slavery, but this time not just over people of color but also over every young American aged 18 to 26, regardless of race or sex.

Don't like your daughter dying for oil money? That's okay, because she can still be forced against her will to serve for low pay as, well,............anything that strikes the fancy of the Congressional representatives in committee that week.

Now we know why not one military funeral of a U.S. soldier from Iraq has been shown in the TV media, except that of a female. It forces us to think of women in combat roles. It also portends the government's plan for many more dead daughters to come. So as you change the diapers on your adorable baby girl, think of what a great killing machine your government will make of her, one day. Or a statistic on a Pentagon casualty report.

Think of why the government publik skool system is so heavy on teaching obedience to state authority and micromanaging students' personal lives. Same government.

Remember the name of Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY. He's one of the NWO statists who sponsored this new slavery, this New Draft, titled the UNIVERSAL NATIONAL SERVICE ACT under HR 163 which calls for a MINIMUM slavery period of 2 years to the state, preferably in combat roles as moving targets in third-world countries. This is necessary to insert puppet governments friendly to US oil and trade interests. Almost no one sees the irony of a slave descendant conscripting slaves to make more slave states worldwide.

Conscientious objectors will have no out, this time around. Instead they will be assigned elsewhere as slaves to any location for a lot longer than 2 years, in reprisal for their refusal to support the killing of other poor kids. Remember, the National Service terms are for a "minimum" of 2 years. No maximum is mentioned.

Even if they change the Act's wording to say a "maximum of 2 years...," to placate outraged constituents, once the Act is passed they can change the period of involuntary servitude to even 20 years, if they only vote to do so.

All Americans need do is their usual nothing, for this evil to triumph. All they need do is ignore past government promises that our Social Security Numbers would never be used for personal identification and tracking, to accept the government lies they will now hear about the UNSA.

In the U.S. Senate, the UNIVERSAL NATIONAL SERVICE ACT is S 89. Remember also the name of U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings, who is sponsoring the New Slave State fittingly from South Carolina, the cradle of American Black slavery. So much for her contrition for the past, in being an official sponsor of enslaving even more black people.

If you're wondering why the UNSA is being forced on us, remember that we have troops stationed in over a hundred different countries, supporting the installation of local agents who will bring about more profits to U.S. megacorporations, the "military-industrial complex" that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about. All this is being done in the name of a democracy that doesn't even exist in the USA. Yet think of what Patrick Henry said: "Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?"

The rate of U.S. servicemen re-enlisting is at an all-time low. Those on leave from severe duty such as in Iraq are refusing to return, facing courts martial as a better alternative. So far the media is spiking any stories about our soldiers walking away in disgust because of being ordered to perform human rights atrocities, such as kidnapping the women and children of "terrorist" Muslim soldiers to force them to turn themselves in. Those U.S. soldiers wise enough to have kept evidence are given a quiet discharge with full benefits as long as they keep quiet.

Because they receive such dramatically poor treatment when wounded and their children suffering poverty because of an ungrateful government, U.S. military forces are rapidly shrinking. The cure for this by the Charlie Rangels and Fritz Hollings of the world is slavery, never equity. Instead of providing better dependent care, pay and benefits, especially to those servicemen and women who wind up in wheelchairs, these traitors to their oath of office have chosen instead to keep the dollars for their favorite porkbarrels. It's a lot cheaper and easier to institute the enslavement of our children and only pay an ad agency to sway Americans with false patriotism in measured soundbytes on the nightly news shows.

The time is now for you to do something about this. While you can. Remember the wisest advice, ever, by Winston Churchill:

If you will not fight for your rights when you can easily win without bloodshed,
if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly,
then you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you
and only a small chance of survival.

There may even be a worse case:
you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory
because it is better to perish
than to live as slaves.

Our nation is on the brink of becoming a totalitarian state no different than any communist country, in making the state god over the lives of its citizens by enslaving them to any task that increases its central power. To do that, it must instill fear in its populace.

"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear, kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of 'grave national emergency.' Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it."
--General Douglas Macarthur, 1957

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That's easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
-- Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

Have you ever noticed the CONDITION ORANGE alert in a lower corner on your TV screen that's displayed almost continuously?

Those who care for the rights of poor black people, remember the names of Representatives Rangel, Ambercrombie, Conyers, Lewis (of Georgia), McDermott, Stark and Senator Hollings and each and every statist who is sponsoring the UNSA. Never vote for them again. If you can impeach them, so much the better. They serve not the people, but themselves. No matter what they say, they are bringing DEATH to our poor children, no matter how sweet their words in so doing.

Ask yourself when rejecting the concept of the UNSA, 'In service of whom?' Ask yourself what benefits humanity has reaped from every dead teenager who died in Viet Nam, in Afghanistan and in Iraq? Is your peace and safety any sweeter?

Slavery is SLAVERY, no matter how the statists and their sycophant media campaign to have us accept the yoke. It is slavery of black people AGAIN, pure and simple. That its misery is spread to other races as well does not remove the collars from our black children.

As the Jews say, "Never again!" Never again should the state have such power over her citizens. Never again.

An unnamed Nation Of Islam spokesman has said that Charlie Rangel must be denounced and impeached for the race-traitor that he is, a black man voting FOR the slavery of his own people.

If slavery was wrong earlier in U.S. history, it is wrong now.

Rise UP. Call your congressional representatives and senators. DAILY. Or pay for your apathy not only with the freedoms of your children, but perhaps with their blood.

Remember, thats Fritz Holling (Senator for the State of Disney); Yes, he was one of the (cough) Brains (cough cough) behind the DMCA...

Thank heavens for that.

charles rangel loves castro though so there is little doubt that he has totalitarian ambitions

How you say...I don't quite follow?