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U.S. army sergeant guns down 5 fellow soldiers in Iraq

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

BAGHDAD – 44 year old U.S. army Sergeant John M. Russell opened fire and killed five fellow soldiers before being taken into custody, said U.S. command and Pentagon officials. Russell has been charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault after the killing spree at a stress center at Camp Liberty , a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad.

The accused soldier's son, John M. Russell II, said his father is not a violent person. He's just a loving, caring guy. For this to happen, it had to be something going on that the Army's not telling us about."

The father of the accused soldier, Wilburn Russell, 73, said that his son wasn't typically a violent person, but counselors "broke" him. "The purpose of the stress clinic is to find out what will break your spirit, what will break your will ." Wilburn said his son e-mailed his wife in Germany early this month, telling her officers threatened him and put him through "the worst two days of his life." "His life was over as far as he was concerned," said the elder Russell, who didn't know whether his son was being disciplined or was facing a discharge. He "forfeited his life" but the military bears some responsibility for the rampage. They "trained him to kill".

Replaying Vietnam?

During the Vietnam war, attacks on fellow soldiers, known as "fraggings", were not uncommon. A replay of what happened to the US Army during the Vietnam War now seems a very real possibility in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Vietnam, some enlisted men took to "fragging" or killing their officers with grenades when they no longer saw any sense in being told to risk their lives in a war that had lost its legitimacy and its meaning or when they were simply angry at their superiors. There were over 200 recorded fragging incidents in Vietnam. In Iraq, six fraggings have been made public and there will certainly be more if soldiers encounter more and more resistance to what many of them now see as a senseless war.

Other "Fraggings" in the Iraq war

• Last September, Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich, 39, of Minneapolis was detained after allegedly killing two members of his unit south of Baghdad. The case remains under investigation.
• In April 2005, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• In June 2005, an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at the U.S. base in Tikrit. National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was acquitted in the blast.
• Spc. Chris Rolan, an Army medic, was sentenced to 33 years in prison in 2007 for killing a fellow soldier after a night of heavy drinking in Iraq.
• In 2008, Army Cpl. Timothy Ayers was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2007 shooting of his platoon sergeant in Iraq.
• All of the fraggings we don’t know about.

Soldier Suicides

According to army statistics, the incidence of U.S. Army soldiers attempting suicide or inflicting injuries on themselves has skyrocketed in the nearly five years since the start of the Iraq war." Suicide attempts are rising and have risen over the last five years," said Col. Elspeth Cameron-Ritchie, an Army psychiatrist. Every day, five U.S. soldiers try to kill themselves. According to the Army, there were about 350 suicide attempts in 2002 before the war in Iraq began ( less than one attempt a day). The dramatic increase is revealed in new U.S. Army figures, which show 2,100 soldiers tried to commit suicide in 2007. The Army lists 89 soldier deaths in 2007 as suicides and is investigating 32 more as possible suicides. Suicide rates already were up in 2006 with 102 deaths, compared with 87 in 2005.

US Iraq war deserters speak out!

Like Draft dodgers and deserters of theVietnam era, american soldiers have sought refuge in Canada from what they say is an unjust war in Iraq. In the crowded basement of a community library, the young men recounted their stories of escape. They spoke of crimes perpetrated by their country, of fleeing in the dead of night. They couldn't take seeing any more war crimes and the routine, widespread torture and murder of Iraqis by US troops that is still taking place today. It got so bad that they were willing to risk being court martialed rather than participate in what was going on.

When First Lieutenant Ehren Watada of the US Army, who faced a court martial, refused to go to Iraq on moral grounds, the newspapers in his home state of Hawaii were full of letters accusing him of “treason”. He said he had concluded that the war is both morally wrong and a horrible breach of American law. His participation, he stated, would make him party to “war crimes”. Watada is just one conscientious objector to a war that has polarised America, arguably more so than even the Vietnam war.

It is impossible to put a precise figure on the number of American troops who have left the army as a result of the US involvement in Iraq. The Pentagon says that a total of 40,000 troops have deserted their posts (not simply those serving in Iraq) since the year 2000. This includes many who went Awol for family reasons.

Thousands of people seek asylum in Canada every year, claiming to be refugees from the United States - soldiers no less, who deserted duty in Iraq. They are taking a provocative stance against the nation they vowed to serve. "I was willing to give my life. I received a Purple Heart for being injured in combat," said Darrell Anderson, 22, one of a handful of deserters who have surfaced in Canada decrying the war and seeking protection as refugees. An Army Humvee gunner from Lexington, Ky., he spent seven months in Iraq before packing a duffel bag and fleeing while on leave. "I'm going to be able to live the rest of my life with my head held up high, knowing I wasn't part of the killing of innocent people."