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".....Here's another thing: Those who work with victims of post-traumatic stress disorder say trauma is contagious. Just being constantly exposed to the descriptions of acts of extreme violence can give you shell shock, say the psychologists who study this phenomenon. In my terms that means, seriously, that "hell is contagious." As we Americans view the violence of war on our TV screens, as we read about military action in the newspapers, as we hear commentary on the radio, we all are a little bit shell shocked from it. It is common for Americans today to complain about the fact that everybody's temper is short, that we are not civil to each other, that we all are distracted and irritable. We were miserably uncivil to each other in this last presidential campaign. Shell shock.
Everything that led up to that incident in the Fallujah mosque is part of what happens when you decide as a nation to go to war. Let's not single out this Marine and distance ourselves from him. Every American bears responsibility for what is done in our name. Welcome to hell."
"http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=255996"
Succeed or fail, war is hell and everyone loses
By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president and professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary Published November 21, 2004
Did we doubt that our American military men and women would be able to succeed in Fallujah, Iraq? No, and dangerously enough, the fact that Americans simply expect that their fighting forces can do anything we ask of them is one of our worst problems today. It can look too easy. We usually don't see the human costs.
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