There is a lot of FRUIT LOOPS in that opinion piece but this is right:
Some soldiers have done more than 5 years total of shooting war(in combat theater), sometimes really nasty stuff, in a the military of a failing superpower that was fine with WaterBoarding and other abuses and tended to be incompetent at the main work. My wife was part of an Armour Cavalry Regiment where at the post deployment ball we spouses had to sit through a half hour a video of these guys blasting the hell out of everything as the guys sat around post dinner and whooped it up. This was some really nasty ****, it was pure sadism both in that room that night and from all appearances on that film from Iraq . Rumor had it (it was more than Rumor actually) that war crimes had been committed and brushed under the rug by top level commanders. If anyone is shocked that Bradley Manning was sent to Iraq to handle classified information they should not be, bodies where in short supply, and lots of folks did not want to go to Iraq, the policy in the end was "send them all no matter what they say unless you absolutely cant". In some units the women were routinely under so much pressure to have sex with the guys that their encounters can not by any stretch of the imagination be call consensual.
This is what our nation did.
Is it any wonder that so many lives were wrecked in the process?
It is criminal what we did to Americans who served us in our really stupid in concept and really poorly run war.
I think I know what this shooting was all about, it was a well deserved "**** YOU AMERICA!" by a guy failing to understand how America could do and do to him what we have done.
*Note: the taking of lives in protest/pain was not "well deserved", the anger towards America however was*
I hear what you are saying...
The fruit loopish part might be a bit too much. After this last administration and coming into the new one, we are in a bit of a free fall with regard to knowing who we can trust to tell us what might be, who knows anymore, just what might be the truth? If the mainstream media can be telling us with a straight face and anonymous "intelligence" reporting, our number one spy guys saying its true but supplying way late and not verifiable evidence that our president elect is, in effect the Moscovian Candidate, how can the plausible supposition in this mass shooter article, with some pretty good questions as to just what exactly ...and how.... it all exactly happened in Ft Laud be too much? How is that to be considered outlandish, froot loopish, in comparison to what we are expected to believe at a much higher level?
Unfortunately, almost anything that is plausible can now seem possible these days.
There is a concerning thing about the article in that it seems to misrepresent the VA's 2012 Suicide Data Report stating that the report went on to say:
“
In a 2012 report put out by the Veterans Administration, it was estimated that up to 22 veterans a day kill themselves. That is 8,000 lives a year--almost one per hour.”
The report goes on to say:
“If you really want to ‘support the troops’ you’ll stop supporting wars of aggression in distant lands in which Americans are forced to kill people who pose no threat to the US.
“If you really ‘support the troops’ you’ll stop blindly standing up for your government whose proven track record shows that they do everything but support the troops.
“If you really support the troops, you’ll educate yourself on who is behind these wars, why they are waged, and how US foreign policy actually creates enemies. ISIS would not exist had the US not remained hell bent on overthrowing the Assad regime for the benefit of special interests in DC.
“Pledging blind obedience and unquestioning support for wars that one’s government illegally wages at the expense of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers, is the antithesis of what a free person should do--and anything but ‘supporting the troops.’”
That seemed a strange policy prescription, however true it may or may not be, being a statement said to be in a report issued by the VA.
Actually that is what the referenced article at
Activist Post - Alternative News & Independent Views by author Matt Agorist says, not the VA report. I perused the entire report and then went back to both articles and it was not the VA report but the article itself saying such.
Though we most assuredly have been in more direct peril previously, we actually do have a nation in very dire straits after this administration is through with us, ... but to take a play of their play book maybe we should not let this crisis go to waste, we should change... for the better...so a lot for us, Trump and company our mission ought to be to repair if that is their aim... which I am hoping it truly is.
Knock on wood, fingers crossed.