Suicides Of Active-Duty Soldiers Sets Another New Record

It looks like the very disturbing trend of the increasing number of suicides among active-duty soldiers is continuing -- in spite of increased suicide prevention efforts and more drug and alcohol counseling. The Army officials deny that repeated postings to war zones has anything to do with the rising number of suicides, but that sounds pretty weak. Consider that before the era of repeated war zone postings the suicide rate was 9.6 per 100,000, but in 2011 that has risen to 24.1 per 100,000 -- a huge jump and well above the 18.6 per 100,000 among the civilian population.

A total of 164 active-duty soldiers committed suicide in 2011. That sets a new record. And if you add in the non-mobilized Reserve and the National Guard, that figure rises to 278.

And that's not all of the bad news. It seems that serious sex offenses among active-duty troops jumped by a whopping 30% in 2011. This is also in spite of Army efforts to stop it (a failed "zero tolerance" policy). And nearly half of the victims were active-duty female soldiers between the ages of 18 and 21. The Army had a lot of excuses -- more crimes are being reported, new barracks offer more privacy, alcohol use is rising, etc. -- but excuses don't help the victims of sexual assault (or suicide for that matter).

The Army has some serious problems, and the biggest cause of those problems is the fighting of unnecessary wars that can't be won militarily. And the blame for that must be laid at the feet of the politicians, who used the politics of fear to start and continue those wars (and refuse to stop them because of their own vanity or electability).

We need to bring all of our troops home immediately. And we need to stop any future unnecessary wars -- including Iran, where many of our politicians are wanting to attack next. How many more young Americans (and others) must die before we learn our lesson? Wasn't Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan enough?