Violent crimes by US Army soldiers rise dramatically

Jan 20, 2012 16:11 Moscow Time
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/01/20/64265716.html

The latest US Army report, presented on Tuesday, demonstrated some alarming results. While the suicide rate among active duty soldiers decreased, marking the first significant decline in four years, violent sex crimes committed by the soldiers have almost doubled. This escalation could hardly be described as surprising, considering the fact that America is constantly taking part in military conflicts around the globe. While the rest of the US troops in Afghanistan are waiting for the announced final withdrawal, America is balancing on the brink of a new conflict with Iran. The criminal behavior of the US troops is a predictable outcome of extreme stress and health and mental issues, caused by the war.

"There's a lot of good news in this report, but there's also some bad news," stated Army Vice Chief of Staff General during a Pentagon news conference. "We know we've got still a lot of work to do."

There are some bad news indeed, considering the disturbing fact that since 2006 violent sex crimes and domestic violence have increased more than 30% and the child abuse rate escalated by 43%.

Just last year one of the main sources of Pentagon’s concern was the problem of suicides among soldiers. Now it seems that the Army has found measures to deal with it. According to General Chiarelli commanders started to pay much closer attention to the mental state of soldiers. "I think we've at least arrested this problem and hopefully will start to push it down," said Chiarelli, outlining the report findings that less soldiers were being brought to hospital with suicidal thoughts.

However while fighting the suicides, the US Army has managed to let another problem to develop. The domestic abuse described by the officials as recidivism for previous offenders has not only risen but also exceeded the previous index.

While, according to the experts, such an increase “may be associated” with high rates of drinking among veterans, the actual reasons for sky-rocketing rates of violence are obvious. The nation that constantly wages wars may hardly await any other outcome. The Army veterans, who suffer from health and mental illnesses and experience problems adapting to the social routine after time spent in the warzone are likely to get involved in violent crimes and commit violent acts.

As the report says, 126,000 soldiers are currently diagnosed with cases of traumatic brain injury. 3,500 of them have severe penetrating wounds. As the report claims, the most common issue, the veterans are suffering from, is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). According to the experts, soldiers with PTSD are up to three times more likely to be aggressive with their female partners than those without such trauma.

The other problem could be the low level of attention paid by the commanders to the psychological problems of the troops, being sent into the zones of military conflicts. The brightest example is the case of Bradley Manning – the intelligence analyst, who allegedly passed a cache of disclosed military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. According to numerous witnesses, Manning had some serious psychological issues, which didn’t allow him to be assigned as an intelligence specialist. According to the testimony of Captain Casey Fulton - a senior officer in Manning’s "sensitive compartmented information facility", Manning had serious psychological and disciplinary issues and should not have been allowed to work with classified information. Fulton mentioned at least two incidents, including Manning’s assault on a fellow intelligence analyst and an attempt to grab a gun from the gun stack. It is hard to believe that even after such “disciplinary issues” Manning wasn’t discharged from the military and kept his position in an intelligence unit.