Posted by Tapestry
\ntapnewswire.com<\/p>\n
According to a recent report by the Department of Veterans Affairs,\u00a0at least 60,000 veterans died by suicide<\/a>\u00a0between 2008 and 2017.<\/p>\n On average,\u00a06,000 veterans kill themselves every year<\/a>, and the numbers are on the rise.<\/p>\n As Bren\u00e9 Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, observed, \u201cFor soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, it\u2019s the U.S. government that poses the greater threat to America\u2019s military veterans, especially if they are among that portion of the population that exercises their First Amendment right to speak out against government wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Consider: we raise our young people on a steady diet of militarism and war, sell them on the idea that defending freedom abroad by serving in the military is their patriotic duty, then when they return home, bruised and battle-scarred and committed to defending their freedoms at home, we often treat them like criminals\u00a0merely for exercising those rights they risked their lives to defend.<\/em><\/p>\n The government even has a name for its war on America\u2019s veterans:\u00a0Operation Vigilant Eagle<\/a>.<\/p>\n As first reported by the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>, this Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program tracks military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and characterizes them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be \u201cdisgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.\u201d<\/p>\n Coupled with the DHS\u2019 dual reports on\u00a0Rightwing and Leftwing \u201cExtremism,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which broadly define extremists as individuals, military veterans and groups \u201cthat are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,\u201d these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.<\/p>\n Yet the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is taking aim at\u00a0individuals trained in military warfare<\/em>.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t be fooled by the fact that the DHS has gone extremely quiet about Operation Vigilant Eagle.<\/p>\n Where there\u2019s smoke, there\u2019s bound to be fire.<\/p>\n And the government\u2019s efforts to target military veterans whose views may be perceived as \u201canti-government\u201d make clear that something is afoot.<\/p>\n In recent years, military servicemen and women have found themselves increasingly targeted for\u00a0surveillance<\/a>, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as\u00a0extremists<\/a>\u00a0and\/or mentally ill, and\u00a0stripped of their Second Amendment rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n An important point to consider, however, is that under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as threats to national security.<\/p>\n In light of the government\u2019s efforts to lay the groundwork to weaponize the public\u2019s biomedical data and\u00a0predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data<\/a>\u00a0(a convenient means by which to penalize certain \u201cunacceptable\u201d social behaviors), encounters with the police could get even more deadly, especially if those involved have a mental illness or disability coupled with a military background.<\/p>\n Incredibly, as part of a proposal being considered by the Trump Administration, a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon\u2019s research and development arm DARPA) will take the lead in\u00a0identifying and targeting \u201csigns\u201d of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace<\/a>\u00a0by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.<\/p>\n These tactics are not really new.<\/p>\n Many times throughout history in totalitarian regimes, such governments have declared dissidents mentally ill and unfit for society as a means of disempowering them.<\/p>\n As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum observes in\u00a0Gulag: A History<\/em>: \u201cThe exile of prisoners to a distant place, where they can \u2018pay their debt to society,\u2019 make themselves useful, and not contaminate others with their ideas or their criminal acts, is a practice as old as civilization itself.\u00a0The rulers of ancient Rome and Greece sent their dissidents off to distant colonies.<\/a>\u00a0Socrates chose death over the torment of exile from Athens. The poet Ovid was exiled to a fetid port on the Black Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union often used psychiatric hospitals as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally through the use of electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures.<\/p>\n Insisting that \u201cideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure<\/a>,\u201d the psychiatric community actually went so far as to provide the government with a diagnosis suitable for locking up such freedom-oriented activists.<\/p>\n In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, Russian officials also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers.<\/p>\n Author George Kennan describes a process in which:<\/p>\n The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is \u201cprejudicial to public order\u201d or \u201cincompatible with public tranquility,\u201d he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years. Administrative exile\u2013which required no trial and no sentencing procedure\u2013was an\u00a0ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sound familiar?<\/p>\n This age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by declaring them mentally ill and locking them up in psychiatric wards for extended periods of time is a common practice in present-day China.<\/p>\n What is particularly unnerving, however, is how this practice of eliminating or undermining potential critics, including military veterans, is happening with increasing frequency in the United States.<\/p>\n Remember, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) opened the door for the government to detain as a threat to national security anyone viewed as a troublemaker. According to government guidelines for identifying domestic extremists\u2014a word used interchangeably with terrorists\u2014technically, anyone exercising their First Amendment rights in order to criticize the government qualifies.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t take much anymore to be flagged as potentially anti-government in a government database somewhere\u2014Main Core<\/a>, for example\u2014that identifies and tracks individuals who aren\u2019t inclined to march in lockstep to the government\u2019s dictates.<\/p>\n In fact, as the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0reports, communities are being mapped and residents assigned a\u00a0color-coded threat score<\/a>\u2014green, yellow or red\u2014so police are forewarned about a person\u2019s potential inclination to be a troublemaker depending on whether they\u2019ve had a career in the military, posted a comment perceived as threatening on Facebook, suffer from a particular medical condition, or know someone who knows someone who might have committed a crime.<\/p>\n The case of\u00a0Brandon Raub<\/a>\u00a0is a prime example of Operation Vigilant Eagle in action.<\/p>\n Raub, a 26-year-old decorated Marine, actually found himself interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called \u201cconspiratorial\u201d views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.<\/p>\n On August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub\u2019s Virginia home, asking to speak with him about posts he had made on his Facebook page made up of song lyrics, political opinions and dialogue used in a political thriller virtual card game.<\/p>\n Among the posts cited as troublesome were lyrics to a song by a rap group and Raub\u2019s views, shared increasingly by a number of Americans, that the 9\/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.<\/p>\n After a brief conversation and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights,\u00a0Raub was then handcuffed and transported to police headquarters<\/a>, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were \u201cterrorist in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Outraged onlookers filmed the arrest and posted the footage to YouTube, where it quickly went viral. Meanwhile, in a kangaroo court hearing that turned a deaf ear to Raub\u2019s explanations about the fact that his Facebook posts were being read out of context, Raub was sentenced to up to 30 days\u2019 further confinement in a psychiatric ward.<\/p>\n Thankfully,\u00a0The Rutherford Institute came to Raub\u2019s assistance<\/a>, which combined with heightened media attention, brought about his release and may have helped prevent Raub from being successfully \u201cdisappeared\u201d by the government.<\/p>\n Even so, within days of Raub being seized and forcibly held in a VA psych ward, news reports started surfacing of other veterans having similar experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cOppositional defiance disorder\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(ODD) is another diagnosis being used against veterans who challenge the status quo. As journalist Anthony Martin explains, an ODD diagnosis<\/p>\n \u201cdenotes that the person exhibits \u2018symptoms\u2019 such as the questioning of authority, the refusal to follow directions, stubbornness, the unwillingness to go along with the crowd, and the practice of disobeying or ignoring orders.\u00a0Persons may also receive such a label if they are considered free thinkers, nonconformists, or individuals who are suspicious of large, centralized government<\/a>\u2026 At one time the accepted protocol among mental health professionals was to reserve the diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder for children or adolescents who exhibited uncontrollable defiance toward their parents and teachers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Frankly, based on how well my personality and my military service in the U.S. Armed Forces fit with this description of \u201coppositional defiance disorder,\u201d I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a file somewhere with my name on it.<\/p>\n That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) these veterans is diabolical. With one stroke of a magistrate\u2019s pen, these veterans are being declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n If it were just being classified as \u201canti-government,\u201d that would be one thing.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, anyone with a military background and training is also now being viewed as a heightened security threat by police who are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.<\/p>\n Feeding this perception of veterans\u00a0as ticking time bombs<\/a>\u00a0in need of intervention, the Justice Department launched\u00a0a pilot program in 2012 aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans<\/a>.<\/p>\n The result?<\/p>\n Police encounters with military veterans often escalate very quickly into an explosive and deadly situation, especially when SWAT teams are involved.<\/p>\n For example, Jose Guerena, a Marine who served in two tours in Iraq, was\u00a0killed after an Arizona SWAT team kicked open the door of his home during a mistaken drug raid<\/a>\u00a0and opened fire. Thinking his home was being invaded by criminals, Guerena told his wife and child to hide in a closet, grabbed a gun and waited in the hallway to confront the intruders. He never fired his weapon. In fact, the safety was still on his gun when he was killed. The SWAT officers, however, not as restrained, fired 70 rounds of ammunition at Guerena\u201423 of those bullets made contact. Apart from his military background, Guerena had had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home.<\/p>\n John Edward Chesney, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran, was\u00a0killed by a SWAT team<\/a>\u00a0allegedly responding to a call that the Army veteran was standing in his San Diego apartment window waving what looked like a semi-automatic rifle. SWAT officers locked down Chesney\u2019s street, took up positions around his home, and fired 12 rounds into Chesney\u2019s apartment window. It turned out that the gun Chesney reportedly pointed at police from three stories up was a \u201crealistic-looking mock assault rifle.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramon Hooks\u2019 encounter with a Houston SWAT team did not end as tragically, but it very easily could have<\/a>. Hooks, a 25-year-old Iraq war veteran, was using an air rifle gun for target practice outside when a Homeland Security Agent, allegedly house shopping in the area, reported him as an active shooter. It wasn\u2019t long before the quiet neighborhood was transformed into a war zone, with dozens of cop cars, an armored vehicle and heavily armed police. Hooks was arrested, his air rifle pellets and toy gun confiscated, and charges filed against him for \u201ccriminal mischief.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the government\u2019s increasing view of veterans as potential domestic terrorists, it makes one think twice about\u00a0government programs encouraging veterans to include a veterans designation on their drivers\u2019 licenses and ID cards<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hailed by politicians as a way to \u201cmake it easier for military veterans to access discounts from retailers, restaurants, hotels and vendors across the state<\/a>,\u201d it will also make it that much easier for the government to identify and target veterans who dare to challenge the status quo.<\/p>\n After all, no one is spared in a police state.<\/p>\n Eventually, as I make clear in my book\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>, we all suffer the same fate.<\/p>\n It stands to reason that if the government can\u2019t be bothered to abide by its constitutional mandate to respect the citizenry\u2019s rights\u2014whether it\u2019s the right to be free from government surveillance and censorship, the right to due process and fair hearings, the right to be free from roadside strip searches and militarized police, or the right to peacefully assemble and protest and exercise our right to free speech\u2014then why should anyone expect the government to treat our nation\u2019s veterans with respect and dignity?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a suggestion: if you really want to do something to show your respect and appreciation for the nation\u2019s veterans, why not skip the parades and the flag-waving and instead go exercise your rights\u2014the freedoms that those veterans swore to protect\u2014by pushing back against the government\u2019s tyranny.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time the rest of the nation did its part to safeguard the freedoms we too often take for granted.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.informationclearinghouse.info\/52544.htm<\/a><\/p>\n Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of\u00a0The Rutherford Institute<\/u><\/a>. His new book\u00a0<\/i>Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 is available at\u00a0www.amazon.com<\/u><\/a>. Whitehead can be contacted at\u00a0johnw@rutherford.org<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n War drives the American police state.<\/p>\n The military-industrial complex is the\u00a0world\u2019s largest employer<\/a>.<\/p>\n War sustains our way of life while killing us at the same time. As Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and author Chris Hedges observes:<\/p>\n War is like a poison<\/a>. And just as a cancer patient must at times ingest a poison to fight off a disease, so there are times in a society when we must ingest the poison of war to survive. But what we must understand is that just as the disease can kill us, so can the poison. If we don\u2019t understand what war is, how it perverts us, how it corrupts us, how it dehumanizes us, how it ultimately invites us to our own self-annihilation, then we can become the victim of war itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n War also entertains us with its carnage, its killing fields, its thrills and chills and bloodied battles set to music and memorialized in books, on television, in video games, and in superhero films and blockbuster Hollywood movies\u00a0financed in part by the military<\/a>.<\/p>\n Americans are fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.<\/p>\n Nowhere is this double-edged irony more apparent than during military holidays, when we get treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians, corporations and others with similarly self-serving motives eager to go on record as being pro-military.<\/p>\n Yet war is a grisly business, a horror of epic proportions.<\/p>\n In terms of human carnage alone, war\u2019s devastation is staggering. For example, it is estimated that approximately 231 million people died worldwide during the wars of the 20th century. This figure does not take into account the walking wounded\u2014both physically and psychologically\u2014who \u201csurvive\u201d war.<\/p>\n Many of those who have served in the military are among America\u2019s walking wounded.<\/p>\n Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts\u00a0more than 20 million veterans<\/a>\u00a0who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today has become America\u2019s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression,\u00a0suicide<\/a>, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their\u00a0paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices<\/a>.<\/p>\n