Thursday, January 12, 2017

Veteran Murders Brings Wars Based on Lies Home!



The recent shooting at Fort Lauderdale is a small fraction of the shootings that have been taking place involving veterans with mental illnesses following combat duty, or in many cases just the stress from being in the military starting with boot camp that puts a lot of pressure on cadets to conform and obey orders without question. These cadets are intimidated harassed from the beginning as part of a hazing process that is designed to toughen them up and teach them to blindly obey orders.

They have boot camp drill sergeants "routinely slapped and choked recruits," as part of their training to teach them to blindly obey orders according to Second recruit dies at Parris Island, third major incident this year 11/05/2016. This is just one of many exposes about the hazing process that has been going on in the military for decades if not centuries; however it is hardly ever mentioned in the press.

Instead the press routinely reports enormous amounts of propaganda about how veterans are all "heroes" who "risk their lives fighting for out country," as long as they obey orders without question. One of the problems with this is that wars are based on one lie after another; the lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were just some of the most blatant and recent, after lies about the Gulf of Tonkin, babies being taken out of incubators during the first Gulf War and many more.

Another problem is that when they no longer need these veterans that they train to blindly obey orders they abandon them routinely and they often return to abandoned communities where there's no work available or many other problems and they don't get treatment for PTSD.

This may seem, to some like I'm critical of veterans for going on shooting sprees, or perhaps that I'm exaggerating about how often it happens. However, if so it is only because eh mainstream media does such a bad job reporting on the enormous amounts of problems they have; and some of the people to recognize this and do the most to solve this problem are veterans themselves and their families.

And in most cases, when veterans with PTSD do turn violent the vast majority of victims aren't random people in airports that make the news, but the family members of veterans and other veterans that get shot by them, and in some cases police; however for every veteran that shoots a cop there are far more that get killed by police, but this doesn't get widely reported either.

And when these veterans do draw attention to themselves by striking out violently after being trained to kill by the military that calls them "heroes" as long as they obey orders, even if those orders are based on lies, the people that routinely glorified them based on lies start condemning them based on incomplete information if not lies, just as quickly. When black veterans were outraged because of shootings by police in minority communities and overreacted by killing police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, which is actually the way the military taught them to deal with the "enemy" although they're supposed to believe lies about who the enemies are, then Barack Obama responded by calling them "cowards" even though they took on incredible odds inevitably being killed.

In the immediate aftermath of the Fort Lauderdale Senator Bill Nelson was quick to say that the shooter appears to be "crazy" or "nuts" without additional details about the possibility that it might be part of his abusive training teaching him to fight wars based on lies that might have contributed to his emotional problems.

It is perfectly rational to say that these veterans raised their objections in the wrong way; however that doesn't make them cowards, foolish unjustified and incompetent but not cowards. However the same argument can and should be made that the government is going about things all wrong by fighting wars based on lies and expecting that when they train veterans to kill they can do so when and only when it is justified.

They control these cadets by using intimidating tactics and glorifying them when they obey and insulting them when they disobey; this teaches them that those with power have the right to control those without power through intimidation tactics and violence. They use intimidation to dictate the truth and smear veterans without any accountability for those that give the orders. Even when they do hold someone accountable for abusive hazing practices, like the Abu Ghraib incidents it is only those at the bottom not those that give the orders at the top.

Like Ivan Lopez he came from Puerto Rico which has a high recruitment rate for the military. They recruit mostly from rural areas and are increasingly recruiting more from minorities and have always recruited more from lower income people. They often recruit from these low income people even though they provide far more protection for upper income people that rarely ever join the military. In many cases this is incredibly obvious when the veterans come home. If Esteban Santiago had gone back to Puerto Rico it would have been obvious that the country he fought to defend wasn’t defending his own territory. The same goes for many people in the South that find that they live in some of the most polluted or violent areas in the country. There was a famous case not to long ago when a veteran that was in the national news and returned to Flint Michigan only to find the government he fought to protect wouldn’t protect his water; and there are also many immigrant so called dreamers that join the military to defend the USA and the government won’t even promise them a path to citizenship.

It is routine for the government to glorify these veterans for propaganda but abandon them when the media isn’t paying attention.

They're been recruiting the highest rates from the north west where there are rural areas with little or no work but the highest volume comes from the South, where there is stronger religious belief and more authoritarian upbringing. I went into this more in several previous articles including States with high murder rates have larger veteran populations Teach a soldier to kill and he just might and several more articles listed below. The statistics on veterans in prison or being convicted of violent crimes including murder have many different factors which can be represented to suit either side, as many people often do. The percentage of veteran in prison is actually lower than non-veterans; however the ones in prison are more likely to be there for violent crimes; and a large reason why there are so many non-violent people in prison is drug policy which locks up an enormous number of minorities which skewers the statistics.

Veterans also get preferential treatment in many courts. Many veterans including Chris Kyle even admit to this in many memoirs when they talk about getting into lots of fights. There are also plenty of articles about large problems with veterans with PTSD that need treatment and they try to come up with programs that let them off easy, as I have pointed out in past articles but they still get involved in as many if not much more shootings than the general population according to several studies including ones I have cited in past articles and a couple more below.

A large part of this is about preferential treatment for those in the upper classes. Members of the ruling class send jobs overseas so they can drive wages down and many poor people have no other options but to join the military where they're treated in a very authoritarian manner. They're expected to defend our country by obeying orders; however the political class isn't willing to defend them or the communities they come from.




The majority of the benefits from our political economic and military system goes to the ruling class that controls powerful institutions.



The majority of the risks sacrifices and blame go to the working class which has far less influence over the decision making process and is expected to treat their superiors with respect even if they don't get the same in return. 
 



The following is an article about problems this veteran had and it is followed by another veteran shooting at an airport in Oklahoma which didn't get nearly as much attention and they didn't disclose that he was a veteran at all until after most of the national coverage had started to slow down:

Family: Shooting suspect 'lost his mind' after tour in Iraq 01/07/2017

The man police say opened fire with a gun from his checked baggage at a Florida airport had a history of mental health problems — some of which followed his military service in Iraq — and was receiving psychological treatment at his home in Alaska, his relatives said Friday after the deadly shooting.

"Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq, he wasn't feeling too good," his uncle, Hernan Rivera, told The Record newspaper.

Esteban Santiago, 26, deployed in 2010 as part of the Puerto Rico National Guard, spending a year with an engineering battalion, according to Guard spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen.

In recent years, Santiago — a new dad, family said — had been living in Anchorage, Alaska, his brother, Bryan Santiago, told The Associated Press from Puerto Rico. Bryan Santiago said his brother's girlfriend had recently called the family to alert them to his treatment.

In November, Esteban told FBI agents in Alaska that the government was controlling his mind and was forcing him to watch Islamic State group videos, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke Friday on condition of anonymity. Complete article


Both Lloyd Dean Buie who shot the father of Kansas City Chiefs long snapper James Winchester at an Oklahoma airport and Esteban Santiago were decorated veterans before they ran into psychological problems, although they rarely repeat that when reporting on these incidents. Esteban Santiago "received 10 medals and ribbons for his service, notably the Army Commendation and Good Conduct medals as well as the Iraq Campaign Medal with a campaign star," (Suspected Fort Lauderdale shooter was a troubled Army vet) before he was discharged on questionable grounds which is reported much more widely.

The reports that make the military look good tend to be reported much more often while the facts they don't want to draw attention to are often only reported in low profile areas giving the public a false impression of veterans which isn't even in the veterans best interests in the long term.

When Lloyd Dean Buie shot Michael Winchester, it wasn't until after the majority of national reporting was over that they even mentioned he was a decorated war veteran and provided additional details about his background and many of these reports may have only been at the local level or on the internet where people looked it up like the following article. And there are many more that don't even get that much attention, the vast majority of them are much less dramatic and often involve violence with the families of veterans that are often reluctant to admit that their loved ones aren't always living up to the propaganda of heroic veterans.



Oklahoma Will Rogers World Airport Gunman Lloyd Dean Buie Was Decorated Army Veteran 11/16/2016

OKLAHOMA CITY - New documents show 45-year-old Lloyd Dean Buie was more than $90,000 in debt and had more than double that in liabilities - all of it painting a bleak picture for a decorated veteran.

Court records show a troubled financial life for Lloyd Buie. After he refused to take an alcohol test on the job, he resigned from Southwest Airlines in 2015 and never went back to work.

A bankruptcy filing from September of this year shows he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors across the country - nearly $100,000 in credit card debt and more than $250,000 in liabilities. Also, included was child support likely from one of the two divorces Buie went through, according to court records.

Buie also had a decorated military career. Army officials told News 9 he served from 1992 to 1999, including a tour in the Balkans during the Bosnian conflict in 1994. Discharged as a specialist, he was awarded several medals including the United Nations medal, the National Defense Service medal and the Army Achievement medal given to soldiers with outstanding service. Complete article

Police: Airport Shooting Suspect Was Ex-Employee; Retaliation Possible Motive 11/16/2016


On a couple occasions the shootings by veterans stirred up additional coverage including a series of articles in 2008-10 from the Colorado Gazette, New York Times and several other newspapers; when this happens the television media gives much more coverage to the demagogues that shout them down than they do to the print articles that go into much more details. This means that those who take the time to read through the details are much more likely to get an accurate picture of what is actually going on even if they don't agree with one view or another. Those that rely on shouting pundits on TV are much more likely to fall for the worst propaganda unless they have people at the local level helping them sort through the details, assuming they're willing to listen.

When there were a couple shootings of police last summer this was followed by more articles about veteran shootings; however they got much less television coverage and most people probably don't even know about them at all including the following two articles, the first a response to his critics with links to the original article and the second a recent follow up on the Colorado Gazette series that led to the book "Lethal Warriors by David Phillips which I mentioned in the previous articles about this subject:

Veterans and Mass Shootings 02/21/2016

In “Don’t Confuse Veterans and Violence” (Op-Ed, July 19), Phil Klay takes issue with a column I wrote noting that military veterans account for a disproportionate number of mass shooters. But the facts speak for themselves.

Veterans account for 13 percent of the adult population, but more than a third of the adult perpetrators of the 43 worst mass killings since 1984 had been in the United States military. It is clear that, in the etiology of mass killings, military service is an important risk factor.

And the numbers for suicide are even worse: A recent study in Annals of Epidemiology found that military veterans kill themselves at a 50 percent higher rate than their civilian counterparts.

In my column I suggested that we need to take better care of our veterans and that we need research to illuminate the connection between former military service and mass murder for the few who snap. I hope that Mr. Klay, who served in the military, and I, who did not, can agree on this.

Hugh Gusterson
Bethesda, Md.
The writer is a professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University. Complete article


War Is Hell, and the Hell Rubs Off PTSD contributes to violence. Pretending it doesn’t is no way to support the troops. By David J. Morris 04/17/2014

In September 2007, at the height of the Iraq surge, I spent two weeks with the Army’s 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry in Dora, one of the deadliest neighborhoods in Baghdad. By that point in the war, I had embedded with a dozen-odd infantry units, and 2-12, the “Lethal Warriors” from Fort Carson in Colorado, was one of the best I’d seen. Cocky, aggressive, and competent in all the right ways, they exuded an indifference toward death that was hard not to admire. The dangers they lived with for months are impossible to describe with any justice, but one image stays with me, the thing I saw the first time I walked into 2-12’s command post. On the wall in front of me were 16 framed photographs, one for each soldier killed in-country.

At the end of their 15-month tour in Iraq, the Lethal Warriors returned to Fort Carson with an impressive battlefield record, having cleared one of the worst parts of Baghdad, in some cases digging up IEDs with little more than screwdrivers and tire irons. Unfortunately, the Lethal Warriors achieved a kind of notoriety that was less for their battlefield exploits than for the battalion’s connection to a string of murders. In December 2007 two soldiers from the unit, Robert James and Kevin Shields, were killed, and three fellow soldiers were charged with murder. The killings were part of a larger pattern of violence extending back to 2005, including 11 murders, in what was the largest killing spree involving a single army base in modern U.S. history.

The increased violence around Fort Carson began at the start of the Iraq war. A 126-page Army report known as an “Epidemiological Consultation” released in 2009 found that the murder rate around the Army’s third-largest post had doubled and that the number of rape arrests had tripled. As David Philipps wrote in Lethal Warriors, his 2010 book about the crime spree, “In the year after the battalion returned from Iraq, the per-capita murder rate for this small group of soldiers was a hundred times greater than the national average.” Tellingly, 2-12’s post-traumatic stress disorder rate was more than three times that of an equivalent unit that had served in a less violent part of Iraq. The EPICON summarized all this in classic bureaucratic language, noting dully that there was “a possible association between increasing levels of combat exposure and risk for negative behavioral outcomes.” Complete article


Most people won't like to believe that our government is constantly sending veterans to die based on lies, not to defend our country any more than I do but the overwhelming amount of evidence indicates that is what they've been doing for decades if not centuries. And the people doing the most to change this are doing far more to help these veterans and the victims of war than those that continue to glorify war, including many veterans that are fed up with being deceived by their own government; these peace activists and veterans are often demonized by the establishment and many of the loudest demagogues; but they're the real heroes reducing violence, not those that blindly believe what their government tells them.

Within the past few weeks one of the pundits casually mentioned that 20% of death row inmates were veterans without citing a source during a discussion about a different subject. This didn't get much attention so there wasn't much outrage about it; but after looking it up the only study I found said that it is only 10% which is still higher than the 7% of the population that are veterans. Even this may underestimate the problem since serving their country is often considered a mitigating circumstances, so it is possible that many veterans convicted of violent crime got lesser sentences out of respect for their service, especially if their defense argues that it was a result of PTSD.

In Unit Stalked by Suicide, Veterans Try to Save One Another By Dave Phillipps 09/19/2015

10 Percent of Death Row Inmates Are Veterans 11/10/2015



Another trend is that there are also a lot of veterans killing people for insurance money. In previous articles I pointed out that if Murderpedia is statistically representative of people killed for insurance at least 2% and possibly as high as 8% of all murders in this country are for insurance related purposes, although few if any are solely the cause of insurance. When you add one contributing cause of murder to another it makes it even more likely and while searching through murders for both subject I found a lot of common ground, although it would require a more detailed review to find out for sure whether veterans, police or insurance agents are more likely to kill for insurance money, I suspect all three trades are as likely if not more likely than other trades judging by what I've seen including the following handful of stories which are insurance related murders by veterans.

Fort Bliss Army Commander Captain Lynn Reister Murdered by Enlisted Husband Roger and His Brother Rodney for the Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance (2001)

Army Soldier Kevin Spann Murdered by Wife Gina and Teenage Friends for the Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance (1997)

Army Soldier Gary Prokop Murdered by Wife Tyshee Manik & Childhood Friends for the Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance (1998)

Explaining to the public the basics of pooled risk and that insurance was initially only intended to minimize losses in cases of emergencies can reduce these crimes. If this was done most people would realize that the entire insurance industry is largely fraudulent; but they have an enormous amount of influence with both the media and political establishment so this rarely happens in a high profile manner. The following two articles explain more about how insurance contribute to violence and why it should be kept to a minimum if it is bought at all; they include explanations about the basics of pooled risk more commonly know as insurance, that the media and insurance companies never mention but they're so simple that they're undeniable once people think about them. They're followed by more past articles about veteran shootings that are far more common than the media lets on.

Life Insurance and media companies are encouraging lots of murders

Killing Kids For Insurance Is Semi-Routine

States with high murder rates have larger veteran populations

Teach a soldier to kill and he just might

List of Veteran murders often of other veterans or their own family members and other crimes

Memorial Day Veteran Shootings Part of Much Larger Problem

Wounded Warrior Project finances War Propaganda with donations

Media Downplaying Two Police and Military Veteran Killing Sprees Ignoring Solutions

Media Suppresses Causes Of Orlando And Texas Shootings Again

Media Ignores Solutions For Both Police And Black Lives Matter

Barack Obama betrayed Police Veterans and Blacks

Meet The Real Jigsaw Horror Psychologists

Breaking News: Chicago Attackers Weren't Born As Violent Adults!







The following are more related articles about veteran shootings, including another Fort Hood shooting that got far less attention than the two reported in 2009 and 2014. There were also a could other high profile shootings at military bases that got a lot of attention for brief period of time like the Navy shooting by a military contractor but there are dozens if not hundreds that get much less attention. except at the local level and they usually don't realize how common it is at many other bases. .

Fort Hood solider arrested after deadly shooting of another veteran 05/03/2016

Eric Price: Marine Veteran Shoots His Wife & Mother Of Son To Death In An Alabama Doctor’s Office 04/14/2015

Calvin McKinnis, a seven year military veteran, killed by NOPD officer shot twice, says coroner 01/1/2016

JPSO: Calvin McKinnis, a seven year military veteran, killed in NOPD encounter shot his way into 9 Walmarts, McDonalds 01/15/2016

Arkansas Police: Drunk Army Veteran Shot Up Passing Cars in Neighborhood 10/27/2016

Veteran charged in Tennessee highway shootings was angry about violence against blacks 07/08/2016

Arrest and murder charges in the Colquitt Co. Ga. fire for Jeffrey Peacock Marine veteran 05/19/2016

Walter H. Laak, Marine veteran arrested after allegedly attacking pastor, firing into his Nevada home 09/20/2016

California Mom and Weldon McDavid Her Gun Instructor Arrested in Plot to Murder Husband 09/12/2016 Unconfirmed claim to be a marine

Former Marine gets 15 years to life in prison in infant son's murder Ca. 05/05/2016

Laura Anne Buckingham Former Marine accused of murder-for-hire plot 03/07/2016 Buckingham allegedly turned to a new boyfriend, Joseph Chamblin, a former Marine sniper who was court-martialed for urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, and asked if he could make Sutherland “go away.” At first, Chamblin thought she was joking, according to an incident report. But when she repeated her request and asked for details about how it could be accomplished, he began secretly recording her and eventually turned over the recordings to the Roane County Sheriff’s Office.

Eric Jamal Johnson Marine Arrested in Student's NYE Tx. Road-Rage Murder 01/06/2016

1 dead, Conrad Everett Davis Ex-Marine arrested in officer involved Brookville Ohio shootout A Brookville police officer was hospitalized in stable condition. 11/01/2016

OCSO: Tyler Prudden Former Marine arrested in Michigan for Lance Cpl. Lanija Antionne Gilpatrick, roommate's 2013 murder 07/20/2016

Jesus Salvador Molina Former Marine’s family upset about his arrest in his father’s death in Tx. 10/27/2016

Kenneth Shinzato American military contractor and Former U.S. Marine arrested in Okinawa over murder case 05/20/2016

Andre Timothy Jackson, Jr. Ex Marine charged in 11-year-old Josue Flores' murder Tx. 06/04/2016

Marine accused of attacking SUNY New Paltz student indicted for sexual abuse but not rape 10/27/2016

Keahiokahouna Stewart Tennessee vet arrested over threats to murder Hawaii Democrats Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. 09/18/2016

Police Allege Air Force Sgt. Steven Williams Used Chainsaw to Cut Up Remains of Ex-Wife Air Force Veteran Who Had Been Missing Since April 05/27/2016

Steven Williams Ex-Husband Air Force veteran Arrested in Murder of Missing Air Force Vet Mom Tricia Todd 05/25/2016

Oakland: San Jose woman Dana Rivers Air Force veteran charged in triple killing 11/16/2016 Rivers, a former Sacramento school teacher, gained national attention when she had a sex change operation to become a woman in the 1990s.

Wife of Cary Joseph Heath an Air Force veteran, middle school teacher murder suspect arrested in Tx. 10/27/2016

Booked: Former Huntsville principal, ex-wife of slain colonel charged for theft of $2,000 in Alabama Walmart 09/10/2015 unsolved killing of veteran

White supremacist Couple suspected in Everett slaying of parents, father a veteran, arrested in California 10/05/2011

Disappearance of 2 soldiers casts light on gaps in military, civilian investigations 01/05/2017 Pfc. Melvin Jones, a cook, and Pfc. Jake Obad-Mathis, a supply soldier, both 20 years old

Military Policy and Legislation Considerations for the Investigations of Non Combat Death, Homicide, and Suicide of US Service Members




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