November 30, 2004 (InformationTimes.com) - That the United States is a militarized imperial empire is beyond question at this point in time. The level of nationalism, xenophobia and mindless hatred has divided this nation even worse, in some ways, than what I remember taking place during the civil rights and anti-war movements during the 1960s. The "my country right or wrong" and "love it or leave it" hysteria today makes the past pale in comparison in many, many ways.

If ever a nation exemplified a "crisis in democracy" it is the United States under George W. Bush and the Bush Brigade, and its legions of cheerleaders throughout the nation. Everything has been turned upside down. Up is down; in is out; wrong is right; war is peace; occupation is liberation; fact is fiction; and now, freedom is the freedom to agree and do what you are told.

This nation under the Bush cabal has launched a brutal, senseless and bloody war. Not against a state, but against a tactic -- terrorism. The result has been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Iraq is now what it never was, ground zero for fools and fanatics -- ours as well as "theirs" whoever they may be.

Iraq had no suicide bombers until after the Bush-Cheney regime invaded, occupied and then proceeded to sell off all of Iraq's infrastructure, assets and resources to U.S. multinational corporations. It would appear that the people running this absurd and perverted "Twilight Zone" episode (Bush's "war on terrorism") have given no thought to "cause and effect" or "for every action there is an opposite reaction."

Every warning given to BushCo that invading Iraq would result in urban, guerilla war, exactly what is being faced in Iraq now, was ignored and discounted by them. The cost of this has been paid by the over 100,000 Iraqis who have been killed and by the over 1,200 U.S. personnel killed -- and there is no end in sight for the death and destruction. The dynamic duo of Bush-Cheney has done what Osama bin Ladin needed and that is to provide a recruiting tool for insurgents thru the radicalization of so many in the Muslim world. In that context, Bush has become a "uniter."

This BushCo war of choice has convinced me that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of that pack of ideologues could care less about how many die or are maimed. Thousands have had their bodies torn apart; head and faces; legs missing; arms missing; burns that maim and cripple from the use of napalm bombs. What do we hear from the Bush camp? "We will win no matter what the cost." What the final tally of dead and wounded will be is anyone's guess considering all that have been contaminated by depleted uranium and the slow destruction it will cause in those exposed.

Then there are the wounds that no one sees; the wounds that haunt the mind day and night, the pain of which leads one to question if you still have a soul. These are the wounds that seem never to heal -- wounds of the soul, the mind, the emotions -- that stay ever present to varying degrees as you attempt to make sense of a world that, to you, no longer makes any sense.

These are the wounds that are born out of fear, guilt and terror. No name death falling from the sky--that is terrorism--bombs, rockets and mortars that fall unannounced, at any time, in any place that are capricious, indiscriminate and arbitrary when they kill and maim. I've seen men that have gone thru literal hand to hand combat that turned into shaking piles of sobbing flesh during sustained mortar attacks -- abject helplessness.

Since this BushCo war of choice was launched there have been close to 30,000 of this nation's people in uniform who have been medically evacuated from Iraq. Approximately 7,000 of them due to "physiological" reasons--try PTSD. It's estimated by the Pentagon that one in six are showing significant PTSD problems. That's what war does, that is the cost of war and the brutality that is war. Those of us that have seen the face of war know and understand this -- you lose a part of your humanity, your "soul" when we participate in mass murder of our fellow human beings no matter what the reason.

I wonder what the toll on Iraqis will be in terms of PTSD as a result of all the bombs, rockets, mortars and artillery shells the U.S. has dropped and fired on every city and town in Iraq? Iraq is a nation (or was) of 26 million people with over 50% of them under the age of 18. Half of Iraq is children. We know the effects of PTSD on adults; we've seen it with those of our people in uniform that are still affected from the Vietnam War -- If adults are affected that severely, what about Iraq's children?

We're talking about 12-13 million children that have been subjected to almost daily bombings for over ten years and are currently being bombed by an occupying Army. What will be the result of all this on them? I can only imagine, but I do know from my own experiences that it will not be anything nice. In all probabilities, the next generation of insurgents, freedom fighters and "radicalized fundamentalists" are being born out of the madness that has become Iraq.

"We're the good guys. We are Americans. We are fighting a gentleman's war here -- because we don't behead people, we don't come down to the same level of the people we're combating," so said a Lt. Col. in charge of some of the Marines that recently attacked Fallujah. How absurd! There is no such thing as a "gentleman's war" not by any stretch of the imagination. Where is the so-called "moral high-ground" when you drop a bomb on a house and blow up children. Where is the moral high-ground when a sniper puts a bullet in the head of a 6-year-old? Where is the moral high-ground when a hospital is used as a base of combat operations while people, children bleed to death from their wounds because they can't get medical treatment?

"Smart" bombs that keep going to the wrong address and this country pontificates about having the moral high-ground. That would be a joke if not so pathetic and heartbreaking.

Bush & Co. say that "they," through all of this killing in Iraq, are making us safer and promoting "freedom and democracy" in Iraq. At the rate people are being killed in Iraq, the only thing that nation will be free of is human life--with the kids of that country that are left alive having learned that "life is death, and death is life." So much for the "moral high-ground," and a "gentleman's war" as articulated by this nation's alleged leaders.

As for those wearing this nation's uniform coming back from Iraq with multi-symptomatic PTSD because of what they have seen and done in Iraq, they also will suffer as even now they are being written off as "anxiety disorder" not exacerbated by war. This government did the very same thing to those of us that fought in Vietnam. Why are the people in this country allowing this to once again happen. Like I said, so much for the "moral" high-ground.

Jack Dalton is a disabled Vietnam veteran and independent writer who lives in Portland, Oregon, USA. He welcomes all comments, good, bad and everything in-between. While not all can be answered all are read. His e-mail address is jack_dalton@ommp.org . His articles have been published by the Information Times, Information Clearing House, Project for the Old American Century, Axis of Logic, Uncommon Thought Journal, Crisis Papers, OnLine Journal, the Smirking Chimp, Op-Ed News, Democratic Underground, Double Standards as well as multiple print newspapers.