The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

U.S. Soldiers Who Murder at Home—Not so Easy to Turn off a Killing Machine

Feb 4, 2008

A recent study conducted by the New York Times identified 121cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from these wars.

This number does not even tell the whole murder state-side story, however, since not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. And it comes in the wake of numerous other reports exposing the high rates of suicide, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, among this generation of war veterans.

This continued violence back home should not come as a total shock. These soldiers were trained and conditioned to be killing machines to carry out these wars.

But human beings can’t just be turned on and then off, like machines. And the proof is that some have come back with the war still raging in them.

And they continue to kill–but this time it is in Las Vegas, or Pierre, South Dakota–instead of Baghdad or Kabul.