A Sense of Betrayal:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
new york city, New York, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) July 28, 2011 --

“The issue for me is the morals and ethics behind it, the standards that were let down, all the things that went wrong, you know that’s all I think about, how can the people that are supposed to be taking care of us take such a nonchalant attitude about what’s happening to us?” These are the words of Javier Ocasio, a staff sergeant who served in Iraq from July 2006 to October 2007. As one of the many victims of American imperialism, he feels betrayed by his leaders. He knows he was sent to the Middle East for oil, that his president lied America into war, and that Halliburton/KBR grossly neglects the army. Ocasio has suffered tremendously, but he has not given up. He is committed to fighting the system, and he is determined to do whatever is necessary to run for president in 2016.

The sense of betrayal is acute: “Anybody that’s ever been there [Iraq] man, knows straight up that… it’s about oil, everybody knows it’s about oil. They’re like, what are we doing here? This is about oil, why are we trying to, you know, whatever? This does not make any sense; we’re wasting our time, our lives. You know, just get us out of here! We don’t need to be here, they don’t even want us here. But nobody listens, everybody says, ‘Oh, they need our help, they need this, they need that,’ no they don’t, who are we to tell them what they need?”

In fact, the war is swelling the ranks of Islamic fundamentalists. “For example, one of my soldiers had his buddy shot in the face by a little kid, so now every time you’re out there, whether those kids you’re seeing from now on are armed or not, your mind is automatically gonna assume based on what’s happened to you the possibility of that happening again, so you’re gonna take a defensive posture, you’re not gonna take any chances, so based on actions like that, I can see why civilians get killed.” He emphasizes the following admonition: “I guarantee you that that point has not escaped them, that if they make martyrs out of their own people, they can get more people to fight their side and make us look bad.”

But those in the military who try to speak out, those who question their superiors about a counterproductive, criminal war of aggression, are silenced: “We have no choice but to behave that way and act and say these things outwardly, and then later when we’re amongst each other we know it’s a bunch of crap! Oh, man. If you let the wrong guy even hear your honest opinion that isn’t hooked-line-and-sinker into the military’s thinking as far as their policies and how things need to go, and that stuff makes it all the way up, oh man you’re in trouble.” He adds, “I’ve seen it happen to the wrong officer who spoke up at the wrong forum. And then you didn’t see much of that anymore… god knows where they put him or what they did to him to make an example.”

Ocasio has incurred many health issues, such as “chronic neck pains that won’t go away, the muscle spasms on the upper side of my back, asthma, my hip, my knees and my foot, the nerve damage to my elbows, I’ve acquired a bacterial infection in my digestive system, causing me to bleed for eight months straight.” He adds that “Where we slept, less than a mile away was a giant burn pit, and the giant cloud of fumes from that burn pit would curl over and go straight into our living area and we had to breathe that stuff, and you can’t leave.” He says that “Now I have all sorts of lung issues. I never had problems with my lungs; I go to Iraq, I come back, and all of a sudden I fail a run, I have trouble breathing, I get dizziness, my heart is having problems, I require inhalers now.”

Halliburton/KBR bears great responsibility for Ocasio’s health issues...

For full article check out my blog:

http://thebloodycrossroads.com/

betrayal     Bush     iraq war     Javier Ocasio     KBR     occupation     oil     veteran