A Journey That Ended in Anguish is a sad article in the LA Times about the supposed suicide of a military ethicist in Iraq last June. I’ll let you visit the link to read the story rather than summarize it in a way that some would be bound to condider biased.
I’ve pointed out in some of my previous writings just how ethically difficult and stressful being in a modern superpower’s military can potentially be to Pagans concerned with issues of honor and ethics. Army Col. Ted Westhusing was apparently a deeply moral Christian who had written his PhD dissertation on military honor and the ethics of war.
It’s possible that he didn’t commit suicide, but instead was murdered by the civilian contractors he was supervising, but the official position of the Army is that he killed himself over his philosophical “rigidity.” Either way, it’s a disturbing story that demands deeper investigation.
This is a troubling story of an honest man confronting a crooked system. What is the moral? That as a grown man he should have known better?
There is no place for illusions in our sad, dirty, little world as I learned recently, watching the European Parliament lick Condi Rice’s new shoes.
“Torture?! I don’t know the meaning of the word!” she assured them.
I found this today and it’s not very funny either:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/lewis