The U.S. is Sending Mentally Unstable Soldiers to Iraq

I've been meaning to post this for a while. This is beyond disturbing and isn't getting much coverage.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that an Army private charged with raping a young Iraqi woman and slaughtering her entire family last year was found to have "homicidal ideations" by a military mental health team three months before the attack.

According to the AP, Private First Class Steven Green told military psychiatrists he was angry about the war, desperate to avenge the death of comrades and driven to kill Iraqi citizens. The AP reports medical records show Pentagon doctors prescribed Green several small doses of Seroquel -- a drug to regulate his mood -- and directed him to get some sleep.

One month after the examination, Green reportedly again told his battalion commander that he hated all Iraqis. He also allegedly threw a puppy from the roof of a building and then set the animal on fire while on patrol. But through it all, he was kept on duty -- manning a checkpoint in one of the most dangerous areas of Iraq. Through it all, the U.S. military kept him in combat.

Dennis told IPS that Green's case is not an isolated incident.

"I'm helping a girl whose son was diagnosed with a mental imbalance before he went into the Army," Dennis said, adding that private psychiatrists had told the 20-year-old man that he could not feel remorse and suffers from an inability to distinguish between right and wrong.

Now that young man is in boot camp.

"He was doing terrible, heinous acts and felt no remorse or guilt," Denis said. "He was in this treatment centre and was diagnosed with a chemical imbalance and you've known it from birth because he's this weird kid. And now the Army is sending him to Iraq. The Army is letting anyone in right now, they're so desperate."