By Cernig
As we here in the US talk about the massive healthcare crisis created by the Iraq occupation, with a third of all troops who served suffering from PTSD and cases climbing by 50% since last year, it's worth trying to remember that whatever American troops are suffering mentally, even more Iraqis have it even worse.
Thanks to the editors of the Kaleej Times for reminding me that Iraqis civilians suffer from PTSD too - and get even less care for their mental anguish.
IT GOES without saying that whatever sort of Iraq emerges from the ruins of the war against terrorism will comprise a nation with profound psychological scars. With hundreds of thousands killed, raped and maimed, millions dislocated, and the orgy of death and destruction the most visible part of every day life, it is safe to say that the people that will run tomorrow�s Baghdad will be psychologically debilitated. Just what sort of nation they�ll rebuild while the war�s sponsor will take credit for spreading democracy is not a very pleasant thought.
The Iraqis haven�t had it easy for some time. The irony of ironies presently seems that most look back at Saddam�s brutal days with nostalgia, when they had a functioning government, schools, colleges, and running water and electricity. Even if the secret police never failed to live up to its evil reputation, most commoners at least had the luxury of going to bed knowing how they�d go about materialising two square meals the next day. Yet it cannot be denied that life was taxing, and combined psychological distress showed all around.
Then troubles compounded with the sanctions regime that followed the first Gulf War as Iraqis saw their children die by the thousands, the helplessness of seeing their own flesh and blood dying in their hands no doubt adding to the psychological disorder that had by then spread far and wide. Then came the �shock and awe� of the second Gulf War that ousted Saddam�s Baathist thugs and changed everything forever.
It is pertinent to note that even though the present insurgency has made little discrimination between killing men, women, children or the elderly, most of the people killed have been men. The children undergoing the horror of losing breadwinners, parents, siblings, while living under perpetual threat of death amidst the madness of the insurgency, will live under psychological fear long after the violence has become a thing of the past, if such a time will ever come. Reporting on the war, popular media can be forgiven for being too occupied with political and sectarian developments that concentrate on the fighting, having little space or time for the wider aspects that will have profound implications very soon.
Even when the fighting is over, Iraqis will have serious issues. The country has far too few psychiatrists to offer the slightest help, and the few that are have problems of their own. If the insurgency is a lesson for all onlookers, what will follow the war will be far more deep rooted and far more complex to address.
This is odd. The Germans and Japanese suffered much, much more damage and "trauma" than the Iraqis, yet they seemed to recover quite nicely after WWII. Of course that was before PTSD was invented.
ReplyDeleteBack then they called it shellshock. If you think Germans weren't affected you should talk to my uncle, who was a kid in Berlin in 45. He can tell you about nightmares. It's more that studies weren't done much then. One was, in Holland, and showed that even 50 years later 4% of individuals who lived through WW2 there had PTSD. Holocaust survivors, as might be expected, had even higher levels - in a community sample of Israelis age 75 and older, 27% of male and 18% of female Holocaust survivors met criteria for PTSD.
ReplyDeleteOther, more recent studies have given some benchmarks for rates within a decade or so of conflict - 37.4% in Algeria, 28.4% in Cambodia, 17.8% in Gaza, and 15.8% in Ethiopia.
Source: US Dept. Of Veteran Affairs)
In other words, Fred, you're talking shite.
Regards, C