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Tag: Suicide

Forced to Participate In War Crimes

Published by Shahidul Alam on August 15, 2013

In Suicide Note, Iraq War Veteran Says He Was Forced to Participate In War?Crimes

by Rania Khalek in Dispatches from the Underclass

Dan Somers (right) performing at his band?s CD Release Show (Phoenix New Times/Melissa Fossum)

On June 10, 2013, 30-year-old Iraq War veteran Daniel Somers killed himself after writing a powerful letter to his family explaining his reasons for doing so.
?My mind is a wasteland filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give,? reads the letter, which Somers? family allowed?Gawker?to?publish. Somers went on to reveal the source of his pain:

Continue readingForced to Participate In War Crimes

Malcolm Browne, who took iconic photographs of Vietnam and monk's suicide by self immolation dies age 81

Published by Shahidul Alam on August 29, 2012

The phone calls went out from Saigon’s Xa-Loi Buddhist pagoda to chosen members of the foreign news corps. The message: Be at a certain location tomorrow for a ‘very important’ happening. Daily Mail

The next morning, June 11, 1963, an elderly monk named Thich Quang Duc, clad in a brown robe and sandals, assumed the lotus position on a cushion in a blocked-off street intersection. Aides drenched him with aviation fuel, and the monk calmly lit a match and set himself ablaze.
Of the foreign journalists who had been alerted to the shocking political protest against South Vietnam’s U.S.-supported government, only one, Malcolm Browne of The Associated Press, showed up.

In June 1963 Malcolm Browne, who has died at aged 81, captured the moment a Bhuddist Monk set himself on fire in Saigon to protest the Vietnam WarIn June 1963 Malcolm Browne, who has died at aged 81, captured the moment a Bhuddist Monk set himself on fire in Saigon to protest the Vietnam War

The photos he took appeared on front pages around the globe and sent shudders all the way to the White House, prompting President John F. Kennedy to order a re-evaluation of his administration’s Vietnam policy.

Continue readingMalcolm Browne, who took iconic photographs of Vietnam and monk's suicide by self immolation dies age 81