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Gen. Petraeus and a High-Profile Suicide in Iraq
Col. Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar, put a bullet in his head in Iraq after reporting widespread corruption. His suicide note -- complaining about human rights abuses and other crimes -- was addressed to his two commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, now leader of the U.S. "surge" effort in Iraq. It urged them to "Reevaluate yourselves....You are not what you think you are and I know it."

By Greg Mitchell

(March 14, 2007) -- The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious, and seriously underreported, problem, as this column has observed numerous times in the past three years. One of the few high-profile cases involved a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing.

A portrait of Westhusing written by T. Christian Miller for the Los Angeles Times in November 2005 (which I covered at the time) revealed that Westhusing, before putting a bullet through his head, had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis.

The Bad Magician has already not existed. He has already forgotten the future. The circle is complete but abstract. The Bad Magician awakens in the melting ice. The water runs along his fingers in streams of kinetic lines. His head elevated, his back arches, his cloak sweeps its blackness skyward. Rising, rising, rising. Time to go see the great Sinecure of Poison.

“I’m coming for you, Karl,” whispers the Bad Magician in the manner of the Crows. “And I carry your dead mother as my cross.”

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