OMNI
US CHEMICAL WAR NEWSLETTER #3.
July 4, 2021
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(#1 July 16, 2012; #2, 9-7-13).
CONTENTS
See WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
CHEMICAL WAR
Gerry Sloan, “National Insecurity” (poem)
Nadya Williams, Doc. Film, “The People vs. Agent Orange”
Wardah Amir. Holding Chemical War Users Accountable
UNSC v. All Uses of CW
Raf Casert, “US. Russia Clash. . . .”
Bill Fletcher, Jr. “Agent Orange and the Continuing Vietnam War.”
Liebelson, Chemical Weapons in Syria and Going to War
BIOLOGICAL WAR
BAS, “21ST Century Perspectives” (7-21-20)
Michael Pembroke, Korea, chapter 12
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND RADIOACTIVITY
DEPLETED URANIUM
Ulson Gunnar, “America’s Love Affair”
Henes, Uranium Pollution in Tennessee
Newsletters #1 AND #2
TEXTS
Agent Orange and the Continuing Vietnam War“
Gerald Sloan. NATIONAL (IN)SECURITY MEMORANDUM #115
With a stroke of the pen
JFK approved the use
of chemical defoliants
in Vietnam, thus violating
the Geneva Conventions,
though his own generals
had misgivings. Kennedy
believed they were sexier
than conventional weapons
while covertly banging Marilyn.
My cousin Kenneth Layton
was a Vietnam veteran
who died of leukemia
due to Agent Orange exposure.
The government took twenty years
to admit culpability, to offer
token reparations. Instead of
dying quickly at the hands of
the Viet Cong, he died slowly,
compliments of our own military-
industrial complex. I never
got a chance to thank him for
his service--that obscene cliche.
Meanwhile the U.S. Forestry Service
baptized Oregon with defoliants,
first cousins of Agent Orange
inducing miscarriages, birth
defects, diseases, death--
the EPA asleep at the wheel
or in cahoots with Dow Chemical.
Factoid: We sprayed 20 million
gallons of dioxin in Vietnam
(the half life of dioxin
is one million years.)
The new term for this
is "eco-terrorism,"
no ocean, no landfill
deep enough to wash
away our collective sins,
to defy the corporate will.
Please sign up to see this film - "The People VS Agent Orange" - coming virtually to San Francisco
|
|
|
| ||
A new, excellent professionally-made documentary film, "The People VS Agent Orange" will be having a virtual theater run starting March 5th. it starts out in the U.S. - specifically Oregon - and the decades-long fight by ordinary citizens there to stop the deadly spraying of their forests. The 86 minute film then ties in, of course, the use of the toxic herbicide in the American war in Viet Nam.
Cost is only $12 to view it at home. After purchasing a ticket you have 10 days to see it.
This is not past history, as dioxin is still being used as a defoliant - and a major law suit in France against nearly 30 corporate giants is being decided now.
Below is the information on the film with the Bay Area theaters highlighted.
One could watch the film through any venue in the US but we are encouraging people to see the film via their local theater as they get a cut of the proceeds. Streaming starting March 5, 2021 through the Balboa and Vogue Theaters in San Francisco and the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.
The People VS. Agent Orange tells the story of Agent Orange’s long lasting legacy on human health and the environment through the lives of two amazing women.
Tran To Nga, a French-Vietnamese woman, was exposed to the Agent Orange during the American war in Vietnam. She is currently suing Dow, Monsanto/Bayer and the other producers of the dioxin contaminated herbicide in French court for compensation for the health issues she has since developed. The court’s decision is due in May.
Carol Van Strum and her community fought against the use of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, the herbicides that made up Agent Orange, in the State forests around her home in Oregon in the 1970s. Even though the US military banned the use of 2,4,5-T in Vietnam in 1970 due to its dioxin contaminant it was still allowed by the EPA to be sprayed in the forests of Oregon until 1979. The fight in Oregon continues against the use 2,4-D and other herbicides around the community’s water reservoir.
The film also addresses the impact of Agent Orange on veterans, children of veterans and the Vietnamese whose health continues to be compromised by this toxic legacy of the war.
Information on where you can stream the film at a theater near you can be found at the War Legacies Project or the People VS. Agent Orange websites.
The War Legacies Project is coordinating and collaborating with others that are organizing webinar discussions around the film and the issues it raises. Contact Susan Hammond if you would like to coordinate a discussion about the film in your community. You can also view the discussions that have already occurred.
The War Legacies Project with the support of Veterans for Peace; Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides; Beyond Toxics; Lincoln County Community Rights; and Oregon Community Rights are sponsoring a limited number of discounts to take $4.00 off the streaming fee of $12.00 for veterans, community rights and environmental activists, students, seniors and others. Contact Susan if you would like to receive a discount or to make a donation to enable WLP to sponsor more discounts for those who would not able to stream the film otherwise.
Enough is enough: holding users of chemical weapons accountable. Wardah Amir. BAS (April 27, 2018).
Air strikes aren’t the only way to stop chemical weapons attacks. A new Voices of Tomorrow essay.
| |||||
| |||||
|
Raf Casert (AP). “U.S., Russia Clash on Chemical Weapons.” NADG (11-20-18). A “heated session” of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons the US and Western powers fought with Russia and China over identification of the perpetrators of chemical attacks.
April 28, 2014 In observance of the United Nations Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare, VFP has selected an article from blackvoicenews.com. Link to article - http://www.blackvoicenews.com/commentary/more-commentary/48980-agent-orange-and-the-continuing-vietnam-war.html Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, and national board member of the “Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign.” Follow him on Facebook and www.billfletcherjr.com. In a 2009 visit to Vietnam I asked a retired colonel in the Vietnam People’s Army about the notorious toxin “Agent Orange.” The colonel, who was also a former leader in a Vietnamese advocacy group for Agent Orange’s victims, spoke fluent English and was a veteran of the war with the United States. I asked him when had the Vietnamese realized the long-term dangers associated with the Agent Orange herbicide used by the U.S.A. His answer was as simple as it was heart-wrenching: ”When the children were born,” was his response. In an effort to defeat the National Liberation Front and North Vietnamese Army (the Vietnam People’s Army), the U.S. concocted the idea that if it destroyed the forests and jungles that there would be nowhere for the guerrillas to hide. They, thus, unleashed a massive defoliation campaign, the results of which exist with us to this day. Approximately 19 million gallons of herbicides were used during the war, affecting between 2 million and 4.8 million Vietnamese, along with thousands of US military personnel. Additionally, Laos and Cambodia were exposed to Agent Orange by the USA in the larger Indochina War. Despite the original public relations associated with the use of Agent Orange aimed at making it appear safe and humane, it was chemical warfare and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that it was genocidal. The cancers promoted by Agent Orange (affecting the Vietnamese colonel I interviewed, as a matter of fact) along with the catastrophic rise in birth defects, have not only haunted the people of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but also the United States. Those in the US military involved in the dispersal of Agent Orange, and those who were simply exposed to it, brought the curse home. The United States government has refused to take responsibility for the war of aggression it waged against the Vietnamese. This includes a failure to acknowledge the extent of the devastation wrought by Agent Orange. Ironically, it has also failed to assume responsibility for the totality of the horror as it affected U.S. veterans, thus leaving the veterans and their families to too often fight this demon alone. Congresswoman Barbara Lee recently introduced House Resolution 2519, “To direct the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide assistance for individuals affected by exposure to Agent Orange, and for other purposes.” In many respects, this bill is about settling some of the accounts associated with the war against Vietnam. The U.S.] reneged on reparations that it promised to Vietnam and to this day there remain those in the media and government who wish to whitewash this horrendous war of aggression as if it were some sort of misconstrued moral crusade. HR 2519 takes us one step towards accepting responsibility for a war crime that was perpetrated against the Vietnamese and that, literally and figuratively, blew back in our faces as our government desperately tried to crush an opponent it should never have first been fighting. For that reason, we need Congress to pass and fund HR 2519. HR 2519 should be understood as a down payment on a much larger bill owed to the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and to the US veterans sent into hell. [For more information on HR 2519 and the issue of Agent Orange, contact the "Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign" at www.vn-agentorange.org.] |
Are Chemical Weapons Reason Enough to Go to War?
What are they? How do they work? Where else have they been used? —By Dana Liebelson
| Fri Aug. 30, 2013 8:23 AM PDT [forwarded by Larry W]
Bodies are buried in
UPDATE August 30, 2013, 1:00 PM EST: The Obama Administration has released its assessment of the chemical weapons attack in Syria. According to the document (view it here), the US government "assesses with high confidence" that the Syrian government carried out the attack, using a nerve agent. The document also says that the Syrian regime maintains a stockpile of numerous chemical agents, including mustard, sarin, and VX.
Here is the map released by the White House showing areas reportedly affected by the August 21 chemical attack (click to enlarge.)
The Obama administration has moved a fifth destroyer containing cruise missiles into the Mediterranean Sea and seems prepared to take limited punitive military action against Syria for the presumed use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad's regime. The White House is expected to declassify evidence today that will show that Assad's forces launched a poisonous gas attack against civilians earlier this month, killing more than 1,300. A year ago, President Obama set a "red line," noting that the use of chemical weapons would be unacceptable in the Syrian civil war that has raged for over two years and killed over 100,000 people. But with
But Obama says he'll go ahead regardless.
· Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq War Architect, Is Skeptical of Intervening in Syria
The former secretary of defense knows a thing or two about military intervention overseas.
· Neocons Push Obama to Go Beyond a Punitive Strike in Syria
The same hawks who gave us the Iraq War are using the chemical weapons issue to win support for deeper US involvement in the Syrian war.
BIOLOGICAL WAR
“Twenty-first century perspectives on the Biological Weapon Convention: Continued relevance or toothless paper tiger.” BAS, July 21, 2020
The COVID pandemic has underscored the folly of biological warfare, a strategy that relies on weapons—viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens—that would indiscriminately wreak havoc on the attacked and the attacker alike. Read in the Bulletin magazine.
Michael Pembroke. Korea: Where the American Century Began.
Chapter 12, “Secrets and Lies,” pp. 170-73. “Biological Warfare Program.”
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND WAR, RADIOACTIVITY
DEPLETED URANIUM
Ulson Gunnar. “America’s Love Affair With Nuclear & Radioactive Weapons.” 2016
http://journal-neo.org/2016/02/12/americas-love-affair-with-nuclear-radioactive-weapons/
The United States would have the world believe that it is in mortal danger should nations like Iran or North Korea obtain operationally effective nuclear weapons. We are told that there is a grave risk of these weapons being used against another nation and that the US (with the support of the “international community”) must confront these government, and if possible undermine and overthrow them. Why?
Since a nation has already used nuclear weapons against another state, ironically enough that nation being the United States itself, we already know the devastating effects of nuclear weapons. Besides the immense, indiscriminate initial blast, nuclear weapons also produce a persistent radioactive threat amid the fallout afterwards.
The fallout and the catastrophic effects it has on human health for years afterward make nuclear weapons particularly horrifying and abhorrent. The United States didn’t drop only one nuclear bomb on another nation, Japan, it dropped two. The data collected in the aftermath of these attacks have helped form our collective fear of these weapons.
Ironically the US is using the fear its own nuclear warfare has created as leverage to wage still more war.
Depleted Uranium – All the Fallout, None of the Bang
But what if the catastrophic human health effects of fallout could be achieved without the immense, city-flattening initial explosion? What if you could use a weapon to induce long-term spikes in cancer and birth defects without the political ramifications of dropping a nuclear bomb on a population? Some readers may be tempted to cite “dirty bombs,” and they would be partially correct. But there is another correct answer. Depleted uranium or DU ammunition.
Depleted uranium is one of the densest materials munitions can be made out of. Because of their density, they are able to penetrate armor other rounds cannot. DU was initially conceived as an additional deterrence, a weapon of last resort in the event of a full-scale Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the Cold War.
Because of the overwhelming number of tanks the Soviet Union possessed, it was believed extraordinary measures would be needed to even the odds, even at the cost of radioactive contamination of the battlefield.
The catastrophic effects of littering the battlefield with contaminated ammunition possessing a half-life of several billion years was a risk NATO was willing to take to ensure the survival of Western Europe. How then, did this weapon of last resort become a weapon commonly used?
The first Gulf War in 1990, Operation Desert Storm, included the heavy use of this doomsday contingency. The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) in their recent piece titled, ““The most toxic war in history” – 25 years later,” would note:
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the start of Operation Desert Storm, the combat phase of the Gulf War. Precipitated by Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990, the conflict was the first to see the widespread use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition. US and UK forces subsequently acknowledged firing a combined 286,000kg of DU – the vast majority of which was fired by US Abrams and M60 tanks, and A10 and Harrier aircraft.
. . . .http://journal-neo.org/2016/02/12/americas-love-affair-with-nuclear-radioactive-weapons/
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2014/04/28/agent-orange-and-continuing-vietnam-war
Not only is the US guilty of immense hypocrisy, it has managed to hijack what are supposed to be “international institutions” to help perpetrate this hypocrisy. This is yet another example of just how important it is to establish a true balance of global power through a multipolar system of sovereign nations, in place of the “international order” that currently exists, which sidesteps nation sovereignty and empowers global criminality rather than stopping it.
Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Radioactive pollution in Tennessee
JONESBOROUGH, TN (USA): Activists reveal radioactive pollution
by Michael Henes. July 20th, 2013. CPTnet 19 July 2013
| |
| Ken Edwards, Brethren Pastor and member |
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and Appalachian Peace Education Center (APEC) held a press conference on Monday 15 July announcing the findings of a recent study revealing uranium contamination in the area surrounding Aerojet Ordnance
Johnson City Press newspaper and NBC-affiliate WJHL Channel 11 attended the conference held on Old State Route 34 across from the northeast
Standing at a table arrayed with soil samples gathered outside AOT, representatives of CPT and APEC spoke about the contamination in the area while affirming their faith in the goodness of humanity.
John Mueller, a former chemist, noted that a 2013 study has demonstrated that soil, creek sediment and biological life near the plant are contaminated with waste from the manufacturing of radioactive weaponry.
“Because Aerojet is the only nearby company that can work with processed uranium, we assert that the Aerojet plant is polluting the environment with uranium,” Mr. Mueller said.
Depleted Uranium, widely used by the
Aerojet declined an offer by CPT to participate in the press conference. Monday, guards looked on as Jonesborough resident and APEC Board member Ken Edwards handed fliers to people driving by. However, when Edwards, a Church of the Brethren Minister, began approaching people within the facility parking lot, a guard came out and told him, “You cannot do that here.”
Maryknoll nun Rosemarie Milazzo, emphasized CPT and APEC's commitment to a nonviolent path toward transformation. “We believe all weapons are immoral and their use is incompatible with the most basic principles of humanity and environmental health protection. How can we as a civilized society continue to harm others by disregarding our responsibility to care for and protect our land?”
| |
CPT reservist Merwyn DeMello proclaims the | |
Contents #1 (July 16, 2012).
VVAW vs. Agent Orange
Agent Orange Relief Act
VFP vs. Agent Orange
Wikipedia: Tear Gas
War Resisters League Campaign vs. Tear Gas
Israeli Tear Gas
Contents #2 (September 7, 2013).
Messamore, 10 US Chemical Attacks
DIOXIN, DU
Palazzo, Myelodysplastic Syndromes
IRAQI CHEM WAR VS.
URANIUM
ICBUW, VFP, Ban Uranium Weapons
TEAR GAS
Hall, WRL’s Anti-Tear Gas Campaign
WRL, Resistance to Tear Gas in
Search Google
END CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL WARFARE NEWSLETTER #3