OMNI
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
NUCLEAR, CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL WAR ANTHOLOGY #4.
October 9, 2022
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.
(#1 July 16, 2012; #2, 9-7-13; #3, July 4, 2021).
omnicenter.org/donate/
CONTENTS #4
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
And US Colleges
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
OMNI Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembrance
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons International Campaign
US Latest War Budget
UAF
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Art Hobson. “Chemical weapons, and war.” (WWI). A poem for these times.
George Paulson. WWII US Mustard Gas.
Veterans for Peace Reports Agent Orange.
US & Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange.
Fifty Years of US Chemical War in S. E. Asia.
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
US Germ Warfare
US BioWarfare
TEXTS #4
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION and US Colleges
“Students Are Pushing US Colleges to Sever Ties With Military-Industrial Complex.” Truthout (11-8-21). Ngakiya Camara & Kya Chen. November 7, 2021. Students and young people are witnesses to the ways in which U.S. education is deeply complicit with war and militarism.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
OMNI publishes several newsletters/ anthologies advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons; two are:
OMNI Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembrance http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2022/08/omni-hiroshima-nagasaki-remembrance-and.html
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons International Campaign
Ukraine War and Nuclear Threats
UAF
Department of War’s New War Budget
"The Day After" film screening and discussion online (or earlier YouTube) APCJ, WAND. Hiroshima annual commemoration at the Promenade in Hillcrest, Little Rock; Union of Concerned Scientists. Commemorate the atomic bombings in Hiroshima & Nagasaki; Coalition for Peace Action. Be Active Today to Prevent Being Radioactive Tomorrow!
Contents OMNI Nuclear Weapons Abolition Anthology #21, March 13, 2015. http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2015/03/nuclear-weapons-abolition-newsletter-21.html
UKRAINE WAR
Dear James,
Twice recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine.
This is a horrifying act of nuclear blackmail. The stakes could not be higher. The use of even a single nuclear weapon, regardless of its size, would cause grievous human and environmental harm. It could also set in motion a rapid escalation to planetary annihilation.
What Congress and the President do next matters greatly. These threats deserve thorough condemnation. But more importantly, they require a steady response of de-escalation that pulls us back from the threat of nuclear warfare.
Tell your members of Congress that more diplomacy is the best way to protect human lives.
Dialogue with Russia is not capitulation or appeasement. It is, in fact, the only sane response to the threat of nuclear brinksmanship. Congress has a moral responsibility to de-escalate tensions and prevent the use of nuclear weapons to preserve the environment and all humanity.
In the face of nuclear threats, the world must work together to deter disaster. Urge Congress to keep open the lines of diplomacy and avoid further escalation of the war in Ukraine.
Sincerely, Allen Hester, Legislative Representative
Nuclear Disarmament and Pentagon Spending, FCNL
P.S. Read more analysis about the nuclear threat from Russia.
The U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, sponsors a small nuclear weapons project. The OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology has tried unsuccessfully to gain access to its funding, operation, etc. via FOI.
Many more billions for war & nuclear weapons
"A Megaton of Waste”
The White House’s new defense budget lavishes money on America’s nuclear weapons program in the name of competing with China and Russia. It’s totally unnecessary."
CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
See: https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/07/omni-us-chemical-war-newsletter-3
Art Hobson. “Chemical weapons, and war.” (WWI).
A poem for these times:
‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ or, to give the phrase in full: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, Latin for ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’ (patria is where we get our word ‘patriotic’ from). The phrase originated in the Roman poet Horace, but in ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) famously rejects this idea.
For Owen, who had experienced the horrors of trench warfare and a gas attack, there was nothing sweet, and nothing fitting, about giving one’s life for one’s country. Focusing in particular on one moment in the First World War, when Owen and his platoon are attacked with poison gas, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is a studied analysis of suffering and perhaps the most famous anti-war poem ever written.
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
WWII in Europe: Mustard Gas
The subject of chemical weapons is now in the news, with US claims that the Russians may use them in a "false flag" operation. This issue of chemical weapons reminded me of a relatively unknown incident that took place in World War II. Although chemical weapons--poison gas--had been prohibited, and neither side had used them, the US nevertheless authorized the manufacture of poison gas, mustard gas to be precise. The US then shipped this mustard gas to the Mediterranean theatre of combat and the ship carrying this lethal load, the SS John Harvey, docked in the Italian port city of Bari. Before the ship could be unloaded, however, a German air raid scored a direct hit on the ship, blowing it, its lethal contents, and everyone on board sky high. The number of Allied dead was eventually established; the number of dead Italian civilians never was. Doctors treating the survivors started to figure out rather quickly what they were dealing with, but the incident was hushed up. There were too many witnesses, however, to keep it from coming out, and the US eventually admitted that one of its ships had indeed been carrying a load of poison gas, but added that it would only have been used in retaliation for a first-use of poison gas by the Germans.
Peace, George Paulson 3-13-22
Vietnam War
AGENT ORANGE
“VFP Agent Orange Delegation in Vietnam” by Michael Uhl. Veterans for Peace Newsletter (Summer 2010). VFP and VVAW have kept us aware of US use of the chemical weapons of mass destruction, Agent Orange, by repeated visits to Vietnam to witness and report the consequences on generations of Vietnamese.
Demand aid for US & Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange
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Lasting environmental and health impacts of U.S. chemical warfare in Southeast Asia – 50 years on
Editor. Mronlne.org (11-13-21).
The Vietnam War (1955-1975) is known to the Vietnamese as the “American War,” or the “War Against the Americans to Save the Nation.”
BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
GERM WARFARE
Ross, Sherwood. “
CONTENTS Chemical and Biological Warfare #3 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, “21STCentury 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
END WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: NUCLEAR, CHEMICAL, AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE NEWSLETTER #4 |
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