And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Date: Wed, 05 May 1999 14:33:41 -0400 From: ASlater <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Mime-Version: 1.0 Precedence: bulk Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Fwd: NN: Nuclear war, courtesy of Nato >Kosovo, like Vietnam, has liberal support. But what of our weapons? > >By John Pilger >Tuesday May 4, 1999 >The Guardian > >The 'just and noble liberal war', in which Nato bombs have now >incinerated >people on a bus, having already killed passengers on a train, refugees >on >tractors, the elderly in a hostel, workers in factories and children in >their homes, is not the first. Vietnam was a liberals' war, described as >a >'righteous crusade' by Bill Clinton's hero, John Kennedy, and a 'noble >cause' by Ronald Reagan, a conservative. The labels are important only >as >illusion, now that Clinton is Reagan and Blair is Thatcher. > >Nato's 'new vision' is to seek justification for American-led attacks >all >over the world. When communism retired from the cold war game, the 'war >on >drugs' was used to justify renewed American military intervention in >Latin >America. After that, the pursuit of demons took over. Demons are >dictators >of no further use to Washington. There was General Noriega in Panama, >where >the US invasion cost 2,000 lives, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq (200,000 >lives) >and various warlords in Somalia (7,000 lives). Now it is the turn of >Milosevic, with whom Clinton and Blair share responsibility for emptying >most of Kosovo. > >Demons as a justification for attacking countries have since been >reinforced >by Weapons of Mass Destruction, or WMD. These are chemical, biological >and >nuclear weapons, the possession of which, says Nato literature, 'may >require >pre-emptive retaliation'. The ferocity of the continuing military and >economic assault on Iraq is justified in this way - when the real reason >has >to do with the policing of an expanded American protectorate from the >Gulf >to the Caspian Sea. > >The hypocrisy is on a grand scale. Only one nation on earth has used all >three WMDs: the United States. Smallpox was used to ethnically cleanse >Native Americans and to spread plague in Cuba. Chemicals were used in >Vietnam: between 1961 and 1971, American planes dropped on South Vietnam >a >defoliant, Agent Orange, which contained dioxin, a poison that causes >foetal >death, congenital defects and cancer (this was code-named Operation >Hades). > >When a Congressional inquiry revealed that the equivalent of six pounds >of >dioxin had been dumped on every man, woman and child in South Vietnam, >Operation Hades was changed to the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand, and >the >spraying continued. A pattern of deformities began to emerge: babies >born >without eyes, with deformed hearts and small brains and stumps instead >of >legs. I glimpsed these children in contaminated villages in the Mekong >Delta; and whenever I asked about them, people pointed to the sky; one >man >scratched in the dust a good likeness of a bulbous C-130 aircraft, >spraying. >In the towns and cities, it was not unusual to see deformed children >begging. They were known as 'Agent Orange babies'. > >Recently, at the Tu Do hospital in Saigon, I was shown a group of >newborn >babies, all of whom had Agent Orange deformities. The war that >officially >ended in 1975 goes on; contaminated soil and water are poisoning a third >generation. Unlike American and Australian veterans of the war, who have >been finally compensated by the manufacturers of dioxin, the Vietnamese >have >received nothing. Now a five-year Canadian study has discovered that >dioxin >runs right through Vietnam's food chain and has called for international >help in decontaminating agricultural land, forests and waterways. The >cost >of one F-16 bomber would pay for this. > >'Can you imagine pilots from a democratic country doing such a thing >deliberately?' said Jamie, the Nato spin doctor, following the craven >killing of refugees by an F-16 pilot. Today, the same pilots are >spreading >over Serbia and Kosovo a poison potentially as cataclysmic as Agent >Orange. >It is carried in depleted uranium, which makes missiles and shells more >destructive. This is how Rosalie Bertell, a Canadian specialist, >describes >the effects on humans: 'Depleted uranium comes from radioactive waste >produced for nuclear weapons and the nuclear industry. It can pierce >tanks >and release a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything >seen >before. This lies in the dust or is suspended in the air, or carried in >the >wind. It penetrates the lung tissue and enters the blood stream, storing >in >the liver, kidney and bone and irradiating all the delicate tissues. It >can >initiate cancer or promote cancer.' > >The truth is that the US and Britain are engaged in a form of nuclear >warfare in the Balkans. In 1996, the United Nations Human Rights >Tribunal >called depleted uranium a WMD. Like the Agent Orange babies of Vietnam, >the >deformed and cancer-stricken children of southern Iraq, where depleted >uranium was tested by British and American forces during the 1991 Gulf >war, >bear witness to the true nature of righteous Western crusades. Civilised >people should speak out urgently before the latest noble cause claims >more >expendable victims and beckons a world war. No amount of specious >moralising >will conceal the scale of the crime. > >� Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 1999 > > > >Michael D. Wallace >Department of Political Science >University of British Columbia >Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Z1 >phone:(604)822-4550, fax:822-5540 > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ >~ > Alice Slater Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) 15 East 26th Street, Room 915 New York, NY 10010 tel: (212) 726-9161 fax: (212) 726-9160 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] GRACE is a member of Abolition 2000, a global network working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
