In a few weeks, American military
parents, husbands, wives, and children may face the prospect of receiving ashes
of a dead family member instead of the time-honored tradition of a body in a
flag-draped casket if a Pentagon-sponsored plan takes effect
shortly.
According to a CNN news report today, the United States military
has floated a trial balloon to determine how military families and the public in
general would react if soldiers falling victim to either biological or chemical
attacks in Iraq by Saddam Hussein were cremated in a Middle East crematorium
near Iraqi battlefields. Moreover, there was no mention as to how the ashes
would be sorted and returned to the families.
The disturbing report,
which has received little attention save on CNN, also fails to address religious
and cultural implications which are sure to be raised by American
families.
The military is advancing the rationale for battlefield
cremation as one related to mass troop casualties -- especially from smallpox or
anthrax -- in order to protect those those soldiers who may survive
Iraqi-employed chemical and biological Weapons of Mass Destruction
(WMD).
The American corporate advertising media has thus far failed to
press for answers as to why the U.S. Government edited 8,000 of the 12,000 pages
from the original report provided by the Iraqi government as to which countries
sent certain WMD components to Iraq to be used on American soldiers in coming
weeks.
The new troop cremation policy would be used only as a last
resort by military commanders �if regular decontamination procedures are
overwhelmed,� said Pentagon officials. Thus, military families may well have to
shop for mantle-piece urns instead of grave markers.
Of great concern to
many families will be the lack of a body if, for any reason, they would decide
to have an autopsy performed -- given the plethora of problems associated with
military vaccinations and associated Gulf War illnesses -- but also related
troop deaths perhaps not even caused by Saddam Hussein�s WMD.
More
importantly, however, Congress has not dealt with the issue of why George W.
Bush, then-advisor to his father the President, is not telling the American
people that the first Bush Administration permitted:
1) Iraqi terrorist
Ihsan Barbouti to quietly operate a chemical weapons plant in Boca Raton,
Florida prior to delivering to Iraq a chemical able to penetrate American gas
masks and protective suits (according to ABC-Nightline)
2) its own
Secretary of State James Baker�s Houston law firm to act as legal counsel for
the Iraqi-operated chemical plant, and
3) the entire Bush 41 cabinet to
be absolved of "vast" military ordinance, chemical, and biological weapons
financial conflict-of-interest investments by a presidential executive memo,
kept secret from Congress.
http://www.tomflocco.com/pentagon_considers_cremating_ame.htm
