OMNI: US
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters: http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and
ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for change. See: SYRIA, War Crimes, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD),
Vietnam War and other wars.
Contents #1
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
Messamore, 10 US Chemical Attacks
DIOXIN, DU
Palazzo, Myelodysplastic
Syndromes
IRAQI CHEM WAR
VS. IRAN
URANIUM
ICBUW, VFP, Ban
Uranium Weapons
TEAR GAS
Hall, WRL’s Anti-Tear Gas Campaign
WRL, Resistance to Tear Gas in Quebec
Search Google
[I had prepared this newsletter when the following article by
Messamore was forwarded to me by David D.
I thought it provided a strong opener.
1. Vietnam Iraq Iraq (US )
vs. Iran, Kurds, sarin, nerve gas, mustard gas,
88; 5. St. Louis Iraq
10 Chemical Weapons Attacks
Washington Doesn’t Want You to Talk About
Wesley Messamore
policymic.com
September 5, 2013
policymic.com
September 5, 2013
[The US
Here is a list of 10 chemical weapons attacks carried out by the
U.S.
1. The U.S.
Military Dumped 20 Million Gallons of Chemicals on Vietnam
Via: AP
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military sprayed 20 million gallons of chemicals,
including the very toxic Agent Orange, on the forests and farmlands of Vietnam
and neighboring countries, deliberately destroying food supplies, shattering
the jungle ecology, and ravaging the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent
people. Vietnam Vietnam
2. Israel
Via: AP
White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary chemical weapon that
melts human flesh right down to the bone.
In 2009, multiple human rights groups,
including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and International Red
Cross reported that the Israeli government was attacking civilians in their own
country with chemical weapons. An Amnesty International team claimed to find
“indisputable evidence of the widespread use of white phosphorus” as a weapon
in densely-populated civilian areas. The Israeli military denied the
allegations at first, but eventually admitted they were true.
After the string of allegations by these NGOs, the Israeli
military even hit a UN headquarters(!) in Gaza Israel
3. Washington
Via: AP
In 2004, journalists embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq
4. The CIA Helped Saddam Hussein Massacre Iranians and
Kurds with Chemical Weapons in 1988
CIA records now prove that Washington Washington Washington
5. The Army Tested Chemicals on Residents of Poor, Black St. Louis
In the early 1950s, the Army set up motorized blowers on top of
residential high-rises in low-income, mostly black St. Louis
6. Police Fired Tear Gas at Occupy Protesters in 2011
The savage violence of the police against Occupy protesters in
2011 was well documented, and included the use of tear gas and other chemical irritants. Tear gas is prohibited for use against enemy
soldiers in battle by
the Chemical Weapons Convention. Can’t police give civilian protesters in Oakland , California
7. The FBI Attacked Men, Women, and Children With Tear Gas
in Waco
At the infamous Waco siege of a peaceful community of Seventh Day
Adventists, the FBI pumped tear gas into buildings knowing that women,
children, and babies were inside. The tear gas was highly flammable and
ignited, engulfing the buildings in flames and killing 49 men and women, and 27
children, including babies and toddlers. Remember, attacking an armed enemy
soldier on a battlefield with tear gas is a war crime. What kind of crime is
attacking a baby with tear gas?
8. The U.S.
Military Littered Iraq
Via: AP
In Iraq , the U.S. Iraq Iraq Iraq
9. The U.S.
Napalm is a sticky and highly flammable gel which has been used
as a weapon of terror by the U.S. Tokyo
10. The U.S.
Although nuclear bombs may not be considered chemical weapons, I
believe we can agree they belong to the same category. They certainly disperse
an awful lot of deadly radioactive chemicals. They are every bit as horrifying
as chemical weapons if not more, and by their very nature, suitable for only
one purpose: wiping out an entire city full of civilians. It seems odd that the
only regime to everuse one of these weapons of terror on other human beings has busied
itself with the pretense of keeping the world safe from dangerous weapons in
the hands of dangerous governments
|
Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2013 10:28 AM (from Sonny US, the Biggest User of Chemical Weapons in History Asserts "Right To Protect"
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/us-biggest-user-chemical-weapons-history-asserts-right-protect-syria
Wed,
09/04/2013 - 14:07 — Bruce A.
 right_to_protect.jpg [1]A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
How can the
US, the Biggest User of
Chemical Weapons in History Asserts "Right To Protect"
A Black Agenda Radio
Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon
Outside the bubble of
ignorance and unreality that corporate media and corporate rule impose on the
From 1961 to 1972 the
The objective was to kill the
lush triple canopy jungle in which Vietnamese fighters hid and through which
they transported supplies, and to kill the animals & crops of Vietnamese
peasants in areas the
Even if we stick only to
western Asia, the
During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war
the Pentagon provided [2]Saddam Hussein [2] with satellite intelligence [2] so he'd know where to fire his nerve
gas at Iranian troop concentrations.
In its two Gulf Wars, the
There are treaties banning
chemical weapons, but none of them authorize any nation to launch
“preventive” or punitive strikes against those who do. Most Arabs, most of
the world knows this history, and so do more than a few Americans, including
much of the so-called left.
The foremost practitioner of
chemical warfare in human history is about to bomb a country one-fifteenth
its size, for its alleged use of chemical weapons. If the Bush-Cheney gang
were still in power, we might see Melissa Harris-Perry and Rachel Maddow
reminding us of this awful record. But there's a Democrat in the White House,
so the hypocrisy detectors have been turned off and the history teachers
silenced.
This is what US policy makers
mean when they talk about their “right to protect” civilians in other
countries.
For Black Agenda Radio I'm
Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web atwww.blackagendareport.com [3].
Bruce A. Dixon is managing
editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the GA
Green Party. Contact him via this site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
[2] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/08/cia-files-us-aided-iraq-with-iran-gas-attacks.html
[3] http://www.blackagendareport.com/ [4] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2Fus-biggest-user-chemical-weapons-history-asserts-right-protect-syria&linkname=US%2C%20the%20Biggest%20User%20of%20Chemical%20Weapons%20in%20History%20Asserts%20%22Right%20To%20Protect%22%20Syria |
Agent Orange Vietnam Cleanup Started By U.S.
By
MIKE IVES 08/09/12,
Huffington Post 8-12-12
Follow:
Video, Vietnam, Agent Orange, Agent Orange
Cleanup, Agent
Orange Vietnam, Dioxin Agent
Orange, Dioxin
Poisoning, Dioxin
Vietnam, Us
Agent Orange, Vietnam Agent
Orange, World News
In this photo
taken on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, Chu Thanh Nhan,12, watches other children
dance at a rehabilitation center in Danang ,
Vietnam
DANANG, Vietnam
-- The United States began a landmark project Thursday to clean up a dangerous
chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange – 50 years after American planes
first sprayed it on Vietnam's jungles to destroy enemy cover.Dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, will be removed from the site of a former
"We are both moving earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past," U.S. Ambassador David Shear said during the groundbreaking ceremony near where a rusty barbed wire fence marks the site's boundary. "I look forward to even more success to follow."
The $43 million joint project with
Shear added the
The work begins as
The Danang site is closed to the public. Part of it consists of a dry field where
The contaminated area also includes lakes and wetlands dotted with pink lotus flowers where dioxin has seeped into soil and sediment over decades. A high concrete wall separates it from nearby communities and serves as a barrier to fishing there.
The war ended on April 30, 1975, when northern Communist forces seized control of Saigon, the U.S.-backed capital of former
The Agent Orange issue has continued to blight the U.S.-Vietnam relationship because dioxin can linger in the environment for decades, entering the food supply through the fat of fish and other animals.
Although the chemical remains at the Danang site,
In 2007, Vietnamese authorities – with technical assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and funding from the nonprofit U.S.-based Ford Foundation – poured a 6-inch (15-cm) concrete slab half the size of a football field over the contaminated area where Agent Orange was mixed. Dioxin is not water-soluble and only spreads when rainfall and runoff move contaminated mud.
Workers will first dig down about 2 meters (6.56 feet). The soil will then be heated to 335 degrees Celsius (635 Fahrenheit) in special containers where the dioxin will break down into oxygen, carbon dioxide and other substances that pose no health risks.
The former
It is still unclear how much dioxin the
Story reported in ADG 8-10-12, “
Agent Orange, United States Military Veterans, And
Myelodysplastic Syndrome
Mon
Oct 22, 2012 12:09 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
"Chuck Palazzo" chuck_pal
Agent Orange, United States Military Veterans, And Myelodysplastic Syndromes
http://www.mdsbeacon.com/news/2012/10/18/agent-orange-united-states-military-veterans-and-myelodysplastic-syndromes/
Chuck Palazzo Agent Orange Action Group http://aoag.org/
Hoa Binh Chapter, Veterans For Peace http://vfp-vn.ning.com/
chuck_pal@yahoo.com
Hypocrite Central: U.S., Britain and Israel have Used Chemical Weapons
within the Last 10 Years
·
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Those condemning Syria
washingtonsblog.com
August27, 2013
August27, 2013
We condemn all use of chemical
weapons.
But the U.S. used chemical weapons against civilians in Iraq
Israeli also used
white phosphorousin 2009 during “Operation Cast Lead” (and perhaps subsequently).
Israel
Moreover, the 1925 Geneva Protocol
(which is different from Protocol III) prohibits “the use in war of
asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases”.
The use of White phosphorus (“WP”)
may also be a war crime under other international treaties and domestic U.S. Fort Leavenworth ,
Kansas
The U.S. National Safety Council
states that “White phosphorus is a poison . . . If its combustion
occurs in a confined space, white phosphorus will
remove the oxygen from the air and render the air unfit to support life . . . It is considered a dangerous
disaster hazard because it emits highly
toxic fumes. The
EPA has listed white phosphorus as a Hazardous Air
Pollutant.
Indeed, it is interesting to note
that the U.S.
Moreover, the U.S. and Britain
Not only did the US aid the use of chemical weapons by the former
Iraqi government, it also used chemical weapons on a large scale during its
1991 and 2003 invasions of Iraq
As Dahr Jamail’s reporting for Al Jazeera has shown,
the use of DU by the US and UK has very likely been the cause not only of many
cases of Gulf War Syndrome suffered by Iraq war veterans, but also of thousands
of instances of birth defects, cancer and other diseases – causing a
“large-scale public health disaster” and the “highest rate of genetic damage in any population
ever studied” – suffered by Iraqis in areas subjected to frequent and intense
attacks by US and allied occupation forces.
And Israel
has been accused of using depleted
uranium in Syria.
Two wrongs don’t make a
right. But it is hypocritical for the U.S. ,
Britain and Israel to say that we should bomb Syria
Note: The U.S. sprayed nearly 20,000,000 gallons of material containing chemical
herbicides and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam ,
eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia Vietnam Vietnam
This article was
posted: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 8:02 pm
Related Articles
History lesson:
When the United States
(Carolyn Kaster/AP)
“People say, ‘Well, he
killed 100,000 people. What’s the difference with this 1,400?’ With this 1,400,
he crossed a line with using chemical weapons. President Obama did not draw the
red line. Humanity drew it decades ago, 170-some countries supporting the
convention on not using chemicals -- chemical warfare.”
One of the administration’s main arguments for attacking Syria
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a strong supporter of military strikes, echoed
that argument on Tuesday. She noted that as far back as 1925, nearly 40 nations
had joined together to ban the first use of chemical weapons when the Geneva
Protocol was signed. (Her mention of 170 countries appears to refer to the 1993
Chemical Weapons Convention, which seeks to prohibit the production of chemical
weapons and mandates their destruction; Syria has refused to sign the treaty,
though 189 other countries have signed it.)
Such treaties generally do not have mechanisms for enforcement. As
far as we know, no nation has ever attacked another to punish it for the use of
chemical weapons, so Obama’s request is unprecedented.
Indeed, Syria ’s
chemical weapons stockpile results from a never-acknowledged gentleman’s
agreement in the Middle East that as long as Israel
had nuclear weapons, Syria Israel ’s nuclear stockpile has never been
officially acknowledged, and Syria
in the 1980s and 1990s was often supportive of U.S.
interests in the region, even nearly reaching a peace deal with Israel
But there is an even more
striking instance of the United
States Iraq ’s chemical
weapons’ use was “hardly a secret, with the Iraqi military issuing this warning
in February 1984: ”The invaders should know that for every harmful insect,
there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it . . . and Iraq
As Dobbs wrote:
A review of thousands of declassified government documents and
interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. Iraq
To prevent an Iraqi collapse, the Reagan administration supplied
battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop buildups to the Iraqis, sometimes
through third parties such as Saudi
Arabia U.S.
tilt toward Iraq U.S.
officials, the directive stated that the United
States would do “whatever was necessary and legal” to
prevent Iraq from losing the
war with Iran
The presidential directive was issued amid a flurry of reports
that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons in their attempts to hold back
the Iranians. In principle, Washington U.S.
Thus, on Nov. 1, 1983, a senior State Department official,
Jonathan T. Howe, told Secretary of State George P. Shultz that intelligence
reports showed that Iraqi troops were resorting to “almost daily use of CW”
against the Iranians. But the Reagan administration had already committed
itself to a large-scale diplomatic and political overture to Baghdad ,
culminating in several visits by the president’s recently appointed special
envoy to the Middle East , Donald H. Rumsfeld.
In 1988, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered chemical weapons
attacks against Kurdish resistance forces, but the relationship with Iraq United States
Without much apparent irony, two decades later Rumsfeld and other
members of the then George W. Bush administration repeatedly cited Hussein’s
use of chemical weapons against own people as a justification for invading Iraq
For interested readers, we have embedded below an English
translation of the French intelligence report on the alleged chemical weapons
attack last month because it includes a history of the Syrian chemical weapons
program. . . .
Resistance
& Tear Gas in the Air
War Resisters League
via uark.edu July 27, 2012
to jbennet
wrl@warresisters.org
A lot is in the air --resistance, solidarity, repression—and tear gas.
All around the world, where we see people coming together
and insisting on their rights, we see clouds of tear gas. I’m writing to tell
you about War Resisters League’s
exciting—and winnable!—campaign against tear gas (see video http://vimeo.com/45668254)
and increased militarization of police
forces everywhere and to urge you to help that campaign achieve its goals. https://www.warresisters.org/?q=donatewrl
I was one of thousands gassed in the streets of Seattle in
'99 World Trade Organization protests during our successful nonviolent direct
action to keep delegates from meeting. In '01 I was in Québec City
Our protests can become inspiring victories. But those
against whom we protest do their best to exact a price. The horrible feelings
of choking on my own breath, of burning eyes and face, of watching my friends
endure the same has haunted me and I am sure rumors that it causes permanent
physiological damage have had a chilling effect on many a conscientious person.
In response to the many global uprisings, militarized police
everywhere increasingly use these U.S.-made gasses in more and more brutal
ways. A crowd assembles; people are made to choke; some are smashed in the face
or head by canisters fired at them, sometimes fatally. Protesters share
vinegar-soaked rags and hear each others' frightening stories. This is a crowd
that can't really be dispersed, but can only grow—and WRL’s anti-tear gas
campaign can nurture its growth. https://www.warresisters.org/node/1382
Through storytelling and direct action, http://facingteargas.tumblr.com/ WRL and our allies will work to expose the
companies profiting from these repressive tools and to put grassroots pressure
on the State Department to comply with U.S. law barring the use of U.S. weapons
by regimes perpetrating human rights violations.
What makes this a winnable campaign is its discrete
target—one relatively small tool of militarism. This type of public pressure
was effective in stopping the sale of U.S.
teargas in Bahrain .
We can make one of the world’s biggest purveyors of these (and other) weapons
obey its own laws; we can decrease use of tear gas against the rising tide of
resistance worldwide—
But only with your help! You can view and share with others
the tear gas stories on our tumblr and contribute your own story. Please make a
financial contribution so that our organizers can produce the materials and
reach enough people to help end the dirty business that is tear gas.
Thanks in advance, and keep on resisting.
Sky Hall
P.S. See stories about people's experiences with tear gas
all over the world. For more information, send an email to facingteargas@warresisters.org.
The U.S.
corporate link to police violence in Quebec
This week, the Québec movement sparked by students striking
against tuition hikes is ramping up the pressure again, as some schools start
class today and "Law 12" is mandating that students attend. The
response of the movement has been "Back to Class Means Back to
Strike!" As people in the thousands have joined the strikes, protesters
have faced huge amounts of police repression, supported in part by US-based
corporations.
Defense Technology, http://cupwire.ca/articles/52915 headquartered in Casper ,
Wyoming , produces the tear gas used
against the Quebec
movement. This manufacturer is a subsidiary of
Safariland, now owned by prominent war profiteer Warren B. Kanders,
based in Southern Connecticut (though the sale was held up by the sentencing of
a former Safariland exec for bribing government officials in Europe, Africa,
and the Middle East in order to secure
business). Safariland holds monthly trainings for cops, prison officers,
private security personnel, and active-duty soldiers across the U.S. on how to
use this Chemical Weapon.
Defense Technology tear gas has also been used against
Occupy Oakland, the ongoing Yemeni movement for change, Palestinians in East
Jerusalem, as well as against protesters in Egypt ,
Bahrain and Tunisia . In
addition, between 3,000-5,000 canisters of Safariland tear gas were used
against protesters at the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City .
For updates and action alerts on tear gas use in Quebec and around the
world, sign up on our e-mail list, http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6521/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=2820 and for more on WRL's storytelling project
and campaign against tear gas visit: http://www.warresisters.org/facingteargas.
How did the movement in Quebec begin?
In March, the Jean Charest government in Quebec announced a 75% tuition hike for all
public university students.
In Quebec ,
many of the current university students are first generation college students.
Most of them are working their way through college—a dramatic tuition hike means
taking on a second job or enormous amounts of debt.
Many students decided to go on strike—abstaining from
attending their universities en masse to protest the hikes. Students pinned red
squares to their lapels—or wore them as earrings or face paint—taking to the
streets, demanding to negotiate to end the tuition hikes...
When it became undeniable that the students were serious,
the now notorious Montreal
Law 78 transformed what was once a student strike into a
popular movement. Solidarity actions erupted throughout the world. Though to
others a $1,625 tuition hike seemed cheap in comparison to other attacks on
public education, police repression and criminalizing of the people’s voice was
something that echoed throughout the world.
On the last nights in May, more than 400,000 marched through
the streets of Montréal.
Read more of this story on the War Resisters League Blog. http://warresisters.wordpress.com/
.
GOOGLE SEARCH ON US
1.
When the US looked
the other way at chemical weapons - The ...
www.washingtonpost.com/...united-states...chemical-weapons/.../0ec828d6-...
1
day ago - But there is an even more striking
instance of the United States
2.
The Extensive Use of Chemical Weapons by the United
States in Iraq
www.globalresearch.ca/...use-of-chemical-weapons...united-states.../534803...
1
day ago - President Obama´s Secretary of State
John Kerry has said that the US
3.
Breathtaking U.S. Hypocrisy on Chemical
Weapons |
Washington's ...
www.washingtonsblog.com/.../breathtaking-u-s-hypocrisy-on-chemical-we...
1
day ago - The U.S. encouraged Saddam
Hussein's use of chemical
weaponsagainst Iran
4.
United States and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia, the
free ...
Jump
to Chemical weapons disposal - According to the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency by ... The U.S.
5.
Bombshell: Syria's 'chemical weapons' turn out to be
sodium fluoride ...www.infowars.com/bombshell-syrias-chemical-weapons-turn-out-to-be-s...2 days ago - According to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry,
any government “regime” that uses chemical weapons against its own people should
be ...
6.
Russia skeptical on
Syria chemical weapon use, doesn't rule
out ... www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/world/meast/syria-civil-war
23
hours ago - ... strike on Syria United States
7.
Russia Dismisses U.S. Evidence of Chemical-Weapons Use by ...
3
days ago - The war of words between the Kremlin
and the White House over Syria
8.
France releases intelligence report alleging Syrian chemical ...
www.foxnews.com/.../french-lawmakers-debate-their-own-military-action-i...
23
hours ago - PARIS – France released an intelligence report on Monday
alleging chemical weapons use by Syria 's regime that dovetailed with similar U.S.
9.
Klein: Why Do We Even Care About Syria's Chemical
Weapons?
www.bloomberg.com/.../why-do-we-even-care-about-syria-s-chem...
10
hours ago - But the U.S. Iran
Searches related to US
END CHEMICAL WAR NEWSLETTER
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