Remnants of War, Just One

There are many for if there is an end it doesn't come for decades later for those invaded and occupied by others. The innocent are the ones who suffer the most and in greater numbers by the destruction and death from the moment of invasion and decades later with what's left behind by those who are ordered to invade and then occupy in these Wars of Choice based on lies or for reasons of material worth a small country can add to a power that wants to control.

This is just one of many of the long running destructive remnants of our generations War of Choice, an extremely destructive Weapon of Mass Destruction, Dioxin, Agent Orange and the others used as we occupied a small country Vietnam for over a decade. Destructive not only to the Vietnamese Civilians, then and now, but also to many soldiers who served in country and elsewhere, where it was stored and packaged for shipment to Vietnam and stored at bases to be sprayed over the country at the whim of the commanders of war.

Scientists have been raising the alarm about dioxins since the 1960s....>>>>>

Agent Orange Continues to Poison New Generations in Vietnam

Deformed fetuses at Ho Chi Minh City's Tu Du Hospital, where doctors blame the high incidence of deformities on the use of Agent Orange during the war. STR New / Reuters

This lonely section of the abandoned Danang air base was once crawling with U.S. airmen and machines. It was here where giant orange drums were stored and the herbicides they contained were mixed and loaded onto waiting planes. Whatever sloshed out soaked into the soil and eventually seeped into the water supply. Thirty years later, the rare visitor to the former U.S. air base is provided with rubber boots and protective clothing. Residue from Agent Orange, which was sprayed to deny enemy troops jungle cover, remains so toxic that this patch of land is considered one of the most contaminated pieces of real estate in the country

Snip

After years of meetings, signings and photo ops, the U.S. held another ceremony in Vietnam on Dec. 16 to sign yet another memorandum of understanding as part of the continuing effort to manage Agent Orange's dark legacy.....>>>>>

In 2007 and 2009, the US Congress allocated a total of US$6 million for efforts to ease the impact of dioxin in Vietnam.

The sum comprises US$2 million under cooperative agreements on providing health, education and social services for the handicapped in Danang. It is part of a larger sum of over US$46 million that the US has provided for assisting Vietnamese people with disabilities.

In September 2009, the US spent $1.9 million helping Vietnam set up a project to treat and contain dioxin left in the Danang airport after war...>>>>>

Put those monetary figures above into perspective, and just on the economic impact to those companies who's products are used in waging and fighting our Wars of Choice. Just take one years, out of the last couple of decades and more, compensation paid to the corporate heads of these companies add in the company perks, written off as company expenses, and the bonuses given. Now think of same for all the executives under these corporate leaders, and these are given out even if these executives prove to be incompetent or try and cover up the known within that corporate world. And that's not even looking at the wealth made from investors especially the big investors!

"If those were in Canada or in the U.S., they would require immediate cleanup," Boivin says.

Snip

But critics believe the U.S. is playing a grim waiting game: waiting for people to die in order to avoid potentially costly lawsuits. For a country currently engaged in two wars, accepting comprehensive responsibility for wartime damages could set an expensive precedent. "They know what the problem is and where it is," says Chuck Searcy, country representative of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. "Why do they now need an environmental impact assessment? They are studying this to death."

Snip

Dow and Monsanto, the chemical's largest manufacturers, eventually shelled out millions in damages to U.S. troops who were exposed to it while it was being used as a wartime defoliant from 1961 to 1971. The U.S. government still spends billions every year on disability payments to those who served in Vietnam — including their children, many of whom are suffering from dioxin-associated cancers and birth defects. In October, the Department of Veterans Affairs added leukemia, Parkinson's and a rare heart disease to the list of health problems associated with Agent Orange. Yet U.S. official policy maintains that there is no conclusive evidence that the defoliant caused any health problems among the millions of exposed Vietnamese or their children....>>>>>

Still, the Vietnamese people (and the government, though more quietly) contend it's the U.S. that should be doing more — much more. Some point out that the U.S. spends only a fraction on Agent Orange cleanup compared to the $50 million it spends every year on searching for the remains of American soldiers missing in action. Thao Griffiths, country director of Vietnam Veterans of America, which works on lingering war issues, points out that the legacy of each is equally painful. "The issue of MIAs for Americans holds the same importance that Agent Orange does for the Vietnamese," she says. And until the issue is resolved, the legacy of the war will continue to haunt both sides....>>>>>

Many Vietnam Veterans, like the VVA, have worked with the Vietnamese in trying to resolve the issues, and guilt, of what our country did to theirs as we occupied it for a number of years. Many were, and still do, travel to Vietnam in that advocacy even before this country finally normalized relations with we once called our enemies.

Faces of Agent Orange {2page pdf}

For Gary Jones, the puzzle that is Agent Orange can be explained, or more to the point, not explained, by two words — “circumstantial” and “coincidence.” The words are at once the core and the conundrum of his Agent Orange experience....>>>>>

Also members of Veterans for Peace helping to build and support orphanages and other needed facilities within Vietnam for the Vietnamese and what we left behind and our Government has yet to compensate for the death and destruction wrought. Like the Veterans Viet Nam Restoration Project and the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, in this there has been ongoing help in fighting the Chemical Companies in the United States Courts over these past decades.

The Chicago Tribune has a five part series on the legacy of the Dioxins, Agent Orange, left behind and still contaminating the Vietnamese people as well as the American Soldiers, our brothers, who haven't yet perished from their contact with while In-Country or handling it anywhere.


Photo Gallery: The Legacy of Agent Orange

Memories of the Vietnam War are dimming, but veterans and Vietnamese nationals who were exposed to Agent Orange and other dioxin-laced defoliants are still experiencing devastating health effects, and birth defects have brought the impact into a second generation. Yet the U.S. government has yet to make full amends, either in the U.S. or overseas.

Part 1 of 5: For U.S., a record of neglect

U.S. veterans exposed to Agent Orange face delays and a maddening bureaucracy as they seek compensation for related illnesses. In Vietnam, where untold numbers of people suffer from the same maladies and the chemicals continue to poison the environment, government officials wonder how the U.S. can ignore the ongoing effects of the defoliants....>>>>>

Part 2: 'Insult to injury'

For many U.S. veterans, the bureaucratic fight to be compensated for health problems linked to Agent Orange amounts to a new and unexpected war, long after the shooting ended overseas....>>>>>

Part 3: Born into controversy

The most contentious question surrounding the use of defoliants in the war is their impact on citizens, particularly the suspected link between the herbicides and birth defects....>>>>>

Part 4: A poison still potent

New research finds former U.S. airbases in Vietnam remain polluted from defoliants, underscoring the urgency of a solvable problem. The U.S. has done little to clean up the hot spots....>>>>>

Part 5: Danger not averted

The Tribune unearths documents showing that decisions by the U.S. military and chemical companies that manufactured the defoliants used in Vietnam made the spraying more dangerous than it had to be....>>>>>

At each, and on the main page, there are links to video's as well as side links to other information and photo's.

These are the Weapons of Mass Destruction used in mans waging of War and Occupations on others, long lasting, and the defoliants are only one of many remnants of these wars. As we are still occupying two other small countries, in this new century and generation, we are leaving behind many of these same remnants and even more in our use of the modern weaponry or just needs, like burn pits, as we occupy them.

These not only contaminate the ground but also the water supplies as well as getting into the air that is breathed, once in the air they can travel for miles as they are now in our atmosphere, collecting and trapped there and continually moving around the planet.

Add to them the contaminations and pollutions man produces, or uses, especially in industrialized nations, making that which we need or just the materialistic items we crave, and we are contaminating much of our earth, soil, the waters we drink and gather a food supply from, and the air we all breath, collecting and trapped in the atmosphere that sustains not only our lives but that which is living on this planet.

The more we contaminate the faster the planet evolves and that evolution, with the contamination by man, not only continues to kill after our wars but will cause and disfigurements and death of all living things on this planet many already gone and never to return. And we don't know what many benefits they might have had as to disease or in helping sustain a planet of life.

"We Will Not Go Down"

Zionists beware... the roar of Humanity.

The video is a mosaic of Palestinian animations found on YouTube. The music is composed and performed by Michael Heart

"We Will Not Go Down" by Michael Heart


**************

The Bullets in My In-Box

GAZA — Faisal Husseini, a Palestinian leader who died at the start of this decade, used to tell a story about his first visit to Israel. The 1967 war had just ended, borders were suddenly opened and he took a drive to Tel Aviv, where at some point he found himself detained by an Israeli policeman. Questions and answers ensued. At one point the policeman said to him, “As a proud Zionist, I must tell you ....” At which Mr. Husseini burst out laughing.

What's Coming Next, or Is Collapse Over, Nope!

I'm not an economist and the only real numbers I crunch are my personal expenses and when bidding construction jobs putting together those costs and percentages which in these latter years of my life, preferring more to do the work, I have done very little of, except while doing the work to bring a better quality for hopefully a bit cheaper cost in material and professional skill.


Watching what is now taking place in banking and the dream new capitalist economy that's been sold for a number of years isn't really a big surprise to this common man, many were forecasting exactly what would happen if we followed the sales pitch.


Following is a report from CBS that hits on the next shoe to drop or dropping already as we've seen with the collapse of a number of finance institutions but not yet talked about but part of what we the tax payers are already bailing out.


CBS News Investigates: Credit Derivatives Comprise $54.6 Trillion Of Risk Among Few Banks Left Standing

“This bill will, in my judgment, raise the likelihood of future massive taxpayer bailouts. …if you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas. If you want to trade in derivatives, God bless you.”

That was North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan’s statement on the floor of the Senate - not this week or last, or even during the last six months as Wall Street collapsed - but back in 1999.

Four years later in a letter to shareholders, billionaire investor Warren Buffett followed with his own warning, calling derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction” controlled by “madmen.”

Steve Kroft looks at some of the arcane Wall Street financial instruments that have magnified the economic crisis.

What worries financial insiders most is the $54.6 trillion of risky credit derivatives concentrated among the few banks left standing.

Today, the same commercial banking heavyweights thought to be the most safe, JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America, hold 92 percent of all the disclosed credit derivative contracts, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency {PDF}.

There's another huge storm on the horizon, we've already been experiencing for many years but ignoring the size of the detestation coming. we've been sold another bill of goods, mostly by one particular political party, the GOP, and that bill of goods has been the thought process that a Nation in Deficit is a strong financial situation, much of those deficits monies heading into the pockets of the private sector while we the tax payer pay the monies needed and the ever rising interest accumulated as we borrow from other nations. They sold it so well that many think it's perfectly fine to live their own lives in personal deficit, using free wealth, Plastic and Loans!


CONSUMER CREDIT OUTSTANDING


The Next Meltdown: Credit-Card Debt

Rising rates are accelerating credit-card defaults and soured debt could further undermine the financial system

There's a video at the Business Week site above as well, and instead of talking about what may be coming, as to consumer debt, they talk about which cards are better for you, still selling the hype!


Federal Reserve Statistical Release


Standard of living squeezes middle class

Credit card and other consumer debt, not counting the dramatic growth in mortgages, has soared 150% since 1994, more than four times faster than inflation, ...

Ron and Laurie Kopack are educated, hard-working suburban Detroit homeowners who, by American middle-class standards, should have earned comfortable family evenings, a little peace of mind and a few luxuries. Instead, they are struggling.
Advertisement

Ron, an electrician, spent most of his summer living in a tent city while doing flood repairs in Iowa because he couldn't find work at home. Laurie, who just got a bachelor's degree but is paid only $15 per hour, faces $30,000 in student debt and a teenager coming of age with his dad often gone.

"The whole American dream, that's a snow job," Laurie says. "I mean, who tried to sell us that? Is that to keep us good consumers?"

The Credit Card Debt tsunami already breaking over us and how to fix it

Overall, Americans today carry $2.6 trillion in all kinds of consumer debt, up 24% from just 2003, according to the Federal Reserve.

We once had a Nation, not long ago, and never really worked completely right, but was on the road heading in what looked liked the right direction. We were envied around the world for our work force and products. Top executives made more money if their companies made better profits. Innovation came from employee's, long term, who through their hard work, dedication, and regular wage increases gave to their companies, second families, what was needed to enhance that companies reputation and customer satisfaction, building better profit margins. Investors were usually long term and as the companies grew saw their investments increase through regular dividends and reaped their gamble when selling usually when near or in retirement.


We shunned and condemned extreme profiteers and shady business practices geared for quick wealth of a few, we stopped doing business with companies that took short cuts in what they offered, products and services thus bringing them down and raising up further those that worked for their good reputations.


No longer, we've made a u-turn on that direction and now praise and hold up as successful those who we once shunned and condemned. They started using relatively simple schemes with little catch phrases and words to gain quick extreme wealth and stature in the society they were setting up, the workers became just bodies carrying out what was needed in the ever changing schemes, coming on quick enough so they weren't recognized as such.


We didn't stop what was happening, we readily joined in, many thinking that what was great for the few would somehow touch them as well raising them up to those lofty ranks, we even built lives around the coming rise, much of it on borrowed monies, living beyond the reality we really had.


What will rise out of the collapse of that which we built, or will anything rise!

Oh and by the way, the bin Ladens of the World, have won, as the economies of the advanced Collapse!

Paradox: Construction - Destruction

Iraq

Contractors operate equipment under the crackle of automatic weapon fire and with the protection of M-1 tanks, Stryker vehicles and Apache helicopters. The workers in this case are constructing a series of walls to block certain areas of Sadr City, the vast Shi'ite slum in Baghdad.

Dozens of walls have already been built around Baghdad, the southern city of Basra and other Iraqi cities, creating segregated ethnic Sunni and Shi'ite neighborhoods ringed with checkpoints and command posts. The latest flurry of construction activity has little to do with nation building, but rather is more related to a deteriorating security environment.

Vietnam

"Motor grader operators work with loaded carbines at their sides; ... scrapers cut roads across the shadows of hastily prepared gun emplacements; a lean, tanned construction superintendent waxes enthusiastic over the future while helicopters stutter overhead looking for enemy guerrillas."

The above description is not from the latest edition of the New York Times reporting from Iraq, but rather from a journalist covering the US's massive construction effort amid the war in Vietnam in 1966. Then, the project to build a separate state out of the southern half of Vietnam involved the energies of the best and brightest academic experts in economics, political science, police systems and government, as well as dozens of private corporations which specialized in engineering and construction.

The above were taken from an article in Asia Times by James M Carter who is an assistant professor of history at Texas A & M University.

The article by James Carter US paradox of construction and destruction was posted up on the 25th of this month.

On the 28th, this was being reported: Audit: Millions Wasted In Iraq Contracts
Investigator Gives Snapshot Of The Uneven Reconstruction Effort That Has Cost U.S. Taxpayers $100B

Millions of dollars of lucrative Iraq reconstruction contracts were never finished because of excessive delays, poor performance or other factors, including failed projects that are being falsely described by the U.S. government as complete, federal investigators say.

The Audit was released on Sunday which you can find here - SIGIR: Independent & Objective Oversight

Another cut from Mr Carters article:

The idea was to quickly build up southern Vietnam's primitive physical infrastructure while putting in place a government in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) advised and funded by Washington. The working assumption was that the local people would be grateful and welcoming, and, working alongside American advisors and experts, would contribute to the invention of a new, prosperous and non-communist state.

Visit Mr Carters article, he has much more about the policies than and abit of comparison.

Than visit, if you already haven't, the above report on the Audit of Iraq Reconstruction, or one of the many in the mainstream on topic, and the Audit itself.

Than you might want to see, if you haven't already, what is already being planned in the halls of Congress in this report Congress wants Iraq to repay U.S. expenses

Iraqis would be forced to pay for U.S. efforts in their country directly or via loans from the United States if any of at least five similar pieces of legislation introduced on Capitol Hill this month is approved.

We Invade, Destroy, Kill and Maim, Occupy, Torture, Imprison, Segragate, than turn around and "Send Them The Bill"!

Than we, in our Arrogance, wonder why "Others Hate Us!"!

I'll close with another observation of Mr Carter:

As the US's Vietnam experience showed, war is not the same as nation building. If ever larger military deployments are necessary simply to hold ground, then perhaps it's high time to admit that the Iraq project has already failed. Vietnam showed that greater militarization will only bring more destruction, suffering and political polarization and accentuate the paradox of simultaneous construction and destruction, which unfortunately has found painful new life in Iraq.

Reviving One Life in a War Zone

This was on ABC News tonight:

Baby Girl Found Near Baghdad Home After Mother, Uncle Shot to Death

What could have been another tragic ending for an Iraqi Child in the Debacle we have created in her country:

After the murders, Jbouri was dumped — literally — outside in the garbage on a day when the temperature hit 118 degrees.

May just turn into hopefully her life being spared, maybe!

"When she first got here, she looked like this little alien child," 1st Lt. Katie Van Beusekomon told ABC's Miguel Marquez. "Now she's just like this cute little baby that … screams at us when we don't feed her."

You can view photo's of her HERE

Even though she has lost her mother and uncle to the devestating violence unleased she apparently has brothers and sisters, now in an orphanage, that she will be reunited with.

I wonder though, how many of them will continue to survive and will she, and what world have we given them?

As those of us know, who have served in this countries War Theaters, most serving will try and do good towards those we occupy, especially the kids.

But no matter how much good might be accomplished, when the bombs and the bullets start flying, and the innocents fall, All That Good Is Gone!

And in many cases more hate is created thus creating the enemies who seek retaliation!

That's War!!!!!!!

Drawn Into Jihad

Seventy Percent of Baghdad's Youth Are Not in School and Are Vulnerable, Officials Say

This was aired tonight on the ABC World News.

For all who are still young and have little ones nearby take a long hard look at them, than start thinking how you're going to explain the 'Why are we fighting these people?", when they are older and you're in that perverbial rocking chair. Because they are going to ask and you had better have a Damn Good Reason, because I'll be long gone, or to damn old, and I don't have one now nor will I than.

There isn't one!

One things for sure they probably won't ask "Why do they hate us so?" as the greater majority did here not long ago, they'll probably know at least a little bit of the past!

Iraqi Kids Drawn Into Jihad

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 24, 2007 — A video that Iraqis are trading via e-mail and cell phones shows young boys reenacting the hanging of Saddam Hussein, child's play in the Iraq.
In this country, where nearly 50 percent of the population is under 18, a new generation is being raised on violence.
"A lot of my friends have been killed by explosions," said Zeen who has endured eight operations on his legs after a being hit by a terrorist bomb.

WE ARE DOING THIS, WE HAVE GIVEN THEM THIS LIFE, WE HAVE SHOWN THEM WHAT DEATH DESTRUCTION AND HATRED LOOKS LIKE!

The Education Ministry states elementary school attendance rates dropped from 75 percent in 2005 to 30 percent last year.

So much for these new schools that really aren't anyway. And as each day goes by We create more of the Hatred to come!

Video: Children of War

"These aren't kids who are terrorists or extremists," he said. "These are kids who have nothing else to do. Because they can't get to school, there's no clubs for them to join, they're being brought into this community of jihad."
Powers now heads War Kids Relief , which offers youth programs in Iraq.

They won't be joining into the destructive forces because of a lack of things to do, it'll be because of the death and destruction we have wrought!
And keep in mind the trauma of the deaths and destruction they are witnessing bringing on the PTSD nightmares of their daily lives, and that many will turn those nightmares into a destructive force within!

Put the above together with this Life During Wartime: Young Iraqis Speak Out
Video: Being a Twentysomething in Iraq

Which apparently aired this morning will I was at work

You can also visit this post I placed a short while ago on a few of these sites:
The Next Jihadists: Iraq’s Lost Children

Or this one The Suffering Children of Iraq? Who cares? posted two days ago.

Or read this by Jan Berry, Vietnam Vet, Children of War

For Americans to break our addiction to war, it will take families working together to live year-round the peace and joy to the world that we sing in Christmas and New Year’s greetings.

One of the tragedies of the war in Iraq is that our soldiers, many of whom are sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans, marched off to a war that bore all the warning signs of the disaster in Vietnam. Like their parents, they eagerly went off to fight in a foreign land they knew nothing about, for a cause that collapsed in the light of the actual facts. What does it take to break such a cycle of excitement and disaster?

And again, take a good long hard look at the little ones in your life, or those you might see while out and about, and keep the thought in mind, "What have we done and what will they be living through because of our actions?"!!!

They won't be fighting them "Over There"!

"I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of
gratitude" - The pResident {Yep up to 655,000 are really Grateful, many in
their Mass Graves, as are their Survivors}


"I think once they get in harm's way, Congress's tradition is to
support those troops," Mr. Hadley said. {Harms Way, shows what the
administration thinks of the Troops, it's called a Strong Defense!}

The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!