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Vietnam and Agent Orange: Olberman Misses The Main Point

September 4th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in antiwar, pushing obama

Keith Olbermann's White Blindspot

by Clay Claiborne

Agent Orange, the toxic defoliate which America dumped on Vietnam to kill the growth of plants that were used as cover by the Vietcong. 19 million gallons of defoliates were sprayed on Vietnam, mostly Agent Orange, near Vietnam's borders north of Saigon and near the Mangroves lining Saigon's shipping channels, meaning it was not just killing trees, it was being breathed in by American soldiers who did not know exposure could later lead to potentially fatal conditions such as Hodgkin's disease, soft tissue cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

So said Keith Olbermann in Segment #4 GOP Vets "Not Helping" of last night's Countdown. This story focused on the effects on humans of Agent Orange and the need of many of our Vietnam veterans for treatment and compensation.  It was a good segment as far as it went. The problem I had with it was that it didn't go far enough. Keith, Agent Orange was sprayed on the Vietnamese too, and you neglected to mention that. Even today, Vietnam has to care for about 3 million victims of Agent Orange. They range from their now aging war vets to the deformed babies still in the womb. What are they Keith? Chopped liver? Here's a scene from Vietnam: American Holocaust This is rough cut when I narrate. Martin Sheen narrates the DVD.

In Tuesday's diary about Glenn Beck's Tea party on the mall, I said it was a characteristic of that crowd to ignore the victims of our war policies. I said it stemmed from the insipid racism that saw these people of color as not even worth an 'honorable' mention, but Keith, I expect better from you. How do you justify your continuing participation in a media conspiracy of silence with regards to the effect of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese? If my "conspiracy theory" is wrong here, please point me to all the MSM coverage of the effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese that I have missed. Effects that are today suffered by Vietnamese vets that fought on both sides of the conflict. Effects that are well known in Vietnam and recognized around the world but never reported here. And if you are not a participate in this conspiracy of silence, please explain your silence about the suffering of the Vietnamese last night since you were talking about Agent Orange anyway.

Not just our veterans but also our victims must be compensated for the crime of unleashing Agent Orange on humanity. America must recognize what we have done to the Vietnamese and start making it right by helping to clean up the toxic sites we left behind, for example. These sites will continue to add to the number of children killed by the U.S. in the Vietnam War until they are clean. Beck's show was a sham and a farce, but fixing this really is a question of restoring honor.

Resources on Agent Orange effects on Americans and Vietnamese:

Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign

This project is supported by Veterans for Peace, here is a speech by VFP member David Cline who died in 2007:

Agent Orange - A Continuing Legacy of the US War in Vietnam



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From One Generation to the Next: Stopping Wars, Seeking Justice

July 1st, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar, israel and palestine, youth and students

Washington's Wars and Occupations:

Month in Review #62



By Max Elbaum

War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, 06/29/2010

PASSING THE TORCH

I’ve been the main author of War Times “Month in Review” column since its launch five-plus years ago. This will now change. Starting next month, a talented group of nearly a dozen younger writer/organizers will take over authorship, writing in rotation. They will also write, and War Times will publish, additional analytic and/or feature pieces each month. I will transition to the role of mentor-editor.

 
War Times has been laying the groundwork for this transition for some time. Over the last few months we’ve held a series of analysis-and-writing workshops bringing together long-time collective members with these new writers. All of us have learned from the sessions and they have already started to produce results. Last month’s column focusing on militarism in Afghanistan, Gaza, Arizona and beyond was decisively shaped by our expanded collective discussion. In preparation for the U.S. Social Forum, a member of this new team, Michael Reagan, wrote “Previewing Peace: The Antiwar Movement Heads for Detroit,” which War Times published two weeks ago.


We are excited about the potential this new arrangement can unleash. For starters, it will allow War Times to up our contribution to the antiwar movement. We will generate more articles and cover more dimensions of the multifaceted fight against war, empire-building, militarism, racism and all their inter-connections. The fresh voices of activists whose ongoing work is in many different organizations and struggles will bring new perspectives to an antiwar movement much in need of revitalization.

   
Along with others, War Times believes that a key to re-energizing the fight for peace is rooting anti-militarist perspectives more strongly within grassroots movements of workers, communities of color, immigrant communities and other specially impacted constituencies. Fights for jobs, housing, education, social programs, immigrant rights, to end oil dependence, and to protect the environment drive the most vibrant movements in those sectors today.

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Pentagon’s ‘Wars of Perception’ Being Waged Against Us

April 27th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar

The Military

Occupation

of Our Minds

 

By Tom Hayden

Huffington Post

April 27, 2010 - As Congress weighs Afghanistan funding, the military is escalating what it calls the "war of perceptions" at home and abroad. The question is whether the American media and Congress will collaborate in the Pentagon's press strategy or retain a critical edge.


It is no accident that the Pentagon is shaping the "information battlespace" by welcoming friendly reporters and think tank hacks to beam back commentaries about the Kandahar offensive to the American people.


Nor is it accidental that the US is soft-pedaling any public criticism of its crooked crony in Kabul, Hamid Karzhai, as thousands of American soldiers are being dispatched to face bullets in his defense.


Nor is there any question that Afghan civilian casualties are being downplayed or covered-up. The agency in charge of counting the bodies, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, published a footnote last year admitting "there is a significant possibility that UNAMA is under-reporting civilian casualties."

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The Wars: Why ‘Out Now!’ Is Both Proper and Pragmatic

April 25th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar, iraq

Photo: Soviet Troops Pulling Out

Yes, We Could... Get Out!

Why We Won’t Leave Afghanistan or Iraq


By Tom Engelhardt

Yes, we could.  No kidding.  We really could withdraw our massive armies, now close to 200,000 troops combined, from Afghanistan and Iraq (and that’s not even counting our similarly large stealth army of private contractors, which helps keep the true size of our double occupations in the shadows).  We could undoubtedly withdraw them all reasonably quickly and reasonably painlessly.

Not that you would know it from listening to the debates in Washington or catching the mainstream news.  There, withdrawal, when discussed at all, seems like an undertaking beyond the waking imagination.  In Iraq alone, all those bases to dismantle and millions of pieces of equipment to send home in a draw-down operation worthy of years of intensive effort, the sort of thing that makes the desperate British evacuation from Dunkirk in World War II look like a Sunday stroll in the park.  And that’s only the technical side of the matter.

Then there’s the conviction that anything but a withdrawal that would make molasses in January look like the hare of Aesopian fable -- at least two years in Iraq, five to ten in Afghanistan -- would endanger the planet itself, or at least its most important country: us.  Without our eternally steadying hand, the Iraqis and Afghans, it’s taken for granted, would be lost. Without the help of U.S. forces, for example, would the Maliki government ever have been able to announce the death of the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq?  Not likely, whereas the U.S. has knocked off its leadership twice, first in 2006, and again, evidently, last week.

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Washington’s Wars and Occupations: ‘Maxed Out on Risk’

March 31st, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar, israel and palestine

Obama greeting troops in Afghanistan

Change Happens Slowly,

Except When It Happens Fast

 

By Max Elbaum

War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

March 31, 2010 – “Change happens slowly," Tom Hayden wrote a few months ago, "except when it happens fast." That's an important insight to keep in mind when looking at the wars and occupations that afflict the Middle East right now.

On the surface, from one month to the next there seems to be little or no change. U.S. military operations, political bullying and backing for Israeli colonialism grind on. Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Pakistanis and Americans - among others - continue to die in Washington's illegal, immoral wars.

Yet every week events take place that indicate the potential for big changes ahead. These reflect one underlying fact: The offensive George Bush launched nine years ago aimed at attaining a qualitatively new level of U.S. domination via military force did not succeed. The consequences of this failure are still playing out to Washington's disadvantage.

So the U.S. is now engaged in what is simultaneously a delicate (in geo-strategic terms) and brutal (in human terms) salvage operation. The goal is to "stabilize" the region in a way that maintains maximum U.S. clout but does not lock Washington into impossible quests which drain U.S. military, political and financial strength and undermine already-declining U.S. global hegemony.

Washington's dilemma was captured by one insightful mainstream commentator, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg: "The U.S. is maxed out on risk."

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Audacity of Empire and the 80-year ‘Long War’

March 30th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar, iraq

The 'Long War' Quagmire

The doctrine, which posits an 80-year or so war against insurgents in the Middle East to South Asia, needs more scrutiny.

 

By Tom Hayden

March 28, 2010

Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War, which projects an "arc of instability" caused by insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia that will last between 50 and 80 years. According to one of its architects, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan are just "small wars in the midst of a big one."

 
Consider the audacity of such an idea. An 80-year undeclared war would entangle 20 future presidential terms stretching far into the future of voters not yet born. The American death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan now approaches 5,000, with the number of wounded a multiple many times greater. Including the American dead from 9/11, that's 8,000 dead so far in the first decade of the Long War. And if the American armed forces are stretched thin today, try to conceive of seven more decades of combat.


The costs are unimaginable too. According to economists Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, Iraq alone will be a $3-trillion war. Those costs, and the other deficit spending of recent years, yield "virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors," according to a New York Times budget analysis in February. Continued deficit financing for the Long War will rob today's younger generation of resources for their future.

(more...)

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From One Generation to the Next: Agent Orange and the Ongoing Casualties of the Indochina Wars

January 10th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in antiwar, militarism

 

Photo: A little girl with a birth defect  attributed to Agent Orange languishes at Tu Du Obstetric and Gynecological Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

 

Agent Orange

and the Horror of

the U.S. War Crime

 

by Bill Fletcher Jr.

January 7, 2010

(NNPA)—You may not notice a victim of Agent Orange. They may look healthy on the outside, full of life and vigor. Yet inside them there is a time-bomb, a time-bomb set during the U.S. war against Vietnam more than 35 years ago. In over three million people, including U.S. troops who were involved in that war, this bomb has been going off over the years creating an ongoing catastrophe.

On a recent visit to Vietnam I had the opportunity to meet with leaders and activists in the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA). Formed in 2003 by physicians, Vietnamese war veterans and other activists, this mass organization spread throughout the country amounting to more than 60,000 members in chapters in most provinces. VAVA came together to remind both Vietnam, but also the world, of the continuing impact of the human-made plague that served as an instrument of war by the U.S. against Vietnam.

Agent Orange is a form of chemical warfare. It was promoted as a defoliant by the U.S. government, allegedly for the purposes of destroying jungles and forests where soldiers of the National Liberation Front and North Vietnam were encamped during the Indochina War. As one leader of VAVA informed me, Agent Orange was described by the U.S.A as being so safe that soldiers were informed that they could use it on their skin against various insects.

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Afghan War – Why ‘Out Now’ Is the Best and Most Practical Option

January 8th, 2010 by admin | No Comments | Filed in antiwar, militarism

‘Afghan Insurgency Can Sustain Itself Indefinitely’: Top U.S. Intel Officer

flynn_slide_1

The Taliban not only has the “momentum” after the most successful year in its campaign against the United States and the Kabul government. “The Afghan insurgency can sustain itself indefinitely,” according to a briefing from Major General Michael Flynn, the top U.S. intelligence officer in the country. “The Taliban retains [the] required partnerships to sustain support, fuel legitimacy and bolster capacity.”

And if that isn’t enough, Flynn also warns that “time is running out” for the American-lead International Security Assistance Force. “Regional instability is rapidly increasing and getting worse,” the report says.

Since General Stanley McChrystal took over as top commander in Afghanistan, there have been a series of dark appraisals about the state of the war. In August, McChrystal warned of an “urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way that we think and operate.” A report recently obtained by NBC News said Afghanistan’s security forces won’t be ready to fight the Taliban for years — if ever. Earlier this week, Flynn issued a white paper complaining that “eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy.”

(more...)

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The Fight Is On – Antiwar Counter-Surge vs. Obama War & Escalation

December 1st, 2009 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar, pushing obama

Obama Announces

Afghanistan Escalation

By Tom Hayden

December 1, 2009
It's time to strip the Obama sticker off my car. Obama's escalation in Afghanistan is the last in a string of disappointments. His flip-flopping acceptance of the military coup in Honduras has squandered the trust of Latin America. His Wall Street bailout leaves the poor, the unemployed, minorities, and college students on their own. And now comes the Afghanistan-Pakistan decision to escalate the stalemate, which risks his domestic agenda, his Democratic base, and possibly even his presidency. The expediency of his decision was transparent. Satisfy the generals by sending 30,000 more troops. Satisfy the public and peace movement with a timeline for beginning withdrawals of those same troops, with no timeline for completing a withdrawal. Obama's timeline for the proposed Afghan military surge mirrors exactly the 18-month Petraeus timeline for the surge in Iraq. We'll see. To be clear: I'll support Obama down the road against Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs or any of the pitchfork carriers for the pre-Obama era. But no bumper sticker until the withdrawal strategy is fully carried out. (more...)

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‘Long War’ Theory: Looking Deeper into the Heart of Darkness

October 31st, 2009 by admin | No Comments | Filed in afghanistan, antiwar, militarism
David Kilcullen, 'Long War' Theorist

 

Kilcullen's Long War

By Tom Hayden 

The Nation

Let us say, hypothetically, that American forces kill or capture Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, enabling President Obama to declare victory and bring our troops home. Would he? Not according to the Pentagon's plan for a fifty-year "Long War" of counterinsurgency spanning Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines and beyond.

Military intellectuals envision a prolonged cold war against Al Qaeda, with hot wars along the way. It happens that the Long War is over Muslim lands rich with oil, natural gas and planned pipelines. The Pentagon identifies them as hostile terrain where Al Qaeda and its affiliates are hidden.

Among the top experts responsible for this fifty-year war plan, concocted in 2005 in windowless offices in the Pentagon, is Dr. David Kilcullen, a former Australian soldier, an anthropologist, former top adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and current aide to Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Kilcullen is a media favorite, the subject of a long New Yorker profile by George Packer, glowing columns by David Ignatius in the Washington Post and weighty late-night conversations with Charlie Rose.

(more...)

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