A History of Military abuse and Misuse.

@nuffsed (1271)
March 11, 2007 3:51pm CST
In the past year Iran has issued several warnings to the United States about the consequences of an American or Israeli attack. one statement, issued in November by a high Iranian military official, declared: "If America attacks Iran, its 200,000 troops and 33 bases in the region will be extremely vulnerable, and both American politicians and military commanders are aware of it."[1] Iran apparently believes that American leaders would be so deeply distressed by the prospect of their young men and women being endangered and possibly killed that they would forswear any reckless attacks on Iran. as if American leaders have been deeply stabbed by pain about throwing youthful American bodies into the bottomless snake pit called Iraq, or were restrained by fear of retaliation or by moral qualms while feeding 58,000 young lives to the Vietnam beast. as if American leaders, like all world leaders, have ever had such concerns. let's have a short look at some modern American history, which may be instructive in this regard. a report of the us congress in 1994 informed us that: approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and Lewisite [blister gas]. most of these subjects were not informed of the nature of the experiments and never received medical follow up after their participation in the research. additionally, some of these human subjects were threatened with imprisonment at fort Leavenworth if they discussed these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents, and family doctors. for decades, the pentagon denied that the research had taken place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill after the secret testing.[2] in the decades between the 1940s and 1990s, we find a remarkable variety of government programs, either formally, or in effect, using soldiers as guinea pigs -- marched to nuclear explosion sites, with pilots sent through the mushroom clouds; subjected to chemical and biological weapons experiments; radiation experiments; behaviour modification experiments that washed their brains with LSD; widespread exposure to the highly toxic dioxin of agent orange in Korea and Vietnam ... the list goes on ... literally millions of experimental subjects, seldom given a choice or adequate information, often with disastrous effects to their physical and/or mental health, rarely with proper medical care or even monitoring.[3] .... (Note, The editing software here will not accept a copy and paste of the full report and sources list) To read the full article,go to: http://www.no-bases.net/...Then navigate to bottom left "Bases in the World.....Then to the fourth item....The Anti-Empire Report By WILLIAM BLUM (January 15, 2007) 26/01/2007 Check William Blum out using Google or Wikipedia. Hopefully you will be moved to support and publicise the work of no-bases.net
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3 responses
@AskAlly (3625)
• Canada
11 Mar 07
I have heard of this before and that is why I swear I will chop off each of my sons thumbs or big toes rendering them unfit for duty. I will never allow them to go to war. I am amazed at the courage and bravery of those that do enlist.
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@nuffsed (1271)
11 Mar 07
I would like to see this full horrific report posted all over the Western world for everyone to acknowledge. It is these truths that can stop war, not abused patriotism and abused loyalty. I hope lots of you do get to read the whole thing, it's worse than you could begin to imagine.
@angelicEmu (1311)
12 Mar 07
America's leaders have no regard for human life or humanity - they have lulled the majority of their people into such a propogandized hypnotic state that they believe their country's leadership can never be wrong, and always has their interests and the best interests of the world at heart. To many Americans, "patriotism" means believing unswervingly and unquestioningly in the inherant and absolute goodness and rightness of their country, its leadership, and its every action. It's like a form of cultism: in their minds, any bad action of their authorities is down to one corrupt individual and possibly a small group of people (scapegoatism), but to them it's unthinkable that their government and the Establishment that is America, could be corrupt, inhuman, and justly hated by countries around the world for its actions. It's even got to the point that the American establishment are blaming a PLACE for the inhumane disgusting and criminal actions of the American Army which took place there: the prison at which the famous torture photos were taken was burned down recently. Bad prison, naughty prison, take that for making American soldiers do bad things!
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• United States
11 Mar 07
Whats your point? I don't get the ramblings. Iran has said , at least the current President there, many times o er about his wishj and desire to support every effort by terrorist actions against the US. Iran has done this over and over since the hostages in President Carters adminstration. We just have not done anything to stop it. You can bet the current government in power there has every intention of promoting their own agenda at the expense of the rest of the nations in the Middle East. As far as the abuse by military in past, I'm sure that some did happen but not nearly as its written on that site. The military far and large has never been as abusive as our own citizens and Congress has to our military over the years. As a vetran I can tell you as a fact, the public and our government have let us down misserably over the years and continues to this day to turn a blind eye to the way vets are treated. Vietnam is a pure example of what they want to do today, in Iraq. Declare a war or conflict and task the military with the job and then decide that they don't like it and micromanage the efforts from 1000's miles away by media and political jocking. It's so easy to sit back and arm chair whats going on over there but the reality is thats not the way its done. Get you facts to gether and go there and see for your self.
@nuffsed (1271)
12 Mar 07
With all respect, "What's the point"? The point is to stop the abuse of troops, and to educate the public as to what is going on in their name. To help Joe Public to realise that the truth they expect, is not what they have been getting or will get untill someone calls a halt to the attitude of "ownership" of these men and women. The history of abuse makes a mockery of the words "every life is precious". In my post I invite readers to check out William Blum, The report has a full list of source references. You cannot argue the facts of the report. Your first paragraph relating to Iran shows that you have completely missed the point. The point is,.... the respect and duty of care we assume that the Admin has for the value of Allied lives, is a myth. The history given in the report shows this repeatedly. So whilst Iran threatens to retaliate against 33 bases in the area, we cannot take it for granted that that retaliation is given full consideration by the Administration. I sugest you read the whole thing again.
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