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agent orange
With Regards to the Christening of the USS Patrick Gallagher
Because we strongly believe, nay absolutely know, that the U.S. does not need another warship.
Aug 29, 2024
To Whom It May Concern:
Because I have twice visited the West Bank and know the personal stories of 40 year-old Palestinian men who were imprisoned as boys for simply yelling at Israeli soldiers—and beaten and dehumanized for months before being released without trial;
And because I now know that those horrific, forever haunting experiences were and remain commonplace for Palestinian youth and are symptomatic of a world where, “we (Israelis) believe they are worth more than they” (Palestinians);
And because by paying close attention to non-main-stream American and foreign media I know the horrific truth of Gaza;
And because I have a good sense that when thousands are killed under months of ceaseless bombing and thousands more remain buried under the rubble yet to be found, the crime rises beyond war to become, inarguably, a “genocide”;
And because I know of the influence of AIPAC and U.S. defense industry corporations on U.S. Congress members and, hence, on American foreign policy;
And because I know well that the siege of Gaza could not continue without U.S. cover and support;
And because, as not much more than an adolescent, as a consequence of the fiction fed me by a conventional education, I volunteered to go off to Vietnam;
And because I know that, as a consequence of that war of choice, two to three million Vietnamese were killed in defense of their country---and that 2-3 million others are institutionalized today unable to take care of themselves as 2nd and 3rd generation victims of Agent Orange;
And, because I also mourn the 58,281 Americans commemorated on “the wall”, lost in that war, generally, perhaps, believing the same fiction I had;
And because I know that millions, yes millions, of innocents have died in my lifetime, arguably victims of American wars of choice, endorsed and promoted by the American defense industry, in Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Syria, Yemen, etc., (hardly an all-inclusive list);
And because I and others, on many occasions since the Berrigan brothers, in a Prince of Peace Plowshares action on February 12, 1997, have returned again and again to protest other
christenings” at Bath;
And because we strongly believe, nay absolutely know, that the U.S. does not need more warships, but rather that General Dynamics ought to be “converting” to the manufacture of “green” technologies.
It is for these reasons, in the spirit of the “Plowshares” movement, we chose to inconvenience the so-called “christening” attendees on July 27th—that they might give pause to consider the merits of our actions. That they too, might join us in a virtual revolution—to turn away from violence, to demand that our country do the same, to be a force for cooperation among the brotherhood of nations, rather than endorsing endless militarism.
For these reasons I chose to join like-minded fellow citizens in our efforts to make more widely known our nation’s reckless conduct. I proclaim my innocence and will be very pleased to have the opportunity to defend that position in court.
Not in my name!
Dud Hendrick
Deer Isle, Maine
USNA Graduate —1963
USAF Officer — 1963-1967
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Years Behind Schedule, US Destroys Last Chemical Weapons Stockpile
"Honestly, I never thought this day would come," said the head of the citizens advisory commission overseeing the destruction.
Jul 07, 2023
The White House announced Friday that the United States has destroyed what remains of its once-massive military chemical weapons arsenal, while vowing to "prevent the stockpiling, production, and use" of the internationally banned weapons of mass destruction.
"For more than 30 years, the United States has worked tirelessly to eliminate our chemical weapons stockpile. Today, I am proud to announce that the United States has safely destroyed the final munition in that stockpile—bringing us one step closer to a world free from the horrors of chemical weapons," President Joe Biden said in a statement.
"Successive administrations have determined that these weapons should never again be developed or deployed," the president continued, "and this accomplishment not only makes good on our long-standing commitment under the Chemical Weapons Convention, it marks the first time an international body has verified destruction of an entire category of declared weapons of mass destruction."
While the U.S. military no longer has a chemical stockpile, tear gas—a chemical weapon banned in war—remains an integral part of law enforcement crowd suppression arsenals.
"Today—as we mark this significant milestone—we must also renew our commitment to forging a future free from chemical weapons," Biden said. "I continue to encourage the remaining nations to join the Chemical Weapons Convention so that the global ban on chemical weapons can reach its fullest potential."
Under the treaty, the U.S. committed to destroying its chemical arsenal by 2007; that deadline was later extended to 2012.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed Friday that "all declared chemical weapons stockpiles" around the world have now been "verified as irreversibly destroyed."
"The end of the destruction of all declared chemical weapons stockpiles is an important milestone for the organization. It is a critical step towards achieving its mission to permanently eliminate all chemical weapons," OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias said in a statement.
"Yet, more challenges lie ahead of us, which require the international community's continued attention," Arias added. "Four countries have yet to join the convention. Abandoned and old chemical weapons still need to be recovered and destroyed."
Egypt, Israel, North Korea, and South Sudan are not party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997.
As The New York Timesreported Thursay:
The American stockpile, built up over generations, was shocking in its scale: Cluster bombs and landmines filled with nerve agent. Artillery shells that could blanket whole forests with a blistering mustard fog. Tanks full of poison that could be loaded on jets and sprayed on targets below.
They were a class of weapons deemed so inhumane that their use was condemned after World War I, but even so, the United States and other powers continued to develop and amass them. Some held deadlier versions of the chlorine and mustard agents made infamous in the trenches of the Western Front. Others held nerve agents developed later, like VX and Sarin, that are lethal even in tiny quantities.
American armed forces are not known to have used lethal chemical weapons in battle since 1918, though during the Vietnam War they used herbicides like Agent Orange that were harmful to humans.
The United States once also had a sprawling germ warfare and biological weapons program; those weapons were destroyed in the 1970s.
Even after the Cold War ended, the United States was drafting plans for the possible use of chemical weapons. In service of U.S. global hegemony, then-Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Scooter Libby authored a 1992 strategy plan, "Defense Policy Guidance," that called for possible preemptive nuclear, biological, or chemical warfare against countries that potentially posed threats to American dominance—even if they did not have or use weapons of mass destruction.
"Honestly, I never thought this day would come," Irene Kornelly, who chairs the citizens' advisory commission that has overseen the destruction of U.S. chemical weapons at the Army's Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado for 30 years, told the Times. "The military didn't know if they could trust the people, and the people didn't know if they could trust the military."
As Kornelly spoke, the depot's manager blasted the rock band Europe's 1986 hit "The Final Countdown" and handed out red, white, and blue Bomb Pop popsicles.
"Most people today don't have a clue that this all happened—they never had to worry about it," Kornelly said. "And I think that's just as well."
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War, Herbicides, and Moral Disengagement
What gives political leaders the wherewithal to violate basic human values—established moral standards—and perpetrate the inhumanity of war?
Aug 12, 2021
And the least secret agent of all . . . Agent Orange!
On August 10, 1961, the United States, several years before it actually sent troops, started poisoning the forests and crops of Vietnam with herbicides. The purpose: to deprive our declared enemy, the commies of Ho Chi Minh, of food and ground cover that allowed them to trek from North to South. It was called, innocuously, Operation Ranch Hand.
To sum it up as simply as possible, war is insane--and growing ever more so.
Agent Orange, the most powerful of the herbicides used in Operation Ranch Hand, contained dioxin, one of the most toxic substances on the planet. We dropped 20 million gallons of this and other herbicides on Vietnam, contaminating 7,000 square miles of its forests. Half a century later, we are fully aware of the consequences of this strategic decision, not just for the Vietnamese, the Laotians, the Cambodians, but also for many American troops: hundreds of thousands of deaths and debilitating illnesses, horrific birth defects, unending hell.
History, in all its moral primness, has relegated our use of Agent Orange to the status of "controversial."
Much to my amazement, I learned the other day that August 10 is now a day with official status. Numerous international organizations, many of them Vietnamese, have declared it Agent Orange Awareness Day.
I say, let's keep this awareness alive and evolving at least for the next decade, which is how long the United States continued to wage its chemical warfare on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. And they didn't wage it in ignorant innocence. Top military leaders, whose personal lives, of course, were unaffected by Agent Orange, were fully aware of its toxicity.
This raises what I choose to call The Question from Hell: How is it possible to make such a decision--to place short-term military strategy ahead of moral restraint and compassion for civilians? And this leads to a second, larger question: Why are military and political leaders so unwilling or unable to envision the long-term consequences of their decisions, that is to say, the consequences that utterly transcend the significance of the war they're trying to win? Why are they so indifferent? Why are they so . . . stupid?
Pondering these questions was how I spent Agent Orange Awareness Day. Whether the U.S. won or lost the war, stopped or failed to stop the communist dominoes from tipping, the landscape would still be ravaged, the infected would still be dying, newborns would still have shocking birth defects (missing limbs, extra limbs, misplaced organs and so much more).
As the War Legacies Project notes on its website, the U.S. was trying to fight an "invisible enemy" who was hiding in the jungle, living off the land, by--what's the big deal?--killing the jungle itself. As a result: "Ever since the war's ending, the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been saddled with an invisible enemy of their own."
To sum it up as simply as possible, war is insane--and growing ever more so. The military establishment isn't just brutal and cruel. It is so advanced in the technology of lethality that its capable of destroying the world. Hasn't the time come to defund war--completely!--and rethink how we deal with conflict?
Well yes, of course, but we all know this isn't going to happen. Nonetheless, the creation of Agent Orange Awareness Day could well be a moment of human awakening, a chance for there to be a collective focus on that Question from Hell: Why?
Here's a starting place, thanks to psychologist Albert Bandura, as quoted by Russell P. Johnson in an essay published by the University of Chicago Divinity School. In essence, Bandura has sought an answer to the Question. What gives political leaders the wherewithal to violate basic human values--established moral standards--and perpetrate the inhumanity of war?
He calls the phenomenon of doing so "moral disengagement" and posits four forms that this behavior takes:
1. Euphemistic labeling: We may drop bombs and kill dozens or hundreds or thousands of civilians, including children, but the action is described by the lapdog media as, simply, an "airstrike." We may torture Iraqi detainees but it's not such a big deal when we call it "enhanced interrogation." We may poison the jungles of Southeast Asia, but what the heck, there's Jed Clampett leading the way in "Operation Ranch Hand." The list of military euphemisms goes on and on and on.
2. Advantageous comparison. If the enemy you're fighting is evil--and he always is--the actions you take to defeat him, whatever they are, are ipso facto justified. The alternative is doing nothing, a la Neville Chamberlain, appeasing Hitler. Violent response to evil--carpet-bombing Hamburg or Tokyo, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki--is not simply justifiable but the essence of morally necessity.
3. Displaced responsibility. I was just following orders, cries the Buchenwald guard. I did what I was told. As Johnson writes: "Decisions are made and justified without anyone ever having the sense of a moral threshold being crossed." Indeed, "an entire society can rely on displacement of responsibility to shield themselves from moral scrutiny." A pernicious side effect of this is known as "moral injury." Once a soldier is out of the military, the justification for killing someone may completely vanish; the result is a high suicide rate among vets.
4. Attribution of blame. They made us do it! "One's actions are treated as mere reactions, caused not by one's own decisions but by the actions of the enemy," Johnson writes. ". . . If our actions are excessive or barbaric, it is the other side's fault for driving us to such extremes." When both sides in the conflict resort to this, which is almost always the case, Bandura calls the result "reciprocal escalation." The war gets increasingly bloody.
Agent Orange Awareness Day, as I noted, was Aug. 10. I think we should spend the rest of the year honoring War and Dehumanization Awareness Day.
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