Poison Gas, Poison Values, Poison History

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18217-poison-gas-poison-values-poison-history



Poison Gas, Poison Values, Poison History
ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Thursday, 26 September 2013 07:57

Poison gas is not only a "moral obscenity" — one the United States stockpiled for decades after its use was banned in warfare — but a metaphor for human recklessness and wasted science.

~snip~

The enormous toxic mess that encircles the globe needs serious and sustained attention, something present-day governments are, seemingly, incapable of. The fact that this mess of our own making exists at all ought to inspire not missiles and self-righteousness but the deepest questions we know how to ask. And the first question is this: How in God's name do we untangle ourselves from this mess collectively?

~snip~

"Turns out, according to Army documents the paper obtained, from the end of World War II until 1970, the Army jettisoned 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents, 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste into the coastal waters off 11 states that virtually ring the country; has only a vague idea where these dump sites are; has made only haphazard stabs at monitoring a few of the sites even though leakage and container breakdown are inevitable; and has not bothered to inform the affected states or other agencies about the dumping."

Add to all this our nuclear stockpiling and ongoing development, our use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium, our complicity in Iraq's use of poison gas against Iran and Iraqi Kurds back in the '80s, and I'm wondering how we can ever atone for what we've done, let alone clean up the leftovers.