To:

Zcom_simple
Home » Z Blogs » David Peterson's Blog » Many Little Eichmanns

Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

50

David Peterson's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/davidpeterson
Bio: I am an independent writer and researcher based in Chicago. (More)

All Peterson Blogs

Recent Peterson Content

Znetarticle_icon ZNet Articles
Zmagarticle_icon ZMag Articles
Zcommentary_icon ZCommentaries
Zblogpost_icon Blog Posts

Many Little Eichmanns

By David Peterson at Mar 01, 2005

PDF Version

Printer Friendly Version
Change Text Size a- | A+
A U.S. District Court in New York City today heard the opening arguments in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 27 Vietnamese victims of one category of chemical weapons stemming from the American war over their country four decades ago: Operation Ranch Hand, the massive spraying of herbicides and, in particular, the "agent orange" defoliant that the American military used over South Vietnam.
(Quick aside. I've just written South Vietnam with good reason: Because it was against the area to the south of the 17th parallel---the partition between a South and a North agreed to in the 1954 Geneva Accords---that not only the American use of herbicides and other chemical weapons was directed, but in fact the great bulk of American firepower known as the "Vietnam War." True, the Americans eventually spread their war north of the 17th parallel (officially from February, 1965 onward), as well as into Laos and Cambodia. But though they also went on to use agent orange in Laos and Cambodia, it was South Vietnam that bore the brunt of this chemical warfare.)
"It is the first Agent Orange suit filed by Vietnamese," Sunday's Boston Globe reported---one of only two mass circulation dailies to have reported the lawsuit by the day it started. "They want the manufacturers to pay for medical care and dioxin cleanup, and to pay victims a sum equivalent to their profits from producing the herbicides, plus interest." Between 1961 and 1971, the Americans sprayed 20 million gallons of the chemicals over anywhere from 10 to 14 percent of the South Vietnamese countryside, covering as many as 6 million acres in all. In one of its major studies of the long-term effects of the chemical dioxin that was common to all of the herbicides used during the war, Hatfield Consultants of Canada reported that "The ultimate receptacle for dioxin moving through the local environment...is human beings." In the geographic area studied, near the border with Laos, "both the older and younger generation [had] significant levels of dioxin in their blood relative to data from northern Viet Nam where Agent Orange was not applied. Deformities, early cancers, and other medical conditions have been noted in the valley. Vietnamese health studies have indicated that birth defects are an order of magnitude higher in the...area than similar areas of unsprayed northern Viet Nam." Multiple studies by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science---here bucking stiff political resistance from successive regimes in Washington---have gradually acknowledged that some of the diseases reported by American military personnel also exposed to agent orange while serving in Vietnam are linked causally to the dioxin it contained. (Though the IOM does not escape American politics entirely. It classifies its study of agent-orange-type exposure (i.e., what the U.S. Government does) as "herbicides," while it reserves the phrase "chemical warfare agents" for its study of something that other states do.) "We have 27 people, all from the areas affected by the chemical during the war and representing the 13 diseases caused by Dioxin as acknowledged by the U.S. Academy of Sciences," the General Secretary of Vietnam's Agent Orange Victims Association Tran Xuan Thu told Deutsche Presse-Agentur ("Vietnam confident of winning Agent Orange case," Feb. 28). "We have sufficient test results of these people's illnesses. Some of them have even been found to be carrying dioxin in their blood now. Is that not convincing enough?" Well. It depends on whom you ask. Thus according to this morning's New York Times ("U.S. urges Judge to Dismiss Suit On Agent Orange Use in Vietnam," William Glaberson, Feb. 28):
The chemical companies argue that they produced Agent Orange following government specifications and that its use in Vietnam was necessary to protect American soldiers. They have long argued that there is no clear link between exposure to Agent Orange and many of the health problems attributed to it. ............ Because of the federal government's sovereign immunity, it was not part of the 1984 settlement and was not named as a defendant in the new suit on behalf of the Vietnamese. ............ The federal government's opposition may be the biggest legal hurdle for the Vietnamese plaintiffs, lawyers say. In language that could set the stage for years of appeals, the Justice Department brief argued in sweeping terms that the court could not second-guess the government's decisions about the conduct of the Vietnam War.
The last paragraph especially merits some attention, as it unambiguously affirms the prerogatives of the Imperial Presidency, and its supra-Constitutional powers. The Times goes on to quote from the Justice Department's brief (as yet not available to the public):
''The implications of plaintiffs' claims are astounding,'' the government's filing said, ''as they would (if accepted) open the courthouse doors of the American legal system for former enemy nationals and soldiers claiming to have been harmed by the United States Armed Forces'' during war.
Let me repeat the Justice Department's objection here, as it was immediately seized upon by the wire services (AP, Press Association, UPI) as proof that Washington is prepared to play hard-ball with the Vietnamese plaintiffs, and send them packing. Thus, to paraphrase: If the cross-generational victims of America's chemical warfare in the 1960s win recognition and compensation from Judge Jack B. Weinstein's New York City courtroom, the doors of the U.S. legal system will be thrown open for other enemies to undertake similar lawsuits. But, as the Boston Globe reported Sunday, “Last month, the US government filed a statement supporting the chemical companies. It argued that the court has no authority to judge ‘the validity of the president's decisions regarding combat tactics and weaponry', including Agent Orange.” The American President---here reaching all the way back to Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, for Christ's sake---being above such petty nuisances. Indeed. In the very last paragraph of Sunday's Globe report, we read that "The scientific questions will not be at issue [Monday]. The relevant legal questions are whether the defendants are indemnified as government contractors, and whether the statute of limitations has expired." Indemnified being the key concept here. Because if the American President says "Boo!"---then "Boo!" it most assuredly and categorically is. Monday's Times reiterated the exact same point: "The chemical companies argue that they produced Agent Orange following government specifications and that its use in Vietnam was necessary to protect American soldiers."--- That is to say, that these 30-odd American chemical manufacturers to have found themselves defendants in the lawsuit were just fulfilling their contracts with their Government. When all is said and done, they were just doing their jobs. On behalf of an American Sovereign which, when it comes to questions of war and peace and killing on command---or spraying chemical weapons---the same thing---enjoys supra-Constitutional powers. Rendering It untouchable by the American courts. Untouchable by international law. Untouchable by treaties. Conventions. And their assorted protocols. Impunity. Impunity. Impunity. The Imperial Presidency enjoys absolute impunity. And so does everyone who acts at Its behest. I hope we all recognize the nature of the argument the defendants have adopted in the case of Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin et al v. The Dow Chemical Company et al. And where in history we have heard arguments like it before. Postscript. As of Tuesday morning, March 1, this class-action lawsuit remains nearly subliminal as far as the captive American mind is concerned. A single article in Newsday ("Judge questions validity of Agent Orange suit," Anthony M. Destefano) is the only report in the mainstream American dailies that I've been able to locate that deals with the opening day of arguments in the New York District Court. Postscript II. A comment posted to this particular blog by "ubermensch" (March 01 at 05:58 PM) calls to everyone's attention a transcript of Adolph Eichmann's final "plea" from his glass booth in the Jerusalem courtroom:
"Eichmann's Final Plea" (May 31, 1962)
In it, Eichmann speaks after the Court had given him the chance to make a statement prior to sentencing---death by hanging, as it turned out. To excerpt what strikes me as a particularly revealing passage:
[A]nyone who has to give orders and has to obey orders knows what one can demand of people. I did not persecute Jews with avidity and passion. That is what the government did. Nor could the persecution be carried out other than by a government.... I accuse the leaders of abusing my obedience. At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate. Obedience is commended as a virtue. May I therefore ask that consideration be given to the fact that I obeyed, and not whom I obeyed.
Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin Agent Orange Project, Fund for Reconciliation and Development (Great resource. Includes links to material drawn from the class-action lawsuit presently before the U.S. District Court in New York City.) Agent Orange Lawsuit Filed by Vietnamese Victims Justice for Victims of Agent Orange (Petition) Operation Ranch Hand: The Air Force and Herbicides in Southeast Asia, 1961-1971, William Buckingham, Jr. (U.S. Air Force, 1982) Preliminary Assessment of Environmental Impacts Related to Spraying of Agent Orange Herbicide During the Viet Nam War, Hatfield Consultants, Ltd. (Canada, October 1998) "Agent Orange Victims Sue Monsanto," Tom Fawthrop, CorpWatch, November 4th, 2004 "Vietnamese seeking redress from US in Agent Orange suit," Matt Steinglass, Boston Globe, February 27, 2005 "U.S. urges Judge to Dismiss Suit On Agent Orange Use in Vietnam," William Glaberson, New York Times, February 28, 2005

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (30)

50

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Peterson, David at Nov 18, 2005 21:20 PM
Friends:
Justice for Victims of Agent Orange (Petition)

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Murray, Alan at Mar 06, 2005 07:34 AM
Re depleted uranium Robert Fisk links site is at: http://www.robert-fisk.com/depleted_uranium_links.htm

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Murray, Alan at Mar 06, 2005 04:59 AM
Re depleted uranium Leuren Moret has an excellent article and useful links at: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug04/Moret0824htm Robert Fisk has useful links at: http//www.robert-fisk.com/depleted_uranium.htm More useful links at: http://criticalconcern.com/depleted_uranium.htm

Reply this comment

50

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Peterson, David at Mar 06, 2005 02:45 AM
Here are the two links that Alan Murray was kind enough to provide (March 1, 2005, at 09:49 PM):
Uranium Medican Research Centre (Homepage) "Weapons of Mass Destruction Found in Iraq," Walter A. Davis, CounterPunch, October 9/10, 2004
Though if I've misidentified the latter of the two, please correct me.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 10:17 AM
Oh, by the way - that was not a wishlist, These are poor countries, and if they want a loan from the IMF this is their demand - not wishlist. Ah well, maybe I'll have a dream tonight about your world view - it will certainly help me sleep sounder.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 09:26 AM
You are well educated - I wish history unfolded that way. It must be comforting. You will have to repeat it to me when the US attacks Iran.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 09:13 AM
A bunch of economists advocating certin things is not a "plan".Let alone the grand, all encompassing plan you seemed to be suggesting in your previous posts.What you just described is called a wishlist. Even if someone has a plan that doesn't mean it can be successfully executed.Just because you have a bunch of plotters does not mean that they can pull it off. There are unforseen circumstances, physical constriants, the plan may back fire, etc. A plan is likely to be successful if it is limited in scope and specific in goal. I am not arguing people don't make plans. That will be absurd. But you're claiming reality will unfold as planned over the long term by a small group of plotters (alternatively known as "the elite", "the Capitalist", or simply "they") which I think is untenable. The evolution of society is the result of complicated interactions of different human groups with diverse agendas and shifting alliances. Human agencies have unforseen consequences. Our collective create a social landscape which in turn constraints our actions. This is a very complicated feed back loop which involve many players and factors.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 08:10 AM
One last thing, sitting next to my computer I have a pile of books - big ones. They consist of twenty two countries (I have only gotten through 14 of them)instructions from their centralized banks. In each of these volumes I find the same things written over and over again: 1. Become attractive to foreign investment; 2. Privatize your commons, and particularly open them to foreign investments; 3. Start to defund your social programs (various instructions); 4. Give you top one percent greater tax breaks; Now, either all these books fell from heaven, or were part of a natural evolutionary process - or all of these analysts and bankers came to the same conclusions, asked for the same activities, etc., just by chance. I think not, but I could be wrong.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 07:49 AM
Let me be brief - we started by killing the Indians because we had superior weapons of war and took their land, than we brought over the slaves to have them punishingly work our hard labor. I'll call this European Empire Syndrome. We have done this since the beginning of this country. We carry it out all over the world, this didn't just happen with the present administration - they brought it out into the open. We have been, and becoming a worse criminal nation. Until this root is purged, it will only get worse.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 07:37 AM
"Now go ahead a say - "oh a conspiracy nut!" Ask me - "do you believe people meet in rooms somewhere and plan these things?" No -they meet on ferris wheels! Of course there are plans going on in meeting rooms, etc. " Of course there are plans. But this does not mean there is a grand plan, which is just impossible to coordinate(some may try, doesn't mean they are successful) We cannot predict the weather accurately for more than four days. Are you denying this? Now the weather is VASTLY simpler than the society. In priciple everything about weather systems can be described by a small number of equations. Yet we cannot do any long term weather forcast with resonable accuracy. You are telling me somehow some people somewhere have perfect knowledge and control over the whole society and play everyone like sock puppets! I think you're proposing the social science equivalence to Creationism.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 07:26 AM
(continued from the last message) But over all, I don't see how these observations have to do with your grand thesis. It is one thing to say that there is a concerted compaign (conspiracy) by evangelical Christians to stop sex ed and quite another to say the grand, stuctrual features of society(such as the emergence of capitalism)are the results of planing.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 07:24 AM
"Secondly, you cannot have have such a close knit system without planning. Why are our historical books scrubbed in schools?" There are many different levels social engineering. At a basic level most societies are built on myths and people are not willing to face their down past(or present). I hate to use the word but this seems to be human nature. Censoring history out of text books is a universal phenomenon which spans across time and space, hardly unique for the mordern U.S. I don't think you need a high level conspiracy to achieve this. Then there are other forms of social engineering which are from very localized sources. For example, religious lobbis trying to remove evolution from text books and so on. Sometimes some groups may have more influences because of the momentary power configuration(e.g evangelical with Bush in the white house). But that is relatively transitary and is the result special politcial circumstances.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 07:19 AM
There are entire schools of social engineering (academically), constant debates on how to move the masses, in closed meeting rooms at first and than on the floors of the congress and senate. Indeed, it is the job of these politicians to disrupt the economy at times, so that you and I can feverishly think of nothing else but our survival. So administrations can make the armed forces seem attractive to the poor so they can use them for canon fodder (one use). As an example of planning, have you ever read PNAC - Project For The New American Century? That was written in 2000, it reads like the textbook of the current American administration. This administration, some of them went to the same school - where the professors project was how to turn a democracy into a dictatorship in three easy steps! Last, as far as specialization, my point was that there is nothing inherently wrong with it, but it is symptomatic. Our minds are parsed into one dimensional thinking patterns, so that we become socially myopic. We should not call our academic institutions Universities any longer, Multiversities would be better.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 07:09 AM
"Why does the media move in lock step of both silence and lies?" What does that prove? I don't see how that is relating to the thesis that the global, organizational features of societies are the result of "design". "Do you think we naturally moved from agrarian society, to industrial, and now post-industrial by some evolutionary process?" Depending on what you mean by "natural". In the Marxist sense, yes. Do you think these developments are by design? That the Kings and Aristocrates who held power in feudal societies plan ahead so that they might lose powers (or their heads in some cases) to industrialists?

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 07:04 AM
Besides, specialization does not occure simply in the defence industry. It occures through out all sectors. It is difficult to buy your argument that somehow defence is shaping society.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 07:01 AM
"Well, I have a few questions for you than - if there is no concerted effort by those in power than why does the military budget increase? Does it just "naturally go up?" " I can't see how you can jump from something as specific as the U.S defence budget to macro features of societal organization such as specialization in mordern, industrial economies. Many instrialized countries don't have big defence budgets(like Canada where I am in).But the macro features of societal organization is pretty similar.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Murray, Alan at Mar 02, 2005 06:49 AM
On the issue of depleted uranium check out http://www.umrc.net (uranium medical research council Dr Arasovich) http://www.bellaciao.org/en/ go to search and type in Leuren Moret Dr Arasovich worked for the US army treating and investigating Gulf War syndrome. He became a whistleblower and fled to Canada to continue his research. Leuren Moret worked at Lawrence Livermore labs before becoming a whistleblower. The govt destroyed her personal life in revenge for her exposing the truth. These courageous experts know what they're talking about. Leuren Moret's articles will make your hair stand on end. If the bullet stoppers knew they would come home to die from cancer and father deformed children they might think twice about going to Iraq. In fact this could be a good rallying point on the home front to help dry up the flow of new recruits. Parents will discourage their children from enlisting and conscripts will go to jail(or flee abroad) rather than be sent "in country" A new and more overwelming "Vietnam Syndrome" could be waiting to happen.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 06:49 AM
Well, I have a few questions for you than - if there is no concerted effort by those in power than why does the military budget increase? Does it just "naturally go up?" There is BIG money in defense, your money - in light of this fact why would someone not want to specialize in defense (using the pure profit motive)? Throw a bone in the air and a dog jumps for it. Secondly, you cannot have have such a close knit system without planning. Why are our historical books scrubbed in schools? Why does the media move in lock step of both silence and lies? Do you think we naturally moved from agrarian society, to industrial, and now post-industrial by some evolutionary process? I say it is concerted, systematic social engineering in it's larger swings (101) - that is being coped with by the ingenuity of the people in further development within the paradigm (so it has mass cooperation). Now go ahead a say - "oh a conspiracy nut!" Ask me - "do you believe people meet in rooms somewhere and plan these things?" No -they meet on ferris wheels! Of course there are plans going on in meeting rooms, etc.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 06:23 AM
All your illustrations involve relatively clear cut cases(arms manufacturers, bomb builders). But the term "little Eichmann" originates from Ward Churchill's piece about the 9/11. He used the term for "technicians of the Empire" who happened to be killed in the towers. I don't think he was refering to bomb makers and CIA agents. He was talking about MBAs, economists, investment bankers, finicial consultants and other who maintain the global capitalist system. I don't think these people necessarily knew the big picture consequences of their work.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 06:09 AM
"Those who seek and gain political power like this isolation in multiple fields, because these isolated people can be used for their purpose(s) - they create (artifically) a mutual impunity, making it harder to point the finger solely at them (those in power), because so many other "good industrious people" are involved." Who are "they"? Sorry, I don't believe specialization is a conspiracy to "control" or "gain' power. A complex society such as ours simply cannot exist without high degree of specialization. Complexity of societal organization is an evolutionary process which no one can "control" or even predict(we cannot even make reliable weather forcasts for more than three or four days!) But you're making it too complicated. There is just no possible plead of ignorance if you're Eichmann or make agent orange for the U.S army in the middle of the Vietnam war.Ignorance due to specialization is simply not a reasonable excuse in such clear cut cases.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 05:56 AM
Division is the essence of conquering a people, whether in war or in life. From the political arena, we have a war against the people going on - it has been going on for years. Those who seek and gain political power like this isolation in multiple fields, because these isolated people can be used for their purpose(s) - they create (artifically) a mutual impunity, making it harder to point the finger solely at them (those in power), because so many other "good industrious people" are involved. The political forces endue certain fields with money from the people (it's called a budget), and they cut a very healthy chunk off for the destructive corporate element (defense contractors, chemical, and even some so-called harmless etc.). However, the people who choose these fields are not without culpability (remember our illustration).

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 05:43 AM
"Now in the corporate world there is this same isolation, someone creates this piece while another does something else.." Specialization certainly creates tunnel vision but it is hard to argue that Eichmann, the manufacturers of agent orange(who recieved large military contract during a war) and the soldiers who drop bombs didn't know what they are doing. There are emotional detachments in these cases(except for the psychos who enjoy killing) but I can't say that is due to ignorance. But I can't see any similarity between these cases and the "technician of the empire",-to use the words of ward Churchcill,--who is an investment consultant, for example. The latter is justified in claiming ignorance because of tunnel vision.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 05:39 AM
Why don't we make the illustration simple - let's say I make the bullets that go into guns, but I cannot be responsible for a crackpot who might occasionally get some of my bullets and shoot an innocent person. Granted, but what if I KNOW that the only person who is going to use these bullets is crazy? But I make the bullets and give them to him anyhow - now I am culpable. Is there any use for depleted uranium outside of the military application? Of course not, so I know what these horrendous items will be used for - guilty as charged! Now we know at this time issues are much more complicated than the above illustration, but this is a foundational illustration - it is essentially what is happening.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 05:21 AM
We have a tacit form of denial built into the structure of this society - this is why I posted a portion of the Eichman defense quote. It is the "he did this and I did that," with no connection between the parties - an artifical barrier. It is like expertise in the medical fields. There used to be a time when one who was trained in this field was familiar with the entire fuction of the human, how one system was connected to the other. Granted our knowledge has exploded in these fields, but now we have some so isolated in their related fields that the patient falls through the cracks. Now in the corporate world there is this same isolation, someone creates this piece while another does something else. One might say it is so divided that there is this form of mental delusion, a sort of corporate sociopathic personality. I just made the parts (of whatever), but the government used it in such and such a fashion - that is not my fault, etc.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Gammon101, Bwong at Mar 02, 2005 05:02 AM
If the GI's from Gulf War I are suffering suffering from radiation poison as they claim just for handling and firing the stuffs, imagine what it must be like on the recieveing end. I have abolutely no symphathy to the GIs. They fit the perfect descriptions of "little Eichmanns". Serve them right. Paul Street wrote an execellent blog entry about the attitidue of *some* of the pyschopaths who enlist in the army. Check it out. If anything these psychcos are probably worse than Eichmann.

Reply this comment

50

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Peterson, David at Mar 02, 2005 03:47 AM
Let me take this opportunity to link the transcript the previous contributor referred to:
"Eichmann's Final Plea"
Thanks for calling it to everyone's attention. As for the American Government's use of depleted-uranium munitions in multiple theaters of its own choosing, these have consequences of a kind similar to nuclear weapons---minus the immediate destruction, of course. Please do post links to whatever you'd like to share with others. We all could stand to learn a lot more.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Rocstar, Ubermench at Mar 02, 2005 02:58 AM
"Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient...at that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will be demanded of the subordinate. Obedience is commended as a virtue....I had to yield to the inversion of values which was prescribed by the state...I am not the monster I have been made out to be. I am the victim of an error of judgement." Adolph Eichman This is used in schools, taken from "In His Own Words," Adolph Eichman, a documentary made by ABC for PBS. Taught in our classrooms throughout the nation. Sounds like the excuses of the companies in regards to agent orange, does it not? Eichman was hanged, what shall we do with these poor obedient souls who just followed orders (sarcasm)?

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Murray, Alan at Mar 01, 2005 21:25 PM
As for the effects on US troops, Henry Kissinger said it all " military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy". The veterans from Gulf War 1 have all been cycled out of the military to die quietly in VA hospitals. About 10,000 have so far done so. Because these men did not die "in theatre" they're not considered war dead. As far as the govt is concerned and the public is aware they simply don't exist. The Iraqi and Afghan peoples will be more or less extinguished, just like the Native Americans.They will be too busy dying to offer meaningful resistance to American power. Why do you think the Iraqi civilian infrastructure has not been rebuilt? The sanctions and concommittant dying continue as we speak.

Reply this comment

Person

Re: Many Little Eichmanns

By Murray, Alan at Mar 01, 2005 20:28 PM
Check out the work of Leuren Moret and also Asaf Durakovic(uranium medical research council). Both worked for the US govt and have gone public to expose the role of DU munitions in gulf war syndrome(more than half the vets from 1991 are now invalids) and the epidemic of cancers and birth defects in Iraq and Afghanistan. DU appears to be the ultimate doomsday weapon(the effects are described as omnicidal)and has been deployed with clearly genocidal intent. It's use is also illegal therefore a war crime.

Reply this comment

Person

By Shannon, James at Mar 01, 2005 19:52 PM
I hear that the Bullets used in Desert Storm and currently used in IRAQ contain traces of Plutonium which make them more lethal. And that 10's of thousands of Former soldiers are and will suffer radiation poisoning as a result of its' use - from breathing radioactive dust.

Reply this comment

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (30)

Loading_border