What They DIDN'T Tell You On The Nightly News

One of our sons was "born abroad of American parents" and is therefore an American citizen himself. He was born in a non-military hospital in Europe and registered at the US embassy there.

Not that he would be so inclined -- oh, boy, is that an understatement -- but would that make him ineligible to be president?

I'm just waiting to hear where you all are getting your information, since you're all willing to say where it ISN'T - NBC, CNN, and now apparently the Supreme Court's web site.

Back in June it was fretting and wailing over him NOT releasing the birth certificate. Then he did. Where was this new information the last couple months, when that certificate was supposed to be a forgery? Or moot, because America is now supposed to let municipal school districts in Indonesia decide who is or isn't a U.S. citizen? Now, its not a forgery but Hawaii issues birth certificates to people borne elsewhere. Now you've got fifty days to run through ridiculous stories five through eighty - you'd all better start cracking.

A google search seems to indicate the same wack-jobs - The racist and anti-semite Anthony Martin-Trigona AKA Andy Martin, 9/11 denier Philip Berg, theocrat Alan Keyes - are the ones really still pushing this story. That's a real winning cast - the most ethical one among them disowned his own daughter for being gay (but we're supposed to pretend in office he wouldn't be a threat to the constitional rights of gays and the gay-friendly.)

should be "constitutional" - I see I dropped a couple letters.

Just came from the mall where I saw a bumper sticker that read...."I love my country but I don't trust my elected officials."

I still think this webite speaks well on the issue: www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html - 31k

Here's another explanation of President Elect Obama's eligibility status.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/citizen.asp

Dear flyonthewall,

I checked out that link and I have to admit it's interesting; thank you. What convoluted reasoning, though. Maybe someone at one time thought those details were important.

I really hope the issue doesn't go forward, however.

So, we re-write the laws and rules now to "allow" what should have never been in the first place? Nice thoughts. Opens the door to anyone and everyone down the road. We have "ignored" the rules for far too long. When does it end? Ignoring the issues (like we do in this county) has worked so well...when will we learn? We had all better wise up and quick. If a person has nothing to hide, why not provide the information asked for? Hide the ball never works and makes the hounds go crazy. We got what we paid for with this one. Mr. Obama is set for life and does not care if he gets the "keys" or not (he would probably be happy to walk away at this point). He is a very wealthy now and if it is found he cannot hold office...he keeps ALL of the money. Who are the "dumb" ones here? When is enough really enough?

So, we re-write the laws and rules now to "allow" what should have never been in the first place? Nice thoughts. Opens the door to anyone and everyone down the road. We have "ignored" the rules for far too long. When does it end? Ignoring the issues (like we do in this county) has worked so well...when will we learn? We had all better wise up and quick. If a person has nothing to hide, why not provide the information asked for? Hide the ball never works and makes the hounds go crazy. We got what we paid for with this one. Mr. Obama is set for life and does not care if he gets the "keys" or not (he would probably be happy to walk away at this point). He is a very wealthy now and if it is found he cannot hold office...he keeps ALL of the money. Who are the "dumb" ones here? When is enough really enough?

Dear OM, Normally I would agree that rules should be followed 100% of the time. The only exception would be, similar to what has happened here in Mtn Home, that when a law no longer makes sense for any reason, it gets tweaked or eliminated. So I guess I don't believe in splitting hairs.

The way to know that something needs to be changed is for the subject to come up before a decision-making body. I honestly think that's a fair way to do things.

By the way, I'd welcome anyone telling me if there has been a change in that law since Obama's birth; the reason I ask is I read the "law that was in effect at the time of his birth" was referenced -- does that mean it has been changed since?

Anyway, welcome back, OM!

Wouldn't all this have been part of the vetting process prior to him becoming a candidate? And how long did they campaign for...2 years, wasn't it? Why wasn't this brought up during the campaigning-why is it JUST NOW becoming an issue?

Sas, it was brought up during the campaign, the evidence indicates then and now he was born in the U.S., There's no merit to the lawsuits he wasn't - and the one at least advances two unrelated theories to disqualify Obama so I think its safe to assume it has nothing to do with the rules but with flailing wildly in all directions to find a way to reverse an election they're unhappy about.

Mike keep an eye out, just saw on Fox News that the issue for Obama being a citizen is going to the Supreme Court Friday, guess that be the final ruling on it, plus Hillary may not be able to be Secretary of State due to her being a Senator and Ex President Clinton wife, that will sure be interesting who will decide that one and the outcome

Ayre Wolf, isn't this one world government and leader thing, being put together by some ancient Alien race and the Freemasons? And these alien stone cutters will use the UN or EU to take over the world? Fascinating stuff, hope you and bazooka Joe have fun fighting those evil Anti-Christ Aliens. I'll set my Frap-Ray to de-atomizer and meet you in Valhalla. Hoo Ha!

The Supreme Court is deciding tomorrow - today, technically - whether to hear Donofrio v. Wells.

First, Donofrio does NOT allege Obama was born outside the U.S. Donofrio does NOT allege Obama lost his natural-born citizenship in Indonesia.

What Donofrio - who says he believes Obama was born in Hawaii - is claiming is that individuals born in the U.S. to a U.S.-born citizen are not natural-born citizens if the other parent is a foreign national - Obama's father being a British citizen.

As best I can tell, none of the litigation that alleges Obama was secretly born outside the U.S. or that U.S. citizenship can be determined by an Indonesian school district - Berg and Keyes being the most famous - is coming before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court could still decide Donofrio doesn't have standing to contest what qualifies as a "natural-born citizen." But it could decide he does - especially since his lawsuit, unlike the others, doesn't put the burden of proof on the defendant when it rests constitutionally with the plaintiff - but hey, that's a part of the Constitution that isn't the Second Amendment, so I don't expect it to get taken too seriously around here.

It could then decide to precede to hear arguments and then decide Obama's birth in Hawaii to a U.S.-born mother qualifies is "natural-born." Which I believe - and have seen nothing to indicate otherwise - is what is actually precedent.

And the Obama situation doesn't "re-write the rules," though that's been talked about for decades, whether it'd require a constitutional amendment - it likely would - or could be passed as simple law. It got floated in the seventies and eighties for Kissinger and gets run around now for Arnold Schwarzenegger and, before he died, Tom Lantos.

If you go back to the traffic light metaphor, when a red light gets run, it isn't Alan Keyes'or Philip Berg's job to pull over the driver. It's the job of the police. Which law enforcement agency was responsible for checking George W. Bush's citizenship, or Bill Clinton's or Ronald Reagan's?

So who checked George W. Bush's citizenship? Or Reagan's, or Carter's, or anyone else elected president?

Pretty interesting stuff Bazookaman, I am very curious as to how many demo's are sitting in their living rooms wondering if they picked the right guy. As far as the constitution goes I pray that the non-sheeples of the world will rally together and fight. I plan on getting my guns before I am banned from doing so, I will protect myself and family at all costs!!! No matter what our dill hole president decides. I must applaude all of you on your comments though as least this didn't turn into a RACE thing....

Guess I'll have to sit and wait to see the outcome of the verdict like every one else....

jacknives of the world unite!

Hey thanks for mentioning me in your latest. I really appreciate it, it really means a lot to me that you actually care enough to put me in your blog. Well I've gotta get going to the socialist rally downtown. We are about to take back this country in the name of the working class. Riots will be everywhere while the poor eat the rich. And the Politicians will cower in jail cells waiting to be tortured, and pulled through the streets of Washington DC by their neck ties. What fun!

I remember one time downtown here in MH having a conservation with Jane Fonda about what this country needed and she stated socialism or communism. She and several other rich liberals had just put on plays and showed short film clips with all that wrong with the US and the war in Viet Nam. She was certain the world would end in ten years if we did not adopt a socialist agenda. She had asked all the military people to stay after their anti-American rally and "learn" the truth of how bad this nation was. The only thing I learned was that arrogance and condescension are one of the dims leading attributes.

On October 19, 2003, the Ohio-based newspaper the Toledo Blade launched a four-day series of investigative reports exposing a string of atrocities by an elite, volunteer, 45-man "Tiger Force" unit of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division over the course of seven months in 1967. The Blade goes on to state that in 1971 the Army began a four and a half year investigation of the alleged torture of prisoners, rapes of civilian women, the mutilation of bodies and killing of anywhere from nine to well over one hundred unarmed civilians, among other acts. The articles further report that the Army's inquiry concluded that eighteen U.S. soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. However, not one of the soldiers, even of those still on active duty at the time of the investigation, was ever court martialed in connection with the heinous crimes. Moreover, six suspected war criminals were allowed to resign from military service during the criminal investigations specifically to avoid prosecution.

The Toledo Blade articles represent some of the best reporting on a Vietnam War crime by any newspaper, during or since the end of the conflict. Unfortunately, the articles tell a story that was all too common. As a historian writing his dissertation on U.S. war crimes and atrocities during the Vietnam War, I have been immersed in just the sort of archival materials the Toledo Blade used in its pieces, but not simply for one incident but hundreds if not thousands of analogous events. I can safely, and sadly, say that the "Tiger Force" atrocities are merely the tip of the iceberg in regard to U.S.-perpetrated war crimes in Vietnam. However, much of the mainstream historical literature dealing with Vietnam War atrocities (and accompanying cover-ups and/or sham investigations), has been marginalized to a great extent -- aside from obligatory remarks concerning the My Lai massacre, which is, itself, often treated as an isolated event. Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent reporting of the Toledo Blade draws upon and feeds off this exceptionalist argument to a certain extent. As such, the true scope of U.S.-perpetrated atrocities is never fully addressed in the articles. The men of the "Tiger Force" are labeled as "Rogue GIs" and the authors simply mention the that Army "conducted 242 war-crimes investigations in Vietnam, [that] a third were substantiated, leading to 21 convictions... according to a review of records at the National Archives" -- facts of dubious value that obscure the scope and number of war crimes perpetrated in Vietnam and feed the exceptionalist argument.

Even an accompanying Blade piece on "Other Vietnam Atrocities," tends to decontextualize the "Tiger Force" incidents, treating them as fairly extraordinary events by listing only three other relatively well known atrocity incidents: former Senator, presidential candidate and Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey's raid on the hamlet of Thang Phong; the massacre at Son Thang -- sometimes referred to as the "Marine Corps' My Lai"; and the war crimes allegations of Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert -- most famously chronicled in his memoir Soldier. This short list, however, doesn't even hint at the scope and number of similar criminal acts.

For example, the Toledo Blade reports that its "review of thousands of classified Army documents, National Archives records, and radio logs reveals [the "Tiger Force"] ... carried out the longest series of atrocities in the Vietnam War [from May and November, 1967]...." Unfortunately, this seven month atrocity-spree is not nearly the longest on record. Nor is it even the longest string of atrocities by one unit within its service branch. According to formerly classified Army documents, an investigation disclosed that from at least March 1968 through October 1969, "Vietnamese [civilian] detainees were subjected to maltreatment" by no less than twenty-three separate interrogators of the 172d Military Intelligence (MI) Detachment. The inquiry found that, in addition to using "electrical shock by means of a field telephone," an all too commonly used method of torture by Americans during the war, MI personnel also struck detainees with their fists, sticks and boards and employed a form of water torture which impaired prisoners' ability to breath.

Similar to the "Tiger Force" atrocities chronicled by the Blade, documents indicate that no disciplinary actions were taken against any of the individuals implicated in the long-running series of atrocities, including 172d MI personnel Norman Bowers, Franciszek Pyclik and Eberhard Gasper who were all on active duty at the time that the allegations were investigated by Army officials. In fact, in 1972, Bowers's commanding general pronounced that "no disciplinary or administrative action" would be taken against the suspected war criminal and in a formerly classified memorandum to the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, prepared by Colonel Murray Williams on behalf of Brigadier General R.G. Gard in January 1973, it was noted that the "...determination by commanders to take no action against three personnel on active duty who were suspected of committing an offense" had not been publicly acknowledged. Their crimes and identities kept a secret, Bowers, Pyclik and Gasper apparently escaped any prosecution, let alone punishment, for their alleged actions.

Similarly, the Toledo Blade pays particular attention to Sam Ybarra, a "notorious suspect," who was named in seven of the thirty "Tiger Force" war crimes allegations investigated by the Army -- including the rape and fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old girl and the brutal killing of a 15-year-old boy. Yet, Ybarra's notorious reputation may well pale in comparison to that of Sergeant Roy E. "the Bummer" Bumgarner, a soldier who served with the 1st Cavalry Division and later the 173d Airborne Brigade. According to a former commander, "the Bummer" was rumored to have "personally killed over 1,500 people" during a forty-two week stretch in Vietnam. Even if the number was exaggerated, clues on how Bumgarner may have obtained high "body counts" came to light in the course of an Army criminal investigation of an incident that took place on February 25, 1969. According to investigation documents, Bumgarner and a subordinate rounded up three civilians found working in a rice paddy, marched them to a secluded area and murdered them. "The Bummer" then arranged the bodies on the ground with their heads together and a grenade was exploded next to them in an attempt to cover-up their crime. Assorted weapons were then planted near the mutilated corpses to make them appear to have been enemy troops.

During an Army criminal investigation of the incident, men in Bumgarner's unit told investigators that they had heard rumors of the sergeant carrying out similar acts in the past. Said one soldier in a sworn statement to Army investigators:

"I've heard of Bumgarner doing it before -- planting weapons on bodies when there is doubt as to their military status. I've heard quite a few rumors about Bumgarner killing unarmed people. Only a couple weeks ago I heard that Bumgarner had killed a Vietnamese girl and two younger kids (boys), who didn't have any weapons."

Unlike Sam Ybarra, who had been discharged from the military by the time the allegations against him came to light and then refused to cooperate with investigators, "the Bummer" was charged with premeditated murder and tried by general court martial. He was convicted only of manslaughter and his punishment consisted merely of a demotion in rank and a fine of $97 a month for six months. Moreover, after six months, Bumgarner promptly re-enlisted in the Army. His first and only choice of assignments -- Vietnam. Records indicate he got his wish!

Military records demonstrate that the "Tiger Force" atrocities are only the tip of a vast submerged history of atrocities in Vietnam. In fact, while most atrocities were likely never chronicled or reported, the archival record is still rife with incidents analogous to those profiled in the Blade articles, including the following atrocities chronicled in formerly classified Army documents:

A November 1966 incident in which an officer in the Army's Fourth Infantry Division, severed an ear from a Vietnamese corpse and affixed it to the radio antenna of a jeep as an ornament. The officer was given a non-judicial punishment and a letter of reprimand.

An August 1967 atrocity in which a 13-year-old Vietnamese child was raped by American MI interrogator of the Army's 196th Infantry Brigade. The soldier was convicted only of indecent acts with a child and assault. He served seven months and sixteen days for his crime.

A September 1967 incident in which an American sergeant killed two Vietnamese children -- executing one at point blank range with a bullet to the head. Tried by general court martial in 1970, the sergeant pleaded guilty to, and was found guilty of, unpremeditated murder. He was, however, sentenced to no punishment.

An atrocity that took place on February 4, 1968, just over a month before the My Lai massacre, in the same province by a man from the same division (Americal). The soldier admitted to his commanding officer and other men of his unit that he gunned down three civilians as they worked in a field. A CID investigation substantiated his confession and charges of premeditated murder were preferred against him. The soldier requested a discharge, which was granted by the commanding general of the Americal Division, in lieu of court martial proceedings.

A series of atrocities similar to, and occurring the same year as, the "Tiger Force" war crimes in which one unit allegedly engaged in an orgy of murder, rape and mutilation, over the course of several months.

While not yielding the high-end body count estimate of the "Tiger Force" series of atrocities, the above incidents begin to demonstrate the ubiquity of the commission of atrocities on the part of American forces during the Vietnam War. Certainly, war crimes, such as murder, rape and mutilation were not an everyday affair for American combat soldiers in Vietnam, however, such acts were also by no means as exceptional as often portrayed in recent historical literature or as tacitly alluded to in the Blade articles.

The excellent investigative reporting of the Toledo Blade is to be commended for shedding light on war crimes committed by American soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in 1967. However, it is equally important to understand that the "Tiger Force" atrocities were not the mere result of "Rogue GIs" but instead stem from what historian Christian Appy has termed the American "doctrine of atrocity" during the Vietnam War -- a strategy built upon official U.S. dictums relating to the body count, free-fire zones, search and destroy tactics and the strategy of attrition as well as unofficial tenets such as "kill anything that moves," intoned during the "Tiger Force" atrocities and in countless other atrocity tales, or the "mere gook rule" which held that "If it's dead and Vietnamese, it's VC." Further, it must also be recognized that the "Tiger Force" atrocities, the My Lai massacre, the Herbert allegations and the few other better-known war crimes were not isolated or tangentially-related incidents, but instead are only the most spectacular or best publicized of what was an on-going string of atrocities, large and small, that spanned the entire duration of the war.

The headline of one Blade article proclaims, "Earlier Tiger Force probe could have averted My Lai carnage," referring to the fact that the 101st Airborne Division's "Tiger Force" troops operated in the same province (Quang Ngai), with the same mission (search and destroy) months before the Americal Division's men committed their war crimes. But atrocities were not a localized problem or one that only emerged in 1967. Instead, the pervasive disregard for the laws of war had begun prior to U.S. buildup in 1965 and had roots in earlier conflicts. Only by recognizing these facts can we hope to begin to understand the "Tiger Foce" atrocities and the history of American war crimes in Vietnam,

On October 19, 2003, the Ohio-based newspaper the Toledo Blade launched a four-day series of investigative reports exposing a string of atrocities by an elite, volunteer, 45-man "Tiger Force" unit of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division over the course of seven months in 1967. The Blade goes on to state that in 1971 the Army began a four and a half year investigation of the alleged torture of prisoners, rapes of civilian women, the mutilation of bodies and killing of anywhere from nine to well over one hundred unarmed civilians, among other acts. The articles further report that the Army's inquiry concluded that eighteen U.S. soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. However, not one of the soldiers, even of those still on active duty at the time of the investigation, was ever court martialed in connection with the heinous crimes. Moreover, six suspected war criminals were allowed to resign from military service during the criminal investigations specifically to avoid prosecution.

The Toledo Blade articles represent some of the best reporting on a Vietnam War crime by any newspaper, during or since the end of the conflict. Unfortunately, the articles tell a story that was all too common. As a historian writing his dissertation on U.S. war crimes and atrocities during the Vietnam War, I have been immersed in just the sort of archival materials the Toledo Blade used in its pieces, but not simply for one incident but hundreds if not thousands of analogous events. I can safely, and sadly, say that the "Tiger Force" atrocities are merely the tip of the iceberg in regard to U.S.-perpetrated war crimes in Vietnam. However, much of the mainstream historical literature dealing with Vietnam War atrocities (and accompanying cover-ups and/or sham investigations), has been marginalized to a great extent -- aside from obligatory remarks concerning the My Lai massacre, which is, itself, often treated as an isolated event. Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent reporting of the Toledo Blade draws upon and feeds off this exceptionalist argument to a certain extent. As such, the true scope of U.S.-perpetrated atrocities is never fully addressed in the articles. The men of the "Tiger Force" are labeled as "Rogue GIs" and the authors simply mention the that Army "conducted 242 war-crimes investigations in Vietnam, [that] a third were substantiated, leading to 21 convictions... according to a review of records at the National Archives" -- facts of dubious value that obscure the scope and number of war crimes perpetrated in Vietnam and feed the exceptionalist argument.

Even an accompanying Blade piece on "Other Vietnam Atrocities," tends to decontextualize the "Tiger Force" incidents, treating them as fairly extraordinary events by listing only three other relatively well known atrocity incidents: former Senator, presidential candidate and Navy SEAL Bob Kerrey's raid on the hamlet of Thang Phong; the massacre at Son Thang -- sometimes referred to as the "Marine Corps' My Lai"; and the war crimes allegations of Lt. Col. Anthony Herbert -- most famously chronicled in his memoir Soldier. This short list, however, doesn't even hint at the scope and number of similar criminal acts.

For example, the Toledo Blade reports that its "review of thousands of classified Army documents, National Archives records, and radio logs reveals [the "Tiger Force"] ... carried out the longest series of atrocities in the Vietnam War [from May and November, 1967]...." Unfortunately, this seven month atrocity-spree is not nearly the longest on record. Nor is it even the longest string of atrocities by one unit within its service branch. According to formerly classified Army documents, an investigation disclosed that from at least March 1968 through October 1969, "Vietnamese [civilian] detainees were subjected to maltreatment" by no less than twenty-three separate interrogators of the 172d Military Intelligence (MI) Detachment. The inquiry found that, in addition to using "electrical shock by means of a field telephone," an all too commonly used method of torture by Americans during the war, MI personnel also struck detainees with their fists, sticks and boards and employed a form of water torture which impaired prisoners' ability to breath.

Similar to the "Tiger Force" atrocities chronicled by the Blade, documents indicate that no disciplinary actions were taken against any of the individuals implicated in the long-running series of atrocities, including 172d MI personnel Norman Bowers, Franciszek Pyclik and Eberhard Gasper who were all on active duty at the time that the allegations were investigated by Army officials. In fact, in 1972, Bowers's commanding general pronounced that "no disciplinary or administrative action" would be taken against the suspected war criminal and in a formerly classified memorandum to the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, prepared by Colonel Murray Williams on behalf of Brigadier General R.G. Gard in January 1973, it was noted that the "...determination by commanders to take no action against three personnel on active duty who were suspected of committing an offense" had not been publicly acknowledged. Their crimes and identities kept a secret, Bowers, Pyclik and Gasper apparently escaped any prosecution, let alone punishment, for their alleged actions.

Similarly, the Toledo Blade pays particular attention to Sam Ybarra, a "notorious suspect," who was named in seven of the thirty "Tiger Force" war crimes allegations investigated by the Army -- including the rape and fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old girl and the brutal killing of a 15-year-old boy. Yet, Ybarra's notorious reputation may well pale in comparison to that of Sergeant Roy E. "the Bummer" Bumgarner, a soldier who served with the 1st Cavalry Division and later the 173d Airborne Brigade. According to a former commander, "the Bummer" was rumored to have "personally killed over 1,500 people" during a forty-two week stretch in Vietnam. Even if the number was exaggerated, clues on how Bumgarner may have obtained high "body counts" came to light in the course of an Army criminal investigation of an incident that took place on February 25, 1969. According to investigation documents, Bumgarner and a subordinate rounded up three civilians found working in a rice paddy, marched them to a secluded area and murdered them. "The Bummer" then arranged the bodies on the ground with their heads together and a grenade was exploded next to them in an attempt to cover-up their crime. Assorted weapons were then planted near the mutilated corpses to make them appear to have been enemy troops.

During an Army criminal investigation of the incident, men in Bumgarner's unit told investigators that they had heard rumors of the sergeant carrying out similar acts in the past. Said one soldier in a sworn statement to Army investigators:

"I've heard of Bumgarner doing it before -- planting weapons on bodies when there is doubt as to their military status. I've heard quite a few rumors about Bumgarner killing unarmed people. Only a couple weeks ago I heard that Bumgarner had killed a Vietnamese girl and two younger kids (boys), who didn't have any weapons."

Unlike Sam Ybarra, who had been discharged from the military by the time the allegations against him came to light and then refused to cooperate with investigators, "the Bummer" was charged with premeditated murder and tried by general court martial. He was convicted only of manslaughter and his punishment consisted merely of a demotion in rank and a fine of $97 a month for six months. Moreover, after six months, Bumgarner promptly re-enlisted in the Army. His first and only choice of assignments -- Vietnam. Records indicate he got his wish!

Military records demonstrate that the "Tiger Force" atrocities are only the tip of a vast submerged history of atrocities in Vietnam. In fact, while most atrocities were likely never chronicled or reported, the archival record is still rife with incidents analogous to those profiled in the Blade articles, including the following atrocities chronicled in formerly classified Army documents:

A November 1966 incident in which an officer in the Army's Fourth Infantry Division, severed an ear from a Vietnamese corpse and affixed it to the radio antenna of a jeep as an ornament. The officer was given a non-judicial punishment and a letter of reprimand.

An August 1967 atrocity in which a 13-year-old Vietnamese child was raped by American MI interrogator of the Army's 196th Infantry Brigade. The soldier was convicted only of indecent acts with a child and assault. He served seven months and sixteen days for his crime.

A September 1967 incident in which an American sergeant killed two Vietnamese children -- executing one at point blank range with a bullet to the head. Tried by general court martial in 1970, the sergeant pleaded guilty to, and was found guilty of, unpremeditated murder. He was, however, sentenced to no punishment.

An atrocity that took place on February 4, 1968, just over a month before the My Lai massacre, in the same province by a man from the same division (Americal). The soldier admitted to his commanding officer and other men of his unit that he gunned down three civilians as they worked in a field. A CID investigation substantiated his confession and charges of premeditated murder were preferred against him. The soldier requested a discharge, which was granted by the commanding general of the Americal Division, in lieu of court martial proceedings.

A series of atrocities similar to, and occurring the same year as, the "Tiger Force" war crimes in which one unit allegedly engaged in an orgy of murder, rape and mutilation, over the course of several months.

While not yielding the high-end body count estimate of the "Tiger Force" series of atrocities, the above incidents begin to demonstrate the ubiquity of the commission of atrocities on the part of American forces during the Vietnam War. Certainly, war crimes, such as murder, rape and mutilation were not an everyday affair for American combat soldiers in Vietnam, however, such acts were also by no means as exceptional as often portrayed in recent historical literature or as tacitly alluded to in the Blade articles.

The excellent investigative reporting of the Toledo Blade is to be commended for shedding light on war crimes committed by American soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in 1967. However, it is equally important to understand that the "Tiger Force" atrocities were not the mere result of "Rogue GIs" but instead stem from what historian Christian Appy has termed the American "doctrine of atrocity" during the Vietnam War -- a strategy built upon official U.S. dictums relating to the body count, free-fire zones, search and destroy tactics and the strategy of attrition as well as unofficial tenets such as "kill anything that moves," intoned during the "Tiger Force" atrocities and in countless other atrocity tales, or the "mere gook rule" which held that "If it's dead and Vietnamese, it's VC." Further, it must also be recognized that the "Tiger Force" atrocities, the My Lai massacre, the Herbert allegations and the few other better-known war crimes were not isolated or tangentially-related incidents, but instead are only the most spectacular or best publicized of what was an on-going string of atrocities, large and small, that spanned the entire duration of the war.

The headline of one Blade article proclaims, "Earlier Tiger Force probe could have averted My Lai carnage," referring to the fact that the 101st Airborne Division's "Tiger Force" troops operated in the same province (Quang Ngai), with the same mission (search and destroy) months before the Americal Division's men committed their war crimes. But atrocities were not a localized problem or one that only emerged in 1967. Instead, the pervasive disregard for the laws of war had begun prior to U.S. buildup in 1965 and had roots in earlier conflicts. Only by recognizing these facts can we hope to begin to understand the "Tiger Force" atrocities and the history of American war crimes in Vietnam, writ large.

Saturday March 29, 2003

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,923831,00.html

Hong Hanh is falling to pieces. She has been poisoned

by the most toxic molecule known to science; it was

sprayed during a prolonged military campaign. The

contamination persists. No redress has been offered,

no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin

has done nothing to combat the medical and

environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming her

country. This is not northern Iraq, where Saddam

Hussein gassed 5,000 Kurds in 1988. Nor the trenches

of first world war France. Hong Hanh's story, and that

of many more like her, is quietly unfolding in Vietnam

today. Her declining half-life is spent unseen, in her

home, an unremarkable concrete box in Ho Chi Minh

City, filled with photographs, family plaques and

yellow enamel stars, a place where the best is made of

the worst.

Hong Hanh is both surprising and terrifying. Here is a

19-year-old who lives in a 10-year-old's body. She

clatters around with disjointed spidery strides which

leave her soaked in sweat. When she cannot stop

crying, soothing creams and iodine are rubbed into her

back, which is a lunar collage of septic blisters and

scabs. "My daughter is dying," her mother says. "My

youngest daughter is 11 and she has the same symptoms.

What should we do? Their fingers and toes stick

together before they drop off. Their hands wear down

to stumps. Every day they lose a little more skin. And

this is not leprosy. The doctors say it is connected

to American chemical weapons we were exposed to during

the Vietnam war."

There are an estimated 650,000 like Hong Hanh in

Vietnam, suffering from an array of baffling chronic

conditions. Another 500,000 have already died. The

thread that weaves through all their case histories is

defoliants deployed by the US military during the war.

Some of the victims are veterans who were doused in

these chemicals during the war, others are farmers who

lived off land that was sprayed. The second generation

are the sons and daughters of war veterans, or

children born to parents who lived on contaminated

land. Now there is a third generation, the

grandchildren of the war and its victims.

This is a chain of events bitterly denied by the US

government. Millions of litres of defoliants such as

Agent Orange were dropped on Vietnam, but US

government scientists claimed that these chemicals

were harmless to humans and short-lived in the

environment. US strategists argue that Agent Orange

was a prototype smart weapon, a benign tactical

herbicide that saved many hundreds of thousands of

American lives by denying the North Vietnamese army

the jungle cover that allowed it ruthlessly to strike

and feint. New scientific research, however, confirms

what the Vietnamese have been claiming for years. It

also portrays the US government as one that has

illicitly used weapons of mass destruction, stymied

all independent efforts to assess the impact of their

deployment, failed to acknowledge cold, hard evidence

of maiming and slaughter, and pursued a policy of

evasion and deception.

Teams of international scientists working in Vietnam

have now discovered that Agent Orange contains one of

the most virulent poisons known to man, a strain of

dioxin called TCCD which, 28 years after the fighting

ended, remains in the soil, continuing to destroy the

lives of those exposed to it. Evidence has also

emerged that the US government not only knew that

Agent Orange was contaminated, but was fully aware of

the killing power of its contaminant dioxin, and yet

still continued to use the herbicide in Vietnam for 10

years of the war and in concentrations that exceeded

its own guidelines by 25 times. As well as spraying

the North Vietnamese, the US doused its own troops

stationed in the jungle, rather than lose tactical

advantage by having them withdraw.

On February 5, addressing the UN Security Council,

secretary of state Colin Powell, now famously,

clutched between his fingers a tiny phial representing

concentrated anthrax spores, enough to kill thousands,

and only a tiny fraction of the amount he said Saddam

Hussein had at his disposal.

The Vietnamese government has its own symbolic phial

that it, too, flourishes, in scientific conferences

that get little publicity. It contains 80g of TCCD,

just enough of the super-toxin contained in Agent

Orange to fill a child-size talcum powder container.

If dropped into the water supply of a city the size of

New York, it would kill the entire population.

Ground-breaking research by Dr Arthur H Westing,

former director of the UN Environment Programme, a

leading authority on Agent Orange, reveals that the US

sprayed 170kg of it over Vietnam.

John F Kennedy's presidential victory in 1961 was

propelled by an image of the New Frontier. He called

on Americans to "bear the burden of a long twilight

struggle ... against the common enemies of man:

tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself." But one of

the most problematic new frontiers, that dividing

North and South Vietnam, flared up immediately after

he had taken office, forcing him to bolster the

US-backed regime in Saigon. Kennedy examined "tricks

and gadgets" that might give the South an edge in the

jungle, and in November 1961 sanctioned the use of

defoliants in a covert operation code-named Ranch

Hand, every mission flown signed off by the president

himself and managed in Saigon by the secret Committee

202 - the call sign for defoliating forests being "20"

and for spraying fields "2".

Ngo Luc, 67, was serving with a North Vietnamese

guerrilla unit in the Central Highlands when he saw

planes circling overhead. "We expected bombs, but a

fine yellow mist descended, covering absolutely

everything," he says. "We were soaked in it, but it

didn't worry us, as it smelled good. We continued to

crawl through the jungle. The next day the leaves

wilted and within a week the jungle was bald. We felt

just fine at the time." Today, the former captain is

the sole survivor from his unit and lives with his two

granddaughters, both born partially paralysed, near

the central Vietnamese city of Hue.

When US troops became directly embroiled in Vietnam in

1964, the Pentagon signed contracts worth $57m (£36m)

with eight US chemical companies to produce

defoliants, including Agent Orange, named after the

coloured band painted around the barrels in which it

was shipped. The US would target the Ho Chi Minh trail

- Viet Cong supply lines made invisible by the jungle

canopy along the border with Laos - as well as the

heavily wooded Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separated

the North from the South, and also the Mekong Delta, a

maze of overgrown swamps and inlets that was a haven

for communist insurgents.

A reporter for the St Louis Dispatch witnessed a

secret spraying mission and wrote that the US was

dropping "poison". Congressman Robert Kastenmeier

demanded that the president abandon "chemical warfare"

because it tainted America's reputation. Instead,

William Bundy, a presidential adviser, flatly denied

that the herbicide used by America was a chemical

weapon, and blamed communist propagandists for a

distortion of the facts about the Ranch Hand

operation. Only when the Federation of American

Scientists warned that year that Vietnam was being

used as a laboratory experiment did the rumours become

irrefutable. More than 5,000 American scientists,

including 17 Nobel laureates and 129 members of the

Academy of Sciences, signed a petition against

"chemical and biological weapons used in Vietnam".

Eight years after the military launched Operation

Ranch Hand, scientists from the National Institute of

Health warned that laboratory mice exposed to Agent

Orange were giving birth to stillborn or deformed

litters, a conclusion reinforced by research conducted

by the US department of agriculture. These findings

coincided with newspaper reports in Hanoi that blamed

Agent Orange for a range of crippling conditions among

troops and their families. Dr Le Ke Son, a young

conscript in Hanoi during the war and now director of

Vietnam's Agent Orange Victims Fund, recalls, "The

government proposed that a line of runners carry blood

and tissue samples from the front to Hanoi. But it was

more than 500 miles and took two months, by which time

the samples were spoiled. How could we make the

research work? There was no way to prove what we could

see with our own eyes."

In December 1969, President Nixon made a radical and

controversial pledge that America would never use

chemical weapons in a first strike. He made no mention

of Vietnam or Agent Orange, and the US government

continued dispatching supplies of herbicides to the

South Vietnamese regime until 1974.

That year, Kiem was born in a one-room hut in Kim Doi,

a village just outside Hue. For her mother, Nguyen,

she should have been a consolation because her

husband, a Viet Cong soldier, had been killed several

months earlier. "The last time he came home, he told

me about the spray, how his unit had been doused in a

sweet-smelling mist and all the leaves had fallen from

the trees," Nguyen says. It soon became obvious that

Kiem was severely mentally and physically disabled.

"She can eat, she can smile, she sits on the bed.

That's it. I have barely left my home since my

daughter was born."

By the time the war finally ended in 1975, more than

10% of Vietnam had been intensively sprayed with 72

million litres of chemicals, of which 66% was Agent

Orange, laced with its super-strain of toxic TCCD. But

even these figures, contained in recently declassified

US military records, vastly underestimate the true

scale of the spraying. In confidential statements made

to US scientists, former Ranch Hand pilots allege

that, in addition to the recorded missions, there were

26,000 aborted operations during which 260,000 gallons

of herbicide were dumped. US military regulations

required all spray planes or helicopters to return to

base empty and one pilot, formerly stationed at Bien

Hoa air base between 1968 and 1969, claims that he

regularly jettisoned his chemical load into the Long

Binh reservoir. "These herbicides should never have

been used in the way that they were used," says the

pilot, who has asked not to be identified.

Almost immediately after the war finished, US veterans

began reporting chronic conditions, skin disorders,

asthma, cancers, gastrointestinal diseases. Their

babies were born limbless or with Down's syndrome and

spina bifida. But it would be three years before the

US department of veterans' affairs reluctantly agreed

to back a medical investigation, examining 300,000

former servicemen - only a fraction of those who had

complained of being sick - with the government warning

all participants that it was indemnified from lawsuits

brought by them. When rumours began circulating that

President Reagan had told scientists not to make "any

link" between Agent Orange and the deteriorating

health of veterans, the victims lost patience with

their government and sued the defoliant manufacturers

in an action that was finally settled out of court in

1984 for $180m (£115m).

It would take the intervention of the former commander

of the US Navy in Vietnam, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, for

the government finally to admit that it had been aware

of the potential dangers of the chemicals used in

Vietnam from the start of Ranch Hand. The admiral's

involvement stemmed from a deathbed pledge to his son,

a patrol boat captain who contracted two forms of

cancer that he believed had been caused by his

exposure to Agent Orange. Every day during the war,

Captain Elmo Zumwalt Jr had swum in a river from which

he had also eaten fish, in an area that was regularly

sprayed with the herbicide. Two years after his son's

death in 1988, Zumwalt used his leverage within the

military establishment to compile a classified report,

which he presented to the secretary of the department

of veterans' affairs and which contained data linking

Agent Orange to 28 life-threatening conditions,

including bone cancer, skin cancer, brain cancer - in

fact, almost every cancer known to man - in addition

to chronic skin disorders, birth defects,

gastrointestinal diseases and neurological defects.

Zumwalt also uncovered irrefutable evidence that the

US military had dispensed "Agent Orange in

concentrations six to 25 times the suggested rate" and

that "4.2m US soldiers could have made transient or

significant contact with the herbicides because of

Operation Ranch Hand". This speculative figure is

twice the official estimate of US veterans who may

have been contaminated with TCCD.

Most damning and politically sensitive of all is a

letter, obtained by Zumwalt, from Dr James Clary, a

military scientist who designed the spray tanks for

Ranch Hand. Writing in 1988 to a member of Congress

investigating Agent Orange, Clary admitted: "When we

initiated the herbicide programme in the 1960s, we

were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin

contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware

that the military formulation had a higher dioxin

concentration than the civilian version, due to the

lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because

the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us

were overly concerned."

The Office of Genetic Counselling and Disabled

Children (OGCDC) operates out of a room little bigger

than a broom cupboard. Dr Viet Nhan and his 21

volunteers share their cramped quarters at Hue Medical

College with cerebral spinal fluid shunt kits donated

from Norfolk, Virginia; children's clothes given by

the Rotary Club of Osaka, Japan; second-hand computers

scavenged from banks in Singapore.

Vietnam's chaotic and underfunded national health

service cannot cope with the demands made upon it. The

Vietnamese Red Cross has registered an estimated one

million people disabled by Agent Orange, but has

sufficient funds to help only one fifth of them,

paying out an average of $5 (£3) a month. Dr Nhan

established the free OGCDC, having studied the impact

of Agent Orange as a student, to match Vietnamese

families to foreign private financial donors. "It was

only when I went out to the villages looking for case

studies that I realised how many families were

affected and how few could afford help," he says. "I

abandoned my research. Children need to run before

they die."

The walls of his room are plastered with bewildering

photographs of those he has helped: operations for

hernias and cleft palates, open-heart surgery and

kidney transplants. All of the patients come from

isolated districts in central Vietnam, villages whose

names will be unfamiliar, unlike the locations that

surround them: Khe Sanh, Hamburger Hill, Camp Carroll

and the Rock Pile. "I am not interested in

apportioning blame," Nhan says. "I don't want to talk

to you about science or politics. What I care about is

that I have 60 sick children needing financial

backers. They cannot wait for the US to change its

policy, take its head out of the sand and clear up the

mess."

He takes us into an intensive care ward to meet

nine-year-old Nguyen Van Tan, who two weeks before had

open-heart surgery to correct a birth defect thought

to be connected to dioxin poisoning. There is no hard

proof of this, but his father, who sits beside the

bed, talks of being sprayed with defoliants when he

fought with the Viet Cong. The area they live in was

repeatedly doused during the war. Almost all of his

former battlefield comrades have disabled children, he

says. Nhan ushers us away. "I don't want to tell the

family yet, but their boy will never fully recover. He

is already suffering from total paralysis. The most we

can do now is send them home with a little money."

Back in his tiny office, the doctor gestures to

photocopies of US Air Force maps, sent by a veterans'

organisation because the US government refuses to

supply them. These dizzying charts depict the number

of herbicide missions carried out over Quang Tri, a

province adjacent to the DMZ, from where almost all

Nhan's patients come. Its topography is obliterated by

spray lines, 741,143 gallons of chemicals dropped

here, more than 600,000 of them being Agent Orange.

"I'm just scratching the surface," he says.

The Vietnamese government is reluctant to let us

travel to Quang Tri province. It does not want us "to

poke and prod" already dismal villagers, treating them

as if they are medical exhibits. We attempt to recruit

some high-powered support and arrange a meeting in

Hanoi with Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, who until last year

was the vice-president of Vietnam. She receives us at

the presidential palace in a teak-panelled hall

beneath an enormous photograph of Ho Chi Minh in a

gold frame writhing with dragons. "Thank you, my young

friends, for your interest in Vietnam," Madame Binh

says, straightening her grey silk ao dai, a

traditional flowing trouser suit.

She looks genteel, but old photographs of her in olive

fatigues suggest she is a seasoned campaigner. As

minister of foreign affairs for the Provisional

Revolutionary South Vietnamese government, she

negotiated at the Paris peace talks in 1973. "I must

warn you, I will not answer questions about George W

Bush," she says, casting a steely gaze, perhaps

conscious of the fact that, since the lifting of the

US economic embargo in 1994, trade with America has

grown to £650m a year. Madame Binh does, however, want

to talk about chemical warfare, recalling how, when

she returned after the war to her home province of

Quang Nam, a lush region south-west of Hue which was

drenched in defoliants, she found "no sign of life,

just rubble and grass". She says: "All of our

returning veterans had a burning desire for children

to repopulate our devastated country. When the first

child was born with a birth defect, they tried again

and again. So many families now have four or five

disabled children, raising them without any hope."

What should the US do? Madame Binh laughs. "It's very

late to do anything. We put this issue directly on the

table with the US. So far they have not dealt with the

problem. If our relationship is ever to be normal, the

US has to accept responsibility. Go and see the

situation for yourself."

She sends us back to Hue. Over chilled water and

tangerines, we talk to a suspicious party secretary

who asks us why we have bothered to come after all

these years. "There is no point," he says. "Nothing

will come of it." But he opens his file all the same

and reads aloud: "In Hue city there are 6,633

households affected by Agent Orange and in them 3,708

sick children under the age of 16." He eventually

agrees to take us north-west, over the Perfume river,

beyond the ancient royal tombs that circle this former

imperial city, towards the DMZ. We arrive at a distant

commune where a handyman is sprucing up a bust of Ho

Chi Minh with white gloss paint. Eventually, the

chairman of the People's Committee of Dang Ha joins

us, and our political charabanc stuffed with seven

officials sets out across the green and gold

countryside, along crisscrossing lanes. The chairman

tells us proudly how he was born on January 31 1968,

the night of the Tet offensive, the turning point of

the war, when the Viet Cong launched its assault on US

positions. By the time we stop, we are all the best of

friends and, holding hands, he pulls us into the home

of the Pham family, where a wall of neighbours and an

assembly of local dignitaries dressed in shiny,

double-breasted jackets stare grimly at a moaning

child. He lies on a mat on the floor, his matchstick

limbs folded uselessly before him, his parents taking

it in turns to mop his mouth, as if without them he

would drown in his own saliva.

Hoi, the boy's mother, tells us how she met her

husband when they were assigned to the same Viet Cong

unit in which they fought together for 10 years. But

she alone was ordered to the battle of Troung Hon

mountain. "I saw this powder falling from the sky,"

she says. "I felt sick, had a headache. I was sent to

a field hospital. I was close to the gates of hell. By

the time I was discharged, I had lost the strength in

my legs and they have never fully recovered. Then Ky

was born, our son, with yellow skin. Every year his

problems get worse." Her husband, Hung, interrupts:

"Sometimes, we have been so desperate for money that

we have begged in the local market. I do not think you

can imagine the humiliation of that."

And this family is not alone. All the adults here,

cycling past us or strolling along the dykes, are

suffering from skin lesions and goitres that cling to

necks like sagging balloons. The women spontaneously

abort or give birth to genderless squabs that horrify

even the most experienced midwives. In a yard, Nguyen,

a neighbour's child, stares into space. He has a

hydrocephalic head as large as a melon. Two houses

down, Tan has distended eyes that bubble from his

face. By the river, Ngoc is sleeping, so wan he

resembles a pressed flower. "They told me the boy is

depressed," his exhausted father tells us. "Of course

he's depressed. He lives with disease and death."

This is not a specially constructed ghetto used to

wage a propaganda war against imperialism. The

Socialist Republic of Vietnam has long embraced the

free market. This is an ordinary hamlet where, in

these new liberal times, villagers like to argue about

the English Premiership football results over a glass

of home-brewed rice beer. Here live three generations

affected by Agent Orange: veterans who were sprayed

during the war and their successors who inherited the

contamination or who still farm on land that was

sprayed. Vietnam's impoverished scientific community

is now trying to determine if there will be a fourth

generation. "How long will this go on?" asks Dr Tran

Manh Hung, the ministry of health's leading

researcher.

Dr Hung is now working with a team of Canadian

environmental scientists, Hatfield Consultants, and

they have made an alarming discovery. In the Aluoi

Valley, adjacent to the Ho Chi Minh trail, once home

to three US Special Forces bases, a region where Agent

Orange was both stored and sprayed, the scientists'

analysis has shown that, rather than naturally

disperse, the dioxin has remained in the ground in

concentrations 100 times above the safety levels for

agricultural land in Canada. It has spread into

Aluoi's ponds, rivers and irrigation supplies, from

where it has passed into the food chain, through fish

and freshwater shellfish, chicken and ducks that store

TCCD in fatty tissue. Samples of human blood and

breast milk reveal that villagers have ingested the

invisible toxin and that pregnant women pass it

through the placenta to the foetus and then through

their breast milk, doubly infecting newborn babies. Is

it, then, a coincidence that in this minuscule region

of Vietnam, more than 15,000 children and adults have

already been registered as suffering from the usual

array of chronic conditions?

"We theorise that the Aluoi Valley is a microcosm of

the country, where numerous reservoirs of TCCD still

exist in the soil of former US military

installations," says Dr Wayne Dwernychuk,

vice-president of Hatfield Consultants. There may be

as many as 50 of these "hot spots", including one at

the former US military base of Bien Hoa, where,

according to declassified defence department

documents, US forces spilled 7,500 gallons of Agent

Orange on March 1 1970. Dr Arnold Schecter, a leading

expert in dioxin contamination in the US, sampled the

soil there and found it to contain TCCD levels that

were 180 million times above the safe level set by the

US environmental protection agency.

It is extremely difficult to decontaminate humans or

the soil. A World Health Organisation briefing paper

warns: "Once TCCD has entered the body it is there to

stay due to its uncanny ability to dissolve in fats

and to its rock solid chemical stability." At Aluoi,

the researchers recommended the immediate evacuation

of the worst affected villages, but to be certain of

containing this hot spot, the WHO also recommends

searing the land with temperatures of more than

1,000C, or encasing it in concrete before treating it

chemically.

At home, the US takes heed. When a dump at the Robins

Air Force Base in Georgia was found to have stored

Agent Orange, it was placed on a National Priority

List, immediately capped in five feet of clay and

sand, and has since been the subject of seven

investigations. Dioxin is now also a major domestic

concern, scientists having discovered that it is a

by-product of many ordinary industrial processes,

including smelting, the bleaching of paper pulp and

solid waste incineration. The US environmental

protection agency, pressed into a 12-year inquiry,

recently concluded that it is a "class-1 human

carcinogen".

The evidence is categoric. Last April, a conference at

Yale University attended by the world's leading

environmental scientists, who reviewed the latest

research, concluded that in Vietnam the US had

conducted the "largest chemical warfare campaign in

history". And yet no money is forthcoming, no aid in

kind. For the US, there has only ever been one

contemporary incident of note involving weapons of

mass destruction - Colin Powell told the UN Security

Council in February that, "in the history of chemical

warfare, no country has had more battlefield

experience with chemical weapons since world war one

than Saddam Hussein's Iraq".

The US government has yet to respond to the Hatfield

Consultants' report, which finally explains why the

Vietnamese are still dying so many years after the war

is over, but, last March, it did make its first

contribution to the debate in Vietnam. It signed an

agreement with a reluctant Vietnamese government for

an $850,000 (£543,000) programme to "fill identified

data gaps" in the study of Agent Orange. The

conference in Hanoi that announced the decision,

according to Vietnamese Red Cross representatives who

attended, ate up a large slice of this funding. One of

the signatories is the same US environmental

protection agency that has already concluded that

dioxin causes cancer.

"Studies can be proposed until hell freezes over,"

says Dr Dwernychuk of Hatfield Consultants, "but they

are not going to assist the Vietnamese in a

humanitarian sense one iota. We state emphatically

that no additional research on human health is

required to facilitate intervention or to protect the

local citizens."

There is cash to be lavished in Vietnam when the US

government sees it as politically expedient. Over the

past 10 years, more than $350m (£223m) has been spent

on chasing ghosts. In 1992, the US launched the Joint

Task Force-Full Accounting to locate 2,267 servicemen

thought to be missing in action in Vietnam, Cambodia

and Laos. Jerry O'Hara, spokesman for JTF-FA, which is

still searching for the remains of 1,889 of them, told

us, "We don't place a monetary value on what we do and

we'll be here until we have brought all of the boys

back home."

So it is that America continues to spend considerably

more on the dead than it does on the millions of

living and long-suffering - be they back home or in

Vietnam.

The science of chemical warfare fills a silent,

white-tiled room at Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh

City. Here, shelves are overburdened with research

materials. Behind the locked door is an iridescent

wall of the mutated and misshapen, hundreds of bell

jars and vacuum-sealed bottles in which human foetuses

float in formaldehyde. Some appear to be sleeping,

fingers curling their hair, thumbs pressing at their

lips, while others with multiple heads and mangled

limbs are listless and slumped. Thankfully, none of

these dioxin babies ever woke up.

One floor below, it is never quiet. Here are those who

have survived the misery of their births, ravaged

infants whom no one has the ability to understand,

babies so traumatised by their own disabilities,

luckless children so enraged and depressed at their

miserable fate, that they are tied to their beds just

to keep them safe from harm

11 million dead in Afghanistan and Iraq?

By Dr Gideon Polya

08 February, 2008

Countercurrents.org

The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the Afghan Government's "protection" of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as summarized below:

1. The US has a long history of "questionable" excuses for war e.g. the explosion of the Maine (the Spanish-American War), the sinking of the US arms-carrying Lusitania (entry into World War 1), the Pearl Harbor attack with now recognized US foreknowledge (entry into World War 2), North Koreans provoked into invading their own country (the Korean War), the fictitious Gulf of Tonkin incident (the Vietnam War; recently similarly but unsuccessfully attempted in the Persian Gulf as an "excuse" to attack Iran) and the extraordinary 1,000 post-9/11 lies told by Bush Administration figures, most notoriously about non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (the Iraq War; post-invasion excess deaths now about 1.5-2 million).

2. The US supported and funded Al Qaeda and the Taliban from the late 1970s to the early 1990s associated with its anti-Soviet policies (see William Blum's "Rogue State").

3. Oil- and hegemony-related plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were all ready to go before 9/11.

4. No Afghans were involved in the 9/11 attack according to the "official 9/11 story" of the egregiously dishonest Bush Administration.

5. Even the right-wing, neo-Bush-ite Democrat Al Gore in his recent book "The Assault on Reason" (Chapter 6, National Insecurity, pp178-179) condemns the Bush Administration for effective passive complicity in the 9/11 atrocity i.e. they let it happen, just as a fore-warned US Administration permitted the Pearl Harbor attack to happen in 1941: "Their behaviour, in my opinion, was reckless, but the explanation for it lies in hubris, not in some bizarre conspiracy theory …These affirmative and repeated refusals to listen to clear warnings [prior to 9/11] constitute behaviour that goes beyond simple negligence. At a minimum, it represents a reckless disregard for the safety of the American people."

6. However, further to point #5, the extremely eminent former 7-year President of Italy, law professor, senator for life and long-term Western intelligence intimate Francesco Cossiga recently (November 2007) told one of Italy's top newspapers that (a) the US CIA and Israeli Mossad committed the 9/11 outrage in order to further US and Zionist aims and that (b) major Western intelligence agencies are well aware of this (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18569/26/ ).

As of February 2008, analysis of UNICEF data (see UNICEF statistics on Occupied Afghanistan: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html ) allows the following estimate of 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) in Occupied Afghanistan:

1. annual under-5 infant deaths 370,000.

2. post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million (90% avoidable).

3. post-invasion avoidable under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million.

4. post-invasion non-violent excess deaths 3.2 million (2.3 million /0.7 = 3.3 million; for impoverished, worst case Third world countries the under-5 infant deaths are about 0.7 of total non-violent excess deaths (see A Layperson's Guide to counting Iraq deaths: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/5872/26/ ).

5. post-invasion violent deaths about 3.3 million (assuming roughly 1 violent death for every non-violent avoidable death i.e. roughly as in US-occupied Occupied Iraq where the ratio of violent deaths to non-violent excess deaths is 0.8-1.2 million to 0.7-0.8 million; see Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1... ).

6. upper estimate of non-violent plus violent post-invasion excess deaths 3.3 million + 3.3 million = 6.6 million excess deaths.

For detailed documentation of the above see "Australian complicity in continuing Afghan genocide": http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ . A major cause of the carnage is revealed by WHO (see: http://www.who.int/en/ ) -- the "total annual per capita medical expenditure" permitted by the Occupiers in Occupied Afghanistan is a mere $19 -- as compared to as compared to $2,560 (the UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096 (the US). This is in gross contravention of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ) which unequivocally demands that the Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical requisites to its Conquered Subjects "to the fullest extent of the means available to it". Compounding this is the appalling reality of 4 million Afghan refugees.

What is happening in Afghanistan is an Afghan Holocaust. One sees that post-invasion under-5 infant deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (2.3 million) vastly exceeds the number of Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 (1.5 million). The upper estimate of post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan (6.6 million out of an average 2001-2008 Afghan population of about 25 million) exceeds the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis in World War 2 ( 5.6 million out of 8.2 million Jews in German-occupied Europe in the period 1941-1945) (see: Gilbert, M. (1969), Jewish History Atlas (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London) and Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states "In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

From the data summarized above, it is apparent that the Afghan Holocaust is also an Afghan Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention.

Outstanding US Law academic Professor Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law, Topeka, Kansas has also described what is going on in Afghanistan as genocide i.e. an Afghan Genocide (see "NATO Genocide in Afghanistan": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19831/42/ ).

The key legal verdict of Professor Khan is as follows: "The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (entered into force, 1951) is binding on all states including the 26 member states of NATO. The Genocide Convention is jus cogens, the law from which no derogation is allowed. It provides no exceptions for any nation or any organization of nations, such as the United Nations or NATO, to commit genocide. Nor does the Convention allow any exceptions to genocide "whether committed in time of peace or in time of war." Even traditional self-defense - let alone preemptive self-defense, a deceptive name for aggression -- cannot be invoked to justify or excuse the crime of genocide."

Professor Khan proceeds to analyse the campaign of extermination of the Indigenous Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to International law. He states that in relation to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention "In murdering the Taliban, NATO armed forces systematically practice on a continual basis the crime of genocide that consists of three constituent elements - act, intent to destroy, and religious group." His detailed analysis can be succinctly summarized as follows:

1. "The Genocidal Act" is prohibited as defined in the Genocide Convention as "a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" -- but is is clearly occurring on a huge scale as indicated by the above data.

2. "The Genocidal Intent" is expressed in the Genocide Convention as "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group"- but is clearly present in the statements of the NATO leaders. The "Intent" is also apparent from the sustained, resolute conduct of this horrendously bloody war for over 6 years.

3. "The Genocidal targeting of a Religious Group" is clearly prohibited by the Genocide Convention by "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" -- but is clearly being carried out with the accompaniment of immense Islamophobic propaganda in the West.

Professor Khan concludes: "It may, therefore, be safely concluded that NATO combat troops and NATO commanders are engaged in murdering the Taliban, a protected group under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to physically and mentally destroy the group in whole or in part. This is the crime of genocide."

As an agnostic humanist I certainly don't care for the Taliban beliefs -- but what agnostic humanists (such as myself) or people of other philosophic persuasions think about the religious beliefs and interpretations of the Taliban is beside the point from the perspective of the UN Genocide Convention.

And while I strongly object to human rights violations by the Taliban (especially in relation to women and application of their extreme interpretations of Sharia Law) one has to objectively give credit to the Taliban for (a) bringing Peace through victory in the middle 1990s and (b) for destroying 95% of the Afghan opium production in 2001 (as well of course banning the vastly more deadly use of alcohol and for prohibiting Afghan Government employees from the even more deadly practice of smoking tobacco in 1997). Smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 7 million people annually, the breakdown being 5 million (tobacco), 1.8 million (alcohol) and 0.2 million (from illicit drugs, about half opiate drug-related).

It can be estimated that 0.6 million people have died world-wide due to opiates in the last 6 years, about 0.5 million of these deaths being due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share (2001) to 93% (2007) (see UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, World Drug Report 2007: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/world_drug_report.html ).

The 0.5 million global US-NATO-linked opiate drug-related deaths plus 6.6 million post-invasion Afghan excess deaths bring an upper estimate of the carnage due to the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan to 7.1 million deaths. If we include excess deaths associated with UK-US actions against Iraq in the period 1990-2008 (about 4 million) then the gruesome carnage of the Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars now totals about 11 million excess deaths (and this ignores the impact of the Bush Wars through oil price rises and other factors on Third World avoidable deaths).

Occupied Afghanistan is the New Auschwitz of the US and its complicit allies (including former Axis countries Germany and Japan who have on US instigation joined the US-NATO Afghan Genocide) (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7616/26/ ).

Those Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite politicians, military and Mainstream media executives complicit in the Afghan Genocide should be arraigned before the International Criminal Court (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/ ).

In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm ), UK playwright Harold Pinter urged the arraignment of Bush and Blair before the International Criminal Court for war crimes and stated "How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought."

Eleven million? More than enough, I would have thought.

Off subject, as if there ever was one, Bush is going to be the sitting president for another two years. So don't worry about your guns.

Boozkaman:

I can say that the closest I've been to combat is whatever war movie I've decided to watch so I am no expert on what happens in combat. I do however have common sense enough to know that the only people required to follow "rules" are Americans and that alot of these countries wouldn't hesitate to put a gun in the hands of a child and use them in their war. I think it is sad to see that Jacknife, I'm guessing a grown man, believes everything he reads in the news. I am curious if he stills believes in Santa Claus?

Sorry that wasn't a mature comment at all but one has to question whether or not everything they read is true. I could write something, does that make it true? I am curious Jacknife what makes writing true to you, is it when the writing is exactly what you want to hear or believe? All you've managed to post was one sided biased writing.

If you've never been to VietNam or The War In Iraq you have nothing to say because you have no idea what a life like that does to a person. You don't know what it is like to take a person's life or watch your friends life be taken right in front of your face. You have no idea what its like not to be able to sleep for fear that the enemy will slit your throat, you don't know how it feels to have to watch your back not knowing who the enemy really is whether it be men, women, or children. And you don't know what it is like to be that far away from home with no contact from your family, except maybe the occasional letter, but that is not comfort during the holidays that you spend in a hell hole.

Maybe we should all stick to a more mutually respected source.

George Washington, upon leaving the presidency, warned Americans to avoid foreign entanglements. And I see no reason a visit to the brutality of Vietnam, Iraq, Sri Lanka, or China would prove his words less wise.

This isn't to say anyone can wave a magic wand and undo the damage done by decades of entanglement - it will or would take decades to move U.S. foreign policy away from the interventionism perpetrated by both Republicans and Democrats.

So it's biased because it is not the bias of the mainstream media that is controlled by a government that would lie to it's citizens at every turn? Is that it, Missylynn?

And Missylynn, I believe in Santa Clause, like I believe the American Government is an upstanding and holy institution.

If America was/is a nation under god, then yeah we should be following the rules set forth in Geneva Conventions, Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Geneva Protocol of 1925. We should not be above the law just because other countries decide to play dirty. We should be the example, and so far we're pretty bad examples.

The Supreme Court has rejected Leo Donofrio's standing to challenge the definition of "natural-born citizen" and to assert a man born on U.S. soil to a U.S.-born mother and British citizen-father does not meet eligibility.

Whichever agency checked the validity of the birth certificates of Bush, or Clinton or Bush, or Reagan or Carter, or Ford, Nixon or Johnson, I suppose, still could do it. But no one seems to know which agency did.

It was brought up in the "beginning" of the campaign, it's what prompted Obama to take the unprecedented step of releasing a copy of his birth certificate in June or July - a copy verified as accurate by independent groups.

Even then, there was plenty of time for a state to pass a law mandating disclosure of documentation to the SDS or state elections board for ALL candidates (though such a law would still be a load of garbage considering no one seems to have felt the need to confirm the validity of ANY past presidents' citizenship.)

Instead, after attacking "judicial activism" for a decade or more, Alan Keyes signs on to a law suit to request the courts and not the legislatures add steps to the process. But hey, he's a conservative - if he didn't have double-standards, he wouldn't have standards at all.