More U.S. troops killed by Halliburton than by Iraqis

By David Swanson, American Herald Tribune

The U.S. government, from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton, told blatant lies about the Iraqi government creating chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in 2002, despite having been informed of the fact that Iraq was doing no such thing. U.S. leaders lied about ties between Iraq and terrorists that they also knew did not exist.

Then the U.S. military attacked and invaded Iraq, in the process heavily bombing old sites of Iraqi chemical weapons from the 1980s, many of those weapons having been provided by the United States. In large part because of the U.S. origin of the old Iraqi chemical weapons, the U.S. kept quiet about them during the new war. Another reason for the official silence was that, during the 2003 U.S. destruction of Iraq, many of those old weapons were seized by fledgling terrorist groups. The war had done exactly what it had been justified as being needed to prevent; it had given WMDs to terrorists.

The geniuses running the U.S. military set up U.S. bases at the sites of old chemical weapons piles, dug giant burn pits into the ground, and began burning the military’s trash — monumental quantities of trash, something like The Story of Stuff on steroids. They burned hundreds of tons of trash every day, including everything you can think of: oil, rubber, tires, treated wood, medicines, pesticides, asbestos, plastic, explosives, paint, human body parts, and . . . (wait for it) . . . nuclear, biological, and chemical decontamination materials.

The burn pits poisoned Iraq, together with depleted uranium weapons, napalm, white phosphorous, and various other horrors, creating unprecedented epidemics of birth defects, and killing untold masses of Iraqis. The burn pits also poisoned tens of thousands of U.S. troops, many of whom have died as a result, including very likely the son of the current U.S. vice president. The burn pits profited Halliburton, the company of the previous U.S. vice president.

The burn pits were no secret, although bases sometimes stopped the burning during VIP tours. Typically, huge clouds of smoke filled the air and created immediate breathing difficulties and sicknesses. Soldiers knew which colors of smoke were most dangerous and discussed it as they discussed an enemy. Numerous burn pits turned hundreds of previously healthy U.S. troops into invalids. But the burn pits at six particular bases caused the most severe illnesses and the most deaths. They caused, among other things, numerous cases of constrictive bronchiolitis, which could only have resulted from exposure to mustard gas — a chemical weapon left over from a program the United States had supported when it existed and used as an excuse for war when it didn’t.

I’m reminded of a ship that sits at the bottom of the Mediterranean. In 1943, German bombs sank a U.S. ship at Bari, Italy, that was secretly carrying a million pounds of mustard gas. Many of the U.S. sailors died from the poison, which the United States dishonestly claimed to have been using as a “deterrent,” despite keeping it secret. The ship is expected to continue leaking the gas into the sea for centuries. The earth and water of Iraq have been similarly poisoned, as have U.S. soldiers.

The Pentagon made crystal clear in Iraq, as most everywhere else, that it cares not a damn for the people or the natural environment of the places it attacks, and that it cares even less for the troops it uses to do so. But if you imagine that the Pentagon has reserved its concern for the civilian inhabitants of the Fatherland, don’t look too closely into the open-air burns still happening in the United States. The U.S. military is the third-largest polluter of U.S. waterways, top producer of superfund disaster sites, and top consumer of petroleum. At least 33,480 U.S. nuclear weapons workers who have received compensation for health damage are now dead. Where it is blocked by legal regulations effectively enforced, the military shows restraint; where it isn’t, it doesn’t. In Virginia, the military very responsibly throws dead soldiers into a landfill rather then burning them. Either method communicates equally well just how much the military cares.

Halliburton, for its part, is as happy to deal death at home as abroad. Residents of Duncan, Oklahoma, have sued Cheney’s cash machine for poisoning the ground water with ammonium perchlorate. Government investigators also concluded that Halliburton was, in part, to blame for the BP oil spill that flooded into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Joseph Hickman’s new book, The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers, collects the evidence, including from similar incidents during the first Gulf War that were known before the first 2003 burn pit was dug and lit. Hickman gives us stories of young healthy men who headed off to Iraq believing the lies, believing that the U.S. government that is now begging Russia to stop attacking terrorists because the U.S. wants to overthrow yet another government — believing that this U.S. government had good intentions in attacking Iraq. These poor souls went to Iraq hoping to protect people from horrible suffering, and ended up inflicting horrible suffering on people including themselves. They come home, develop cancer, get stonewalled by the VA, and die dreaming of what it might have been to have health and the wealth needed to attend college. Their American Dream was cut short by the militarized American Fantasy.

Joe Biden supported a war that very likely killed his son by means of burn pits. He then chose not to run for president because of his grief. His decision not to run received more media coverage than several months of the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders who had voted against the war. But did Biden lift a finger to hold Halliburton or the military or the Congress accountable? Not that I’ve heard.

Hickman describes the burn pits, and analogous poisons from past wars like Agent Orange in Vietnam, as “recklessly endangering the health of our fighting men and women.” The only trouble with this is the fact that all war, all “fighting,” consists of recklessly endangering the lives of the vast bulk of the victims (the Vietnamese, Iraqis, etc.) and of the U.S. troops. There’s nothing non-reckless about any war. Perhaps distant drone pilots are not endangered in the typical way, but then look at how they’re mocked within the Air Force. If troops weren’t endangered, people wouldn’t treat them with reverence and describe them — as Hickman does — as somehow “serving” their country, even while the facts he includes in his book speak otherwise.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held since 1950 that members and former members of the military cannot sue over injuries received on the job. It may, however, still prove possible to win compensation from Halliburton. If so, you can probably chalk up another assist to Chelsea Manning who leaked evidence that the military had knowledge of the dangers when it created the burn pits, knowledge that General David Petraeus blatantly lied about in response to a Congressional inquiry.

It now appears that the 2003- war on Iraq not only created ISIS, but armed it with mustard gas, thereby proving, I guess, that Saddam Hussein could indeed had given WMDs to terrorists had he just been as evil as the U.S. military.

David Swanson

Johnson & Johnson Ordered To Pay $72 Million For Ovarian Cancer Death Linked To Baby Powder – Here Are The Details

Johnson & Johnson, an American multinational corporation that specializes in developing medical devices and selling pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods, has been ordered to pay $72 million US dollars to the family of a woman whose death from ovarian cancer was linked to her decades-long use of the company’s talc-based Baby Powder and Shower.

The decision was made last Monday by a Missouri state jury, and The Globe & Mail has shared details of the verdict:

Jurors in the circuit court of St. Louis awarded the family of Jacqueline Fox $10-million of actual damages and $62 million of punitive damages, according to the family’s lawyers and court records. . . . Johnson & Johnson faces claims that it, in an effort to boost sales, failed for decades to warn consumers that its talc-based products could cause cancer.

Approximately 1,000 more cases have been filed in Missouri state court, and another 200 in New Jersey, but this may well be the tip of the iceberg. In this specific case, jurors actually found Johnson & Johnson liable for fraud, negligence, and conspiracy. Jere Beasly, a lawyer for the family of the victim, revealed that Johnson & Johnson “knew as far back as the 1980s of the risk,” and yet resorted to “lying to the public, lying to the regulatory agencies.”

A Johnson & Jonson spokeswomen, however, continued to negate these claims:

We have no higher responsibility than the health and safety of consumers, and we are disappointed with the outcome of the trial. We sympathize with the plaintiff’s family but firmly believe the safety of cosmetic talc is supported by decades of scientific evidence

The ‘decades of scientific evidence’ to which she refers clearly have not withstood the scrutiny of either this trial or concerned members of the public; it also fails to account for who funded the research. Her remark also makes plain a disturbing trend amongst big corporations, which is the blind trust of their employees. Many clearly believe what they are told about the products they represent, without questioning or doing their own independent research.

Scientific fraud induced by major corporations in this field is no secret, and various medical experts around the world have been speaking out against it for decades. Dr. Richard Horton, current Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, one of the largest medical journals in the world, has publicly and unequivocally called out the scientific community for this negligence and outright fraud:

The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. (source)

The sheer volume of statements from very credible people, along with the documents and evidence, attesting to this disturbing trend, is simply overwhelming. (You can find more information and view more examples/statements in an article we recently published about anti-depressant drugs here.) Yet the unfortunate reality is that employees of these big corporations stand behind their products, working under the assurances of corporately-funded science which, obviously, has profit in mind rather than safety. This is a widespread and alarming problem, and it’s great to see more people raise their voice against these shady practices. Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), is another such professional to do so:

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. (source)

It’s no secret that many household products are toxic to our health. Science has been confirming their dangers for years now (not that many of us needed this confirmation); these products are literally littered with a number of hazardous harmful chemicals. Researchers in the UK, for example, found that domestic products such as anti-insect sprays, deodorants, cleaning products, cosmetics, and more contain a number of cancer causing chemicals. The researchers, from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who concluded that these types of everyday household products maybe be contributing to 100,000 deaths every single year in Europe, warn that the public remains unaware of these risks.

Another example of an insider speaking out against the industry is Foster Gamble, the direct descendant of one of the founders of Procter & Gamble (a company similar to Johnson & Johnson). He himself explains that he was groomed for the establishment, but his ethical concerns prompted him to change direction.

To the left you will see a picture of him with Gerald Ford. Foster decided to leave the business and instead raise awareness about many issues, including the hazards associated with everyday household products that the corporations like his father’s manufacture.

He’s had an interesting life to say the least, and you can watch a documentary he released a few years ago here.

A Few Of Many Products You Don’t Want To Have In Your Home…

Unfortunately, many personal care products, like the ones made by Johnson & Johnson, are demonstrably dangerous to our health, and putting these products on our skin makes absolutely no sense. Cancer, for example, is caused by physical carcinogens, chemical carcinogens, and biological carcinogens, all of which we surround ourselves with on a daily basis, and all of which can be found in various personal care products, such as many deodorants.

We recently wrote an article about how to prevent breast cancer through an armpit detox. The article goes into detail about concerns with regards to aluminum, and how substances put on our skin do not take long to penetrate and find their way into the bloodstream.

Corporate manufacturers also approve thousands upon thousands of chemicals for use in cosmetics. This in-house validation is all that is necessary to get a product onto the shelves, there being no regulatory process for approving these chemicals, leaving plenty of room for bias to influence the decision.

Again, chemicals are very effectively absorbed via your skin. For example, the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Manitoba, Canada, conducted a study to quantify how many sunscreen agents penetrate the skin after it is applied, and their results demonstrated significant penetration of all sunscreen agents into the skin. We are talking about multiple chemicals entering multiple tissues within the body. (source)

The dangers are generally multiplied for women, as they tend to use several different products on a daily basis. This combining of products can contribute to an overload of toxic chemicals. Makeup, for example, is a huge source for heavy metals. In the report “Heavy Metal Hazard: The Health Risks of Hidden Heavy Metals In Face Make up,” Environmental Defense tested 49 different makeup items, including foundations, concealers, powders, blushes, mascaras, eye liners, eye shadows, lipsticks, and lip glosses. Their testing revealed serious heavy metal contamination in virtually all of their products:

The Environmental Working Group has a great database to help you find personal care products that are free of potentially dangerous chemicals. Better yet, simplify your routine and make your own products. A slew of lotions, potions, and hair treatments can be eliminated with a jar of coconut oil, for example, to which you can add a high quality essential oil for scent.

Having commercial cleaning products in your home is not a smart idea either. Combined with all of the above products, and all of the below, it becomes easy to understand the dramatic rise in disease we’ve seen over the past few decades.

We’ve covered this topic before, and outlined why these products are dangerous and what alternatives you can use instead. “Why We All Need To Stop Cleaning With Bleach” is a great example, so check it out if you’re interested to see where we are coming from.

Alternatives include baking soda, white vinegar, lemon juice, hydrogen peroxide, liquid castile soap, organic essential oils, mixing bowls, spray bottles, microfiber cloths, and more.

Why is it that these products could be manufactured to be much less hazardous, and in some cases cheaper, but aren’t? It’s not hard to see why so many people believe that corporations have no qualms about contributing to the decline of human health. It’s a scary thought to be sure, but there are things to do and preventative measures/ lifestyle changes you can make.

It is ironic that we are always talking about raising money and finding a cure for cancer without ever discussing cancer prevention. How can we ever hope to tackle a problem without addressing its source?

Air fresheners have become a staple in many American homes and offices, marketed with the promise of creating a clean, healthy, and sweet-smelling indoor atmosphere. But many of these products contain phthalates (pronounced thal-ates) – hazardous chemicals known to cause hormonal abnormalities, birth defects, and reproductive problems. NRDC’s independent testing of 14 common air fresheners, none of which listed phthalates as an ingredient, uncovered these chemicals in 86 percent (12 of 14) of the products tested, including those advertised as “all natural” or “unscented.” (source) (source)

About the author

Arjun Walia

1991 Government Document Confirms TDAP Vaccine Causes Microcephaly

Kerry weighs ‘genocide’ label for Islamic State

John Kerry testifies on Capitol Hill, Feb. 24, 2016. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Secretary of State John Kerry signaled today that he plans to decide soon whether to formally accuse the Islamic State of genocide amid what sources describe as an intense debate within the Obama administration about how such a declaration should be worded and what it might mean for U.S. strategy against the terrorist group.

“None of us have ever seen anything like it in our lifetimes,” Kerry said during a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday about beheadings and atrocities committed by the Islamic State.

But in response to questioning by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican who has been spearheading a resolution in Congress demanding the administration invoke an international treaty against genocide, Kerry was careful not to tip his hand on what has turned into a thorny internal legal debate with political and potentially military consequences.

Saying the department was reviewing “very carefully the legal standards and precedents” for a declaration of genocide against the Islamic State, Kerry added that he had received “initial recommendations” on the issue but had then asked for “further evaluations.”

In his first public comments on the issue, Kerry said he “will make a decision on this” as soon as he receives those evaluations. He didn’t elaborate on when that might occur.

The administration’s plans to invoke the powerfully evocative genocide label — an extremely rare move — was first reported by Yahoo News last November. But at the time, the State Department was focused on restricting the designation to the Islamic State’s mass killings, beheadings and enslavement of the Yazidis — a relatively small minority group of about 500,000 in northern Iraq that the terrorist group has vowed to wipe out on the grounds they are “devil worshipers.”

The disclosure set off a strong backlash among members of Congress and Christian groups who argued that Islamic State atrocities against Iraqi and Syrian Christians and other smaller minority groups also deserved the genocide label. Some conservatives even chastised the administration for displaying a “politically correct bias that views Christians … never as victims but always as Inquisition-style oppressors.”

The issue has since made its way into the presidential campaign; Sen. Marco Rubio has signed a Senate version of a House resolution, co-sponsored by Fortenberry and Rep. Anna Eshoo, for a broader genocide designation that incorporates Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and other groups. Hillary Clinton has also endorsed such as move. In response to a question from a voter at a New Hampshire town hall last December about whether she believes Christians as well as Yazidis should be declared victims of genocide, she said, “I will, because we now have enough evidence.”

But administration sources and others intimately familiar with the internal debate say the issue has proven more complicated. While ISIS has openly declared its intention of destroying the Yazidis, they argue, the terrorist group’s leaders have not made equally explicit statements about Christians even while committing killings, kidnappings, forced removals and the confiscation and destruction of churches aimed at Christian groups. As a result, administration officials and State Department lawyers have weighed labeling those acts “crimes against humanity” — a step that critics have said doesn’t go far enough. “We’ve been trying to tell them, crimes against humanity are not a bronze medal,” said one administration official, contending that it should not be viewed as a less serious designation.

Kerry seemed to hint as much in his responses to Fortenberry at Wednesday’s hearing, noting that Christians in Syria “and other places” have been forcibly removed from their homes. “There have been increased, forced evacuations,” he said. “No, its not — they are killing them in that case — but it’s a removal and a cleansing, ethnically and religiously, that is equally disturbing.”

At the same time, two sources familiar with the debate said, Pentagon officials have expressed concerns that a genocide designation would morally obligate the U.S. military to take steps — such as protecting endangered populations or using drones to identify enslaved women — that could divert resources from the campaign to defeat the Islamic State. (An administration official told Yahoo News Wednesday that any such concerns have not been raised in “interagency” discussions over the genocide issue. “There is no resource issue,” the official said.)