John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN PRESS TV
'Poisoning the Pacific' details US military's secret
dumping of poison into Far East
The new book, written by British journalist Jon Mitchell,
details how the US military has been disposing toxic substances, including
plutonium, dioxin, and VX nerve agent in the Pacific for many years
This kind of revelation is disturbing but not unexpected.
The American military is likely the greatest polluter on earth.
America has somewhere between 800 to 1,000 bases abroad. Imagine the pollution generated just by all the planes, ships, and trucks needed to keep them supplied, and to North American standards of consumption, and the endless mountains of trash generated.
And then there’s the filthy stuff like chemicals, used engine oil, and spilled fuel, broken or outdated machinery and equipment, and used ammunition scattered over land and sea in shooting practice.
Remember the controversy over "burn pits" used at military bases? Everything unwanted, vast amounts of stuff, was just dumped into them, soaked with fuel, and burned. The smoke and fumes made a lot of Americans very sick.
Depleted uranium dust is scattered all over the Middle East from American munitions, undoubtedly causing thousands of cancers over decades. The great weight of uranium produces shells which strike with great force so they can pierce armor, but every shell fired distributes a cloud of poisonous dust that will last for a very long time.
When the US left Vietnam, it left a beautiful land with so many bomb craters, areas were said to resemble the moon. And it had dumped thousands of tons of Agent Orange in the forests. And it left behind countless land mines that would keep killing farmers for decades.
