To say the least, these fourth-estate news media and politically oriented congressional critiques need to go much deeper. After all, they too have been intricately responsible, failing on many occasions to blow the whistles on such scandals.
How does this writer possibly know that in detail? For well over a decade, he wrote scores of regular and investigative news stories, for The Hartford Courant and freelance news sites, about how at least three dangerous military products were manufactured by the US corporate medical and munitions world. Here are just a few: click here
Instead of helping service members threatened in overseas conflicts, U.S. depleted-uranium munitions and cluster bombs helped kill and maim thousands of them on the battle fields, particularly during the War in Iraq. And, scores of U.S. service members became seriously ill after being inoculated with the mandatory, but sickening, anthrax vaccine. It was first manufactured by the government and then a separate drug company.
That vaccine, originally used to combat disease contracted by livestock from bacteria, became developed for military personnel in the initial Gulf War as well as the later one. Although anthrax bacteria was believed by the defense department to become a biological warfare weapon for the Iraqis, it never became a viable threat. What became a threat was the vaccine itself as many forced to use it were hospitalized or needed regular medical care. For a few, the vaccine was allegedly fatal.
In the meantime, U.S. forces were using at least two defective munitions extensively during the Iraqi war. Depleted-uranium shells were being regularly fired at armored vehicles including Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Abrams Tanks. While crushing enemy armor, the shells created massive, dangerous and unhealthy radioactive dust inhaled by U.S., allied, and enemy troops all over the battlefields.
While the dust was creating sicknesses for thousands on battlefields, the U.S. was firing cluster bombs from the air or the ground. The bombs were loaded with little bomblets exploding off the ground to kill the enemy or destroy their vehicles. However, thousands of the bomblets did not explode and became dangerous to those service members not familiar with them.
For instance, said USA Today, "The little canisters dropped onto the city (of Baghdad), white ribbons trailing behind. They clattered into streets, landed in lemon trees, rattled around on roofs, settled onto lawns," in April 2003, killing four people.
Here's
what this writer reported on for The Hartford Courant: "The (Courant's)
articles were followed by a U.S. General Accountability inquiry and by (former)
Connecticut Republican U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays' call for a congressional
inquiry into future Army plans for U.S. use of the bomblets, also known as
'metal rain.'"
At that time, U.S. Army weapons experts were admittedly aware that the rocket
system, carrying the bomblets, was faulty. Their own tests before the war
showed that the rocket-launched bomblets had a dud rate as high as 23 percent,
far higher than the 3 percent to 5 percent rate that the Army deems acceptable,
the GAO's conclusions said.
Because National Guard troops were not properly trained in handling the
bomblets or even knowing their dangers, more troops were injured or
killed by them than by any other ground-explosive munition. They picked them up as
souvenirs, kicked or stepped on them. An undisclosed number of Iraqi
civilians were also maimed or killed.
After the war, bomb specialists from the U.S. and allied forces spent several
million dollars carefully picking up the dud bomblets to keep soldiers and
civilians out of harm's way.
But the Iraq war was just one of twenty or more major conflicts since this country was born in which there was plenty of room for more effective action by the government, the press, and veterans' supporting agencies to do a much better job protecting those war wounded and diseased military-service members. And what about the public? Wouldn't their more intensive protests to government and the press help?
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