Промышленный лизинг Промышленный лизинг  Методички 

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confessed only after being subjected to great mental and physical duress, and at least one case of a beating. And some did not necessarily know what they were dropping in their supposed explosive or leaflet bombs. When the pilots came home after the war, they retracted their confessions, but that was under threat of court martial, even charges of treason , said the US Attorney General, and other threatened punishments-in short, great mental duress. 4

It should be noted that it was revealed in 1979 that the US Army had experimented within the United States with the use of turkey feathers to conduct biological warfare.5

Moreover, in December 1951, the US Secretary of Defense had ordered that actual readiness be achieved in the earliest practicable time for offensive use of biological weapons. Within weeks, the chief of staff of the Air Force reported that such capabilities are rapidly materializing . 6

The United States also dropped huge amounts of napalm on Korea, an average of 70,000 gallons daily in 1952.7

And in 1980 it was disclosed for the first time that during the 1967-69 period, the US had sprayed Agent Orange over 23,607 acres of the southern boundary of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, in order to strip vegetation and discourage North Korean infiltration.8

Vietnam

For about a decade beginning in the early 1960s, the United States sprayed tens of thousands of tons of herbicides over three million acres of South Vietnam (as well as parts of Laos and Cambodia) to wipe out the foliage used as a cover by the enemy and to destroy crops. The herbicides, particularly the extensively-used Agent Orange, polluted Vietnam with some five hundred pounds of dioxin, a nearly indestructible pollutant that is regarded as one of the most toxic substances in the world-at least as toxic as nerve gas, and highly carcinogenic. Amongst other health effects associated with exposure to dioxin are metabolic disorders, immunological abnormali-ties, reproductive abnormalities, and neuro-psychiatric disorders.9 Three ounces in the water supply is thought to be enough to wipe out the population of New York. 10

As many as two million people were affected by these poisons in Vietnam (in addition to many thousands of American soldiers). There have been reports of high levels of birth defects in areas which were saturated with Agent Orange, and the Vietnam government estimates that the various chemicals have contributed to birth defects in 500,000 children, although this has not been documented. 11 No compensation has ever been paid by the United States to the Vietnamese people or government for any damage to health.

In addition, the US Army employed CS, DM and CN gases, which, Washington officials insisted, did not constitute gas warfare . They designated these gases as riot control



agents. The Army pumped CS gas-a violent purgative that causes uncontrollable vom-iting-into Vietnamese tunnels and caves, causing many Vietcong to choke to death on their own vomit in the confined spaces. 12 The North Vietnamese branch of the International Red Cross and other international sources reported numerous deaths amongst women and children from these gases, as well as injuries such as destroyed eyeballs, blistered faces and scorched and erupted skin. 13 US Deputy Secretary of Defense Cyrus Vance admitted that cyanide and arsenic compounds were being used as well.14 Other harmful chemicals employed by the US in Vietnam were napalm and naphthalene flame throwers.

Laos

In September 1970, American forces in Laos, acting under Operation Tailwind, used aerosolized sarin nerve gas (referred to also as CBU-15 or GB) to prepare their entry in an attack upon a Laotian village base camp, with the object of killing a number of American military defectors who were reported to be there. The operation succeeded in killing in excess of 100 people, military and civilian, including at least two Americans. How many died before the attack from the gas and how many from the attack itself is not known.

Sarin, which was developed in Germany in the 1930s, can kill within minutes after inhalation of its vapor. A tiny drop of it on the skin will do the same; it may even penetrate ordinary clothing. It works by inhibiting an enzyme needed to control muscle movements. Without the enzyme, the body has no means of stopping the activa-tion of muscles, and any physical horror is possible.

When the invading Americans were making their getaway, they were confronted by a superior force of North Vietnamese and com-munist Pathet Lao soldiers. The Americans called for help from the air. Very shortly, US planes were overhead dropping canisters of sarin upon the enemy. As the canisters exploded, a wet fog enveloped the enemy soldiers, who dropped to the ground, vomiting and convulsing. Some of the gas spread towards the Americans, not all of whom were adequately protected. Some began vomiting violently. Today, one of them suffers from creeping paralysis, which his doctor diagnoses as nerve-gas damage. 15

This story was reported on June 7, 1998, on the TV program NewsStand: CNN & Time , and featured Admiral Thomas Moorer, who had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1970, as well as lesser military personnel, both on and off camera, who corroborated the incidents described above.

Then all hell broke loose. This was a story too much in conflict-painfully so-with American schoolbooks, Readers Digest, the flag, apple pie and mom. It was damage-control time. The big guns were called out-Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Green Beret veterans, the journalistic elite, the Pentagon itself. The story was wrong, absurd, slanderous, they all cried. CNN retracted, Moorer retracted, the shows producers were fired...lawsuits all over the place...16



Like the dissidents who became non-persons under Stalin, Operation Tailwind is now officially a non-event .

Notwithstanding this, the programs producers, April Oliver and Jack Smith, put together a 77-page document supporting their side of the story, with actual testimony by military personnel confirming the use of the nerve gas. 17

Panama

From the 1940s to the 1990s, the United States used various parts of Panama as a testing ground for all manner of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, VX, sarin, hydrogen cyanide and other nerve agents, in such forms as mines, rockets and shells; perhaps tens of thousands of chemical munitions in total. Some of the earlier tests used US troops as guinea pigs, with horrific results for some of the soldiers. When the US military vacated Panama at the end of 1999, it left behind many sites containing chemical and conventional weapons residue, including numerous chemical weapons (dropped from planes) which failed to detonate. Since 1979, 21 Panamanians have died from accidents with unexploded conventional weapons.18

The US military also conducted secret tests of Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides in Panama during the 1960s and 1970s, potentially exposing many civilians and military personnel to these lethal chemicals. Hundreds of drums of dioxin-containing Agent Orange were shipped to Panama. Spraying was carried out in jungle areas and near popular outdoor sites in an effort to simulate the tropical battlefield conditions of Southeast Asia. 19

During the invasion of Panama in December 1989 it was reported that the semi-mountainous village of Pacora, near Panama City, was bombed with a chemical substance by helicopters and aircraft from the US Southern Command in Panama. Residents complained to human-rights organizations and the press that the substances burned their skin, producing intense stinging and diarrhea. The bombing may have been carried out to keep the villagers from offering any assistance to the Panamanian soldiers who were camped in the nearby mountains.20 What the long-term effects of the chemical exposure have been are not known.

Cuba

1) In August 1962, a British freighter under Soviet lease, having damaged its propeller on a reef, crept into the harbor at San Juan, Puerto Rico for repairs. It was bound for a Soviet port with 80,000 bags of Cuban sugar. The ship was put into dry dock and 14,135 sacks of sugar were unloaded to a warehouse to facilitate the repairs. While in the warehouse, the sugar was contaminated by CIA agents with a substance that was allegedly harmless but unpalatable. When President Kennedy learned of the operation he was furious because it had taken place in US territory and if discovered could provide the Soviet



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