No, the book was not a Kerry bashing book. It was written years before and examined the treatment Vietnam Vets received in society and why. It had only a little bit of information about Kerry.
As I mentioned in my reply to another poster, your comment is ad hominem. That I was an anti-Kerry partisan does not mean that my facts were incorrect or that my sources were invalid.
That the book was summarily dismissed as not even existing, without the Wiki person checking Amazon or another bookstore shows the level of bias applied to that particular subject.
You might also ask how I became an anti-Kerry partisan. It was a result of reading, last year, facts from the congressional record (hardly a biased source) and CSPAN - quotes from Kerry himself, and comparing them to my personal knowledge of the Vietnam War and that of those I knew and what I had read.
And yes, I became the webmaster of an existing site called kerrylied.com, which was an organizing point for Vietnam Veterans who had been slandered by Kerry's senate testimony and the Winter Soldier "investigation." If you are interested in that subject, you should go to http://www.wintersoldier.com/ and read some facts, well suppported, that you probably didn't hear from the MSM.
However, all of this is irrelevantg to Wikipedia. What counts is the substance of the entry and the references, not the nature of the personal views of the person supplying them. This is why Wikipedia will always be untrustworthy on controversial subjects, and that is my whole point.
The important issue is not my personal viewpoint, but whether the information I added was correct. It was. It did not survive the Wikipedia process.
It should not matter what the views of the contributors are, but rather the accuracy of their contributions.
Yes, I was a partisan. No, I was not trying to screw up the Wikipedia process, but rather to contribute facts, facts which happened to contradict the biased information that was present and which would, as a result, make Wikipedia more accurate.
Last year, I tried to put in some information about John Kerry - negative information. Whoever was god of that page took it back out with the comments that it had no references and was probably nonsense, also stating that the book reference I did give probably didn't exist (of course, a few seconds spent at Amazon would have allowed that to be checked).
Being too busy to meet an imposible standard of references to satisfy a clearly biased wikipedia crowd, I just gave up. I knew that the internet world was largely anti-Bush, so it didn't surprise me that this happened and would continue to happen.
I believe that partisans can easily skew Wikipedia, and of course are more likely to do so on controversial subjects.
To partisans, Wikipedia can be a very good propaganda tool, since it appears on the surface to be authoritative. On the other hand, for non-controversial issues, it is very useful.
Grest! How many acres of wild land do we convert to fuel farms? Farming already has had an enormous environmental impact.
Go nuclear. Make a fuel such as hydrogen using the energy. Almost no pollution.
The only problem with nuclear is terrorism. So build a nuclear fortress.
Nuclear waste disposal is a political, not an engineering problem. Stick the stuff in Nevada, and if it leaks in 1000 years, mankind by then should be able to deal with it. If not, who cares.
Yes, thyroid cancer in children is known to have occurred. How much is a result of radiation as opposed to intensified screening is not known. However, children, especially those in that area who are likely to have an Iodine-deficient diet, are extremely sensitive to radioactive iodine induced thyroid cancer - far more so than anyone is to other radioactivity levels.
The good news is that thyroid cancer has a very high cure rate. The bad news is that several children in the area have died of it, and it is probable that one or more of those deaths is due to Chernobyl fallout.
The best guide to the studies on animals and humans, as of a couple of years ago, was a survey article in Science Magazine, one of the leading professional science publications in the world. Rather than relying on the sorts of news reports you reference (which are not scientific and report information from governments which have a major financial stake in blaming all problems on Chernobyl), I'll take Science Magazine any time
Your evolution based argument is pure supposition, and is unlikely given that there are natural compounds with similar chemical toxicity (other heavy metals) and plenty of natural alpha-emitting natural compounds (e.g. polonium).
As far as the chemical toxicity, this says::The chemical toxicity of plutonium (a heavy metal) is inconsequential alongside the radiation effects.
In other words, the chemical toxicity is irrelevant.
Overall, ricin, of Al Qaeda fame, is 10-20 times more toxic than plutonium. Botulinum toxins (the reference bacteria strain for which was found in a refrigerator in Iraq by David Kay's team) is 10,000 times more toxic than plutonium.
Furthermore, I do not deny that high levels of radiation cause cancer, not to mention radiation sickness. What is not well known is that people live and prosper in areas of very high natural radiation.
When one looks at low levels of radiation, the sensitivity is undetectable. Low dose radiation level rules are based on an unproven and somewhat implausible theory called Linear, No-threshold Theory (LNT). This theory is used to derive radiation hazard predictions and exposure standards as one of the first uses of the Precautionary Principle. The theory assumes that one can estimate risk at a low level by applying the ratio of that level to a high level where the risk as been established. The risks for low level radiation dosages are hypothetical, having been derived by this ratioing from populations exposed to much higher dosages (uranium miners, Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors).
Furthermore, the risk is presumed to be based on total lifetime dosage independent of the rate of exposure. Again, this has not been established scientifically.
You mention Hiroshima. Because Hiroshima had no local fallout, all excess radiation exposure occurred in an extremely short period of time - most of it in a few seconds. Furthermore, the levels of dosage received by Hiroshima victims had to be estimated, which could not be done accurately.
There are several problems with LNT. First, it is based on a very old, discredited model of carcinogenesis which assumes that a single point mutation in DNA is the cause of cancer. In fact, the process is far more complex, with cells having the ability to repair mutations.
This means that the odds of acquiring non-repairable damage are higher if the radiation is delivered more quickly, because a single cell may sustain multiple hits. There may also be secondary effects, due to the death of an excessive number of cells at the same time.
great radiobiologist, the late Harald Rossi summarized the situation as follows: "It would appear...that radiation carcinogenesis is an intricate intercellular process and that the notion that it is caused by simple mutations in a unicellular response is erroneous. Thus, there is no scientific basis for the "linearity hypothesis" according to which cancer risk is proportional to absorbed dose and independent of dose rate at low doses" .
However, lets just assume that LNT is correct, since it is widely used.
Consider this (April 2000):
The Chernobyl catastrophe resulted in vast quantities of radionuclides being released into the global atmosphere, which were easy to measure even high in the stratosphere, and far away at the South Pole . It was a godsend for anti-nuclear activists. Yet according to estimates of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR),
My primary source is a Science Magazine overview article from a year or two ago. There was one mole study that was refuted. Is that the one you are referring two?
I did an experiment one time... one you can't do since 9-11 probably. I took a digital geiger counter in an airliner. At about 10,000 feet it was close to off-scale.
There is another of that design under construction in Cuba.
The graphite moderator reactor has a positive temperature coefficient, so it is inherently unstable. The fact that the graphite burns isn't too neat either.
There are a number of studies looking at mutations. So far, no excess mutations have been found. This includes studies of ground-living mammals right next to the plant.
A lot of very sensitive studies have found little or no impact on wildlife from the radiation. This includes DNA analysis looking for excess mutation rates.
The much-hyped 100,000 excess cancers have not appeared. The only solidly linked human effect (other than to those who fought the fire) has been an excess of thyroid cancer in children downstream, with one reported death as of a few years ago.
In his state of the union when he told America Iraq was pursuing Yellow Cake he didn't technicly lie because he said "British Intelligence says" but he did decieve. The fact is all of the documents that were the basis of this claim were badly and obviously forged and everyone who'd seen them knew this. Rice and the NSA had been told on numerous occasions these claims were bogus but this deception occured anyway.
You are confusing the specific bad intelligence about Niger with what Bush actually said, which was that Iraq was seeking Uranium in Africa.
If you are so convinced that there was a campaign to make up WMD's when it was known that they didn't exists, please explain why these same conspirators didn't salt a bunch of VX agent somewhere in Iraq, and then "find" it? It would have been easy to do, and would be entirely consistent with the behavior of somebody who was lying. But instead, they did not do this. Every action they took is consistent with an organization that believed that there were weapons, and more importantly (from a strategic standpoint - remember Iraq was referred to as "the battle of Iraq" not the Iraq War for a good reason), they were consistent with the concern that in the future Iraq would have those weapons and use them against the US through terrorist proxies.
The state department's intelligence agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and elements within the CIA repeatedly insisted there was no creditable evidence to establish with any certainty that Iraq still had WMD's. Citation please.
Nobody could establish with certainty anything that Iraq had or didn't have. The fact is that they did have active WMD programs, and there is evidence (of course, not conclusive) that they transported WMD's out of the country just before the war. The CIA believed (as Tenet said) that they thought so. The British thought so. Even the French thought they did! Which is not surprising since many of Saddam's generals thought that it was available, and they and our SIGINT heard orders to use them.
Its a well known fact the Wolfowitz and Rumsfled established a special projects office, a new intelligence agency under Wolfowitz's direct supervision whose goal was to mine all the intelligence that made a case for war and for WMD's in Iraq and to downplay all the intelligence that suggested there was not. Presumably this office was formed because the Defense Intelligence Agency whose role it usurped wasn't giving them the answers they wanted. Much of the best intelligence this office used was single source coming from defectors associated with Chalabi who had a vested interest in getting the U.S. to attack Iraq. In other words the defectors lied about the WMD's and Wolfowitz and company were so eager to believe that they made no attempt to corroborate. Wolfowitz has since publicly admitted WMD"s were just the excuse everyone could agree on when in reality the goal was entirely about a regime change and finding justififaction for it everyone would buy. WMD's were ideal since they evoked the greatest fear and its impossible for a country to prove they don't have them.
Citation stating the goal of this office, please? And Wolfowitz has not admitted any such thing, he has said that WMD's the best single issue. One also has to deal with Saddam's behavior, which was entirely consistent with having WMD's. There was every reason to believe that Saddam had the weapons, and no reason to believe that he didn't. The military (Rumsfeld's organization, btw) was so concerned about the weapons that they required troops to have MOPP equipment and wear it, and there were numerous alerts.
If you recall Bush and Cheney repeatedly used rhetoric that suggested that Iraq might have nuclear weapons soon and that we would find out about when there was a mushroom cloud over our cities. Iraq's nuclear program was simply nonexistent since at least 1995. The country that was doing the most to put nukes in the hands of rogue nations and terrorists was our close al
No, the Winter Soldier investigation was not accurate. Investigators, who were seeking to prosecute those responsible for the war crimes "revealed" in that investigation were unable to substantiate a single one. Neither was a reporter who looked into years later. But in the process, it was discovered that many of those who testified had never served in Vietnam or had not been at the place where they testified the atrocities took place. I assume you are familiar with the false Vietnam Vet syndrome?
Contrary to your theory about the "interest of the military" - military lawyers love to go after people who commit atrocities. There were over 200 individuals convicted of atrocities in that war. Furthermore, most soldiers will themselves report atrocities. Don't forget that Me Lai was stopped by other soldiers who came on the scene. Of course, that there were atrocities that were never unveiled is obvious and undeniable.
But Kerry was talking about something much stronger than that. Have you listened to his speech? Have you read the whole thing? Can you explain why he fails to mention the routine atrocities the VC inflicted on villagers?
You are right that when the enemy chooses to hide amongst civilians, it increases civilian casualties. And it makes people jumpy. That is the fault of the guerilla and their cynical tactics.
However, "committed nationalists" is not an adequate description. There were some committed nationalists in the VC and the NLF (many of whom were sent to prison camps by the North after the end of the war). But after 1968, the VC consisted almost entirely of NVA troops, not Southerners, who preferred the corrupt and autocratic regime of the south to the corrupt and totalitarian regime of the north.
I am currently reading the autobiography of one of the founders of the NLF. He states this in his book (not that it wasn't already widely known among those who studied that war). He, btw, was not a communist, but was used skillfully by them. It is also clear from the book that the North controlled the VC and NLF from the very start of those organizations. In fact, a number of the VC were former Viet Minh who were ordered to remain in the south (during the population exchange) to form the core of the "rebellion" controlled by the north.
Communist subversion typically involves cooperating with rebels of all political stripes, and then, at victory, killing, imprisoning or just disempowering the non-communists. This is exactly what happened in Nicaragua, for example, where a broad based movement overthrew Somoza, but when the smoke cleared, the communists held all positions of power. Many of the leaders of the contras had been non-communist members of that movement.
Regarding the delusion of eventual victory... Do you respect the opinion of General Giap, the commander of the enemy troops throughout the war? He stated that the US could have won simply by invading Laos and cutting off the Ho Chi Minh trail. So don't tell me about delusions. Furthermore, cutting off the supply line at Hai Phong Harbor, which Nixon did, had the same effect.
Furthermore, as Tet '68 showed, it was not folly to think that the US could win a guerilla war in the jungle. We had done it before and so had the British. In Tet '68 (and two subsequent major campaigns by the VC that year), the Viet Cong were almost completely wiped out. They lost half of their total force just in Tet (even though the press, in their idiocy, portrayed Tet as a VC victory). The VC expected the population to rise up with them, but the population didn't want to have anything to do with them.
Put yourself in the place of a Vietnamese peasant. You have your village and your land. You have your lifestyle. You know, from what had happened in the North in the mid '50s, that under the Communists you would become part of a collective, have to change your entire way of life, spend much of your time participating in re-education sessions, and have absolutely no freedom of speech. Under the Southern regime,
Most of the reports that Kerry gave came from phoneys who "testified" at the "Winter Soldier Investigation."
Furthermore, Kerry stated that these atrocities were policy and were common. That is incorrect and a slander on his fellow servicement.
I know of nobody who denies that American soldiers committed atrocities. I know of one atrocity that is being investigated in Iraq right now. But Kerry painted the atrocities as being a normal American way of war (it wasn't) while never even once mentioning the vast level of atrocities (against Vietnamese) carried out as a specific matter of policy by the Viet Cong. That selective use of false information constitutes siding with the enemy. It was pretty successful, too, since several of the false memes (the permanently damaged Vietnam vet, the routine use of atrocities) rapidly became the standard view.
Benedict Arnold had a fine combat record (much more significant than Kerry's). But Kerry did end up in combat, did do the things you mentioned.
Although many vets that I know (including many that were on Swifts) are questioning the level of awards he received, I think that is not appropriate or important.
What counts is what he has done since the war, and what those of us who served most dislike is his aiding our enemy through the skillful use of propaganda (which, by the way, he didn't write - the speech was written by a professional speechwriter), his consistency in voting against the defense of our nation, and his general dishonesty.
I noticed that my previous postings on this subject, some of which had detailed links and new information, we marked as trolls. That's pretty pathetic.
Kerry didn't broadcast speaches designed to harm soldier's moral,
False. Kerry did indeed broadcast a major speech to harm soldiers' morale. And it was played to the POW's at the Hanoi Hilton by their captors.
In fact, the worse thing Kerry did, and the only reason many of us consider him to be dishonorable is that speech.
Here are some quotes (although hearing the audio is much stronger, as he makes his accusations in the same snearing voice that today is more often heard saying "Do you know who I am?" as he butts into lines):
"we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command"
This is a falsehood. Subsequent investigations were unable to substantiate a single allegation from that investigation. Many of the speakers were not actual Vietnam Veterans or had not ever been to where they claimed to have witnessed atrocities.
There were, of course, atrocities committed by Americans in Vietnam, and several hundred American servicemen were punished for them, but they were never policy. The Viet Cong had a policy of atrocities - mostly against other Vietnamese - which Kerry never mentioned even once.
They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks,
Can you imagine how Vietnam Vets and serving soldiers felt hearing this? Is it any wonder that many were mistreated when they returned home?
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them.
This particular lie became one of the longest lasting memes of Vietnam War revisionist history.
We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater.
He attempts to paint Americans as anti-Asian racists. This assertion is absurd. The same weapons were in Europe at the time and were ready to go if the Soviets invaded. And Kerry knew this.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
"Vietnamizing the Vietnamese" is a phrase totally made up for this speech, and a total distortion of what was actually going on.
"we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions;"
Totally false. The Viet Cong/Viet Minh used atrocities as a matter of policy. It was common to kill the entire family of a village chieftan if the village did not support the Viet Cong. This was done tens of thousands of times. And it is but one of the many atrocities done by the VC.
When the Viet Cong captured and held Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive, they executed 3,000 civilians and threw the bodies in mass graves.
But to Kerry, the US was more guilty than any other body?
blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties.
This is utterly false. Blacks served and died in very close to the percentages of blacks in the general population. Volunteers had a higher death rate overall than draftees.
Two more important facts about this speech:
1) Kerry, who behaved as if it was a spontaneous speech, actually didn't even write it. It was written by Adam Walinskey.
2) This was given under oath. He committed a felony giving it.
I would suggest you present some evidence of that.
Start by explaining why every intelligence agency in the world though Saddam had WMDs.
Add on the fact that his own generals thought that their flanking units had chemical weapons ready to use.
Then add on the prohibited programs and material that David Kay found, including three long range rocket programs (which are useless without WMD warheads), an active ricin program, botulin reference strains hidden in a home refrigerator at the orders of the Iraqi secret police, laboratories in secret police safe houses.
Then tell me again... Bush lied about WMDs?
I would argue that nobody in the world, including those in Iraq, knew that Saddam had only a few WMD's, and everyone had very good reasons to believe he had and was ready to use military stocks of WMD's.
Now... if you want democrat lies..
Let's see... Bill Clinton (I never had sex with that woman" - a lie under oath)... We will have our troops out of Kosovo in one year (they're still there)... We are now safe from nuclear war because both sides have their missiles targetted at the Indian Ocean... etc, etc,
Lyndon Johnson lied continuously about the Vietnam War (remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident)?
Jimmy Carter... well, he just screwed everthing up without bothering to lie.
John Kerry lied about US policy and atrocities in the Vietnam War.
His association with Fonda was much deeper than that. She funded the "Winter Soldier Investigation" and Kerry was present at that and used the results to create his lying speech given before the U.S. Senate. She was a major contributor to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, while Kerry was an officer thereof.
The picture is only misleading in that Kerry is so far away from her.
The forgery, which was immediately discovered, is not important except as one more example about how you need to check sources (and snopes).
But the fact is that Jane Fonda and John Kerry did work together. Jane Fonda was the major funder and organizer of the bogus "Winter Soldier Investigation" that Kerry attended and later used as the source of his false allegations smearing all American troops in Vietnam and mischaracterizing the entire war.
Jane Fonda was a significant funder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, of which Kerry was a high ranking officer.
The reason the two are associated is because the two were associated.
The association of Jane Fonda isn't necessary to establish Kerry's guilt. The hateful lies he told about his country and his former comrades in arms is sufficient. His hypocritical throwing away his medals (but really throwing away someone else's), and now proudly displaying those same medals show the character of this man. The book he published, which his campaign had pulled from most stores before he first ran successfully for congress, has a cover that mocks the Iwo Jima monument and US soldiers in general.
"I served in Vietnam Kerry" has shown that he is unfit to defend his country.
No, we understood why we were fighting that war, although many today who rely on revisionist history may not. Most of us volunteered. Polls show that the vast majority of us are proud of our service and would go again.
We knew we could win the war, not expecting that the draft dodgers and anti-war activists would stab Vietnam in the back.
We know that 100,000 Vietnamese were summarily executed after we left, that hundreds of thousands more were sent to concentration camps (where many more died), that millions of Cambodians were murdered by Pol Pot, who was an ally of the North Vietnamese, that today Vietnam is one of the remaining Communist totalitarian societies on earth, and that millions of people, including former Viet Cong risked (and often lost) their lives and those of their families trying to escape their communist rulers by boat.
Quotes: "I believe in Vietnamese culture," she told me, "and I believe that you will win."
She was unable to hide her joy when the Vietnamese documentary studio presented her with a video camera that had been used to capture the crimes of the American forces, and the unailing resistance of the Vietnamese.
Her presence in North Viet Nam that grim winter, when the sky burnt red with explosions and anti-aircraft fire, was crucial in awakening the American peace movement. Jane will soon turn 65 but in my mind she will always remain a slender young woman, clad in traditional dress and a helmet, standing in the Temple of Literature and singing as yet another fleet of bombers made its way towards the city
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No, the book was not a Kerry bashing book. It was written years before and examined the treatment Vietnam Vets received in society and why. It had only a little bit of information about Kerry.
As I mentioned in my reply to another poster, your comment is ad hominem. That I was an anti-Kerry partisan does not mean that my facts were incorrect or that my sources were invalid.
That the book was summarily dismissed as not even existing, without the Wiki person checking Amazon or another bookstore shows the level of bias applied to that particular subject.
You might also ask how I became an anti-Kerry partisan. It was a result of reading, last year, facts from the congressional record (hardly a biased source) and CSPAN - quotes from Kerry himself, and comparing them to my personal knowledge of the Vietnam War and that of those I knew and what I had read.
And yes, I became the webmaster of an existing site called kerrylied.com, which was an organizing point for Vietnam Veterans who had been slandered by Kerry's senate testimony and the Winter Soldier "investigation." If you are interested in that subject, you should go to http://www.wintersoldier.com/ and read some facts, well suppported, that you probably didn't hear from the MSM.
However, all of this is irrelevantg to Wikipedia. What counts is the substance of the entry and the references, not the nature of the personal views of the person supplying them. This is why Wikipedia will always be untrustworthy on controversial subjects, and that is my whole point.
Your analysis is ad hominem.
The important issue is not my personal viewpoint, but whether the information I added was correct. It was. It did not survive the Wikipedia process.
It should not matter what the views of the contributors are, but rather the accuracy of their contributions.
Yes, I was a partisan. No, I was not trying to screw up the Wikipedia process, but rather to contribute facts, facts which happened to contradict the biased information that was present and which would, as a result, make Wikipedia more accurate.
Last year, I tried to put in some information about John Kerry - negative information. Whoever was god of that page took it back out with the comments that it had no references and was probably nonsense, also stating that the book reference I did give probably didn't exist (of course, a few seconds spent at Amazon would have allowed that to be checked).
Being too busy to meet an imposible standard of references to satisfy a clearly biased wikipedia crowd, I just gave up. I knew that the internet world was largely anti-Bush, so it didn't surprise me that this happened and would continue to happen.
I believe that partisans can easily skew Wikipedia, and of course are more likely to do so on controversial subjects.
To partisans, Wikipedia can be a very good propaganda tool, since it appears on the surface to be authoritative. On the other hand, for non-controversial issues, it is very useful.
Grest! How many acres of wild land do we convert to fuel farms? Farming already has had an enormous environmental impact.
Go nuclear. Make a fuel such as hydrogen using the energy. Almost no pollution.
The only problem with nuclear is terrorism. So build a nuclear fortress.
Nuclear waste disposal is a political, not an engineering problem. Stick the stuff in Nevada, and if it leaks in 1000 years, mankind by then should be able to deal with it. If not, who cares.
Yes, thyroid cancer in children is known to have occurred. How much is a result of radiation as opposed to intensified screening is not known. However, children, especially those in that area who are likely to have an Iodine-deficient diet, are extremely sensitive to radioactive iodine induced thyroid cancer - far more so than anyone is to other radioactivity levels.
The good news is that thyroid cancer has a very high cure rate. The bad news is that several children in the area have died of it, and it is probable that one or more of those deaths is due to Chernobyl fallout.
I stand corrected. I should have Googled it, rather than relying on memory.
The best guide to the studies on animals and humans, as of a couple of years ago, was a survey article in Science Magazine, one of the leading professional science publications in the world. Rather than relying on the sorts of news reports you reference (which are not scientific and report information from governments which have a major financial stake in blaming all problems on Chernobyl), I'll take Science Magazine any time
:The chemical toxicity of plutonium (a heavy metal) is inconsequential alongside the radiation effects.
Your evolution based argument is pure supposition, and is unlikely given that there are natural compounds with similar chemical toxicity (other heavy metals) and plenty of natural alpha-emitting natural compounds (e.g. polonium).
As far as the chemical toxicity, this says:
In other words, the chemical toxicity is irrelevant.
Overall, ricin, of Al Qaeda fame, is 10-20 times more toxic than plutonium. Botulinum toxins (the reference bacteria strain for which was found in a refrigerator in Iraq by David Kay's team) is 10,000 times more toxic than plutonium.
Furthermore, I do not deny that high levels of radiation cause cancer, not to mention radiation sickness. What is not well known is that people live and prosper in areas of very high natural radiation.
When one looks at low levels of radiation, the sensitivity is undetectable. Low dose radiation level rules are based on an unproven and somewhat implausible theory called Linear, No-threshold Theory (LNT). This theory is used to derive radiation hazard predictions and exposure standards as one of the first uses of the Precautionary Principle. The theory assumes that one can estimate risk at a low level by applying the ratio of that level to a high level where the risk as been established. The risks for low level radiation dosages are hypothetical, having been derived by this ratioing from populations exposed to much higher dosages (uranium miners, Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors).
Furthermore, the risk is presumed to be based on total lifetime dosage independent of the rate of exposure. Again, this has not been established scientifically.
You mention Hiroshima. Because Hiroshima had no local fallout, all excess radiation exposure occurred in an extremely short period of time - most of it in a few seconds. Furthermore, the levels of dosage received by Hiroshima victims had to be estimated, which could not be done accurately.
There are several problems with LNT. First, it is based on a very old, discredited model of carcinogenesis which assumes that a single point mutation in DNA is the cause of cancer. In fact, the process is far more complex, with cells having the ability to repair mutations.
This means that the odds of acquiring non-repairable damage are higher if the radiation is delivered more quickly, because a single cell may sustain multiple hits. There may also be secondary effects, due to the death of an excessive number of cells at the same time.
great radiobiologist, the late Harald Rossi summarized the situation as follows: "It would appear...that radiation carcinogenesis is an intricate intercellular process and that the notion that it is caused by simple mutations in a unicellular response is erroneous. Thus, there is no scientific basis for the "linearity hypothesis" according to which cancer risk is proportional to absorbed dose and independent of dose rate at low doses" .
However, lets just assume that LNT is correct, since it is widely used.
Consider this (April 2000):
The Chernobyl catastrophe resulted in vast quantities of radionuclides being released into the global atmosphere, which were easy to measure even high in the stratosphere, and far away at the South Pole . It was a godsend for anti-nuclear activists. Yet according to estimates of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR),
My primary source is a Science Magazine overview article from a year or two ago. There was one mole study that was refuted. Is that the one you are referring two?
I would, actually. It would be quite interesting.
I did an experiment one time... one you can't do since 9-11 probably. I took a digital geiger counter in an airliner. At about 10,000 feet it was close to off-scale.
There's lots of radiation around.
Russia.
The project has been underway since the Soviet era.
As far as a cite... try google
There is another of that design under construction in Cuba.
The graphite moderator reactor has a positive temperature coefficient, so it is inherently unstable. The fact that the graphite burns isn't too neat either.
There are a number of studies looking at mutations. So far, no excess mutations have been found. This includes studies of ground-living mammals right next to the plant.
A lot of very sensitive studies have found little or no impact on wildlife from the radiation. This includes DNA analysis looking for excess mutation rates.
The much-hyped 100,000 excess cancers have not appeared. The only solidly linked human effect (other than to those who fought the fire) has been an excess of thyroid cancer in children downstream, with one reported death as of a few years ago.
In his state of the union when he told America Iraq was pursuing Yellow Cake he didn't technicly lie because he said "British Intelligence says" but he did decieve. The fact is all of the documents that were the basis of this claim were badly and obviously forged and everyone who'd seen them knew this. Rice and the NSA had been told on numerous occasions these claims were bogus but this deception occured anyway.
You are confusing the specific bad intelligence about Niger with what Bush actually said, which was that Iraq was seeking Uranium in Africa.
If you are so convinced that there was a campaign to make up WMD's when it was known that they didn't exists, please explain why these same conspirators didn't salt a bunch of VX agent somewhere in Iraq, and then "find" it? It would have been easy to do, and would be entirely consistent with the behavior of somebody who was lying. But instead, they did not do this. Every action they took is consistent with an organization that believed that there were weapons, and more importantly (from a strategic standpoint - remember Iraq was referred to as "the battle of Iraq" not the Iraq War for a good reason), they were consistent with the concern that in the future Iraq would have those weapons and use them against the US through terrorist proxies.
The state department's intelligence agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and elements within the CIA repeatedly insisted there was no creditable evidence to establish with any certainty that Iraq still had WMD's.
Citation please.
Nobody could establish with certainty anything that Iraq had or didn't have. The fact is that they did have active WMD programs, and there is evidence (of course, not conclusive) that they transported WMD's out of the country just before the war. The CIA believed (as Tenet said) that they thought so. The British thought so. Even the French thought they did! Which is not surprising since many of Saddam's generals thought that it was available, and they and our SIGINT heard orders to use them.
Its a well known fact the Wolfowitz and Rumsfled established a special projects office, a new intelligence agency under Wolfowitz's direct supervision whose goal was to mine all the intelligence that made a case for war and for WMD's in Iraq and to downplay all the intelligence that suggested there was not. Presumably this office was formed because the Defense Intelligence Agency whose role it usurped wasn't giving them the answers they wanted. Much of the best intelligence this office used was single source coming from defectors associated with Chalabi who had a vested interest in getting the U.S. to attack Iraq. In other words the defectors lied about the WMD's and Wolfowitz and company were so eager to believe that they made no attempt to corroborate. Wolfowitz has since publicly admitted WMD"s were just the excuse everyone could agree on when in reality the goal was entirely about a regime change and finding justififaction for it everyone would buy. WMD's were ideal since they evoked the greatest fear and its impossible for a country to prove they don't have them.
Citation stating the goal of this office, please? And Wolfowitz has not admitted any such thing, he has said that WMD's the best single issue. One also has to deal with Saddam's behavior, which was entirely consistent with having WMD's. There was every reason to believe that Saddam had the weapons, and no reason to believe that he didn't. The military (Rumsfeld's organization, btw) was so concerned about the weapons that they required troops to have MOPP equipment and wear it, and there were numerous alerts.
If you recall Bush and Cheney repeatedly used rhetoric that suggested that Iraq might have nuclear weapons soon and that we would find out about when there was a mushroom cloud over our cities. Iraq's nuclear program was simply nonexistent since at least 1995. The country that was doing the most to put nukes in the hands of rogue nations and terrorists was our close al
No, the Winter Soldier investigation was not accurate. Investigators, who were seeking to prosecute those responsible for the war crimes "revealed" in that investigation were unable to substantiate a single one. Neither was a reporter who looked into years later. But in the process, it was discovered that many of those who testified had never served in Vietnam or had not been at the place where they testified the atrocities took place. I assume you are familiar with the false Vietnam Vet syndrome?
Contrary to your theory about the "interest of the military" - military lawyers love to go after people who commit atrocities. There were over 200 individuals convicted of atrocities in that war. Furthermore, most soldiers will themselves report atrocities. Don't forget that Me Lai was stopped by other soldiers who came on the scene. Of course, that there were atrocities that were never unveiled is obvious and undeniable.
But Kerry was talking about something much stronger than that. Have you listened to his speech? Have you read the whole thing? Can you explain why he fails to mention the routine atrocities the VC inflicted on villagers?
You are right that when the enemy chooses to hide amongst civilians, it increases civilian casualties. And it makes people jumpy. That is the fault of the guerilla and their cynical tactics.
However, "committed nationalists" is not an adequate description. There were some committed nationalists in the VC and the NLF (many of whom were sent to prison camps by the North after the end of the war). But after 1968, the VC consisted almost entirely of NVA troops, not Southerners, who preferred the corrupt and autocratic regime of the south to the corrupt and totalitarian regime of the north.
I am currently reading the autobiography of one of the founders of the NLF. He states this in his book (not that it wasn't already widely known among those who studied that war). He, btw, was not a communist, but was used skillfully by them. It is also clear from the book that the North controlled the VC and NLF from the very start of those organizations. In fact, a number of the VC were former Viet Minh who were ordered to remain in the south (during the population exchange) to form the core of the "rebellion" controlled by the north.
Communist subversion typically involves cooperating with rebels of all political stripes, and then, at victory, killing, imprisoning or just disempowering the non-communists. This is exactly what happened in Nicaragua, for example, where a broad based movement overthrew Somoza, but when the smoke cleared, the communists held all positions of power. Many of the leaders of the contras had been non-communist members of that movement.
Regarding the delusion of eventual victory... Do you respect the opinion of General Giap, the commander of the enemy troops throughout the war? He stated that the US could have won simply by invading Laos and cutting off the Ho Chi Minh trail. So don't tell me about delusions. Furthermore, cutting off the supply line at Hai Phong Harbor, which Nixon did, had the same effect.
Furthermore, as Tet '68 showed, it was not folly to think that the US could win a guerilla war in the jungle. We had done it before and so had the British. In Tet '68 (and two subsequent major campaigns by the VC that year), the Viet Cong were almost completely wiped out. They lost half of their total force just in Tet (even though the press, in their idiocy, portrayed Tet as a VC victory). The VC expected the population to rise up with them, but the population didn't want to have anything to do with them.
Put yourself in the place of a Vietnamese peasant. You have your village and your land. You have your lifestyle. You know, from what had happened in the North in the mid '50s, that under the Communists you would become part of a collective, have to change your entire way of life, spend much of your time participating in re-education sessions, and have absolutely no freedom of speech. Under the Southern regime,
Are you not familiar with the concept of "Just War" - it is a Christian concept.
Evil depends on motivation and circumstances.
I personally killed nobody, but only for lack of opportunity and need.
Most of the reports that Kerry gave came from phoneys who "testified" at the "Winter Soldier Investigation."
Furthermore, Kerry stated that these atrocities were policy and were common. That is incorrect and a slander on his fellow servicement.
I know of nobody who denies that American soldiers committed atrocities. I know of one atrocity that is being investigated in Iraq right now. But Kerry painted the atrocities as being a normal American way of war (it wasn't) while never even once mentioning the vast level of atrocities (against Vietnamese) carried out as a specific matter of policy by the Viet Cong. That selective use of false information constitutes siding with the enemy. It was pretty successful, too, since several of the false memes (the permanently damaged Vietnam vet, the routine use of atrocities) rapidly became the standard view.
Benedict Arnold had a fine combat record (much more significant than Kerry's). But Kerry did end up in combat, did do the things you mentioned.
Although many vets that I know (including many that were on Swifts) are questioning the level of awards he received, I think that is not appropriate or important.
What counts is what he has done since the war, and what those of us who served most dislike is his aiding our enemy through the skillful use of propaganda (which, by the way, he didn't write - the speech was written by a professional speechwriter), his consistency in voting against the defense of our nation, and his general dishonesty.
I noticed that my previous postings on this subject, some of which had detailed links and new information, we marked as trolls. That's pretty pathetic.
Kerry didn't broadcast speaches designed to harm soldier's moral,
False. Kerry did indeed broadcast a major speech to harm soldiers' morale. And it was played to the POW's at the Hanoi Hilton by their captors.
In fact, the worse thing Kerry did, and the only reason many of us consider him to be dishonorable is that speech.
Here are some quotes (although hearing the audio is much stronger, as he makes his accusations in the same snearing voice that today is more often heard saying "Do you know who I am?" as he butts into lines):
"we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command"
This is a falsehood. Subsequent investigations were unable to substantiate a single allegation from that investigation. Many of the speakers were not actual Vietnam Veterans or had not ever been to where they claimed to have witnessed atrocities.
There were, of course, atrocities committed by Americans in Vietnam, and several hundred American servicemen were punished for them, but they were never policy. The Viet Cong had a policy of atrocities - mostly against other Vietnamese - which Kerry never mentioned even once.
They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks,
Can you imagine how Vietnam Vets and serving soldiers felt hearing this? Is it any wonder that many were mistreated when they returned home?
We rationalized destroying villages in order to save them.
This particular lie became one of the longest lasting memes of Vietnam War revisionist history.
We fought using weapons against those people which I do not believe this country would dream of using were we fighting in the European theater.
He attempts to paint Americans as anti-Asian racists. This assertion is absurd. The same weapons were in Europe at the time and were ready to go if the Soviets invaded. And Kerry knew this.
Now we are told that the men who fought there must watch quietly while American lives are lost so that we can exercise the incredible arrogance of Vietnamizing the Vietnamese.
"Vietnamizing the Vietnamese" is a phrase totally made up for this speech, and a total distortion of what was actually going on.
"we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions;"
Totally false. The Viet Cong/Viet Minh used atrocities as a matter of policy. It was common to kill the entire family of a village chieftan if the village did not support the Viet Cong. This was done tens of thousands of times. And it is but one of the many atrocities done by the VC.
When the Viet Cong captured and held Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive, they executed 3,000 civilians and threw the bodies in mass graves.
But to Kerry, the US was more guilty than any other body?
blacks provided the highest percentage of casualties.
This is utterly false. Blacks served and died in very close to the percentages of blacks in the general population. Volunteers had a higher death rate overall than draftees.
Two more important facts about this speech:
1) Kerry, who behaved as if it was a spontaneous speech, actually didn't even write it. It was written by Adam Walinskey.
2) This was given under oath. He committed a felony giving it.
The text of the speech can be found here
You really believe that the US lied about WMDs?
I would suggest you present some evidence of that.
Start by explaining why every intelligence agency in the world though Saddam had WMDs.
Add on the fact that his own generals thought that their flanking units had chemical weapons ready to use.
Then add on the prohibited programs and material that David Kay found, including three long range rocket programs (which are useless without WMD warheads), an active ricin program, botulin reference strains hidden in a home refrigerator at the orders of the Iraqi secret police, laboratories in secret police safe houses.
Then tell me again... Bush lied about WMDs?
I would argue that nobody in the world, including those in Iraq, knew that Saddam had only a few WMD's, and everyone had very good reasons to believe he had and was ready to use military stocks of WMD's.
Now... if you want democrat lies..
Let's see... Bill Clinton (I never had sex with that woman" - a lie under oath)... We will have our troops out of Kosovo in one year (they're still there)... We are now safe from nuclear war because both sides have their missiles targetted at the Indian Ocean... etc, etc,
Lyndon Johnson lied continuously about the Vietnam War (remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident)?
Jimmy Carter... well, he just screwed everthing up without bothering to lie.
John Kerry lied about US policy and atrocities in the Vietnam War.
By itself, it doesn't mean much.
Check here if you want more facts showing how closely they were allied. Follow some of the links.
Kerry was a Benedict Arnold, except Benedict Arnold saw much more combat and did much more for his country before turning on it.
His association with Fonda was much deeper than that. She funded the "Winter Soldier Investigation" and Kerry was present at that and used the results to create his lying speech given before the U.S. Senate. She was a major contributor to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, while Kerry was an officer thereof.
The picture is only misleading in that Kerry is so far away from her.
or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
That's exactly what Hanoi Jane did. And there were more than two witnesses to that act.
She is a traitor. It's really quite a simple concept.
I would point out that Tokyo Rose didn't do anything but talk, and she was convicted of treason.
The forgery, which was immediately discovered, is not important except as one more example about how you need to check sources (and snopes).
But the fact is that Jane Fonda and John Kerry did work together. Jane Fonda was the major funder and organizer of the bogus "Winter Soldier Investigation" that Kerry attended and later used as the source of his false allegations smearing all American troops in Vietnam and mischaracterizing the entire war.
Jane Fonda was a significant funder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, of which Kerry was a high ranking officer.
The reason the two are associated is because the two were associated.
The association of Jane Fonda isn't necessary to establish Kerry's guilt. The hateful lies he told about his country and his former comrades in arms is sufficient. His hypocritical throwing away his medals (but really throwing away someone else's), and now proudly displaying those same medals show the character of this man. The book he published, which his campaign had pulled from most stores before he first ran successfully for congress, has a cover that mocks the Iwo Jima monument and US soldiers in general.
"I served in Vietnam Kerry" has shown that he is unfit to defend his country.
No, we understood why we were fighting that war, although many today who rely on revisionist history may not. Most of us volunteered. Polls show that the vast majority of us are proud of our service and would go again.
We knew we could win the war, not expecting that the draft dodgers and anti-war activists would stab Vietnam in the back.
We know that 100,000 Vietnamese were summarily executed after we left, that hundreds of thousands more were sent to concentration camps (where many more died), that millions of Cambodians were murdered by Pol Pot, who was an ally of the North Vietnamese, that today Vietnam is one of the remaining Communist totalitarian societies on earth, and that millions of people, including former Viet Cong risked (and often lost) their lives and those of their families trying to escape their communist rulers by boat.
Jane Fonda was an idiot. She was also a traitor to her country.
The Vietnamese haven't forgotten. Read Taking cover with Ha Noi Jane" in a 2003 Vietnam News Agency article.
Quotes:
"I believe in Vietnamese culture," she told me, "and I believe that you will win."
She was unable to hide her joy when the Vietnamese documentary studio presented her with a video camera that had been used to capture the crimes of the American forces, and the unailing resistance of the Vietnamese.
Her presence in North Viet Nam that grim winter, when the sky burnt red with explosions and anti-aircraft fire, was crucial in awakening the American peace movement. Jane will soon turn 65 but in my mind she will always remain a slender young woman, clad in traditional dress and a helmet, standing in the Temple of Literature and singing as yet another fleet of bombers made its way towards the city