Psyche, Science, and Society

Wikileaks obtains evidence Iraq troops knowingly exposed to carcinogens for years

In another of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld horrors, the US military subjected our troops to extremely high levels of carcinogens for years due to burning waste in open pits. While the danger was known, no corrective action was taken for years in order to save money! Evidently, with the tens of billions the Bush administration was donating to Iraqi crooks, they didn’t have a few million left over to protect our troops. after all, the troops were expendable by people who never went near a battlefield without a fake turkey.

I take it personally as I have a friend who has serious cancer at an extremely young age as a result of this exposure, his doctors tell him.Enough troops died needlessly due to unprotected vehicles to save a few million. But to then expose the rest to carcinogens is another abomination. Why anyone in the military supported these guys is a mystery.

While this exposure has been reported by troops for months, today Wikileaks obtained a key memo confirming the problems from an Air Force engineer. Raw Story covers the memo. In particular, it shows that as recently as last December the Pentagon was still lying about the danger posed by the exposure:

Pentagon knowingly exposed troops to cancer-causing chemicals, document shows

By John Byrne

A newly leaked military document appears to show the Pentagon knowingly exposed US troops to toxic chemicals that cause cancer, while publicly downplaying the risks exposure might cause.

The document, written by an environmental engineering flight commander in December of 2006 and posted on Wikileaks (PDF) on Tuesday, details the risks posed to US troops in Iraq by burning garbage at a US airbase. It enumerates myriad risks posed by the practice and identifies various carcinogens released by incinerating waste in open-air pits.

Because of the difficulties in testing samples, investigators could not prove that chemicals exceeded military exposure guidelines. But a military document released last December found that chemicals routinely exceeded safe levels by twice to six times.

The leaked report was signed off by the chief for the Air Force’s aeromedical services. Its subject is Balad Airbase, a large US military base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad.

“In my professional opinion, the known carcinogens and respiratory sensitizers released into the atmosphere by the burn pit present both an acute and a chronic health hazard to our troops and the local population,” Aeromedical chief Lt. Colonel James Elliott wrote.

According to the document, a US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine investigator said Balad’s burn pit was “the worst environmental site I have ever personally visited,” including “10 years working… clean-up for the Army.”

While the Curtis memo document is a new release to Wikileaks, it was previously disclosed online by the founder and editor of VAWatchdog.org, Larry Scott, in December 2008.

Military outfits have routinely incinerated garbage in what are called burn pits. At Balad, the trash was hauled by contractors from the engineering giant KBR, a former Halliburton subsidiary.

Last December, the Pentagon issued a “Just the Facts” sheet about the burn pits to troops. While acknowledging that lab tests from 2004-2006 had found occasional carcinogens, it asserted that “the potential short- and long-term risks were estimated to be low due to the infrequent detections of these chemicals.”

The sampling reports are classified, according to the Army Times.

The Pentagon report adds, “Based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidance, long-term health effects are not expected to occur from breathing the smoke.”

Strikingly, however, it does acknowledge that air samples taken in 2007 found particulate matter levels higher than military recommendations in 50 of 60 cases — some two times allowable toxic levels, but others as many as six times.

The flyer given to troops appears to contradict assertions by the Air Force’s own investigators. In the leaked document, titled “Burn Pit Health Hazards,” Air Force Bioenvironmental Engineering Flight Commander Darrin Curtis expressed shock that troops were knowingly exposed to such risks.

“It is amazing that the burn pit has been able to operate without restrictions over the past few years without significant engineering controls being put in place,” Curtis wrote.

“In my professional opinion, there is an acute health hazard for individuals,” he added. In addition to carcinogens, “there is also the possibility of chronic health hazards associated with the smoke.”

Curtis noted that the chemicals associated with burning plastics, rubber and other common trash items included arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, sulfuric acid and various other chemicals.

“Just the Facts,” while playing down long-term risks, also identified dioxins among tested samples. Dioxins were also present in Agent Orange, the notorious herbicide used during the Vietnam War. Benzene is known to cause leukemia, and cyanide and arsenic have throughout history been used as poisons to induce death.

Soldiers complain of chronic conditions

An Army Times investigation in 2008 found anecdotal evidence of health conditions caused by exposure to the fires.

“Though military officials say there are no known long-term effects from exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 100 service members have come forward to Military Times and Disabled American Veterans with strikingly similar symptoms: chronic bronchitis, asthma, sleep apnea, chronic coughs and allergy-like symptoms. Several also have cited heart problems, lymphoma and leukemia,” Army Times reporter Kelley Kennedy wrote in December.

“A lot of soldiers in my old unit have asthma and bronchitis,” a staff sergeant stationed in Iraq in 2005 was quoted as saying. “I lived 50 feet from the burn pit. I used to wake up in the middle of the night choking on it.”

“I’ve seen four or five cardiologists, but no one can tell me what’s wrong with my heart,” the staff sergeant added.

“It seems like most of these cases, anecdotally, are people who were exposed heavily to the burn pits and they got sick quickly,” Kerry Baker, legislative director for Disabled American Veterans, said. “There must be some areas that take a hit much harder than others. Everything seems to be pointing opposite to what the Defense Department is saying.”

March 10th, 2009

Plumbing the depths of dishonor and indecency: Charles Freeman denounces the “Israel lobby”

Charles Freeman has released a letter explaining his withdrawal from consideration as head of the National Intelligence Council. In it he pulls no punches in denouncing the McCarthyite “pro-Israel” lobby that is dragging Israel, the United States, and the world toward catastrophe:

The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.

Here is the  entire key section:

I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy. These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration. Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society. It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

Only the crazy rightists and their sycophanitic supporters in Congress, like Chuck Schumer, are winners. The rest of us around the world are losers here. The lack of any serious debate in the U.S. of Mideast policies will liely continue.

March 10th, 2009

“Pro-Israel” forces force out critic Charles W. Freeman Jr

The Don’t Dare Criticize Israel caucus won a major victory, forcing the withdrawal of Charles W. Freeman Jr as Director Designee of the National Intelligence Council:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret.

Not surprisingly, the man who guaranteed confirmation for several of Bush’s torture officials:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has taken credit for Freeman’s withdrawal.

Here is Glenn Greenwald’s take:

Charles Freeman fails the loyalty test

By Glenn Greenwald

(updated below – Update II - Update III)

Obviously, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are rabid, hateful paranoids — total bigots and anti-Semites — for having suggested that there are powerful domestic political forces in the U.S. which enforce Israel-centric orthodoxies and make it politically impossible to question America’s blind loyalty to Israel.  What irrational lunacy on their part:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman’s decision with regret.

In situations like this, it is often impossible to know whether the appointee really did voluntarily withdraw or whether he was forced out and is merely being allowed to say that he withdrew.  To his credit, Adm. Blair was in the Senate this morning defending Freeman from the likes of Joe Lieberman, but everything that is publicly known about Freeman makes it seem unlikely that he would have voluntarily withdrawn due to the shrieking criticisms directed at him.  If he were forced out — and there’s no basis for assuming he was until there’s evidence for that — then that reflects quite badly on the Obama administration’s willingness to defy the Bill Kristols, Marty Peretzes, and National Reviews of the world when it comes to American policy towards the Middle East.

In the U.S., you can advocate torture, illegal spying, and completely optional though murderous wars and be appointed to the highest positions.  But you can’t, apparently, criticize Israeli actions too much or question whether America’s blind support for Israel should be re-examined.

UPDATE:  Prior to the announcement that the Freeman appointment was terminated, Max Blumenthal documented that the man leading the anti-Freeman assault was Steve Rosen, the long-time AIPAC official currently on trial for violations of the Espionage Act in connection with the transmission of classified U.S. information intended for Israel. Blumenthal also quotes foreign policy analyst Chris Nelson as follows:

Freeman is stuck in the latest instance of the deadly power game long played here on what level of support for controversial Israeli government policies is a “requirement” for US public office. If Obama surrenders to the critics and orders [Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair] to rescind the Freeman appointment to chair the NIC, it is difficult to see how he can properly exercise leverage, when needed, in his conduct of policy in the Middle East. That, literally, is how the experts see the stakes of the fight now under way.

Blumethal also suggested that right-wing Israel fanatics in the U.S. are particularly interested in controlling how intelligence is analyzed due to their anger over the NIE’s 2007 conclusion that Iran had ceased its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“It’s clear that Freeman isn’t going to be influenced by the lobby,” Jim Lobe, the Washington bureau chief of Inter Press Service, remarked to me. “They don’t like people like that, especially when they’re in charge of products like the NIE. So this is a very important test for them.”

Blumenthal further noted that the leader of the anti-Freeman crusade in the House, Rep.  Mark Kirk, is Congress’ top recipient of AIPAC donations.   Identically, Greg Sargent previously reported that, in the Senate, “concern” over Freeman was expressed by Sen. Chuck Schumer directly to Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Does anyone doubt that it’s far more permissible in American political culture to criticize actions of the American government than it is the actions of the Israeli Government?   Isn’t that rather odd, and quite self-evidently destructive?

UPDATE II:  Andrew Sullivan on “The Freeman Precedent”:

Obama may bring change in many areas, but there is no possibility of change on the Israel-Palestine question. Having the kind of debate in America that they have in Israel, let alone Europe, on the way ahead in the Middle East is simply forbidden. Even if a president wants to have differing sources of advice on many questions, the Congress will prevent any actual, genuinely open debate on Israel. More to the point: the Obama peeps never defended Freeman. They were too scared. The fact that Obama blinked means no one else in Washington will ever dare to go through the hazing that Freeman endured. And so the chilling effect is as real as it is deliberate.

Actually, Obama’s DNI, Adm. Blair, did defend Freeman, but only today, and it’s true that no other Obama officials did.  As usual, it was a bipartisan onslaught of government officials marching in lockstep loyalty to AIPAC mandates, with nobody outside of some bloggers and online writers defending Freeman.  Though I was just arguing yesterday that the rules for discussing Israel in the U.S. have become more permissive, and I still think that, this outcome was probably inevitable given the refusal of virtually all influential Beltway factions to deviate from mandated loyalty to the right-wing Israel agenda.  That it was inevitable doesn’t make it any less grotesque.

UPDATE III:  Chuck Schumer — who supported Bush’s nomination of Michael Hayden for CIA Director despite his key role in implementing Bush’s illegal eavesdropping program, and supported Bush’s nomination of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General despite his refusal to say that waterboarding was torture — is now boasting about the role he played in blocking Freeman’s appointment, all based on Freeman’s crimes in speaking ill of the U.S. Israel:

Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position. His statements against Israel were way over the top and severely out of step with the administration. I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing.

That’s certainly evidence that (a) Freeman was forced out, and (b) his so-called “statements against Israel” were the precipitating cause.

1 comment March 10th, 2009

Eidelson: On the Road to Change

Roy Eidelson, President-Elect of Psychologists for Social Responsibility [PsySR] has a new article on the psychology of anticipating change:

On the Road to Change: The Psychology of Progress

By Roy Eidelson

The morning after last November’s historic election, triumphant chants of “Yes We Did” drowned out the Obama campaign message of “Yes We Can.” Now only four months later enthusiasm has waned, and last Friday the President felt the need to reassure reporters on Air Force One, “I don’t think that people should be fearful about our future.”

The striking contrast highlights the fact that any long and difficult journey should be measured in two parts – the distance already traveled, and the distance still left to go. Both measurements are necessary to really understand how much progress you’ve made toward reaching your destination. Neither one alone is sufficient.

This simple idea – appreciated by many a parent during road trips with young children repeatedly asking “Are we there yet?” – has special relevance for progressives as we contemplate where we stand today. On the one hand, we rejoice that the previous administration’s unprecedented incompetence, corruption, secrecy, and lawlessness are fading in our rear-view mirror each day. On the other hand, we are sobered by the realization that the horizon ahead is clouded by a crippled economy, an inadequate healthcare system, and multiple wars with no clear end in sight.

These competing tensions are readily apparent in the daily news headlines. One day last week, for example, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll revealed a sharp one-month jump – from 26% to 41% – in the percentage of Americans who think the country is headed in the right direction. A very encouraging sign. But then the following day the Labor Department reported that 651,000 people had lost their jobs in the month of February alone. These Americans are certainly not among those now brimming with greater optimism.

This is more than just a “half-empty versus half-full” moment. It’s a reminder that these dueling psychological perspectives will inevitably shape our efforts as we push forward in our pursuit of progressive goals, as we look for ways to collaborate with policymakers and with each other, and as we confront resistance from those who will smugly smile and celebrate if we fail.

Some valuable guideposts for this unfolding journey can be found in an intriguing study published last year by social psychologists Amanda Brodish, Paige Brazy, and Patricia Devine. Comparing the responses of white and non-white Americans to survey questions about racial progress in the United States, here’s what these researchers found:

The non-white participants perceived significantly less progress toward equality for minorities in the U.S. than did their white counterparts.

The non-white participants primarily relied on comparisons with the future rather than the past in forming their judgments about the extent of racial progress.

A subset of white respondents displayed three characteristics: they focused on comparisons with past inequality, they emphasized that much progress has already been made, and they scored higher than others on a measure of racial prejudice.

Although this study focused specifically on perceptions about racial progress, it can help illuminate the challenges facing progressives as we track our progress toward a more equitable world.

First, many of those who have suffered most egregiously from the heartless and greed-driven agenda of the Bush years will understandably be skeptical and slow to embrace the view that better days have arrived. They will not easily be persuaded that things are suddenly different now. Personal experiences of hardship and injustice create powerful and stubborn mindsets that are not quickly changed without tangible improvements in the circumstances of people’s daily lives. A freshly-paved road offers little promise if your car is stuck in the mud.

Second, over time many vulnerable individuals and groups – for whom progressive policy alternatives offer real hope – will evaluate their situations much more in terms of goals not yet achieved rather than on the basis of progress made to date. Although this particular focus may seem to discount important advances, it represents a reasonable perspective for those who have learned that their plight and efforts have typically been forgotten as soon as the news cycle changes. Ongoing forward momentum requires never coming to a complete stop. Or to look at it another way, no matter how clean and attractive it may be, a highway rest stop is nobody’s dream home.

Finally, given their support for “free” markets and greater inequality, many conservatives will be quick to argue that enough change has already taken place – while secretly longing for the “good old days” of elite rule and consolidated wealth. Despite appeals to bipartisanship, they will oppose and obstruct all efforts to advance policies with real redistributive effects, claiming that they are unnecessary, unwarranted, or dangerous. In short, as progressives we need to recognize that Rush Limbaugh and his supporters will never be well-behaved passengers on the road trip we’re undertaking. Given a chance, they will grab the steering wheel from us, find excuses for time-consuming detours, or simply flatten the tires. As we’ve recently heard from the very top of their ranks, they would love to see us fail.

There is no doubt that this is an ascendant moment and a special opportunity for progressive advocates for a more just society. But this new era has begun during a time of turmoil and despair. For many people, things are slipping backward even as the stage is finally set to move forward.

Unfortunately, we simply don’t get to live in the utopian world where the first leg of our collective journey unfolds under cloudless skies. These realities reinforce the critical role that dueling perspectives on progress will play in the weeks and months ahead – and we need to understand all of them. Psychological perceptions will often be at least as important as any facts on the ground. So even when we think we’ve traveled great distances in leaving the past eight years behind us, we are wise to heed the warning on our car’s side-view mirror: “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.”

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Roy Eidelson is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational and group conflict settings. He is a consulting partner with Cognitive Policy Works, an educational center and consulting firm that provides guidance to the progressive movement. Roy can be reached at roy@eidelsonconsulting.com and welcomes your reactions.

March 10th, 2009