Obama Could Issue an Executive Order to End the Wars Tomorrow (Yes, It's That Simple)

By Nora Eisenberg, AlterNet. Posted January 29, 2009.

Here is what the RAC reported, based on a Feb. 23, 2001, military press statement:

"[Acting special assistant to the secretary of defense for Gulf War illnesses, Army Lt. Gen. Dale Vesser] remarked that although Saddam Hussein didn't use nuclear, biological or chemical agents against coalition forces during the war, 'it never dawned on us … that we may have done it to ourselves.' "

The military never even considered these harmful exposures -- the heavy use of pesticides, the mandatory use of experimental PB pills and anthrax vaccines, the fallout from bombed Iraqi chemical weapons depots, or the dust from the widespread use of depleted-uranium ammunition fired by our tanks.

The 18-year Gulf War will be described in our history books as the world's largest friendly-fire incident -- where our military unwittingly harmed thousands of our own troops.

Second, the IOM did find some associations between toxic exposures and illnesses during their literature review, but the associations were not strong enough, in VA's opinion. … VCS believes that IOM and VA staff conspired to exclude animal studies from the literature review and thereby deprive veterans of desperately needed health care and benefits.

Yes, there are specific VA staff at VA's Washington headquarters and at the Pentagon who are responsible for blocking research to understand Gulf War illnesses and for blocking research for treatments for our veterans. VCS is urging Congress to investigate the VA-IOM contracts and hold those responsible accountable. …

(To learn more, see the VCS letter to Congress about the VA-IOM contract disaster.)

NE: How do you move on from outrage or frustration and sadness to energetic agendas for the future? Like in the case of the RAC, you were able to point out quickly next steps such as ensuring funding, investigating interventions and establishing treatments programs. How do you do that? What do you do with the negative feelings?

PS: I'll admit it is tough to keep fighting to reform a $100 billion, 270,000-person bureaucracy. In our favor, we have the large numbers of veterans and families, plus the moral and legal high ground. We also have the facts and science on our side.

Our military training taught us to stand up to the 500-pound bully called VA. What was once an agency designed to care for veterans has gradually turned more adversarial in the past few decades as the rules and laws for benefits became highly complex.

Our inspiration to fight for each other comes from Vietnam War veterans and Bonus Army veterans, who faced even greater hostility from our government. Actually, fighting with veterans and against injustice is an honor and is very therapeutic.

To learn more, please read about the Bonus Army, and also read Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement, by Gerald Nicosia.

NE: Let's move on to veterans of the current wars. We're hearing more and more about their mental-health problems -- a suicide epidemic, suicide clusters in Houston, homicide clusters in Fort Carson [in Colorado]. Are these real? How widespread and serious is the mental illness of recent veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan?

PS: Yes, there is a tragic and enormous suicide epidemic among all our veterans and most acutely among our young Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. According to facts VA was forced to reveal during our lawsuit, 18 veterans complete suicide every day, and 33 veterans receiving VA medical care attempt suicide every day.

… The statistics show our new soldiers are far healthier, both physically and mentally, than civilians who never served in the armed forces. However, after deploying to war, veterans are more likely to complete suicide than non-veterans. We are forcing VA and DoD to admit there is a problems and take steps to fix it.

Younger veterans are three to four times more likely to complete suicide than non-veterans of the same age, based on research conducted by the University of Georgia at the request of CBS News. Veterans for Common Sense worked closely with CBS investigative producers and reporters for five months and sent scores of Freedom of Information Act requests to VA.

VCS forced VA to admit there was a suicide epidemic as a result of our lawsuit … filed after VA repeatedly refused emergency mental health care for suicidal veterans. We uncovered many incriminating e-mails showing VA was aware of the suicide epidemic and actively concealing it.

Of the 1.83 million service members deployed to the two [Iraq and Afghanistan] war zones … 400,000 became unexpected patients treated at VA hospitals and clinics. Of the 400,000 patients, 178,000 are diagnosed with a mental-health condition, including 105,000 diagnosed with PTSD. A shocking 7,400 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are diagnosed with drug dependence.

In 2004, there were only 238 drug-dependent veterans from the two wars. In 2007, the military denied the link between war deployment and drug dependence. In 2008, they changed their position.

Please remember that when President Bush sent our soldiers off to war, he sought to cut VA funding and restrict access to care for hundreds of thousands of veterans. Furthermore, even after seven years of war and a tidal wave of patients, Bush never developed a plan to provide long-term health care or disability benefits. In fact, Bush fought very hard against restoring education benefits to the level World War II veterans received.

See more stories tagged with: iraq, vietnam, 9/11, torture, afghanistan, robert gates, barack obama, blackwater, mercenaries, george w. bush, military contractors, ptsd, walter reed, department of defense, depleted uranium, gulf war, jeremy scahill, veterans affairs, gulf war syndrome, paul sullivan, veterans for common sense, bonus army, post-traumatic stress dis, penatgon, phil sheldon

Nora Eisenberg is the author of the novels The War at Home, a Washington Post Rave of the Year 2002, and Just the Way You Want Me, awarded the 2004 Gold Prize for Fiction from ForeWord Magazine, the weekly of independent publishing. Her new novel, issued this month by Curbstone Press, is about troops returning home from the 1991 Gulf War, and the unexpected price of war for young victors and their families.

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