Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome : The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government (Library of Contemporary Thought) - Softcover

Hersh, Seymour M.

 
9780345427489: Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome : The War Between America's Ailing Veterans and Their Government (Library of Contemporary Thought)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345427483 ISBN 13: 9780345427489
Verlag: Ballantine Books Inc., 1998

Inhaltsangabe

Argues that the American military should be truthful about the origins of the symptoms affecting many Gulf War veterans and take responsibility for treatment

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Seymour M. Hersh is one of America's premier investigative reporters. He has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and four George Polk Awards. Hersh is the author of six books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Target Is Destroyed: What Really Happened to Flight 007 and What America Knew About It, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and America's Foreign Policy, and The Dark Side of Camelot. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and three children.

Aus dem Klappentext

d the system fail the Gulf War veterans? Did national heroes such as Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell, who were known during their careers for taking care of their troops, have an obligation to speak out on behalf of the veterans--as many sick GIs believe--and demand that America's military hospitals stop turning them away? The unsettling fact is that the Gulf War was far more costly to the United States than the Pentagon and its former leaders are willing to acknowledge. The ninety thousand or so victims of Gulf War syndrome are friendly-fire casualties just as surely as if they had been fired upon by their fellow soldiers. The military's inevitable dilemma is profound: Can it protect our soldiers and sailors in future wars if it was unable to do so in the Gulf War?"
--from AGAINST ALL ENEMIES

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Did the American bombing of Iraq's chemical and biological manufacturing
facilities and storage depots inadvertently release germs, gases, or other
toxic materials, leading to low-level exposure that may have had more
damaging effects than previously known? Did the vaccines and medications
provided to soldiers to help them survive a nerve gas or anthrax attack
reduce resistance to low-level exposure to those very agents? Were GIs
contaminated by fallout from the widespread American use against the
Iraqis--for the first time in warfare--of antitank shells and bombs made
from depleted uranium, a radioactive heavy metal that burns on contact?

The medical mystery behind Gulf War syndrome is a complex epidemiological
maze that will take years to fully unravel, if ever. But a sick soldier or
sailor is sick, whether due to stress or to some obscure illness that
defies immediate diagnosis. Why did the system fail the Gulf War veterans?
Did national heroes such as Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell, who were
known during their careers for taking care of their troops, have an
obligation to speak out on behalf of the veterans--as many sick GIs
believe--and demand that America's military hospitals stop turning them
away?

The unsettling fact is that the Gulf War was far more costly to the United
States than the Pentagon and its former leaders are willing to
acknowledge. Well over one hundred thousand Gulf War veterans have
registered thus far for physical examinations at Pentagon and VA clinics,
with nearly 90 percent reporting some symptoms. Those men and women are
friendly-fire casualties just as surely as if they had been fired upon by
their fellow soldiers. The military's inevitable dilemma is profound: Can
it protect our soldiers and sailors in future wars if it was unable to do
so in the Gulf War?

American soldiers were spared from Iraqi bullets and artillery shells in
the Gulf War, but not from toxic gases, mysterious viruses, and unknown
disease. For all of their brave talk about future warfare, the men who run
America's military have been unwilling--perhaps even unable--to learn the
real lessons of the Gulf War.

Colin Powell, for one, professes no second thoughts about his role in the
Gulf War. "We did everything we could to try to protect our troops," he
said in an interview for this book. "We had a lot of folks running their
mouths [before the war] and saying twenty thousand will be killed. Well,
less than five hundred were killed"--in the war and as noncombatants.
"It's a remarkable achievement." Asked about the veterans suffering in the
aftermath of the war, Powell said, "We are still not sure if there is a
Gulf War syndrome. You can scream and shout about it, but there is no
answer." Powell told me that he agrees that the United States has an
obligation to take care of its ailing veterans, no matter what the cause
of their illness, but added that his responsibilities ended upon his
retirement from the army in the fall of 1993. "If there are still some
veterans who say I should have done more or said more," Powell said, "my
answer is, I wasn't in the government."

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Verlag
Ballantine Books Inc.
Erscheinungsdatum
1998
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345427483
ISBN 13 
9780345427489
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
103
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Verantwortliche Person
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