Military Recruiters Return to SFSU

this was the same thing done by berkeley stop the war at a career fair last year, and it was then, and still is, the lamest tactic ever.

As a Marine, I can't imagine why you would try and deny the students of your college the opportunity to serve in the greatest branch of the Military of the greatest country in the world as the anarchist fellow said, very lame.

Lets remember Veterans Day is approaching, it is time to honor all those that have served this country, and trying to disrupt activities designed to get those interested in VOLUNTEERING for the military connected with the armed forces does nothing but dishonor all those who have served our Nation so Proudly.

Remember, we are a volunteer military, no one is asking you to go. All you are being asked to do is be a good American, support your country, your military and your commander and chief, in a couple years you can vote for another one.

But stop with the lame nuisance tactics of disrupting our Nation from recruiting those with the moral courage and willingness to serve their fellow man. These men and women in our military should be celebrated and honored, for they provide you with the freedom you love so much.

So stop being lame, next time you see a recruiter, how about giving him or her a thank you and a hand shake. Be thankful others are willing to do a job that is so vital to your safety and well being.

Heard of all the lying they've done? Please say it's not true and I'll gladly produce evidence.

i think the tactic is lame because it didn't disrupt enough, not because they should let them recruit!

supreme leader voltron has stated that we are battling the anxiety inducers in p'thhpp so they do not induce anxiety on our land mass.

subcommander klaata says that our warrior caste will remain in the embattled province of p'thhpp until the job is finished.

supreme leader koltron is just and wise. i cannot wait for news of the latest glorious victory in the war on anxiety.

domestic news: on the northernmost plains of our land mass the debate over what to teach our young hatchlings about the origin of our species continues.

did we descend from slime lizzards as the descendenists believe? or did the one true grouping of deities design us in their holy images? they're just both theories after all...

and supreme leader voltron says both theories should be taught -- so our hatchlings can make up their own minds.

HAIL SUPREME LEADER VOLTRON.

What do you mean lies, they give you a contract to read and sign. Everything is in it. What, don't you think people should read a contract before they might go to war? Anyone that doesn't is stupid.

Now please tell me they joined not knowing they would fight in a war. Please tell me when you join the guard or reserve you don't expect to get called up. Well guess what, you get called up in time of emergency or war. Oh yeah we are at war. And please don't complain about extended tours and long deployments. Ever heard of WWII. You stayed in and for the most part (air service somewhat excluded) stayed overseas until the war was one. That is what is means to be in the military. You are supposed to defend your country. And remember, that is what are doing in Iraq, as well as liberating the masses from the horrible islamic extremist animals.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2005 — Several cases of corruption in the military ranks have revealed a dangerous vulnerability in the nation's security, ABC News has learned.

Dozens of active and former soldiers have abused their military uniforms and authority in a drug smuggling ring, government sources tell ABC News.
...
Last week in Oklahoma, seven current and former U.S. soldiers — most of them military police — admitted they received bribes of $2,000 to $8,000 to smuggle cocaine.
...
In Operation Lively Green, FBI agents posed as drug dealers and with $220,000 in cash, enticed Arizona National Guard soldiers, an Arizona police officer, an immigrations agent and a federal prison guard to help them smuggle more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States.

In one case, the suspects met a plane on a remote airstrip near Benson, Ariz., offloaded 60 kilograms of cocaine and drove it to a Phoenix resort hotel in their Army Humvees.

In another case, a U.S. immigration officer at the Mexican border near Nogales, Ariz., waved through a truck he was told was full of cocaine. He and 31 others have admitted they were willing participants in the scheme. They also implicated other officers.

The FBI says to expect more arrests.
...
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/US/story?id=1252876



Stop Recruitment and your drug supply will run out.

Do you really want that??

-Semper Fi

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley

<<<<<<Remember, we are a volunteer military, no one is asking you to go. All you are being asked to do is be a good American, support your country, your military and your commander and chief, in a couple years you can vote for another one.>>>>>

first of all, we are not in the business of pushing buttons.

secondly, our taxes go to finance a war of aggression, which is a capital crime punishable by death to those who lied to get us into it.

as a high contracting party to the united nations, the u.s. congress is mandated to try, convict and hang those responsible.

domestically, mass murder and torture is frowned upon if you haven't noticed.

also, per the war crimes act of 1996 passed by a republican congress and article 6, paragraph 4 of the consitution, our own law binds us to act per solemn treaty by arresting all those gulty of the said capital crimes.

In a related matter, an action was filed some time ago under germany's universal law by the center for consitutional rights against mr. rumsfeld and others for the torture of 4 plaintiffs at abu ghraib.

secondly, a liability action by the american civil liberties union is now being prepared right here against mr. rumsfeld for war crimes.

mr. gonzales (our new mr. eichman) and general sanchez will likely face perjury charges for their false sworn testimonies about torture and extraordinary rendition.

and so it goes on, i could say more, however, what would be the point?

it would contradict our principles to leave things like this to such as yourself.

so that's why we are here: to stop you. and button pushing is the last thing on our minds. always has been and always will be. nobody ever got anything done pushing buttons.

comprendez?

know whatta mean????

and by the way, we will stop you. so, you might as well go back to that trailer park or shanty or rv in alabama where you come from, literally or otherwise.

Decoding Bush's Latest Speech
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
By JOHN CHUCKMAN

The following quotes are from Bush's speech about the War on Terror, as given October 6, 2005, and largely repeated October 28. It was a speech especially dense with Bushspeak, a dialect which never means what it seems to say. Perspective and the occasional translation follow the quotes.

"All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random and isolated acts of madness; innocent men and women and children have died simply because they boarded the wrong train, or worked in the wrong building, or checked into the wrong hotel. Yet while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. "

You might ask how is it possible to choose victims more indiscriminately than by bombing cities? The Pentagon doesn't even attempt to count Iraq's dead, civilian or military. Two serious efforts have been made to count the civilian toll of the barbarism called "Shock and Awe." One, an effort to count bodies all over the country in morgues, hospitals, and other likely places, came up with more than 25,000 killed. Another scientific study of Iraq's national mortality tables, published in the British medical journal Lancet, came up with about a 100,000.

What is Bush's understanding of this "clear and focused ideology"?

"Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism."

Bush uses these coined-by-neocon advertising slogans to describe an ideology, but in fact all they do is attempt to re-package plain old religious extremists. I cannot help wondering how we would distinguish them from Franklin Graham preaching about using nuclear weapons following 9/11 or Pat Robertson speaking about assassinating a democratically-elected leader or the crazed preaching of heavily-armed American cults?

"We know the vision of the radicals because they've openly stated it -- in videos, and audiotapes, and letters, and declarations, and websites."

Do you believe the audiotapes and videos periodically broadcast any more than you believe the proved-fake documentation of Hussein buying uranium in Niger? Are any of these so-called sources any more believable than the ridiculous video CNN broadcast after the invasion of Afghanistan in which dogs were being killed in a secret mountain weapons laboratory run by men wearing sandals? How about spy satellite shots of mobile weapons labs that never existed, evidence solemnly presented by Colin Powell before the UN?

Do you even believe Osama bin Laden is alive? Bush has no reason ever to reveal Osama's death, an act which would convert Osama from leader in hiding to Martyr. Of course, if you are reading this piece, you likely are the wrong kind of person of whom to ask such questions. Bush's words are crafted for people who let CNN do their thinking for them.

"Now they've set their sights on Iraq. Bin Laden has stated: "The whole world is watching this war and the two adversaries. It's either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror."

Bush follows a dubious quote from bin Laden with a preposterous conclusion. There were, before Bush's invasion, no terrorists in Iraq. Iraq's secret police hardly afforded a refuge to terrorists or any other potential conspirators. Moreover, Hussein, the secularist, and bin Laden, the religious fanatic, are known to have hated each other.

Post-invasion Iraq is crawling with resistance fighters from many places and of every possible description. In the words of the head of Canada's intelligence service, CSIS, Iraq has become a training ground for thousands who will threaten Western security for years to come. We all have Bush to thank for this development.

"The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization, in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution."

I can't imagine words that better describe America's reaction to 9/11. About twenty people committed a terrible crime. Instead of going about the business of identifying and trying any others who were responsible, Bush launched two wars he promises to continue for years to come.

A culture of victimization? America is the world authority on that odd subject. Following 9/11 everything from the giant street signs at doughnut shops to blinking signs on gas pumps insisted that Americans must never forget. There were even sweatshirts being sold in supermarkets and gardening centers. It was all one huge, confused, and dangerous reaction spurred on by an incompetent man at the top muttering about "with us or against us."

"And they exploit modern technology to multiply their destructive power."

What modern technology? The men who died carrying out 9/11 possessed weapons like box cutters to take over the planes. The young men in the London Underground bombing carried backpacks with relatively crude bombs in them.

Bush deliberately confuses the resistance in Iraq with terrorists in other places. The resistance in Iraq now does have some improved technology for attacking American armored vehicles. But why should this surprise anyone? Many of these people have military experience and they have resources that were stored away by Hussein. Besides, everyone learns quickly during the deadly intensity of military conflict. During a few years of World War I, new technologies for killing emerged quickly, including tanks, machine guns, poison gas, and air bombardment.

"The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan. "

Bush's cynicism and dishonesty here are off the meter. The Russians have carried on for years a hideous war against Chechen independence. Journalists from Europe have reported almost indescribable horrors. The Chechens are desperate for vengeance against so powerful and ruthless an opponent. People who have experienced the treatment they have experienced are indeed capable of almost anything. Were Russia still the old Soviet Union, Bush would be sending weapons and encouragement to Chechnya.

"He (bin Laden) assures them that his -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride."

Coming from someone who avoided military service during a major war so that he could carry on a carefree frat-life, someone whose National Guard records have been mutilated, presumably to hide failings, this is quite a statement. It is, moreover, quite wrong. Bin Laden, whatever we may think of him, fought bravely in Afghanistan against the Russians, gaining an almost legendary reputation. He is now, assuming he is alive, a man whose age and health would rule out military service.

"When 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing, or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school, or hospital workers are killed caring for the wounded, this is murder, pure and
simple -- the total rejection of justice and honor and morality and religion. These militants are not just the enemies of America, or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and the enemies of humanity. We have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, and the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields."

Bush has killed and mutilated thousands of Iraqi children. It cannot be otherwise when you bomb heavily in a country where so large a fraction of the population is young.

"And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure."

Bush repeats the phrase "like the ideology of communism" a number of times, trying to establish a comparison that doesn't exist. Communism controlled a number of major nations in the world. The opposition of these governments to Western freedoms came directly out the fact that you cannot run a highly centralized state and permit freedom as we understand it. Islamic extremists control no states.

"Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse."

Bush here applies an idea that does not fit from theories of economic development. This was always the case for communist governments whose abuse of basic economic principles doomed them to eventual decline. Nevertheless, for decades did America behave as though the analysis were true? No, America spent trillions, literally trillions, of dollars in a quasi-religious war against communism. In the end, communism did collapse of its own contradictions.

From the American point of view, the purpose of the Cold War, at least once the truly dangerous, paranoid Stalin was dead (early 1953), was to secure American hegemony through much of the world.

"the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, who was chief of al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf."

Mastermind? One suicide bomber in a small boat approached the Cole and blew a hole in her hull. How does that require a "mastermind"? The man in the small boat was determined, and the crew of the American ship was lax guarding it - end of story.

"Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes, and to their terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation. The United States, working with Great Britain, Pakistan, and other nations has exposed and disrupted a major black-market operation in nuclear technology led by A.Q. Khan."

Outlaw regimes with weapons of mass destruction? Doesn't that exactly describe Pakistan? And before 9/11, that was pretty much the official American view. General Musharraf is a coup-installed dictator, and his government developed atomic weapons in direct opposition to American policy. Yet today, magically, he is listed with democracies in the fight against terror.

Mr. Khan is Pakistani and is regarded as father of the country's atomic-weapons program. Despite assertions otherwise, it seems inconceivable his covert activities in spreading nuclear know-how were unknown to his government.

"The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally as guilty of murder."

Has Bush heard the name Luis Posada Carriles, a man who blew up an airliner full of people and is kept from facing trial in Venezuela? Of course he has, and that makes this statement ridiculous.

"The terrorist goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East, and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence. Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power -- and so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq."

This is preposterous. Guerilla forces do not work this way. The hide, harass, and make life unpleasant for those they oppose. Taking control of a state only invites retaliation against a clearly-defined target. Look what Bush did to the city of Fallujah, thinking it was a hotbed of terrorists. Marines turned it into a ghost town, yet resistance still flourishes.

"With every random bombing and with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots, or resistance fighters -- they are murderers at war with the Iraqi people, themselves."

No, what they mainly are is one side in a civil war precipitated by Bush's invasion, and civil wars are always the nastiest wars.

"Some observers question the durability of democracy in Iraq. They underestimate the power and appeal of freedom."

Democracy and freedom are not the same thing. Majorities often deny minorities their rights and freedoms. America has a long history of government with democratic trappings that has denied freedom to others. Ask the people of Hawaii. Ask Hispanics in Texas or California. Ask almost any black American.

Sunnis and others in Iraq feel Bush has stacked things against their interests with the new constitution, and they are right.

"We're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow."

But the people Bush calls terrorists often are the dissidents in their own lands. Bin Laden certainly could claim this description in his native Saudi Arabia.

"Iraqi soldiers are sacrificing to defeat al Qaeda in their own country."

Al Qaeda? Is that really Bush's enemy in Iraq? Surely, even he does not believe that. His enemies there include the normal resistance fighters against invasion we would find anywhere, native minority groups whose interests are threatened by the government he installed, and undoubtedly many angry young men from other lands who see grievous injustice in Bush's invasion.

The name War on Terror is itself perhaps the darkest example of Bushspeak. You cannot have a war on ideas, or a war on religious beliefs, or even a war on people's feelings of grievance and injustice. The War on Terror is code for belligerent interference in the Middle East. It is also code for the suppression of dissent in America, something dear to the kind of people with which Bush surrounds himself, people who lie, cheat, and profit from billions of dollars being squandered. And all this crashes over us as a result of what the intelligence community calls blowback from bad policies and neglect of years ago.

Islamic extremists, mainly wahabis are the enemy. Al Qaeda is one of those. What you don't get, or want to understand is the society is very byzantine. Everybody has something going on, allegiances that are not apparent at first glance. Iraq and Afghan society have very little in common with yours.
The wahabis hate shiites, think of them as apostates and worthy of a slow death. All religions other than islam and all muslims that don't see things the wahabi way also need to be killed. The Saudi and Pakistani govt agree with this as long as they suffer no pain themselves.

For those who question our policies and want to see that we are doing right around the world, good for you, that is what our country is based on, an informed electorate participating in a represantitive democracy, and that is what the men and women in uniform are protecting, they have been since 1776. And a debate is always good to keep this country on the right path. As far as those advocating other things, remember, treason is a crime worthy of the death penalty as well.

So if you feel so compelled to revolt and not participate in this great demoracy we have (you know the one that is the envy of the world) then pick up and leave. No one is holding you here against your will. In fact you probably can get some money from your mommy and daddy, tell them you need something for college or something, you know do whatever you normally do when you need to buy more dope or you want the latest ipod. And then buy your one way ticket and get out here, go save a rain forest or some dolphin.

And for those talking about war crimes, I don't know what you are referring to, all the people I know that have actually been in Iraq, have talked how the people loved them. That is except for those that were part of Saddam's regime or the foriegn arab fighters that have gone to iraq rather than the US to kill Americans.

Lets see, foriegn fighters fighting Americans in Iraq rather than fighting and killing civilians in America. That sounds like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are right, they have created an identifyable battle field for the War on Terrorism, far away from American soil in their own backyard. Isn't that what the President is supposed to do, keep Americans safe and while destroying our enemy. So I and most Americans that look at things critically and strategically say stay the course, a change wouldn't be prudent.

This has been another piece of wisdom provided by Mr. Democracy.

God Bless the USA

For those who question our policies and want to see that we are doing right around the world, good for you, that is what our country is based on, an informed electorate participating in a represantitive democracy, and that is what the men and women in uniform are protecting, they have been since 1776. And a debate is always good to keep this country on the right path. As far as those advocating other things, remember, treason is a crime worthy of the death penalty as well.

So if you feel so compelled to revolt and not participate in this great demoracy we have (you know the one that is the envy of the world) then pick up and leave. No one is holding you here against your will. In fact you probably can get some money from your mommy and daddy, tell them you need something for college or something, you know do whatever you normally do when you need to buy more dope or you want the latest ipod. And then buy your one way ticket and get out here, go save a rain forest or some dolphin.

And for those talking about war crimes, I don't know what you are referring to, all the people I know that have actually been in Iraq, have talked how the people loved them. That is except for those that were part of Saddam's regime or the foriegn arab fighters that have gone to iraq rather than the US to kill Americans.

Lets see, foriegn fighters fighting Americans in Iraq rather than fighting and killing civilians in America. That sounds like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are right, they have created an identifyable battle field for the War on Terrorism, far away from American soil in their own backyard. Isn't that what the President is supposed to do, keep Americans safe and while destroying our enemy. So I and most Americans that look at things critically and strategically say stay the course, a change wouldn't be prudent.

This has been another piece of wisdom provided by Mr. Democracy.

God Bless the USA

It's funny how Righties like throwing around words like treason as their own thugs in DC abuse power in ways that come close to the legal definition of treason. Lying about WMD to get the US into Iraq should be seen as treason since it risked lives for lies, but outing a CIA agent in a revenge attack against her husband does sound like it comes pretty damn close to a legal definition of treason.

The talk about how attacks in Iraq prevent attacks back in the US also strikes me as a bit treasonous. It souhdns awfully close to daring Al Qaeda to attack the US. Bush said told the Iraqi resistance to "bring it on" and when they did thousands of US soliders and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. Now Righties are daring AL Qaeda to attack the US... A statement that Bush war is justfiied if there are not attacks on the US afterwards has many logical flaws (9/11 took years of planning for example and the british bombings required British citizens to carry them out) but in a sense its a statement to Al Qada that they should attack the US if they oppose the Iraq war. Such a statement comes awfully close to asking them to attack the US which would be considered a treasonous statement by many.

<<<<< The war in Iraq has claimed more than 17,000 dead and wounded American soldiers, many times more Iraqi casualties and close to $200 billion.

It has left our international reputation in tatters and our military broken. It has weakened the United States, increased hatred of us and made terrorist attacks against our interests more likely in the future.

It has been, as Gen. William Odom suggested, the greatest strategic blunder in the history of our country.>>>>>

ps to young people: joining a war of aggression as defined by the nuremberg principles is a capital crime punishable by death.

good luck!!!

recruiting for a war of aggression - a war crime itself?

recruits:

do you like participating in gang rapes of boys and girls?

do you enjoy torturing children??

do you like to use baseball bats to smash the legs of iraqi civilians?

do you like special "collective punishment" operations?

THERE'S MORE!!!!

CLICK ON THE BELOW PDF FILE, NAVIGATE DOWN TO PAGE 22.

EXCITING NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR SADISTS!!!!


COPY AND PASTE THE BELOW INTERNET ADDRESS

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/legal/september_11th/docs/German_COMPLAINT_English_Version.pdf


GOT DEMOCRACY???

SHOULD SOME MILITARY RECRUITERS BE BEHIND BARS?

GOT DEMOCRACY?


Who needs a draft when there's kidnapping?
This story is beyond belief, but it really appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- a tale of that tactics that some of our military recruiters are employing these days:

The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"

Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.

"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.

Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.

He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.

At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."

By then Marcia had "freaked out."

She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.

Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."

Axel's grandfather was in the hospital dying, she told the people at the desk. He needed to come home right away. She would have said just about anything.

But, even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm.

"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said.

What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.

Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail

<<<<Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent.

~Issac Asimov>>>>>>

Got Democracy???

<<<<Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.

~Mahatma Gandhi>>>>

<<<<<<War is fear cloaked in courage.

~General William Westmoreland>>>>

Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

~Benjamin Franklin

Army secret surfaces: Deadly chemicals at sea
Millions of pounds of unused weapons of mass destruction were dumped in oceans before Congress banned the practice in 1972. The threat is still out there, and may be growing.
By John Bull
Special to The Morning Call

October 30, 2005

First of a two-day series

A clam dredging operation off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., in 2004 pulled up an old artillery shell.

The long-submerged, World War I-era explosive was filled with a black, tar-like substance.

Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were brought in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured, one hospitalized with large, pus-filled blisters on his arm and hand.

The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.

What was long-feared by the few military officials in the know had come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago had finally ended up on shore in the United States.

While it has long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean, records obtained by the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., show that the previously classified weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than has ever been suspected.

The Army now admits in reports never before released that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agent into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels.

A Daily Press investigation also found:

These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off the coasts of at least 11 states: six on the East Coast, including New Jersey and Maryland, two on the Gulf Coast, and in California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.

The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has examined only a few of its 26 dump zones, and none in 30 years.

The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.

More dump sites probably exist. The Army hasn't reviewed records from the World War I era, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was common.

''We do not claim to know where they all are,'' said William Brankowitz, a deputy project manager in the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency and a leading authority on the Army's chemical weapons dumping. ''We don't want to be cavalier at all and say this stuff was exposed to water and is OK. It can last for a very, very long time.''

A drop of nerve agent can kill within a minute. When released in the ocean it lasts up to six weeks, killing every organism it touches before breaking down into its nonlethal chemical components.

Mustard gas can be fatal. When exposed to seawater it forms a concentrated, encrusted gel that lasts for at least five years, rolling around on the ocean floor, killing or contaminating sea life.

Sea-dumped chemical weapons may be slowly leaking from decades of saltwater corrosion, resulting in a time-delayed release of deadly chemicals over the next 100 years and an unforeseeable environmental impact. Steel corrodes at different rates depending on the water depth, ocean temperature and thickness of the shells.

That was the conclusion of Norwegian scientists who in 2002 examined chemical weapons dumped off Norway's coast after World War II by the U.S. and British military.

Overseas, more than 200 fishermen over the years have been burned by mustard gas pulled on deck. A fisherman in Hawaii was burned in 1976 when he brought up an Army-dumped mortar round full of mustard gas.

Although it seems unlikely the weapons will begin to wash up on shore, last year's discovery that a mustard gas-filled artillery shell was dumped off the coast of New Jersey was ominous for several reasons.

It was the first ocean-dumped chemical weapon to make its way to shore in the United States.

It was pulled up with clams in relatively shallow water only 20 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. The Army had no idea chemical weapons were dumped in the area.

Most alarming: It was found intact in a residential driveway in Delaware.

It had survived being dredged up and put through a crusher to create cheap clamshell driveway fill sold throughout the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware and Maryland.

Decades of dumping

The United States never used chemical weapons in war but amassed a huge stockpile to be unleashed if enemy forces used them first. Their existence was a known, ultimately successful, deterrent.

The Army's secret ocean-dumping program spanned at least three decades, from 1944 to 1970.

The dumped weapons were deemed to be unneeded surplus. They were hazardous to transport, expensive to store, too dangerous to bury and difficult to destroy.

In the early 1970s, the Army publicly admitted it had dumped some chemical weapons off the U.S. coast. Congress banned the practice in 1972. Three years later, the United States signed an international treaty prohibiting ocean disposal of chemical weapons.

Only now have Army reports come to light that show how much was dumped, what kind of chemical weapons they were, when they were thrown overboard, and rough nautical coordinates of where some are located.

The reports contain bits and pieces of information on the Army's long-running ocean dumping program. The reports were released to the Daily Press, which cross-indexed them to obtain the most comprehensive, detailed picture yet compiled of what was dumped, where and when.

To put the information in context, the newspaper also examined nautical charts, National Archive records and scientific studies and interviewed many experts on unexploded ordnance and chemical warfare, both in the country and overseas.

The Army's Brankowitz created the seminal report on ocean dumping. He examined classified Army records and in 1987 wrote a lengthy report on chemical weapons movements over the decades. It included the revelation that more than a dozen shipments ended in the ocean. The report was not widely disseminated.

His follow-up report in 1989 revealed, through review of other previously classified documents, the rough nautical coordinates of some dump sites and the existence of more dump zones. In 2001, a computer database was created to include additional dump zones the Army discovered and more details of some of the dumping operations.

The database summary and the 1989 report had never before been released publicly.

''I know I didn't find everything,'' said Brankowitz, who has worked for more than 30 years on chemical weapons issues for the Army. ''I'm very much convinced there are records at the National Archives that have been misfiled. Short of a major research effort that would cost a lot of money, we've done the best we can.''

The reports reveal that the Army created at least 26 chemical weapons dump sites off the coastlines of at least 11 states, but knows the rough nautical coordinates of only half the sites.

At least 64 million pounds of liquid mustard gas and nerve agent in one-ton steel canisters were dumped into the sea, along with at least 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, grenades, land mines and rockets as well as radioactive waste, according to the reports.

The Army's documents are incomplete or vague. Years of records are missing or were destroyed to clear office space at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a longtime chemical weapon research and testing base.

And the Army has not reviewed its records of chemical weapons dumping before World War II, when it was common to just throw the weapons into the ocean in relatively shallow water, Brankowitz said.

As a result, more dump sites probably exist, he conceded.

Possible environmental disaster

The environmental impact of chemical weapons dump sites is unknown, but potentially disastrous.

The ocean depth varies widely off the East Coast, as a rule gradually deepening to 600 feet before hitting the outer continental shelf, which drops off into very deep water. The shelf's location can be as close as 60 miles or as far as 200 miles from shore.

''The perception at the time was the ocean is vast, it would absorb it,'' said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Kentucky, a grass-roots citizen group. ''Certainly, it is insane in retrospect they would do it.''

''It would be inevitable, I assume, all of this will be released into the ocean at some point or another,'' said Williams, who has fought Army plans to incinerate some of the 44 million pounds of chemical weapons the country now has stockpiled. ''I don't think anyone knows for sure the true danger. It's just a matter of opinion. You can say, 'It's going to kill everyone,' or you can say, 'It's not a problem.' The truth is somewhere in between.''

Based on the information available, the Army presumes most of the weapons are in very deep water and are unlikely to jeopardize divers or commercial fishing operations that dredge the ocean bottom.

John Chatterton doesn't believe that.

''I don't think it all is where they say it is,'' said Chatterton, a 25-year veteran diver who searches for undiscovered shipwrecks as host of the History Channel's ''Deep Sea Detectives.'' ''I've found a lot of stuff where it's not supposed to be. Absolutely, positively, it is not a guarantee it is there [in deep water].''

Chemical weapons were dumped long before electronic navigation systems were invented. Their nautical locations are based on the word of ship captains, who surely wanted to ditch their cargo quickly and, Chatterton suspects, probably cut corners.

''The guys who were doing this were scared of this stuff. They were well-motivated to get rid of this stuff as fast as they could,'' Chatterton said. ''So they could take it all the way out there or else they could say, 'This is good enough,' and be back in port in three hours. I know what they did. It's mariner nature.''

State officials in the dark

One of the first of the now-identified dump zones created at the end of World War II was also one of the largest.

The Army dubbed it Disposal Site Baker.

The Army has only the vaguest idea where it is on the ocean floor somewhere off Charleston, S.C., according to the most specific of surviving records.

''I have never had any information to suggest this was done,'' said Charles Farmer, a marine biologist who has worked for South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources for almost 40 years. ''I would say this is not well-known to us at all. This is something that is new, at least to me. It's incredible some of the things we've managed to do.''

The first documented dump off that state took place in March 1946 when four railroad cars full of mustard gas bombs and mines were tossed over the side of the USS Diamond Head, an ammunition ship.

Several months later, an estimated 23 barges full of German-produced nerve gas bombs and U.S.-made Lewisite bombs were dumped in the same location. Lewisite is a blister agent chemically akin to mustard agent. A single barge carried up to 350 tons.

''If we don't have any idea of depths of water or location, hell, they could be anywhere,'' Farmer said. ''As we have more and more activity and more and more development off the coast, I hope this was buried in 6,000 feet of water or a lot of this stuff is going to come back to haunt us.''

There is one indication those weapons were dumped in relatively shallow water: Army records show that many of those 23 slow-moving barges were unloaded in one-day, out-and-back operations.

The records leave no doubt that other chemical weapons were dumped close to shore:

In 1944, at least 16,000 mustard-filled 100-pound bombs were unloaded off the coast of Hawaii in deep water only five miles from shore.

Several mustard gas bombs fell into the Mississippi River near Braithwaite, La., in 1945 and have never been found.

A reported 124 leaking German mustard gas bombs were tossed in the Gulf of Mexico off Horn Island in Mississippi in 1946 from a barge that returned to port a few hours later. The island is part of Gulf Islands National Seashore, a popular vacation and fishing destination.

A 1947 dump site in the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, is only 12 miles from a harbor.

Dump sites moved north

By the 1950s, the Army shifted much of its chemical dump operations north to the Virginia-Maryland border and into deeper water.

In 1957 the Army dumped 48 tons of Lewisite off the coast of Virginia Beach in 12,600 feet of water.

Three more dump zones were created more than 100 miles off the coastline between Chincoteague, Va., and Assateague, Md., tourist spots known for their unsullied beaches and populations of wild horses.

Dumped there in roughly 2,000 feet of water were at least 77,000 mustard-filled mortar shells, 5,000 white phosphorous munitions, 1,500 one-ton canisters of Lewisite and 800 55-gallon barrels of military radioactive waste.

It could not be determined what kind of radioactive waste was dumped. But there is one indication it could be highly dangerous nuclear waste with a half-life of thousands of years.

National Archive records of the Army's secretive chemical weapons escort unit, reviewed by the Daily Press, show numerous shipments in the 1950s between a laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., other Army bases with chemical weapons slated for sea disposal, and the Yuma Testing Station in Arizona.

Oak Ridge was where thermonuclear weapons were being developed at the time. Yuma was a military test ground for weapons in development. Records show a shipment on March 7, 1953, was of 35,000 pounds of unidentified ''classified materials.'' The Army apparently stopped dumping radioactive waste in the late 1960s, the records show, when chemical weapons disposal operations again headed north in the Atlantic.

Dumping off Jersey coast

Two ships full of the most potent of all nerve gases, known as VX, were scuttled in 6,000 feet of water many miles off Atlantic City as part of Operation CHASE.

CHASE was Pentagon shorthand for Cut Holes And Sink 'Em.

The nerve gas was in rockets that were encased in concrete before the ships were scuttled.

The Army desperately wanted to get rid of these particular weapons. They also contained jet fuel to propel the rockets. The fuel had a tendency to ''auto-ignite,'' or spontaneously explode.

The ships — the SS Corporal Eric G. Gibson and SS Mormactern — remain a potential danger. Although the rockets were encased in concrete, scientists don't know how quickly concrete breaks down from water pressure at such depths.

A third ship that was scuttled nearby is no longer a hazard: It blew up on its way to the ocean floor on Aug. 7, 1968.

That ship, the SS Richardson, was filled with conventional, high-explosive weapons and 3,500 one-ton containers of mustard agent mixed with water. It was on its way to the bottom in 7,800 feet of water when a chain-reaction explosion went off, presumably caused by water pressure on one of the weapons that set off the rest.

''This is really quite disturbing,'' said U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., who has been fighting Army plans to dump chemically neutralized nerve gas in the Delaware River. ''I did not know of any of this. It's a very serious problem that state officials haven't been told.''

Not on any maps

Boaters, divers, fishermen and commercial seafood trawlers have no way to steer clear of the dump sites.

That's because the Army has put only one of its 26 known chemical weapons dumps on nautical charts, according to records kept by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal agency in charge of undersea cable-laying operations, as well as gas and oil ventures, has only a vague idea of where chemical weapons were thrown into the ocean, said spokesman Gary Strasburg.

That agency, Minerals Management Service, knows only what the Army has revealed to the agency: that chemical weapons were dumped at sea and that some are somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and at a location somewhere off the coast of South Carolina, agency records show.

The impact of dumping operations has never been studied. Few scientists knew it was done, so studies of the decline in sea life over the years has never focused on the possibility of leaking chemical weapons.

Commercial fishing operations, as well as scallop and clam trawlers, have been forced to go farther and farther from shore over the last 25 years because sea life has thinned for unknown reasons. Some scallopers now dredge in up to 400 feet of water, which is more than 100 miles from the shore in some East Coast locations.

The bottom-dwelling cod population in the Northern Atlantic has been decimated.

Another cause of deaths?

Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins mysteriously washed up on Virginia and New Jersey shores in 1987. They died with massive, never-explained skin blisters that resembled mustard gas burns on humans.

Federal marine scientists ultimately attributed the unprecedented number of dolphin deaths to a combination of morbillivirus related to distemper in dogs and potent vibrio bacteria from industrial pollutants.

That combination has killed other marine mammals over the years. But none of them has ever been found with their skin partially peeling off.

One marine mammal specialist who suspects leaking chemical weapons killed the dolphins met with Army officials and was told dumping had been done but was assured the weapons were unloaded in water too deep to harm the coastal-living creatures.

''You'd see the photos and you'd say, 'Man, this animal was burned by something,' '' said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, N.J. He said ''it is a very good possibility'' leaking chemical weapons killed the dolphins.

''It'd be nice to see the Army go down there and investigate, but nobody wants to open that book, it seems,'' Schoelkopf said. ''You'd think they'd want to go look at those sites and say once and for all this isn't a problem. The amazing thing is they are not being monitored.''

The Army also wondered if its chemical weapons were responsible for the dolphin deaths and was preparing to investigate some dump zones. The project was scrapped when the deaths were attributed to the virus and bacteria, said the Army's Brankowitz.

Little or no monitoring

Over the decades, the Army has conducted environmental tests on only four of its dump sites, and none since 1975.

Some of the last tests the Army conducted were on the nerve gas-filled ships off the coast of New Jersey, and they found no evidence the weapons had leaked, Brankowitz said.

He said that leads the Army to presume the pressure on the weapons as they sank to the bottom crushed the shells and squirted their deadly contents onto the seabed, where they long ago broke down into their non-

lethal chemical components.

That may be wishful thinking, according to some scientists.

Shells filled with chemical weapons are more likely to slowly leak over time than to be crushed while sinking, said Peter Brewer, a marine scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.

Regardless, he said, he considers the dangers of leaking chemical weapons in deep-water sites to be low.

He noted that the only Army chemical weapons dump site on nautical charts — the wreck of the SS William Ralston, which was scuttled 117 miles off the coast of San Francisco in the 1950s — has not been found to be leaking, although he said scientists have monitored it only ''from a distance.''

Not far from that wreck, scientists have determined that drums of radioactive waste dumped by industry in the 1950s have so corroded they now are paper-thin with holes in some of them, said Richard Charter, a California environmentalist with Environmental Defense.

He said he fears recent congressional approval of offshore gas and oil exploration off the East and West coasts permitted through last year's lifting of a 22-year-old moratorium could release the chemical agents from their containers.

''It certainly is within the realm of possibility,'' he said. ''This is an invasive activity.''

Seismic exploration is conducted by setting off massive air guns on the ocean surface and measuring the blasts when they bounce off the ocean floor. Such exploration, and drilling operations, have been conducted for decades in the Gulf of Mexico without releasing chemical warfare agents dumped by the Army in that body of water.

Leaking shells

Overseas, scientists who monitor chemical weapons dump sites off the coasts of other countries have identified an unmistakable problem in the Skagerrak Straits, a narrow but deep body of water that separates Norway and Denmark.

In 2002, Norwegian scientists sent a deep-diving, remote-operated vehicle to investigate four ships full of captured German chemical weapons. The U.S. and British military scuttled them after World War II in roughly 2,000 feet of water.

The Norwegians discovered the sunken ships remain intact. Some of the shells had leaked. Others were slowly corroding. That revealed a problem that could last hundreds of years, the scientists concluded.

Soil sediment showed high levels of arsenic, a component of some of the chemical weapons. Arsenic is bioaccumulative. This means bottom-feeding shellfish are likely to be contaminated and pass arsenic up the food chain to accumulate in humans who eat them, the scientists discovered.

Also worrisome: Nets from fishing trawlers were found tangled on some of the weapons-filled wrecks.

''It might be possible to get chemical ammunition in the nets, which could then be brought up to the surface and poison fishermen,'' the scientists wrote in a report on the expedition. ''It is also a possibility that fishing equipment could damage the wrecks and expose the chemical ammunition to the water, increasing the release of the agents to the environment.''

While the Army may not have known better at the time, it is obligated to at least assess the danger the dump sites pose today, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, who has specialized in chemical weapons issues.

''If no one does a study looking for three-legged fish, how do they know it's not a problem?'' he asked. ''My guess is the risks are remote in most cases, but I think you have to at least evaluate the risk. They have to take continuing responsibility.

''They need to see if there is an impact on the food chain. If there is, you have to warn people. If so, they have to do something with them.''

MONDAY: After World War II, the Army secretly dumped its overseas chemical weapons stockpiles off the shores of more than a dozen other countries. One scientist calls them a ''disaster looming.''

John Bull is a reporter for the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
Copyright © 2005, The Morning Call

No one is forcing anyone to join the military. After people do join, they are encouraged to honor the contract they signed. But the truth remains that people get out after going to boot camp all the time. It is no big deal, it is a hassle, but it available to anyone who can't hack it.

As far as Bush saying Bring it On, I am very happy he said that. The US should say that, we are not cowards, we are able to defend America from savages and animals that want to do us harm only because we are a free and giving nation. So yes, he should say bring it on, as we have always done, we will be victorious as long as people have the resolve to fight on. I can only imagine what you people would have been doing during WWII or the American Revolution or the Civil War. War is not neat or pleasant, it isn't your nintendo game, it is about killing your enemy and destroying his will to fight, it is a very brutal thing, and it is the last thing anyone in the Military wants to do, but you people have to got to remember, we were attacked. We are fighting a war on terror, many different participants, many different countries, and stopping in Iraq will not do anything but encourage them, allow them to get strong, and bring the fight to us. Then you whining, anti-american cowards will be wondering why this Country didn't do anything to protect your safe little worlds. Will you scream of war crimes then? Will you demand the ACLU investigate how they operate?

So we don't have that happen the fight will continue in Iraq and any place else deemed appropriate by our Commander in Chief.

Mr. Democracy

well, if we had not gotten into wwii what would have happened?

germany would have won the war against russia and george bush's grandfather prescott would have been happy and much richer.

the red threat would have been eliminated and we would have never have had to suffer through the mccarthy red baiting and countless arrests and unjustified convictions, etc.

we would have avoided afghanistan, vietnam, laos, cambodia, west papua, east timor, guatamala, cuba, panama, grenada, nicaragua, bali, suharto (now ensconced in his villa in a leafy neighborhood of jakarta with 10 billion dollars in his bank accounto) and much more.

but hey, why don't we enrich a few of our failing right wing oligarchy beyond compare at the expense of 500,000 innocent, foolish americans???

moral of the story:

read more books and NEVER read a corporate newspaper. else you will be getting the "opinion" of that very same failing right wing oligarcy - the one that needs to be propped up constantly with Aid to Dependent Corporations.

hey, having read your latest comments completely ignoring the previous posts, i gotta hand it to you're broken record style - i'm quite amused.

seriously, kudos. i'm sure you'll happily be sending thousands more innocents to their deaths for no reason whatsoever.

have you seen this one - you might like it:

a case of mr. d death troller, harlem style. check it out before the times ditches it - it may not last - likely online only.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/nyregion/thecity/30recr.html?8hpib

Every point or assertion is responded to and answered. I can not help it if you ignore the facts or the truth. The military is comprised of peace loving people that want to serve the country that has given so much to them.

As far as the guy who didn't want us involved in WWII, I guess the Chinese that suffered, the Koreans that suffered the vietnamese that suffered and the jews and russians that suffered, not to mention all those in western europe and england, were not worthy of helping or saving? To think you would have wanted Hitler to control Europe and Africa or the Japs to control the pacific, shows how off you are.

Mr. Democrcacy

How are your beloved rulers doing now?

Good thing you protested the Army Corp of Engineers recruiting. A person who joined, might have been the guy to keep New Orleans from flooding. Good job guys.