Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 12/2/21 Patricia Hynes Explains How the US Military Poisoned Its Own Soldiers

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

Scott interviews Patricia Hynes about a piece she wrote back in 2017 highlighting the devastation caused by burn pits on American military bases over the last thirty years. Scott wanted to discuss this now because the Federal Government has finally started looking for ways to help the veterans exposed to these toxic fumes. They also lay out why Biden likely feels he has a personal stake in this effort.  Discussed on the show: “The Burn Pits” (Truthdig) “Burn Pits: Federal Government Finally Helping Vets Suffering from Military Pollution” (Institute for Public Accuracy) The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America's Soldiers by Joseph Hickman Patricia (Pat) Hynes is a retired environmental engineer and professor of environmental health.  She is currently publishing and speaking on the health effects of war and militarism on society and on women in particular; climate justice; renewable energy; and the hazards of nuclear power. She directs the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in western Massachusetts This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, check it out December 8th in New York City. The Soho Forum is hosting a debate on the resolution. While vaccine mandates are an infringement on freedom, some are justified due to their big payoff in Livesaved. For the affirmative will be George Mason Law Professor Ila Soman. And for the negative, our friend Angela McArdle, chair of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County and declared candidate for national chair of the Libertarian Party. The live debate will be at the Sheen Center, and of course, yes, they do have the vaccine restrictions at the Sheen Center, but they do not at Gene Epstein's apartment. They're going to have a live viewing party at Jean's House so people who oppose the mandates can watch the debate about the mandates. And so find out everything you need to know all about it at the Soho Forum.org. That's this December the 8th in New York.

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, time to end the war in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scott horton dot four you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton show all right y'all introducing patricia hines she is a retired environmental engineer and professor of environmental health and uh she uh one of her

books is the recurring silent spring and she's got this piece out called the burn pit, at Truthdig, it's from 2017. You can read about that. But our friend Sam Hussein put out a press release about some news along the lines. Burn pits, federal government finally helping vets suffering from military pollution. Well, it's 2021, better late than never.

Welcome the show, Patricia. How are you doing? I'm fine. Thank you. And thanks for this opportunity. Really happy to have you here. So this is such an important issue. Can you tell us just how much credit do they deserve, even at this late date? Are they really going to get it done now and trying to take care of these guys? Well, it is a late date.

This has been since 1990 with the first Gulf War and then with all of our wars in the Middle East and Southwest Asia since them. But shall I go back and just describe what these burn pits are? Absolutely. And the waste, solid and toxic waste that goes into them. I do want to give credit to the book. the burn pits, the poisoning of American soldiers by Joseph Hickman. He was, he's a retired Marine and also I put some time in the Army. He was the great whistleblower on the CIA murders at Guantanamo Bay in 2006, by the way, too. He was. Oh, Joseph Hickman. Yes, absolutely. And in fact, when people read

about that, it's the other Scott Horton, not me, but the law professor from Columbia who wrote all this about Hickman in Harper's, and he wrote a whole other book about that as well. Well, that's great. And I'll just add that Hickman himself, from his exposures in war, he himself has some, you might call them disabilities, but I mean, obviously did not impede his writing a very informative book and one which ultimately has some consequence. But let's first of all, talk about what are in these pits. These were open fire pits operated on more than 230 U.S. military bases during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and then all of the places where the military, the bases in neighboring countries where the U.S. military had posted soldiers.

Now, every kind of waste from plastics, batteries, old ordinance, asbestos, pesticide containers, and tires to biomedical, chemical, and nuclear waste, dead animals, human waste, body parts, and corpses, all of it was incinerated in these pits. Did I mention, yes, there were 230 of them. And apparently, the estimate is that 3.5 million of U.S. soldiers on those bases were exposed. Now, they say the waste was incinerated, but that's actually misleading. It suggests an enclosed burning facility with pollution controls. But these, you know, they were barbaric burn pits. The thing is they were dug on military bases in the midst of where these soldiers lived.

So their housing, their workplace, their dining facilities. And consequently, there was a ton of waste, 10 tons of waste per soldier on base. And these were burned every day, all day, and blackening the air, but also the coating, clothing, bed, desks, dining halls, et cetera, with ash. And the ash would have contained hundreds of toxins and carcinogens. So, of course, they were in violation of anything waste disposal facility we would build here, except that I have read that there were waste pits on U.S. military bases here. Yeah, don't underestimate them. That's right.

Well, I'll tell you what, I think it's a very important distinction you make there about incineration that maybe it does call the mind. like a cremation chamber or something with these ultra hot gas jets completely obliterating everything but as you're saying here they're just dousing this stuff with diesel fuel and burning it in other words it's very incomplete

burning and much of it is being turned to smoke rather than light and heat and water vapor yes so you would expect wouldn't you that the effects that the VA thus far and I want to come back to the VA and its role in this. But thus far, they've identified three respiratory illnesses that they will give disability for asthma, rhinitis, and sinusitis for veterans who've been

in both of those wars and also on the 230 military bases since 1990. But I want to say, because you brought this up earlier, well, this has been, what, 30 years since these soldiers were on those bases. I mean, the ones who were there first. And that's about the same amount of time that it took the government to do something about Agent Orange exposure. And in fact, the VA dragged its feet. So did the executive department, executive office of the United States. And it was not until, I'm talking Agent Orange, till 1991, when U.S. Congressional's insisted, Kerry was one of them, he had been a veteran of that war, insisted that there be legislation because the rest of the government was foot-dragging. And so in 1991, the Agent Orange

Congressional Act was passed. Now, that is what we need for the burn pits and the exposures. And essentially, it required that every two years since that was passed, there'd be, well, first all, every year there'd be continuing research done on the health effects of those soldiers exposed to Agent Orange and that the reports come out every two years. They also presume that every soldier on base in Vietnam was exposed to Agent Orange. And I'm telling this so that this is the model that we should have for the burn pits. exposure, that everyone on base was presumed exposed, that there'd be ongoing research and that once there is a strong enough correlation, statistical correlation between the health effects

and those who were in Vietnam, that those soldiers with those health effects get both the health care they should and disability payments as well. Well, in the case of the burn pits, Thus far, number one, you have to have a registry, and only one in 12 who were in, since 1990, exposed on basis to burn pits have registered, but it is presumed, as I mentioned earlier, that three and a half million have been exposed. And so in addition to the three rhinitis sinusitis and asthma, it is through reports of soldiers themselves, thought that there are very rare cancers, and one is a cancer of the brain that is suspected that President Biden's son, Bo, who served some time at a base in Iraq, I believe it was,

that he was exposed and he died of a rare brain cancer that is apparently linked with these burn pits, not yet by the VA, but by others who have done studies. I do want to add that there were some bases that were much more perilous than others, and that's because they were built on the remnants of Iraqi military bases that had been bombed by the U.S., flattened by our airstrikes. Now, a handful of these bases, at least five, had contained stockpiles of old chemical warfare weapons, and among them the nerve agent Sarin and the blistering agent mustard gas. So it is thought that soldiers who served at that handful of bases that we bombed with immense negligence knowing that soldiers were nearby, that it is they who are suspected of having been exposed, well, to these nerve agents. And among the effects would be this rare brain cancer.

And apparently, Biden's son was stationed at one of these bases. So essentially, it is a replication of the Vietnam War. And I do want to add that our country, with all of its 800 military bases across the world as well as hundreds in this country. But in the other countries, let's just say Japan, the Philippines, our agreements with those countries is that if we close a base, if we leave, we do not have to clean them up. we leave our waste there and the country cleans it up. So I do want to make a... Don't worry. They're not closing them. So it won't be an issue.

They're just people living. They did in the Philippines. Yeah. And yeah. And that's where, you know, all the... And they did in Vietnam. And this is, you know, they left their waste. In Afghanistan.

Oh, right. Afghanistan, too. I mean, they were these same burn pits there. We left our weapons, but we also left our weapons. but we also left our waste. Hang on just one second. Hey, y'all, check out thehempspot.com. Did you know? Pots legal everywhere now.

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hey guys scott horton here from mike swanson's great book the war state it's about the rise of the military industrial complex and the power elite after world war two during the administrations of harry truman dwight eisenhower and jack kennedy it's a very enlightening take on this definitive era on America's Road to World Empire. The War State by Mike Swanson. Find it in the right-hand margin at Scott Horton.org. Some of y'all have a problem. You've got chickens, but you don't want to stand around throwing food at them all day

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Subscribe to their newsletter to immediately receive your free copy of getting started with backyard chickens. That's free rangefeeder.com slash Scott. And you know, Joe Biden, by the way, in an interview with PBS, I'm sorry, was it, PBS or NPR. It was NPR. It was one of the two, said that it was, he knows what you say about Bo. And he knows because he read the burn pits too. Someone finally pointed out to him, hey, you know, there's a chapter in this book about your son.

Is that right? Oh. I should have Googled it because I thought I knew it off the top of my head, but I can't remember now if it was NPR or PBS. Okay. That's where I first came across it was because I learned that there were these rare brain cancers that were showing up as some of those. So maybe that's what's making the difference now is that the president's attention has been

drawn to this subject for very personal reason. So he told the VA, do something about this, please, and they're now doing something about it. Is that the point? I can believe that. And I've heard him make statements, or I've read about statements that he's made, which he did not, you know, at the time

that I read the burn pits. But he must have read it subsequently and acknowledged. Yes, I can believe that there was a some fire lit beneath the VA. But the fact is the VA thinks they say that we need a congressional act in order to do this, cover this more thoroughly, like for Agent Orange. So I'll just quickly run through the various legislation. Yeah, all of a sudden, I'll just add, you're right, there is, it's got traction, it's moving. And so here are some of the bills that have been

filed and successfully passed in the House, Representative Raul Ruiz has three bills that have passed in the House as part of the defense bill. And the first would be mandatory training for all medical providers working under DOD on health effects of burn pits. So this would be to train medical providers to recognize what are likely impacts and effects, health effects of exposure to the burn pits. The second would require the DOD to include in their budget request to Congress an estimate for the funding of incinerators and waste to energy disposal alternatives to the burn pits. And the third would require the DOD and VA to expand the registering to include soldiers who have been on basis in Syria and Egypt.

But in addition to that, there's a lot of optimism around two other bills, one in the House, one in the Senate, and it's Senator Tester and Representative Takaro in the House who have submitted very similar bills that they feel can easily be reconciled. And they are akin to the Agent Orange Congressional Act of 1991. number one, that anyone who has served on these bases in the Middle East and South West Asia since 1990 are presumed exposed. So that's 300, 3.5 million of veterans. Second, more ongoing You know what? You should, oh, I'm sorry. I know it's not your bill, but they should maybe throw Kosovo in there too, right? Camp Bond Steel and all that. I'm sure they do it the same way

there. In fact, I think Bo Biden was deployed there before he was deployed to Iraq. Is that right? Okay. And I found my footnote. It was PBS. Judy Woodruff interviewed Biden and Biden brought up the book. But I'm sorry, please go ahead. No, but that's a good point about Kosovo. And right now the focus is on, I know that it's on the Middle East and Southwest Asia, but that there is more ongoing research for illnesses, including respiratory and cancers. See, that is desperately what's needed, and it got aggressively started, as I mentioned, with Agent Orange, and this is what they need to light a fire under these bills and get that research going. Then also, course, coverage for health effects and disability effects. Once there is a significant correlation between an illness discovered through studying these soldiers and also studying, they'll probably do this research on animals.

but there is disability benefits for them. And both of these, the senator and the rep, are very optimistic about reconciling the two and about the passage. So yes, I think your point is good that having a president who now strongly suspects that his son died from exposure to these burn pits, I'm sure that gives some mobility

to the likelihood of the passage of these bills. I just want to say, though, on behalf of veterans, now I am a pacifist, there may be exceptions, but not in my lifetime. And at the same time, I feel that our military, which is the greatest polluter in the world, including climate change, that our military will train somebody for three months and throw them into a war, then bring them home and ignore them. And it's the Gulf War Syndrome, for example. I just checked this before our talk. 44% of soldiers who served in the first Gulf War are disabled by Gulf War syndrome.

And then you think, what the hell did we do to them there? Well, for one, a lot of pesticide exposure that was on the part of the military. And for another, we bombed. These were old chemical weapons sites very near where the soldiers were based. And so they were exposed to sarin, mustard gas, etc. This is after years of research is the conclusion of what has called this sort of multiple syndrome of effects called the Gulf War Syndrome. But we basically bring them home. and let them fall apart after the wars that we have sent them to with three months training.

And it takes badgering the VA, DOD, and it takes some advocates for these veterans, often they're veterans themselves who are in Congress, for them to get the kind of care that they should be getting the rest of their lives. So it's a negligent. The DOD is not only too big, it is negligent, interested in war, but not in its veterans. Yeah. Well, and it's always been like that, too. It's a real shame. And, you know, I know a guy who was downwind from the Camusia bunker when they detonated it in 1991 with just plain old conventional TNT explosives, when they should have used some kind of massive implosion bomb, or better, they should have driven that stuff away in truck. You know, and instead, you know, these guys got doused with at least burn sarin, which is poisonous enough to cause some real problems for people. Nerve agent. Yeah, it's a nerve agent. I also just. There was a study, too, in the 90s about anti-serran pills that were supposed to protect you from sarin, that that might have caused some real damage as well. Yes. Yeah, you've done your homework. I came across that myself, but just online, but not in any of the, the books that I've read and reviewed.

But I think that we are so infected as a country with our image of essentially securing the world through our military. And most of our congressional have bought into that. So they pass that Defense Act, adding more money to it. So we have a real problem that is not limited to the pollution that we cause across the world. I mean, first of all, the model of power that this country operates with in the world. And at this point, if you read DOD's newsletter, as I do every day, we are preparing for war with China. And this is in the midst of a climate crisis that may undo us, I mean, the entire world, before we get to war with China. But do we have resources enough to plan and operate a war against China when the world is falling apart from climate crisis?

And our country is falling apart in terms of its own infrastructure. And in terms of the violence we perpetrate in the world coming home, as we see in the school shootings that happened yesterday, the record number of guns in the country and the record number of homicides. So it's all of a peace. That's what happens when your empire falls. Yes, as it begins to fall apart, which it is doing. But, you know, what, that's saying what goes around, comes around, and the

violence in this country, or that we experienced the most, the highest prevalence of violence, human violence on humans, of any developed country in the world, the most people in prison. I mean, all of these are impacts and effects that are organically linked to a heavily militarized country. But our dilemma is the military is still one of, if not the, the most popular institution in the country and that we have both parties are basically have brought into the paradigm of national security through. Although, you know what, after the last 20 years, they're only the most popular by default. And they're still, you know, everybody else is doing worse than them. No competition. Yeah, but confidence in the Pentagon has really fallen and

probably with, you know, in the minds of the enlisted men before the rest of us, too. But listen, I'm sorry, I know that you got to go and I actually got to go to. But thank you so much for doing the show today. I really appreciate it. And it's such an important subject. And I'm really glad to hear that there's some progress being made here. So appreciate it very much. Thank you, Scott.

I really enjoyed our talk together. You're very informed. Thank you. Appreciate. All right, you guys. That is Patricia Hines. And you can find this great piece that she wrote back in 2017 at truthdig. the burn pits the scott horton show anti-war radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 fm in l a psradyo

dot com antiwar dot com scot horton dot org and libertarian institute dot org