Image by Frank Kehren via FlickrAlbuquerque, Fresno, and San Francisco are examples of cities that have water that is sufficiently contaminated so as to pose serious potential health risks to pregnant women, infants, children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems, according to Dr. David Ozonoff [ii]. What we find in these waters are contaminants that occur with surprising regularity, regardless of location, such as chlorination by-products, lead, and coliform bacteria. Other contaminants, such as Teflon and rocket fuel occur less frequently but pose major health concerns. If we include the fact that fluoride is actually poisonous we have water that is slowly killing some Americans and depressing the health of almost everyone who drinks and showers in it.
Commonly used chemicals aren't safe for human health and the environment. What's more, they don't even work better than plain soap and water. The two most popular antimicrobial compounds, triclosan and triclocarban, are now a billion dollar a year industry and are found in a host of personal care products. Triclosan is added to plastic containers, toys and even clothing, too. First patented in l964 to kill germs before surgical procedures, the compound was pushed on consumers in the l980s when antimicrobials were hyped through massive marketing campaigns for "anti-germ" hand soaps. By 2001, a whopping 76 percent of all liquid soaps contained the chemical.
The trouble is, Halden pointed out in a press statement, these chemicals persist in the environment and in your body. Levels of triclosan in humans have soared by about 50 percent since 2004, according to newly updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And both triclosan and triclocarban are present in 60 percent of all rivers and streams nationwide.
As the “last” U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraq under the glare of TV lights in the dead of night and rolled toward Kuwait, there was plenty of commentary about where they had been, but almost none about where they were going.
In the Gulf War of 1991, the U.S. military helped push Saddam Hussein's invading Iraqi army out of Kuwait only to find that the country's leader, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, refused to return home "until crystal chandeliers and gold-plated bathroom fixtures could be reinstalled in Kuwait City's Bayan Palace." Today, the U.S. military’s Camp Arifjan, which grew exponentially as the Iraq War ramped up, sits 30 miles south of the refurbished royal complex and houses about 15,000 U.S. troops. They have access to all the amenities of strip-mall America, including Pizza Hut, Pizza Inn, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Hardees, Subway, and Burger King. The military talks little about its presence at Arifjan, but Army contracting documents offer clues about its intentions there. A recent bid solicitation, for example, indicated that, in the near future, construction would begin there on additional high strength armory vaults to house “weapons and sensitive items.”
In addition to Camp Arifjan, U.S. military facilities in Kuwait include Camps Buehring and Virginia, Kuwait Naval Base, Ali Al Salem Air Base, and Udairi Range, a training facility near the Iraqi border. The U.S. military’s work is also supported by a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) distribution center in Kuwait, located not on a U.S. base but in the Mina Abdulla industrial zone about 30 miles south of Kuwait City.
Unlike other DLA hubs, which supply U.S. garrisons around the world, the Kuwaiti facility is contractor owned and operated.
Made up of a walled compound spanning 104 acres, the complex contains eight climate-controlled warehouses, each covering about four acres, one 250,000-square-foot covered area for cargo, and six uncovered plots of similar size for storage and processing needs.
Typical of base upgrades in Kuwait -- some massive, some modest -- now on the drawing boards, recent contracting documents reveal that the Army Corps of Engineers intends to upgrade equipment at Kuwait Naval Base for the maintenance and repair of ships. In fact, the Department of Defense has already issued more than $18 million in construction contracts for Kuwait in 2010.
The U.S. military also operates and utilizes bases and other facilities in the nearby Persian Gulf nations of Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.
In his 1996 "Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques," Osama bin Laden
wrote:
“The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land, sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world. The existence of these forces in the area will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings, and prides and pushes them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land.”
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