Trauma of Iraq war haunting thousands returning home
Lt. Julian Goodrum, an Army reservist from Knoxville, Tenn., is being treated for PTSD with therapy and anti-anxiety drugs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. He checked himself into a civilian psychiatric hospital after he was turned away from a military clinic, where he had sought attention for his mental problems at Fort Knox, Ky. He’s facing a court-martial for being AWOL while in the civilian facility.
US seeks dismissal of lawsuit over use of Agent Orange in Vietnam
The US Justice Department has sought to dismiss a lawsuit by Vietnamese who say they were poisoned by the chemical defoliant Agent Orange used by US forces in the Vietnam War, The New York Times reported Monday.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese, accuses US chemical makers of committing crimes against humanity by supplying to US forces Agent Orange, which contains dioxin and is extremely toxic.
However, the US government, which is not among the accused in the suit to be presided over by US District Judge Jack Weinstein, has contended the claimed effects of Agent Orange are not supported by direct evidence.
State Department lawyers sent a note to Weinstein last month, saying that if the case were not thrown out, the “implications of plaintiffs’ claims are astounding as they would (if accepted) open the courthouse doors of the American legal system for former enemy nationals and soldiers claiming to have been harmed by the US Armed Forces” during wars.
Goodness, we can’t have injured people suing, can we? It would just be too darned expensive. The profits of chemical companies are way more important than the health of people.