Government: United States Used Mustard Gas, New Jersey Garbage Receptacle, Sky Blue, Obvious Headlines Write Themselves

From the Allentown, PA newspaper, The Morning Call:

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

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.

Ok, so let me recap here: Our nation, which I love dearly, used hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical and radioactive weapons of mass destruction. Then we dumped them in the ocean to get rid of them. We then sell the technology to make these weapons to other countries.

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein
agree to rent a timeshare condo in Hell together.

After that, we invade one of those countries on the pretext that they had weapons of mass destruction made from technology we sold them. And it turns out that they had destroyed their stockpiles before we ever got there.

We, as a people, have a really lousy sense of history when it comes to anything other then the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, and to a lesser extent the Civil Rights Movement and who's currently married to Jennifer Lopez.

And we have yet to grasp a fundamental truth about killing people, despite the fact that it is a central tenant of every major religion. Killing people is wrong. It is always wrong. How you decide to kill people or the circumstances under which the killing occurs does not make it any less wrong to kill. It can only make it more wrong. It is always wrong to kill people. The means we choose to kill just makes the act more horrific, never less.

And the sins that we condemn others for are sins that we have yet to do penance for ourselves. I don't know if I believe in divine punishment, but the things washing up on the Jersey Shore, where I spent many summers while growing up, seem to say yes.

YOU HAVE BEEN BAD MORTALS. BAD MORTALS! HOW MANY HURRICANES DO I HAVE TO SEND DOWN THERE BEFORE YOU FIGURE IT OUT?

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

Anyway, read the whole article, its a good one. And its a two part series, so I'll post the next part tomorrow.

Hat tip to Skippy for the news.