[Vision2020] Water: was Mass Slaughter in Vietnam?

Fri Dec 15 21:51:13 PST 2006

Mark,

  Thanks for responding. I don't recall you discussing much about any realistic alternative sources of water. I also don't recall any conversation regarding the safety/quality of the current water supply. I do know that you have shown the most interest regarding Palouse Aquifer water supply in the area, certainly at least than anyone else on the V. 

  I would like to see more discussion on the quality/safety of the Palouse water supply and possible ways to use it as a resource to obtain higher quality water for consumption. 

  I feel, based on no scientific evidence, that drinking this water cannot be very good for us. If it eats piping, stains porcelain, smells bad, and tastes bad, I feel my body is telling me not to use it on an everyday basis, if at all. 

  Has there been an economic cost/benefit study of how to get fresh water to the Palouse, and its long term benefit to the community? I would think the savings on destroyed pipes, plumbing, washers, dryers, sinks, toilets, bathtubs, showers, and housewear items and clothing items would be worth the expense in itself, not counting the health improvements and savings on purchasing bottled water and filtering systems. Also, the cost of water could be reduced with a less finite supply. 

  Your thoughts would be appreciated Mark at a time most convenient to you, as I understand you are busy. 

  Thanks,

  Donovan J Arnold

Mark Solomon <msolomon at moscow.com> wrote:
        Donovan,

  No, I'm not ignoring it but I have answered those same questions on V2020 several times in the last year or so. If you're unable to find them in the archive, I'll be glad to do it again, but I'm a tad busy until Monday.

  m.

  At 4:36 PM -0800 12/15/06, Donovan Arnold wrote:
  Mark,     So I take it you are ignoring my question about Moscow water?     Donovan J Arnold

Mark Solomon <msolomon at moscow.com> wrote:
  Nick,  
  Cambodia has been changing rapidly, for the worse, in the past few years. Sihanouk resigned as King in an attempt to force political reform. He has been replaced as King by one of his sons who spent most of his life in Paris and is a creature of the Prime Minister. The PM, Hun Sen, is a former Khmer Rouge thug who "saw the light" as the Vietnamese Armies were crossing the border and switched allegiances. As partial payback for being given a country to own, Hun Sen recently "negotiated" a new border with Vietnam which of course gives a good chunk of the highlands where the Montagnard tribe lives to Vietnam. Needless to say, given the Montagnard/American history of the Vietnam War, the Montagnards are in deep #$@%. The theoretical democracy is only that, a theory. Hun Sen rules with absolute power, including its corollary, absolute corruption. Opposition political leaders either are in exile or dead at Hun Sen's hand. Until the foreign donor countries that prop up Hun Sen
 pull the foreign aid plug, it will only get worse. China and Vietnam are now the largest donor countries followed by the EU.  
  It's very sad. I spent several months there two years ago working/teaching metal sculpture techniques to Khmer artists using decommissioned weapons, mostly AK47s, for our raw material. A life changing experience for them, and me.  
  The best in-country source of news I know of is Khmer Intelligence: http://www.khmerintelligence.org/3Q2004.html  
  the website is only sporadically maintained but you can subscribe to their yahoo news group for periodic messages of the low down in Cambodia. Link to subscribe from their website.  
  Mark S.  

  At 10:17 AM -0800 12/15/06, <nickgier at adelphia.net> wrote:
  Greetings:

Some more really wild claims from down the hill, this time about Vietnam.  Where is the evidence for mass slaughter in Vietnam after we left?  Yes, many were sent to reeducation camps, and many of those fleeing lost their lives to pirates in the South China Sea.

More people are being killed, maimed, and born malformed by leftover munitions and Agent Orange than ever lost their lives at the hands of the Communist regime.  I would also hazard to guess that we killed more Vietnamese (at least one million) than the Viet Cong ever would have killed if we had not intervened.

Before we invaded Cambodia, the country was stable and ruled by Prince Sihanouk, who, along with his wife, are now King and Queen of Cambodia.  (When I was there in 2002, their pictures were everywhere.) Our invasion, plus support for right-wing thugs, alienated the people and forced them right into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

The Killing Fields are just as much our responsibility as theirs.  The great irony of course is that Communist Vietnamese troops defeated the Khmer Rouge, and the UN had one of greatest successes in making elections possible there.

The Johns Hopkins report on Iraqi causalities, which looked at every single death certificate (90 percent of households surveyed produced one), showed that a majority of deaths occurred by coalition air strikes.  This survey was done before the upsurge in sectarian killings, mainly in Baghdad.  Taking the low end of their estimates at 400,000 dead, it would take Shias and Sunnis a very long time to top Bush's slaughter.

Yours for accurate history,

Nick Gier

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