Afghanistan: Enter Sandman
 

U.S. Troops Face New Threat: Afghanistan?s Toxic Sand - Jun 2010 WIRED LINK



U.S. troops already face plenty of threats in Afghanistan: AK-47?wielding insurgents, improvised bombs, an intransigent and incompetent government. Now add a less familiar challenge to that list of woes: Afghanistan?s toxic sand.

The pulverized turf, it turns out, contains high levels of manganese, silicon, iron, magnesium, aluminum, chromium and other metals that act as neurotoxic agents when ingested. Combine the country?s frequent sandstorms and the kicked-up dust that results from helicopter travel with troops? nostrils, mouths and pores, and you?ve got an unexpected example of how inhospitable the terrain is for the soon-to-be 98,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines fighting the war.

It looks like there?s a new, tragic and expensive unintended health consequence of the war. And if the Defense Department?s late start in combating traumatic brain injuries is instructive, it?s going to take a lot more than research and the glacial pace of the defense health bureaucracy to deal with neurotoxic sand.


:2 cents:

There is no Gulf War Syndrome... the sand in Afghanistan is perfectly edible.... there is nothing wrong with our soldiers, it is all lies.

http://brokenzombie.com/junk_bin/gfy/iraqi_minister.jpg

i figured we'll be getting that $1 trillion worth of minerals in one way or the other

One body at a time.

I've heard bigger lies :

"Weapons of mass destruction."

"the enemy is in their last throes".

:)

And my all time favorite... "Don't worry about what these drugs are, you just worry about taking it like you've been ordered to. And while you're at it, take Private [redacted] over there with you and you guys do enforcement rounds tonight." (Translation: Go around to every soldier in Headquarters Battery and physically view each one take them too, at gunpoint if necessary.) :)

Yeah, war is an unhealthy thing. So what? :)

Well, seeing as how the US taxpayers are funding all the VA aftercare expenses and shit for veterans for life, you might be interested in keeping them as healthy as possible. But that's just an assumption on my part. We can always go back to fretting about welfare recipients blowing their assistance on casino gambling, but it seems to me we probably should work towards keeping our soldiers from ingesting poison as much as we can. Whether that solution is better bandana materials or getting them the fuck out of there, either one is an improvement.