Against All Enemies

by Seymour M. Hersh

"Why did the system fail the Gulf War veterans? Did national heroes such as Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell, who were known during their careers for taking care of their troops, have an obligation to speak out on behalf of the veterans--as many sick GIs believe--and demand that America's military hospitals stop turning them away? The unsettling fact is that the Gulf War was far more costly to the United States than the Pentagon and its former leaders are willing to acknowledge. The ninety thousand or so victims of Gulf War syndrome are friendly-fire casualties just as surely as if they had been fired upon by their fellow soldiers. The military's inevitable dilemma is Can it protect our soldiers and sailors in future wars if it was unable to do so in the Gulf War?"
--from AGAINST ALL ENEMIES

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

103 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 1998

About the author

Seymour (Sy) Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a "five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award."

He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.

Reviews

[Public Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read - Hersh makes a pretty convincing case that Gulf War Syndrome was some combination of PTSD, exposure to depleted uranium, and/or exposure to chemical nerve agents. He describes how the Pentagon stonewalled and denied and ignored thousands of cases of sick GIs (for years) out of fear that recognizing the situation would sully their "glorious" victory in the Gulf.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good, well researched book – but it would've been a lot better if the author included footnotes.

[Gav Obi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know a lot about this topic, so I wanted to get a brief overview. This was great

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no one “single bullet” cause of Gulf War Syndrome, but there are a number of contributing factors: stress (the Pentagon’s preferred diagnosis; hey, it’s cheap); PB pills (pyridostigmine bromide) administered to the troops – prior to FDA approval – to provide an antidote to soman, a nerve gas. The Pentagon assured the FDA that troops would be fully informed as to the risks of PB, but no such information came out; troops were under orders to take the pills. Additionally, the Pentagon was “criminally negligent” in its pre- and post-war intelligence gathering in that it had no idea that it was bombing chemical and biological munitions depots and the ones that were known were disposed of in a very haphazard fashion. The final straw may have been the depleted uranium rounds – nearly 700,000 pounds of the stuff were used in the war – that essentially vaporized on contact with a target and leave the immediately surrounding area highly radioactive. Whatever the cause, the veterans have had limited success in finding treatment at VA hospitals where stress and psychological factors are given top billing as causes of Gulf War Syndrome. A depressing read.

[Medical Gunch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brief read on Gulf War Syndrome