Monsanto And White Phosphorus: Company Is So Much Worse Than Roundup And GMOs
As the proposed merger of Monsanto with Bayer continues to draw scrutiny, there are some facts we should revisit about Monsanto.
It is somewhat fashionable these days to espouse a contrarian view of the agrichemical giant, a view that is no doubt heavily fueled by the company’s army of publicity flacks, both overt and hiding in plain sight in chat rooms and comment boards. It might just be a function of the cyclical nature of human attention: suddenly people are saying, “Oh, Monsanto and GMOs aren’t so bad. What about the 1 billion hungry people on the planet? Stop demonizing them.”
This is of course a gross oversimplification, but the point stands. At any rate, far from being a benevolent entity seeking only to help the needy, Monsanto has time and again proven itself to be rapacious and greedy to the exclusion of any human consideration at all–and it isn’t all about pesticides and crop seed either.
Consider the company’s track record when it comes to the tools of war. Monsanto took a fat government paycheck during World War Two to help develop the Manhattan Project for one. Then during the Vietnam era, the company sold millions of gallons of Agent Orange defoliant to the government, a substance which is still causing neurological and cancer damage to people in Southeast Asia to this day.
Now comes the news that Monsanto is likely the only company still manufacturing white phosphorus, a deadly, poisonous–and banned–tool of war that governments have been accused of using in El Salvador, Lebanon, Vietnam, and which Israel is accused of using in Gaza on civilian populations.
White phosphorus is a chemical weapon in everything but name, an incendiary chemical that sticks to the skin, burning through all kinds of surfaces and causing horrific injuries and painful, gruesome deaths. That’s why its use is internationally banned under
Now U.S. Army redacted documents have emerged showing that Monsanto sold white phosphorus to the governments of Israel and the U.S. military as recently as 2009, according to Current Events Inquiry, the website where the documents were published.
According to Human Rights Watch, Israel’s use of white phosphorus on civilian populations in Gaza constitutes a war crime.
What punishment, then, for the company that manufactures the means to commit such crimes?
And why on earth would anyone trust such a company with the means to make and control our food?
So next time an online troll on the payroll of Monsanto’s PR department wants to argue that you’re being paranoid about GMOs and Monsanto in general, ask them about Agent Orange and white phosphorus.
Because if creating the means to burn women and children alive writhing in the street screaming is part of the company’s business model, then maybe they need to reconsider their line of work.
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http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/u-s-army-documents-reveal-monsanto-linked-to-horrific-weapons-dropped-on-civilian-populations