10-foreword.Rmd

# Foreword {-}

### Content Warning {-}

This book deals with chemical weapons, colonialism, and police and corrections violence in frank terminology.
Pictures of chemical weapons being deployed on individuals, including those passively resisting, are included, but no injuries, blood, gore, etc. are shown.


### Land Acknowledgment {-}

This work's impetus comes from present-day Portland, Oregon, United States of America -- the Indigenous land of the Chinook people, who were colonized and spread across multiple federally recognized tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho including Cowlitz, Siletz, Wasco, and Yakima.

Chemical weapons are a common tool among imperialist regimes.
The events cataloged in this book occur at many locations across the present-day United States and internationally, with specific references to Canada, Mexico and Vietnam, where colonizing forces of (predominately Northwestern) Europe have used forced labor from enslaved Black people to impose significant force on Indigenous cultures and individuals.

No words can fully encompass the importance of acknowledging the place in which each of the stories told in this book occur.
I will work to add important contextual information and acknowledgments, but please remember that each use of chemical weapons or other brutal police force described here impacted many, many lives.

I ask you to take time to reflect on the countless individuals from communities, tribes, peoples, and cultures around the world that have been fogged with some chemical agent whose names we will never know, whose stories we will never hear.

### Inherent Bias {-}

This book has been produced by collating historical documentation and records, which are inherently biased, using methods like archival and internet searches, which are also biased.
This work is based on English-language media and documents, predominately from the United States.

### Author Position {-}

I, Dr. Juniper L. Simonis (_they/them/theirs_), am a 36-year-old middle-class, white, non-binary, queer, physically and psychologically disabled person. 
I come to the study of the history of chemical weapons use in America via my personal experience being the recipient of law enforcement's chemical weapons and my ensuing scientific research into its impacts on the environment.

I have a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell, where I studied aquatic ecology and biogeochemistry -- disciplines I have put to use to studying the impact of chemical weapons.
Through my ecological research, I have uncovered historical and current information into the impacts of chemical weapons that I was not seeing being represented in the present day broad cultural discourse. 

From this need to share historical information came this book, a way for me to pass along a window into the racist, classist, capitalistic, and colonialistic history of the chemical weapons industry leader Defense Technology. 

I am an abolitionist in multiple senses: I believe that the use of chemical weapons, police, and the carceral system should all be abolished, full-stop.

### Financial Statement {-}

All work for this product was conducted by Dr. Juniper L. Simonis via internal time at DAPPER Stats.
No external funding was provided.

### Licenses {-}

This book it created under a [dual license](https://github.com/chemicalweaponsresearch/defense_technology/blob/main/LICENSE.md) that recognizes a separation between the software and non-software components.
All underlying documents (photos, etc.) are cited in the [References](#References) and do not indicate the original licensor endorses this book or its author.

### Acknowledgments {-}

This booklet is based on a variety of sources past and present, and to the journalists and photographers: thank you for sharing your work with the world. 

I have no idea how many people have been involved in digitizing historical newspapers, business filings, and other public documents as their names are never on anything, but y'all are fantastic and I appreciate you so much.


### Contribute Information {-} 

If you are aware of additional information that I have not referenced or included, please reach out [via the Chem Weapons Research Website](https://chemicalweaponsresearch.com/contact/) or submit an [issue](https://github.com/chemicalweaponsresearch/defense_technology/issues/new/choose) or [pull request](https://github.com/chemicalweaponsresearch/defense_technology/compare) on our [GitHub repository for the book](https://github.com/chemicalweaponsresearch/defense_technology).

### Work In Progress {-}

This is a Work In Progress.
Additional information will be added as I have time and capacity to research, analyze, and document.
Absence of any particular information should therefore not be considered to be evidence of a lack of information, unless explicitly stated.