American genocide

Death Made In America

By: Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, PhD

Wondering if your conscience is still anesthetized...

A LITTLE TERRORIST:
ENJOY YOUR HANDIWORK USA.
I took this photo on the last day of my journey: one of triplets.

Afghanistan is has become the disaster words could not describe, hence, I decided to illustrate this disaster via these photos of babies born deformed.

On many occasions, I pointed out that we need funds to build a research institute and the linked monitoring stations. Unfortunately, majority of you simply brushed off my request. I wonder if these photos could elevate your humanity that has been overwhelmed by your comfortable life and materials desires.

Again, it is up to you, to do whatever you think is human; that should not be too difficult. The funds for the research institute are very small price you have to pay after all your tax dollars have created this disaster. Whether you like it, admit or deny it, it does not absolve you from the indirect complicity in these war crimes.

If everyone visiting this web site pays the amount they spend on soft drinks in a month, we would have the funds to build our research facility:

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN ACTION- "FREEDOM IS ON THE MOVE" RIGHT? YOUR GOVERNMENT is CRIMINAL BUT YOU ARE equally RESPONSIBLE. YOU MIGHT SAY, "THAT'S LIFE WHAT COULD I DO"PAY FOR THE RESEARCH FACILITY-A TOTAL COST OF FIVE MILLION DOLLARS- PEANUTS COMPARE TO THIS PAIN. I HOPE YOU COULD EAT TONIGHT AND LOOK AT YOUR CHILDREN AND SAY IT IS OKAY TO REMAIN INDIFFERENT. I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED AFTER ALL IT IS OKAY-YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT, RIGHT? You had everything to do with it, your tax dollars paid for their misery!!! HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOUR CHILDREN WERE BORN LIKE THIS?

FROM THE AMERICAN GIFT (URANIUM MUNITIONS) THAT KEEPS ON GIVING. HORRORS UNLIMITED: MADE IN USA. The parents of this child do not give a damn about your freedom BS or some other garbage. OUR CHILDREN WOULD BE BORN THIS WAY FOR EVER THANKS TO THE URANIUM MUNITIONS USED BY YOUR ARMED FORCES PAID FOR BY YOUR TAX DOLLARS. SEE IF YOU COULD EXPLAIN THIS TO HIS PARENTS

OH A FEW MINOR DETAILS ABOUT SITUATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN:

URANIUM MUNITIONS

Due to the use of massive amount of uranium munitions used by the US forces in the initial bombing and subsequently, massive amount of congenital deformities occur all over Afghanistan. The rate of various cancers has gone up significantly. Leukemia and esophageal cancers are very high among children. According to doctors at maternity and children hospitals in Kabul, the rate of various congenital deformities have increased by many folds since the US invasion. In fact, the magnitude of man made isotopes was established by the Uranium Medical Research Center after their investigators made to trips to Afghanistan and collected urine and soil samples. They established that the rate of man made isotopes was gone up 2000 times in some subjects located near the bombed areas.

Since uranium used in the weapons have a half-life of 4.5 billion years, the US forces ensured that generations of Afghans suffer from cancers and deformities. This is certainly not development. In fact, it is the biggest crime ever committed by anyone in the history of humanity.

RECONSTRUCTION

There has been a lot of talk of reconstruction and rebuilding, but this issue could only be understood if one compares the substance against the rhetoric and the large amount of money allocated for the so-called reconstruction. Of all the whooplas made of reconstruction, the US and its client regime has only inaugurated the truck route-highway-between Kabul and Kandahar. This hallmark of achievement that the US brags about was completed 40 percent during the Taliban government. While the highway is inaugurated, it still needs significantly additional work to remain intact. The inauguration of the highway was a political ploy aimed to convince the critiques that the reconstruction has been going smooth. It is hardly so.

When I entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, the lack of achievement was evident. For the past three years, there have been construction efforts underway to pave the road from Torkham, the entry point from Pakistan to Afghanistan, to the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Pakistani contractors are more interested to have their tea breaks rather than to do any rebuilding. I brought up this issue with the authorities in Kabul, but to avail.

After reaching Jalalabad, I was further surprised to see the roads in the city with massive potholes, unpaved roads, hence, tremendous amount of dust blown in every direction. The reason for the lack of work in Jalalabad, as is the case almost every where in Afghanistan, corrupt officials eager to make money than to worry about the welfare of the people.

If a Mayor is appointed to a town or city, the would be mayor has to pay $40,000 bribe since he would be making more than $400,000 in selling government land to the highest bidder.

The magnitude of corruption is not limited to a province, but rather officials in the central government in Kabul are equally complicit in massive corruption and inefficiency which I would discuss shortly. Since the main road to Kabul is under construction for the past three years-we had to take a mountain pass called Lataband, which is a very rugged mountain terrain with huge rocks and massive potholes widespread for miles on. Once I reached Kabul, I stopped complaining about the Lataband road-after all Lataband is a mountain pass-Kabul the capital city lacked paved roads with exception of very few. The government in Kabul has not done anything of substance whether it pertains to infrastructure, housing, sanitation or drinking water. These are the essential elements of survival in any city. There are several reasons for the lack of progress. Some of the reasons are fundamentally flawed while others are bureaucratic hurdles and corruption. The fundamental flaws are situated in the free market approach superimposed on Afghanistan. There are two aspects of the free market that impedes the reconstruction of basic infrastructure in Kabul, one is the idea that money spent has to be invested with a return in mind, second, basic development should be contracted to private sector. Both of these issues have impeded the rebuilding of infrastructure.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Afghan government asked for a loan from the US government to build basic infrastructure-paved roads in Kabul, the government and the bank refused the loan on the ground that building roads in Kabul is not profitable investment. The government in Kabul at that time, argued that for any profitable enterprise to succeed basic infrastructure has to be built. So there is very little amount allocated for rebuilding basic infrastructure. It is worth noting that part of the blame goes to the international reconstruction aid as it is dispersed in such a way that some amount is allocated to the government in Kabul while the rest goes to the countless NGOs. Since the first problem, namely investment with a profit in mind, does not materialize in the construction of roads, efforts are made to resolve that problem through contracting out construction of roads to private sector. Thus, contracting out roads to private sector would mean money for contractors, hence, compensate for the lack of profitability associated with paving roads. This created another problem.

Once a road is contracted out, the private contracting firm resort to delaying tactics associated with feasibility study and other related issues in order to fatten its return. This delayed tactic does not serve peoples' needs and the roads remain unpaved. For example, the road from Kabul's airport to the presidential palace was contracted out three years ago it was still not built. This practice of contracting out projects adds to unemployment. Had the government adopted a different method, perhaps by hiring local laborers and using machinery, the chronic unemployment would be reduced, thus, people would have some food on the table.

Three weeks ago, Karzai announced that the road in the Dasht-e-Barchi area repaired and built. The allocated funding is $10,000000 ten million dollars. This is an outrage. Ten million dollars could repair all the roads in the capital, Kabul if only the function is taken over by the ministry of public works.

The Free Market Nonsense:

In order to please the US administration, the regime in Kabul advocated the notion of 'free market' as if this would become a panacea for the national economy. On the contrary, the so-called free market scheme had been tried in the past-the 1930s-- that resulted in fruitless consumerism of imported goods, which otherwise would have been produced domestically. Moreover, the consumption of luxuries received more priority than investment in productive sectors of the economy. A handful of businessmen and investors became rich while the rest of the country remained poor and destitute. Today, in the post-Taliban Afghanistan, the consumption of goods such as television sets and satellite dishes are more important than worrying about clean water and proper schooling. After all, as long as capitalism had brought the culture of corruption and entertainment, other necessities become secondary. Meanwhile, people with money import these goods, pocket their profits and leave. The desire of the installed regime to collect custom duties contributes to the perpetuation of underdevelopment.

Corruption also plays a significant role in the continuation of import than investment in productive infrastructure. For example, for the past 2-3 years over 100,000 tons of cement is imported while the construction plans of four cement factories collect dust. The official reason is that the country does not have a mining law. This year alone 380,000 tons of cement is imported this year alone. The question is how long does it take to formulate a mining law; it has been three years. The profit margin for dealers has skyrocketed while the long-term development prospects have waned down with every imported bag of cement.

AMERICAN CRIMES AND ORGANIZED CRIMES

With the collapse of Taliban, a very profitable, yet nasty sector of the economy has risen to new heights. Organized crime is an extension of what used to be warlords and their armies of bandits. With the warlords and other officials of the Northern Alliance occupying official positions, their former foot soldiers are equipped with new weapons and Toyota trucks, Landcruisers, with only one aim to kidnap people from diverse backgrounds for large sums of money. Once the money is secured, the government officials, who are also leading these bandits, keep 80 percent for themselves and 20 percent for their men.

The Italian aid worker, who was kidnapped in Kabul in broad daylight, was a victim of these organized bandits. After she was released, the government claimed that it secured the release of the aid worker through negotiation, but the truth is otherwise. The kidnappers received 5 million dollars. Those poor souls that can not afford paying ransoms end up dead.

Other groups of criminals kidnap children for money as well as for their organs. This is an epidemic that people sought Talibans' assistance for in the mid-1990s, however, it appears that this is no longer an issue for the US occupation force and their puppets after all when it comes to crimes what could be more criminal that using WMD against civilian population. The US forces have used uranium weapons against the people of Afghanistan, and continue to commit crimes that dwarf what the organized criminals are doing. The followings are some of the examples of the brutality of the US forces in Afghanistan:

Rape and Murder by the US forces

In the Bagrami area of Kabul, the US forces assaulted a small enclave of nomads. The US forces flew over this enclave and saw nomad women near their tents. They landed their helicopter and kidnapped these women by gunpoint. Subsequently, the US soldiers flew away with these women to some location, where these women are gang-raped. After these women were raped and died in the process, the soldiers flew them back to the community from where they were kidnapped. However, this time the helicopter did not land, instead, the women were thrown down from the helicopter. This is not unique for the US forces since they committed similar crimes in Vietnam. American forces are too much of cowards to have landed because they knew they would be shot in revenge.

Another incident occurred when a US helicopter spotted an old shepherd grazing his animals. The shepherd was 70 years old but this did not appear to matter to the US forces. The helicopter landed and raped the old man. His relatives told me that on the one hand we are furious about the crime committed by these beasts, but on the other hand we are curious "what kind of rotten people Americans are."

In another incident, a truck driver was driving his truck north from the Kabul, passing the US base in Bagram when the US patrol stopped him. In the passenger seat of the truck a young boy was sitting. This young man wanted to learn driving a truck, but tragically for him, the Americans noticed him and asked him to step out. The young man stepped out and the soldiers took him away from the truck and gang raped him. When the boy returned to the truck, he was crying and furious. Later that day, he committed suicide. This is another gift of the US's democracy.

In the American military base Bagram, north of Kabul, 15 translators while working for the US forces were gang raped by the very forces for which they worked. Although I have no sympathy for those that work for the US forces, however, no one should be subjected to such extreme cruelty. One of the translators said,

"Around 25 to 30 American soldiers enter the area where we were sleeping and started raping us. I was conscious until to the third soldier started raping me and then lost consciousness." (Hamid-translator for the US forces, June 2005)

In Badakhshan province, the US soldiers had taken forty (40) women and extracted their teeth for oral sex. One member of the parliament, who is a close supporter of Karzai, said:

"The issue of these women treated in such a miserable way was about to get some publicity, however, the US officials made sure that this does not happen." (Parliament member--I can not reveal his name)

In another incident, the US forces were searching local houses between JalaAbad and Kabul, when they entered and tried to search the house, they came across the woman of the house, since she was very beautiful, the soldiers decided to take her to the US base. The husband was not at home. When he returned from Peshawar, he went to get his wife. He told his wife,

"To me you are now my mother and sister, I can not touch you any more, but tell me if they have violated your dignity? 'They raped me by force, I was conscious for the first three men, then lost consciousness'." (The husband whose name I can not reveal his name. He joined Taliban afterward and I do not blame him.)

A young man committed suicide in the Laic-e-Mariam in KairKhana area after the Americans in an NGO raped his sister.

These are some of the very few examples of the many crimes committed by the US forces in Afghanistan, but unfortunately, the coward officials of the puppet regime call it reconstruction. To add insult to injury, the two American soldiers, who murdered two detainees at Bagram airbase, received only 2 and 3 months in jail for crime ruled homicide by the US medical examiners. The two detainees were beaten at their legs while hanging from the ceiling until their legs "pulverized". The term "pulverized" was used by the medical examiner to articulate the magnitude of the fatal injury and the inhumane way of murdering. When one of the victims asked for water, the soldier poured water over his face; subsequently, the poor man died. This is American reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Life for Ordinary People

There is absolutely no hope for the Afghans. The billions of dollars of development aid did not benefit ordinary Afghans. Abject poverty is the rule of the day. Orphans and widows roam the streets to make a living. The NGOs and foreign advisors enjoy life to the fullest. They are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, enjoy luxury vehicles and houses, while ordinary Afghans die from homelessness, hunger and disease.

In light of the London donor conference, which would amount to nothing considering the legacy of so-called reconstruction in Afghanistan; it is prudent to make some points.

It is a tragedy of immense proportion that no one even dare to address the abomination that is called life with inevitable demise at every corner resulting from the massive amount of uranium munitions used by the American forces and their allies. Our so-called Afghans self-sold surrogates are more than happy to jump on the bandwagon and express their gratitude for the token thrown at our people when in fact their entire existence is put in question by the massive use of weapons of mass destruction. Let the progress of the Bonn agreement tell the children of Tora Bora and Shah-e-Kot suffering from Leukemia and Esophageal cancers, or the massive number of sudden abortions occurring among women and animals in those areas.

Another legacy is the corruption of bribery and sheer robbery by the officials of this puppet regime eager to make dollars. Unfortunately, they do not even accept Afghan currency but rather demand dollars. According to an Afghan commission, the amount of bribes paid in Afghanistan ranges from 20 Afghani to 15,000000 Dollars. In a country where an experience medical technologist is paid $40/month, the millions of dollars paid in bribe point to the magnitude of profit individuals and companies expected to enjoy.

Abject poverty is every where and hopes of revival are no where. The billions of dollars donated went into the pockets of NGOs and powerful government officials, while the poor remains poor.

Another problem is Americanization of the system, namely whole sale firing of professionals with decades of experience under the pretext of making hospitals and offices efficient. The truth is the US wants to implement capitalism in Afghanistan and bring open market when in fact no has food to eat or money to pay for healthcare. The shortage of physicians and health technicians is ignored for the sake of this garbage called free market. Now there are no private companies to hire these professionals with decades of experience. It would have been nice if other opportunities existed, but there are none.
Today in Afghanistan, there are a few very rich and the rest extremely poor thanks to the United States of America.

Afghan Resistance and US losses:

The Afghan resistance fighters consist of Pashtuns, entirely. The East, Southeast, South and Southwest, West and part of Central area of Afghanistan are the most volatile. The US forces have lost a lot of soldiers there. In fact, ordinary Afghans used to wondered about the US losses and started to believe a myth that the soldiers that are killed in Afghanistan must come from orphanages in the US, hence, their death is not missed by anyone. To the Afghans, it does not make sense when so many soldiers lose their lives and yet there has not been any outrage on the part of the families of those soldiers. Thus, ordinary Afghans started this myth that the soldiers that are killed in Afghanistan are from orphanages since this was the only rational explanation they could find.

Before going to Afghanistan, different sources claimed that American dead were kept refrigerated on board ships in the Arabian Sea and at US bases in the Middle East. When I went to Afghanistan, many people within the Afghan Ministry of Defense told me similar stories that American dead are stored in refrigerated containers on board ships and at the US bases in the Middle East. In fact, one translator, who was working with the US forces, told me that he had seen refrigerated containers filled with dead US soldiers. The following two incidents should give a glimpse into the US losses and lies about those losses there.

Around June 12, 2005, an Afghan resistance fighter rammed an explosives laden vehicle into the US military convey in Kandahar. The result was severe losses for the US military. Initially, the media reported that five American soldiers were killed, then later that figure was abandoned and replaced with only four wounded. However, the truth was completely different. An eyewitness, Haji Habib told us an entirely different account of the losses:

"A suicide bomber slammed his vehicle into the US convey. The vehicle must have been full of powerful explosives because the explosion was really loud and shattering. After the dust and smoked settled, I counted the charred bodies. There were 39 charred bodies. The American cleanup team came with cranes and picked the destroyed armored vehicles and dead bodies before anyone could take photographs." (Haji Habib: June 14, 2005-my first trip)

In another incident around the 22nd of May 2005, the US forces lost 75 soldiers along with three tanks and three armored vehicles in Helmand province in Southwestern Afghanistan. This occurred when the US unit went to the province and arrested a former Mujahideen commander. The eyewitness, a translator, who witnessed and counted the dead bodies at Kandahar airport after being transported from Helmand described the operation as follows:

"The Americans went to Helamd to arrest a former commander. When they arrested him, his villagers and former Mujahideen fighters blocked the retreat of the US forces. The US forces fired at the men standing in their way, killing six of them. Since the rest of the fighters had already taken positions, the Americans were bombarded with RPG-7 grenade-launchers and heavy machinegun fire. In the firefight, the arrested commander was also martyred but also 75 American soldiers were killed, three of their tanks and three armored vehicles were also destroyed. When the American reinforcement arrived, all the Mujahideen fighters were long gone. Instead, the US helicopters bombed civilian areas." (Abdul Ali-eyewitness to the fight)

At the end of February 2006, in Uruzgan province an American convey was ambushed and 29 American soldiers were killed, while officially they admitted only four. These are just few of the many unreported losses of the US soldiers in Afghanistan.

FINAL NOTE

For those of you who would make the argument that we were attacked by Bin Laden and the Taliban refused to hand him over even though we refused to show his involvement, here is a piece of information revealed by Vice President Cheney. His answer to a question from the Tony Snow Show via telephone, and the link below is that of the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060329-2.html

Q: I want to be clear because I've heard you say this, and I've heard the President say it, but I want you to say it for my listeners, which is that the White House has never argued that Saddam was directly involved in September 11th, correct?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's correct. We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there -- that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda organization.

So the US bombed Afghanistan and killed tens of thousands of people and turned the country into a uranium hellhole on a hunch?

Obviously so, and that is why, they could never produce an ounce of proof of his complicity in the attacks.

Original article posted here.

My country went to the Middle East, and all I got was this glowing sand . . .

Army Shipping Contaminated Kuwait Sand to Idaho Landfill

By Jill Kuraitis, 4-30-08

The U.S. Army is shipping 6,700 tons of contaminated sand to Idaho from Kuwait. It will arrive at American Ecology in Grandview, Idaho, sometime in May.

Grandview, population 470, is 42 miles south of Boise in Owyhee County.

The sand is from Camp Doha in Kuwait, a former Army warehouse complex used by Army Forces Central Command. The sand absorbed depleted uranium when some spent ammunition was caught in a fire (addition May 1:during the first Gulf War.)

It’s also contaminated with hazardous levels of lead, according to the two military guys who told me the story, whose branch and names won’t be used for obvious reasons. However, it’s no secret, since the story had already been written by Erik Olson in the Longview, Washington Daily News.

Chad Hyslop, spokesperson for American Ecology, did not return New West’s phone calls, but he told Olson that all the sand will be at the disposal site in Grandview sometime in May.

It will take 76 rail cars to run half the sand to Idaho, and then a second trip will be required for the rest. 152 of the smallest size rail cars would build a four-story structure about the size of half a football field.

Andrea Shipley, the executive director of the Snake River Alliance, an Idaho-based grassroots group with a mission to watchdog the energy industry and energy-related government departments, doesn’t like the idea of the sand coming to Idaho. She told New West that “this is a major concern. Depleted uranium is both a toxic heavy metal and a radioactive substance creating health risks that may be far more varied than is recognized in federal regulations today. Safe and responsible clean-up is critical to safeguard the health of Idahoans and our environment.”

The lead contamination, which the Army discovered before the ship carrying the sand to the Port of Longview arrived there, was nearly four times higher than the EPA standard for designating it “hazardous.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, even very low levels of exposure to lead in children can cause learning disabilities, and may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, strokes or heart attacks. Lead is also associated with impaired visual and motor function, growth abnormality, neurological and organ damage, hearing loss, hypertension and reproductive complications.

Whether or not humans might be exposed to the contaminated sand, either during transport, unloading, or processing at American Ecology’s Grandview landfill is not clear. No Army official returned calls. Follow-ups to this story will be posted.

Addition May 1: The full post about depleted uranium on Wikipedia can be found here, but here are two relevant paragraphs.

Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238). Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. Because U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, natural uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium, making it less radioactive due to the longer 4.5 billion year half-life of U-238. The external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium.

Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of numerous unanswered questions about the long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half life. While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer. However, the UK government has attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning, and studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure. Until such issues are resolved with further research, the use of DU by the military will continue to be controversial.

Updates to this story will continue to be posted.

Update May 1: NewWest blogger Irwin Horowitz of 6degrees - named because of his six college degrees including a B.S. From MIT in physics, an M.S. In astronomy and another M.S. In electrical engineering, has a strong interest in nuclear issues and follows them regularly. He told New West that the primary issue with the sand from Kuwait is the heavy-metal toxicity more than the U-238, and the radiation, in the form of alpha particles, doesn’t penetrate skin. Lead, said Horowitz, gets into the soft tissues of the body. “Depleted uranium could enter the body from ingesting it, breathing it in, or through surface skin cuts, so you’d almost have to play in the sand.”

More calls to American Ecology have not been returned.

Original article posted here.

One Nation Under Siege

Depleted Uranium in the Human Body

The other part of the Iraqi Genocide

Iraqis Blame US Depleted Uranium for Surge in Cancer

CAIRO — Iraq’s environment minister blamed Monday the use of depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces during the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe for the current surge in cancer cases across the country.0724 08

As a result of “at least 350 sites in Iraq being contaminated during bombing” with depleted uranium (DU) weapons, Nermin Othman said, the nation is facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7,000 to 8,000 new ones registered each year.

Speaking at a ministerial meeting of the Arab League, she also complained that many chemical plants and oil facilities had been destroyed during the two military campaigns since the 1990s, but the ecological consequences remain unclear.

“Our ministry is fledgling, and we need international support; notably, we need laboratories to better monitor air and water contamination,” she said.

The first major UN research on the consequences of the use of DU on the battlefield was conducted in 2003 in the wake of NATO operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro. The UN Environment Program (UNEP) said in its report after the research that DU poses little threat if spent munitions are cleared from the ground.

“Health risks primarily depend on the awareness of people coming into contact with DU,” UNEP writes in its 2004 brochure “Depleted Uranium Awareness.”

No major clean-up or public awareness campaigns have been reported in Iraq.

Original article posted here.

The soldiers and depleted uranium

The tip of the DU iceberg

In southern Iraq, leukemia among children and breast cancer among women have increased by 20 percent since the start of the war. Doctors and researchers blame this surge on the breakdown of the Iraqi health care system, harmful pesticides used to grow food and depression of the immune system brought on by living in a constant war zone. Cancer deaths make up 45 percent of total deaths and children are frequently born without limbs or organs or develop cancer in as little time as four weeks after birth.

Original article posted here.

Freedom of Speech?

Canada offers forum for lecturer barred from U.S.

JONATHAN WOODWARD

VANCOUVER — A highly regarded Iraqi epidemiologist who wants to tell Americans about an alarming rise in cancer levels among Iraqi children will come to Canada instead because he couldn't get a visa to the United States.

Unable to travel to the University of Washington, Riyadh Lafta -- best known for a controversial study that estimated Iraq's body count in the U.S.-led war in Iraq at more than half a million -- will arrive at Simon Fraser University in B.C. this month to give a lecture and meet with research associates.

"The University of Washington wanted him, but the U.S. denied his entry," said his colleague at SFU, Tim Takaro. "They need to be able to collaborate, even if his results are unpopular with the Americans. Now he's at SFU, and the best they're going to get is a video feed."

Once in Canada, Dr. Lafta will present estimates that paint a damning portrait of the war's ravages on children: that birth defects are on the rise since the war began, and that the number of children dying from cancers such as leukemia has risen tenfold.

Dr. Lafta had tried for six months to get a visa into Seattle to speak in Washington, and was ignored a half-dozen times, Dr. Takaro said.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services couldn't be reached for comment. But a spokesman for Seattle Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott said he couldn't understand the decision. "Jim's certainly more than a little unhappy about it. We don't know whether this was a snafu or more than that," Mike DeCesare said. "Certainly with the doctor not able to be on the campus, and engage directly with people, you've got to believe that's a net loss for everybody."

Dr. Lafta was born in Baghdad in 1960, was trained as a physician at Baghdad University College and then worked for 14 years for the Ministry of Health under Saddam Hussein. He became the head of the communicable disease department and then the primary-care department of Diyala province in northern Iraq.

Dr. Lafta, who is still in Iraq, couldn't be reached by e-mail yesterday. But Dr. Takaro shared a message from his personal communication. "The main point is that people outside Iraq do not realize the real disaster we are suffering," Dr. Lafta writes. "Only the Iraqi people know that, simply because the foreigners are listening to the news while we are living the events on the ground."

Original article posted here.

More Depleted Uranium Cases in the Unfolding Iraqi Genocide

Troops contaminated after serving in Iraq

TWO Australian soldiers who served in the first Iraq war have tested positive to depleted uranium (DU) contamination despite assurances from the federal Government they had not been exposed, an anti-nuclear group said today.

Any such admission from the Government would leave it open to millions of dollars in compensation, said Pauline Rigby, project co-ordinator for the group Depleted Uranium Silent Killer (DUSK).

Urine samples from each of the men, who served in different areas of Iraq, were sent last year for uranium isotope analysis at the JW Goethe University in Germany at a cost of $1,200 each under the auspices of DUSK and the Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) in Canada, Ms Rigby said.

The results, now being evaluated for publication next month in two scientific journals, showed both men had tested positive to depleted uranium contamination more than 15 years after their return from the first Gulf War.

Ms Rigby said depleted uranium was the toxic and radioactive waste from the nuclear enrichment process.

Denser and heavier than lead, it is used as a projectile to penetrate heavy bunkers and tanks.

“This is a huge issue about compensation which the Government would be determined they will never pay,” Ms Rigby said.

“It's going to be Agent Orange all over again, except this time it's going to be a little bit worse because the mutations go into the general community from blood and organ donations.”

A 52-year-old Sunshine Coast man, known only as “Frank” (not his real name), said he was one of those tested.

In 1991, he was an army medic in the mountains of northern Iraq, aiding Kurdish refugees fleeing the persecution of Saddam Hussein's forces.

He cannot work and has suffered skin rashes on his face, arms and neck, swollen joints, chronic fatigue and dizzy spells but his doctor can only treat his symptoms because he is at a loss to explain their cause.

Frank's wife, from whom he is now separated, had cervical cancer and burning semen syndrome, a condition reported by American Gulf War veterans or their sexual partners since returning from the Persian Gulf.

They or their sexual partners have experienced a burning sensation after skin and/or vaginal contact with semen.

But Frank says he only wants recognition from the Government.

“I'm not looking for millions of dollars in compensation,” Frank told AAP today.

“I just want to be treated fairly and I want our service recognised so that I can clearly have what I am entitled to, and so my children can also seek and receive free of charge any and all testing and be honestly told and informed of where they stand.”

A Defence spokesperson said the department had no knowledge of the two men who had allegedly tested positive for DU.

Australia had not used DU munitions since 1990 and Australian personnel were not in “immediate proximity” to sites in Iraq or Afghanistan where DU munitions were used by Australia's coalition partners.

“Accordingly, it is highly unlikely that any ADF personnel received significant exposure to DU residues in Iraq or Afghanistan,” the spokesperson said.

Original article posted here.

The Magnitude of Depleted Uranium in Iraq

Uranium and the War

The effects of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq

by John Williams

In five billion years our sun will explode into a white dwarf and envelope the earth, according to NASA projections.

The half-life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years.

This means that by the time the Earth ceases to be a planet, only a little more than half of the depleted uranium (DU) that the United States Army is firing into Iraq and other countries around the world will be gone. The rest of the radioactive material will still be poisoning the Iraqi people.

The U.S. Army revealed in March 2003 that it dropped between 320 and 390 tons of DU during the Gulf War—the first time the material was ever used in combat—and it is estimated that more still has been dropped during the current invasion, though there have been no official counts as yet.

Depleted uranium munitions are extremely dense, toxic, and mildly radioactive. And despite mounting evidence of DU’s negative health affects for combatants and civilians alike, their use is increasing.

Naturally occurring uranium has three forms: uranium 235, 234, and 238. More than 99 percent of earth’s uranium is 238. Uranium 238 is much less radioactive than uranium 235, which is why it takes so long to deteriorate.

Nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants require highly radioactive uranium, so the uranium 238 is removed from the naturally occurring uranium by a process known as enrichment. Depleted uranium is the by-product of the uranium enrichment process.

Since so much of the natural uranium is 238—which is nearly useless for nuclear weapons manufacturing and use in power plants—uranium enrichment factories are left with large amounts of uranium 238, or DU. According to an estimate by the Kansas-based group Nukewatch, the United States has over a billion pounds of DU in its stockpile. This product is twice as dense as lead, and more toxic than it. DU is used to make numerous weapons systems, from shells to bullets to armor for tanks. DU munitions are commonly called Penetrators, a testament to the material’s density.

Effects in Combat

Depleted uranium was a major topic of discussion during a Feb. 24 forum at UC Santa Cruz with speakers from the Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW). The panel consisted of five members of the IVAW chapter in Olympia, Washington who visited Santa Cruz as part of a speaking tour of the west coast.

Joe Hatcher, a member of IVAW who served in Iraq with the army’s 4th Calvary Brigade from February 2004 to March 2005, described the on-the-ground reality of DU use in Iraq.

"During our invasion of Basra, I got a call from Bravo team, who was on the other side of the town," Hatcher recalled. "They said, 'Stop firing, the DU bullets are coming through at us.’ Our bullets were going through the whole city and coming out the other side. Keep in mind Basra is a city of about two and a half million people." (more than three times the population of San Francisco.)

Hatcher continued, "If I can shoot a bullet into a mud house and have it go for possibly miles, then it’s no wonder there are so many civilian deaths."

A Johns Hopkins Study published in October 2006 placed the Iraqi death total during the American occupation at 655,000, roughly one for every 40 people in Iraq—due in part to the use of DU munitions.

The Royal Society, Britain’s preeminent scientific organization, conducted what many consider to be the definitive independent study of wartime DU. The study found that the radioactive dust that a DU bullet creates upon impact can travel more than 26 miles. It also noted that when a bullet made of DU hits a target, it explodes at heat levels upwards of 6000 degrees Celsius.

Apart from the physical destruction DU bullets cause, their impact on the health of both soldiers and citizens alike is cause for concern.

Tom Cassidy, an IVAW member who served in Iraq from 2003 to 2005 in the 1st Cavalry Division, also spoke of the dangers of nuclear radiation from the DU bullets.

"After the first gulf war, the level of radiation was 300 times what is considered normal," Cassidy said. "In this invasion we used even more DU bullets. The effects there are horrible."

Joe Hatcher explained that being around nuclear radioactive material in Iraq was commonly known to be part of the job.

"Before I went home on my last tour of duty, I was assigned to clean the trucks that we had used, because as they were they wouldn’t pass environmental standards to come into Germany, because of the radiation they were around," Hatcher said. "I tell this to folks here in America, and oftentimes they’ll freak out, but back there it was just normal, just another assignment."

Kate Flanagan, a UCSC feminist studies major and the event organizer, discussed the importance of raising awareness about the prevalence of DU.

"Depleted uranium is just one factor in the whole military industrial complex, though a particularly dangerous one," Flanagan said. "The only way to stop depleted uranium is to stop the war."

Effects on Health

Hatcher and his fellow members of the IVAW believe that their experiences in the Gulf War were the beginnings of what will be a long-term health problem in the region.

Dennis Kyne served in the U.S. Army 18th Airborne Division for 15 years as a non-commissioned officer and a drill sergeant during Desert Storm. Kyne has devoted much of his time since his service in the first Gulf War to investigating the use of DU and its effects on soldiers and civilians. One of Kyne’s most urgent complaints is the testing that was done on U.S. soldiers returning from Kuwait.

"After I returned from Desert Storm, I was put into one of the slew of study groups [the army] stuffed vets into—mine was for ionizing radiation. In 1995 I was compensated for undiagnosed illnesses," Kyne said.

According to a congressional hearing of the Veteran’s Disability Benefits Commission, over half a million veterans suffer from undiagnosed illnesses, which may or may not be due to the radiation. Radiation sickness is considered by some researchers to be a leading cause of Gulf War syndrome—an illness involving a weakening of the immune system that many veterans of the Gulf War have reported.

Kyne has transformed his personal experiences into a public agenda. He has written two books on DU and its effects, a number of articles, including one article entitled, "Whatever Happened to the Test Tube Paradigm," first published in the San Francisco Bayview in Feb. 2005, which was one of the first to bring light to DU issues. He has been interviewed in a number of documentaries, TV shows, and radio shows, including Nightline and NPR. He recently ran for city council in his hometown of San Jose on a peace platform.

"The scientists call it cell disruption, and they don’t know why it’s happening to veterans, but it’s really radiation sickness," Kyne said. "And it’s because the DU is all over."

The Royal Society investigation into DU wartime use found that there was a possibility that soldiers who had been in close proximity with DU munitions would have twice the risk of death from lung cancer as those who were not. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has not spoken out against the use of DU munitions, their website states that, "the behavior of DU in the body is identical to that of natural uranium."

Roberto Gwiazda, a researcher in the environmental toxicology department at UCSC, was the lead researcher in a project examining the level of uranium in veterans of the Gulf War, including vets who had sustained shrapnel wounds involving radioactive material. These were all friendly fire incidents, as the United States is the only country in the world that uses DU shells.

"Of those with radioactive shrapnel wounds, all had significant levels of uranium in their urine seven to nine years after the explosion," Gwiazda said. "Of those who only inhaled the incendiary uranium, a statistically significant number also had high uranium levels."

A study conducted by the Pentagon in 2002 predicted that, "every future battlefield will be contaminated" with DU. The fact that radioactive dust from a bullet explosion can spread nearly 30 miles means that the radius of disruption surrounding a battle sight can be vast. Further, the WHO report on DU states, "Over the days and years following [DU contamination], the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water."

Army training manuals inform American military personnel that DU contamination renders food and water unsafe for consumption.

While soldiers do not have to continue living in the contaminated areas for the rest of their lives, people living in Iraq are not so lucky. Tom Engleart, another IVAW speaker, recalled the high rate of birth complications since the US occupation, and DU use, began.

"I don’t call the birth defects there defects," Englehart said. "There were defects after the first Gulf War, a lot of them. But now there’s a massive upswing in miscarriages and stillborns. They’re just these pulpy masses with no form."

Up-to-date health information from Iraq is difficult to come by. But a November report from Al-jazeera concluded that, "[The] cancer rate in Iraq has increased tenfold, and the number of birth defects has multiplied fivefold times since the 1991 war. The increase is believed to be caused by depleted uranium."

The Future?

Alliant Techsystems (ATK) is the country’s largest producer of depleted uranium weaponry. While most arms makers use DU to armor tanks, the DU munitions that ATK produces are more controversial. ATK has received contracts from the U.S. Armed Forces totaling $52,000,000 in the past month alone, according to their website. Bryce Hallowell explained ATK’s reasoning behind producing DU weapons.

"We want to make the best weapons possible for the U.S. Army," Hallowell said. "We do not want a fair fight. We want the army to be able to engage the enemy at long distances and take them out."

Dave Hansen, a member of an activist group called Alliant Action, helps organize weekly vigils at ATK’s headquarters to protest the company’s DU production. Although the vigils have taken place for over a decade, according to Hansen there are as yet no signs of decreasing production from the company.

"There have been weekly vigils for ten years now, as well as intermittent civil disobedience," Hansen said. "That’s a long time, with not a whole lot to show. But the movement is growing, so that’s good news."

But Hansen’s movement is just to stop the production of radioactive weapons. Even if Alliant Action’s campaign to end DU munitions production were successful, hundreds of tons of radioactive material would still be scattered across the globe.

This reality was not a landscape of hope for Kate Flanagan. As she put it, "As far as DU is concerned, there’s not much hope."

Original article posted here.

Weekend at Weazl's: Beyond Treason. The Use of Depleted Uranium.

Depleted Uranium: Killing them Softly

Israel promoting peace as usual

Israel 'poisoning the Palestinians'

ALGIERS: Israel was yesterday accused of using illegal chemical weapons in the occupied territories.

"Analyses carried out in laboratories outside Palestine have shown that Israel has had recourse to banned chemical weapons and depleted uranium" in the territories, said environment minister Yussef Abu Sofia in Algiers, on the sidelines of a conference of Arab environment ministers.

He also accused Israel of having "transported major quantities of dangerous chemical products into the interior of the Palestinian territories thereby seriously polluting the water table."

Abu Sofia said that "two million trees have been uprooted (by the Israelis) in the past six years, half a million of them olive trees".

He said that Israel had refused the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Atomic Energy Agency access to the Palestinian territories to look into the situation.

Original article posted here.