So exposure to these toxic particles will continue for our troops and the Iraqis, after all, the powers that be are in their air conditioned board rooms extricating the massive Iraqi booty and contemplating more liberations of other meaningful assets, why bother with such potential liabilities by creating an undesirable image in making sure our troops are functioning in a clean environment? One wonders who the real terrorists are presently functioning in Iraq. The U.S government continues to deny that DU shells present a health risk for those that use the weaponry and to those exposed to the lingering effects after its use.

Of course the user’s of these type’s of weapons would deny the obvious, especially when these weapons are banned by international law as Leuren Moret in her testimony to the International War Crimes Tribunal revealed - U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM

LEGALITY TEST FOR WEAPONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

Weapons must pass four tests in order to determine that they are legal under international
law. The tests are:

TEMPORAL TEST . Weapons must not continue to act after the battle is over.

ENVIRONMENTAL TEST . Weapons must not be unduly harmful to the environment.

TERRITORIAL TEST . Weapons must not act off of the battlefield.

HUMANENESS TEST . Weapons must not kill or wound inhumanely.

Depleted uranium weaponry fails all four tests. For that reason it is illegal under all treaties, all agreements and all war conventions:

The military use of DU violates current international humanitarian law, including the principle that there is no unlimited right to choose the means and methods of warfare (Art. 22 Hague Convention VI (HCIV); Art. 35 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva (GP1); the ban on causing unnecessary suffering and suoperfluous injury (Art. 23 le HCIV; Art. 35 2 GP1), indiscriminate warfare (Art. 51 4c and 5b GP1) as well as the use of poison or poisoned weapons).

The Seattle Post ran an article by Larry Johnson titled - "War's Unintended Effects"; where he quotes Rep. Dr. Jim McDermott, of Washington – "We continue to get these sporadic reports of various places where a lot of people are getting sick, and nobody is willing to connect the dots yet," he said. "I'm afraid we're going to have a lot of people get sick before they finally admit that depleted uranium really causes a problem for us (U.S. veterans and their families) as well as for the Iraqis."

The Christian Science Monitor also ran an extensive expose on the radioactive conditions ordinary Iraqis are forced to live with. The reality on the ground in Iraq contradicts statements by Bush officials who continue to deny that discarded DU shells and objects that were destroyed by DU armament pose a serious medical risk. In the CSM article it quotes an American soldier as saying – “After we shoot something with DU, we're not supposed to go around it, due to the fact that it could cause cancer," says a sergeant in Baghdad from New York, assigned to a Bradley, who asked not to be further identified.” This poisonous reality in Iraq is also serving to ferment further hostility by the Iraqis towards their occupiers.

The first Bush clan war against Iraq named the Gulf War produced over 161,000 U.S casualties which have been effectively hushed up by the Department of Defense (DoD) and their prostitutes in the general media. That is how many Gulf War veterans are receiving disability payments for what is known as Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) from the U.S. government. There still is controversy on what was the direct cause for so many casualties to Gulf War veterans; Dr. Rosalie Bertell outlines the possible causes for GWS. Use this link to see complete list.

-- Administration of three vaccines intended as protection against nerve and biological warfare agents. These were:

1. Pyridostigmine, normally prescribed for myasthenia gravis and known to have serious side effects, especially when the person taking it is exposed to heat. It is also known that exposure to pesticides and insecticides (Baygon, Diazinon and Sevin) should be avoided when taking pyridostigmine because they can accentuate its toxicity. Some women who took this drug during pregnancy and have breast-fed infants have seen side effects in their child.

2. Botulinum Pentavalent, an unproven vaccine intended to counteract botulism. It is unlicensed in the United States.

3. Anthrax, to protect against the disease anthrax. This was apparently selectively administered to troops during the war, and women receiving it were warned not to have children for three or four years.

-- Depleted uranium was used for the first time in this war. It was incorporated into tank armor, missile and aircraft counterweights, and navigational devices, and in tank, anti-aircraft, and anti-personnel artillery. The scientific information on this deadly chemical has been reported in "Radium Osteitis With Osteogenic Sarcoma: The Chronology and Natural History of Fatal Cases" by Dr. William D. Sharpe, Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. 47, No. 9 (September 1971). There was no excuse for this human experimentation because the effects of this exposure were known.

-- Destruction by allies of Iraqi chemical, nerve and biological warfare weapons resulting in widespread distribution of these toxins in the environment. This problem has now been, at least in part, documented by the U.S. Department of Defense. They are focusing on this potential cause as if it were the only candidate cause.

The purveyor’s of weapons of mass destruction in Washington also used DU in Kosovo and Bosnia where NATO troops have been demanding to leave as far back as two years ago because many are becoming sick with cancer and other illnesses attributed to DU contamination. In Southern Iraq, one viscous outcome to radiation poisoning from the first Gulf War is monstrous birth defects.

And the simpletons are beginning to fight back; Gulf War veterans are suing chemical companies for supplying the Iraqi government with chemicals so Saddam could brew some WMD. Veterans collectively need to go after the real culprits for their condition and that is the DoD, and sue the U.S. government.

Why does the most powerful military in the world need to use such contaminating ammunition against a foe that was three generations behind technologically, an enemy that did not have any military capacity to resist such a colossal power, and why expose American military personnel again to the same radioactive contamination when tens of thousands of first Gulf War veterans were permanently injured by these poisonous weapons? The U.S. and British governments' knew all along of the dangers posed by DU weapons and decided to continue to use them.

The conclusion is inescapable; the simpletons are nothing more than bottom feeders and are regarded by the plutocracy as expendable in pursuit of their pluralistic new world order. A bunch of dead GI’s and rag heads is nothing much to look at for the neocons’ and their deceived dispensationalists’; after all, their war on evil is a complicated and difficult task that demands your sacrifice.

MORE INFORMATION ON DEPLETED URANIUM FROM THE ARTICLE – WAR’S UNINTENDED EFFECTS

WHAT IT IS:

Depleted uranium is a highly dense, toxic and radioactive metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to make nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. The U.S. uses it for bullets and shells.

WHAT IT DOES:

Depleted uranium contains the highly toxic U-238 isotope, which has a radioactive half-life of about 4.5 billion years. As U-238 breaks down, an ongoing process, it creates protactinium-234, which radiates potent beta particles that may cause cancer as well as mutations in body cells that could lead to birth defects.

HOW IT SPREADS:

When a depleted uranium round hits a hard target, as much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn on impact, creating a firestorm of depleted uranium particles. The toxic residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine insoluble uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain. Once in the soil, it can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.



"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."

Novakeo is editor and writer for America First on Foreign Policy (AFFP). He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.

Novakeo can be reached at novakeo@lycos.com

Published in the September 2, 2003 issue of  Ether Zone.
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