Fallujah Horror: Depleted Uranium?

[debbierlus]

The top of the front page features a article on huge rise in birth defect in Fallujah. This article I thought I would post as an adjunct for further reading.

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2009/11/fallujah_horror.php

Worse than Dante’s seventh circle if that is possible because the after results of war in Fallujah will be felt for at least for a decade or two. We are not talking about physical destruction of homes and factories or the total annihilation of infrastructure such as water utilities, electricity generating plants, sewage plants, bridges and highways. All of these can be rebuilt and life will go on. In this case we are concerned with much more sinister effects of war, effects that linger on and destroy life. What the people of Fallujah, more than any other people in the world, are facing everyday and every second of every day is hell on earth; they have to witness the death of more than a quarter of the new born within a week of their birth and to make the deeply painful decision of what is to be done about the huge proportion of grotesquely deformed babies that are born with two heads, three eyes, no limbs, one eye.

The world owes the people of Fallujah an explanation of what has triggered this avalanche of deformity and horror. The usual celebratory experience of giving birth has been transformed to a time of anxiety and horror. Women dread becoming pregnant and above all carrying the fetus for nine months only to find out that what they are carrying has been condemned to death the moment that life was to begin. Such rapid and unique developments do not occur without a cause. The only logical proximate cause for this human tragedy was the 2003 war and in particular the 2004 assault on Fallujah. It was estimated that during that assault over 10,000 tons of depleted uranium, DU, was used in the bombardment of the city of 300,000 people.
Both the Pentagon and the British governments insist that the use of DU is not illegal and that the studies that they have undertaken do not reveal DU to be a carcinogen. That might be true but many an international body including the EU and the UN have been trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent the use of DU munitions because there are many physicians, engineers and studies that suspect that the DU produced vapour in battles is capable of contaminating humans, soil and water. It is this radioactive contamination that causes the severe deformities in the newly born “things” since many of them do not look like humans.

A group of doctors at the hospitals of Fallujah have documented the severity of the problems encountered by the newly born and has approached the UN and other world institutions asking for an investigation to determine the root cause of this tragedy. Tragic results from technological developments in war are nothing new. Agent Orange was used extensively to defoliate forests in Vietnam but wound up in causing the death and even childbirth deformities of thousands of people that it was deployed to protect. McNamara, who approved the use of Agent Orange never, forgave himself for all the damage and suffering that his decision has caused to millions of people but especially for loosing his son to an Agent Orange induced illness.

The prospective new parents of Fallujah and the next generation are being asked to bear the unbearable burden of seeing their children die within days of being born or of giving birth to grotesquely deformed beings. This is the result of a war of choice during which one side made the deliberate decision to subdue a city by pulverizing it and by subjecting its innocent civilians to the most incredible of human sufferings. DU is an instrument of death and horror that must be banned from use in war until serious and exhaustive studies can be made to show the opposite. Meanwhile the heart of all decent and honorable citizens in the world goes out to the suffering parents of Fallujah and to the horror that they have been forced to live with. We must make sure that such acts are never repeated again. DU; if found to be the culprit; must be prohibited and declared in violation of the laws of war besides the Declaration of Human rights.

.......................................

So, let me ask again. Why aren't Bush administration on trial for war crimes against humanity?

Just wondering.

[benld74]

1. OF course its the depleted uranium - Building better ways to kill each other !!

[patrice]

2. There are no words for how horrible this is.

[malaise]

3. There are words all right

War crimes and war criminals

[debbierlus]

4. Americans have to take RESPONSIBILITY for these crimes

This was done in our name.

Over a million people were killed, millions more orphaned or disfigured or displaced or sold into sex slavery.

The fact that we basically don't talk about the atrocity we have committed is shameful. I get so angry every time I hear the 'we must look forward and not behind'.

This is now. This is the future of Fallujah and other places in Iraq. This is the results of a war driven economy. Until we own up to this atrocity and all the others, we will never move forward. EVER.

[classysassy]

5. Greed

a desire for other peoples resources,( oil,black gold )how can those evil bastards that voted for that evil bush/chaney killing spree,live with themselves?Where were we when our troops attacked a country without cause,were we out in the streets yelling " support the troops ",there is an old proverb that says" what goes around comes around ",think about that my fellow americans,hope you sleep well tonight.God bless us thats our only hope,because there will be no help coming from Washington.

[unhappycamper]

6. Depleted uranium is Agent Orange on steroids.

White phosphorous shells, cluster bombs, thermobaric bombs and depleted uramium and the willingness to use them give us the Fallujah 'victory'.

[Selatius]

7. The UN cannot prosecute the US for war crimes. The US holds veto power on the Security Council.

George W. Bush could've literally carpet-bombed Fallujah into nothing like it was Dresden all over again, but nobody could establish a tribunal through the Security Council because the US would simply veto such a measure, even if the crime proved so horrific, so shocking to the conscience that all other permanent members of the Security Council voted in favor of establishing such a tribunal.

The only people who can put a stop to the madness is the American people, but in this form of government, they are poorly served by the two establishment parties. Both want to hold onto power, and neither would want to do anything that would jeopardize their political advantage by opening up a divisive fight over whether the previous authorities were guilty of war crimes.

[janet118]

8. Where are the right-to-lifers now? n/t

[debbierlus]

9. The Right to Lifers are one dimensional judgemental narcissists

The fact the politicians they elect who are 'pro life' vote for policy after policy that kill, maim, pollute, and disregard all human life seems to mean nothing to them.

And, that exposes them for what they truly are.

A bunch of grandstanding hypocrits who use their position as a mean of inflating fragile egos and casting judgement on women.

At best, they are without any critical thinking skills. At worse, they are what I described above.

[inna]

10. Top two entries in my Journal Tracker:

Username Actions Last Journal Entry Journal Update Time
Orwellian_Ghost Huge Rise In Birth Defects In Falluja Nov-13-09 08:41 PM
debbierlus Fallujah Horror: Depleted Uranium? Nov-13-09 07:10 PM



See what happened to OG: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7014072

[hfojvt]

11. I don't think it's radioactive poison

DU is not very radioactive, in spite of the Uranium in its name. If it is a problem, it is because of heavy metal poisoning, not radioactivity.

[Junkdrawer]

13. Alpha Emitters are hell when ingested...harmless otherwise...

And they are deadly in microgram quantities.

DU turns to dust when it hits a target.

[MadHound]

14. Actually the radiation is a large part of the problem

Yes, DU is not terribly radioactive, it is an alpha emitter, which can be blocked by one's skin. The trouble is DU munitions are blown to dust. That dust gets everywhere, it is inhaled and ingested. When that dust gets inside the body then you have problems because the radiation is not blocked and is free to wreak havoc inside a body.

[hfojvt]

15. aha - thanks

http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/understand/alpha.html#affecthealth

but with such a long half-life, it is really emitting very many alpha particles?

I suppose if you inhale an ounce, or 2.38 grams that would be about 6 x 10 to the 21st atoms and that 1/4.6 billion of them decay in one year that is still about 41,540 alpha particles per second, and that does not even include what uranium 234 and other components of the decay chain would be doing. Holy crap.

But speaking of crap, it depends on how much of the DU stays in the body or is excreted, but then that still becomes another pollution problem.

[MadHound]

16. It is emitting enough to do some serious damage, especially over time

You don't have to inhale an ounce, a few dust particles will do the trick. The thing is once you ingest, or particularly inhale a few particles, they're probably there for the rest of your life. These particles lodge in out of the way places and aren't passed through the body.

DU is insidious, and sadly we've carpeted large portions of the world with the stuff. Sadly people are living in these areas, places which, if they were in the US, would be declared a toxic waste site and would either be cordoned off or cleaned up. Instead, people continue to live there, ingesting and inhaling the agent of their destruction.

[Starry Messenger]

12. recommend