In England we buy red poppies fron the British Legion who use the money to provide help for widows, to help people who have been hurt in the fighting and to remember our brave warriors who gave their all on Flanders field and in sadly many, many other conflicts through our the world.
Today I can only think of two words, Depleted Uranium,
The Pentagon has been using radio active weapons for at least a decade and a half with full complicity of at least three White House administrations and Republican and Democratic congressional legislators. Conservatively, at least 300 tons and 1,700 tons of depleted uranium were used in the Gulf War and the current Iraq War, respectively. This is about 70 grams of depleted uranium per Iraqi citizen, and if inhaled or ingested, it is enough to kill them all.
Is this not radioactive genocide, especially when our troops used and continue to use most of the depleted uranium munitions in densely populated areas such as Baghdad and Fallujah? Depleted uranium has a half-life of billions of years. Consequently, Iraq will be a wasteland forever and essentially uninhabitable for anyone.
Iraqi and visiting doctors, and a number of news reports, have reported that birth defects and cancers in Iraqi children have increased five- to 10-fold since the 1991 Gulf War and continue to increase sharply, to over 30-fold in some areas in southern Iraq. Currently, more than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium.
After the 1991 Gulf War, about 1 in 4, or 150,000, U.S. veterans came down with what is referred to as "Gulf War Syndrome." Most of the ailments characteristics of Gulf War Syndrome are consistent with radiation or heavy-metal poisoning. Veterans' children are now also born with higher proportions of birth defects and other genetic disorders, according to sporadic accounts. The Pentagon continues to deny the harmful effects of depleted uranium or its role in Gulf War Syndrome.
As described by a report of the World Health Organization Depleted Uranium Mission to Kosovo, uranium can be found in rocks and soil and contributes to natural background levels of radioactivity. Depleted uranium is a waste product of uranium enrichment for nuclear reactors and is about 60 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. Depleted uranium is considered weakly radioactive.
Nevertheless, depleted uranium is considered nuclear waste and has to be disposed of accordingly, which is expensive and a potential environmental hazard. The nuclear industry must be very pleased the U.S. military has found a way to get this stuff off their hands cheaply.
Depleted uranium is really a misnomer, because the potentially harmful effects are by no means depleted. Research reports have found that when depleted uranium is ingested or inhaled, it can cause cancers and birth defects. It has considerable heavy-metal toxicity.
As stated in the WHO report, because of its high density, depleted uranium is used in armor-piercing ammunition and as reinforcement against conventional weapons. Upon impact, the depleted uranium fragments burn at intense heat, and 10 to 35 percent of it becomes aerosolised. This aerosolised uranium "dust" is the most harmful component because it can easily be ingested or inhaled.
Wind and people walking through it also easily disperse the depleted uranium dust. This dust is a predominant by product of military use of depleted uranium, in contrast to, for example, exposures in uranium mines or nuclear reactors.
Our troops in Iraq will be severely affected by this radioactive war, not only because a lot more depleted uranium has been used and continues to be used, but also because they have been there a lot longer than during the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of our troops will come down with Gulf War Syndrome as a result of depleted uranium poisoning, and thousands will die from it. Thousands of their children will be born with genetic diseases, cancers and birth defects.
Please be warned the pictures in these links showing tragic birth defects are upsetting and haunting
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1777
http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html
