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The Under-Examined Story of Fallujah
Seven years after the U.S. invasion of Fallujah, there are reports of an alarming rise in the rates of birth defects and cancer. But the crisis, and its possible connection to weapons deployed by the United States during the war, remains woefully under-examined.
On November 8, 2004, U.S. military forces launched Operation Phantom Fury 50 miles west of Baghdad in Fallujah, a city of 350,000 people known for its opposition to the Saddam regime.
The United States did not expect to encounter resistance in Fallujah, nor did it initially face any in the early days of the war. The first sign of serious hostility appeared in April 2003, after U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne division fired into a crowd of protesters demonstrating against the occupation and the closure of their local school building, killing 17 civilians and injuring 70. The following February, amid mounting tensions, a local militia beheaded four Blackwater employees and strung their bodies from a bridge across the Euphrates River. U.S. forces temporarily withdrew from Fallujah and planned for a full onslaught.
Following the evacuation of civilians, Marines cordoned off the city, even as some residents scrambled to escape. Thirty to fifty thousand people were still inside the city when the U.S. military launched a series of airstrikes, dropping incendiary bombs on suspected insurgent hideouts. Ground forces then combed through targeted neighborhoods house by house. Ross Caputi, who served as a first private Marine during the siege, has said that his squad and others employed “reconnaissance by fire,” firing into dwellings before entering to make sure nobody inside was still alive. Caputi later co-founded the group Justice for Fallujah, which dedicated the week of November 14 to a public awareness campaign about the impact of the war on the city’s people
By the end of the campaign, Fallujah was a ghost town. Though the military did not tally civilian casualties, independent reports put the number somewhere between 800 and 6,000. As The Washington Post reported in April 2005, more than half of Fallujah’s 39,000 homes were damaged, of which 10,000 were no longer habitable. Five months after the campaign, only 90,000 of the city’s evacuated residents had returned. The majority still lacked electricity, and the city’s sewage and water systems, badly damaged in the campaign, were not functional. A mounting unemployment crisis — exacerbated by security checkpoints, which blocked the flow of people and goods into and out of the city — left young residents of Fallujah especially vulnerable to recruitment by the resistance.
The Official Success Story
Although the initial picture of the devastated city looked grim, by 2007 Fallujah had become a key part of the emerging narrative of successful counterinsurgency in Iraq. At a press conference in April of that year, Marine Colonel Richard Simcock declared that progress was “phenomenal” and that Fallujah was an “economically strong and flourishing city.” According to the official narrative that has since crystallized, the second siege of Fallujah turned out to be a major turning point in the war. “By taking down Fallujah, the Marines denied a sanctuary for the insurgents,” said Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division during Phantom Fury, in an oral history published by the Marines in 2009. In contrast to the insurgents who relied on “brutal tactics,” he explained, the Marines were able to win over the good will of the people. This contributed to the larger “Awakening” in Anbar province, the linchpin of counterinsurgency’s “success” in Iraq.
Official “progress” narratives of war rarely tell the whole story, especially when it comes to the war’s long-term effects on the civilian population. Seven years after the second siege of Fallujah, despite lucrative U.S.-funded contracts to rebuild infrastructure, much of the city is still in ruins, and unemployment remains high. As terrorist attacks in Anbar and across the country have risen in the past year, security is increasingly tenuous. In August, a car bomb exploded at a police station near Fallujah, killing five officers and wounding six more.
Of the current problems in Fallujah, the most alarming is a mounting public health crisis. In the years since the invasion, doctors in Fallujah have reported drastic increases in the number of premature births, infant mortality, and birth defects—babies born without skulls, missing organs, or with stumps for arms and legs. Fallujah General Hospital reported that, out of 170 babies born in September 2009, 24 percent died within the first seven days, of which 75 percent were deformed — as compared to August 2002, when there were 530 babies born, only six deaths, and one deformity. As the years go by, the problem seems to be getting worse, and doctors are increasingly warning women not to have children.
Many residents have suspected a link between the drastic rise in birth defects and the weapons deployed by U.S. military during the war. The United States has admitted to using white phosphorus in Fallujah, a toxin in incendiary bombs that causes severe burns. But it denies targeting civilians or employing a class of armor-piercing weapons that contain depleted uranium, a byproduct of nuclear weapons used in the production of munitions and armory and known to cause mutagenic illnesses.
The Science and Its Critics
Two recent studies led by Dr. Christopher Busby, a chemistry professor at the University of Ulster who specializes in environmental toxicology, have attempted to document and explain Fallujah’s health crisis. The first was an epidemiological study conducted by a team of 11 researchers who visited 711 households in Fallujah. Published in the December 2010 issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, it found that congenital birth defects, including neural tube, cardiac, and skeletal malformations, were 11 times higher than normal rates, and rose to their highest levels in 2010. The study also found a seven-to-38-fold increase in several site-specific cancers, as well as a drastic shift in the ratio of female-to-male births, with 15 percent fewer boys born in the study period.
In a follow-up study, Busby and his team tested hair samples from 25 mothers and fathers of children with genetic abnormalities in Fallujah. In addition to normally occurring elements, they found uranium. The study, published in the October 2011 issue of the Journal of Conflict and Health, concluded that this was a “primary” or “related cause” of the increase in birth defects and cancer in Fallujah. In a recent interview on Russia Today, Busby explained that, although the research team expected to find depleted uranium, they actually found a slightly enriched form of the element. This has led him to speculate that a “whole new set of anti-personnel weapons” was secretly deployed in Fallujah and possibly elsewhere.
Busby, who wears a black beret and speaks with a burning intensity in his voice, is not your typical laboratory scientist prone to avoid superlatives or qualify claims. “This is like nothing we’ve ever found in any epidemiological study ever,” he said. Yet the journal Lancet rejected his studies without explanation. Busby believes it is part of an intentional sabotage: “There are some serious operators out there,” he says, “and they don’t want the story to get out.” These stark conclusions and provocative conspiracy theories deliberately blur the line between science and politics. In a world in which these two realms are generally sharply divided, there is something refreshing about a scientist who is not afraid to get political.
Yet, as experts at NYU Medical Center confirmed in their response to my queries about the quality of these studies, Busby’s findings are not without their problems.
In their assessment of the epidemiology study, NYU Professors Paolo Toniolo, Judith Zelikoff, and George Friedman-Jimenez were critical of the study’s methodology and cast doubt on the accuracy of its conclusions. They acknowledged the challenge of conducting epidemiological research in wartime and postwar conditions, but argued that the study did not adequately address the inevitable biases involved. Toniolo questioned the report’s claim that the researchers conducted a random sampling of houses in the study area and observed that, among other biases, the study did not address socioeconomics as a factor in the health of the population still living in Fallujah. Zelikoff explained that the findings omitted important information concerning the background of the individuals in the study, including smoking, contagious disease, and the quality of maternal health care.
Friedman-Jimenez noted that, especially in a climate of fear and mistrust, the method of gathering information through questionnaires to households would likely result in an overestimate of risk. “The magnitude of these biases, however, is not likely to be big enough to completely explain the extraordinarily large observed relative risks,” he said. “What fraction of the increased risk is due to these and other biases is very unclear. The role of ‘quick and dirty’ studies like this one, conducted under difficult conditions, is not to inform policy, but rather to generate hypotheses about important questions when resources are not yet available and other research methods are not possible.”
Terry Gordon, a professor in NYU’s Department of Environmental Medicine, referred to the toxicology study as both “strange” and “interesting.” He too cited methodological issues, including the lack of a baseline for local levels of uranium. (The study compared levels in Fallujah to those in southern Israel, Japan, Brazil, Sweden, and Slovenia.) Several of the experts challenged the study’s conclusion that the discovery of mutagens can be indisputably linked to a rise in cancers. Zelikoff explained that the study does not address the lack of information about duration or amounts of exposure. Gordon also noted that, “While congenital effects can be seen after such short term exposures, it is unlikely that cancers would be elevated 6 or 7 years after the war.” Toniolo was critical of the statement that the goal of this second study was to determine “the cause of the increased risk” and its specific connection to U.S. weaponry deployed during the war. “This is a statement that most scientists would not have the guts to make. One cannot determine the cause of anything.”
Despite the serious problems with Busby’s findings, the respondents generally agreed that the studies should not be dismissed but instead should be regarded as prompts for more investigation and attention to the issue
Further Investigation
Unfortunately, the situation in Fallujah today makes further investigation difficult. The Fallujah Hospital is understaffed and lacking in research capacity. The Shia-dominated Iraqi government has not made studies of health risks in Fallujah, a center of the Sunni-based insurgency, a priority.
According to Busby, his own team had barely completed gathering their data when the government declared them terrorists and threatened to jail anyone who responded to further questionnaires. For obvious reasons, the U.S. Defense Department isn’t lining up to support any further study of the issue and routinely rejects or ignores any claim that there is a serious health crisis in Fallujah or that the U.S. military is responsible for it.
In November 2009, British and Iraqi doctors petitioned the UN to investigate the cause of Fallujah’s health crisis. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) agreed to conduct its own investigation, although it too has been delayed. A WHO representative in Iraq said the delay was due to changes in methodological design and informed me that the Iraqi Ministry of Health will gather data from households in 18 districts from January-February 2012. Meanwhile, the United States has simply dismissed the petitions as “anecdotal” and “inconclusive.”
Media Response
Scientists are not the only ones with a role to play here. It is also the job of the media and other public commentators to report on the situation. In addition to giving us a better picture of what is happening from the perspective of the population living in Fallujah, they should draw attention to the Iraqi and U.S. governments’ obfuscations as well as convey the strengths and weaknesses of the studies done thus far. The issue demands principled, critical journalism.
So far, the media’s coverage of the birth defects and cancer epidemic in Fallujah has been disappointing, to say the least. In 2010, major British newspapers—including the Guardian, the Telegraph, and the Independent—ran brief, suggestive stories on Busby’s first study. These simply reported the study’s conclusions without addressing the methodological problems or framing the political challenges. In the short run, these kinds of reports are valuable for drawing attention to the issue. In the long run, however, such superficial reportage fails both to inform readers and to advance the possibility of formal justice for the population of Fallujah. None of these newspapers has covered the second study at all.
Feurat Alani’s 2011 documentary, Fallujah: A Lost Generation?, shown on French television earlier this year and screened in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles as part of Justice for Fallujah’s awareness campaign, offers one of the few in-depth reports on the evolving issue. Alani is French, with parents from Fallujah. In the film, he interviews doctors and parents of deformed children in Fallujah and Iraqi and American participants in the 2004 battle, as well as researchers and activists. Although the film also glosses over the problems concerning the current science, it is nonetheless extremely informative and an invaluable tool for raising public consciousness.
So far, the mainstream press in the United States has been completely silent. As far as I can tell, no major U.S. news outlet has devoted even a single article or segment to the issue.
A generous explanation of this U.S. media blackout might grant that, in light of questions about the quality of the scientific evidence backing the anecdotal claims, American journalists are just being cautious. But considering the huge stakes, there is no reason they could not report on the studies with a tentative critical eye, just as the researchers who responded to my query did. And given the kind of rampant speculation that regularly peppers mainstream news in the United States, caution is probably not the main factor here. It is more likely that this is yet another example of the U.S. media’s complicity when it comes to America’s wars.
As long as the U.S. press continues to ignore the issue, the U.S. government will feel free to do the same, and the chances of making much progress on the interrelated fronts of scientific investigation, international law, and policy will remain slim.
Illusory Visions of a Post-American Iraq
The current silence of the U.S. press on the health crisis in Fallujah reflects an understandable, though problematic, desire to leave behind a shameful chapter in the history of U.S. foreign policy. If we give in to that desire, we risk losing sight of what is actually happening in Iraq right now. This has implications not only for how we understand the ongoing health crisis in Fallujah but also for how we understand the current and future role of the United States in Iraq more broadly.
Since Obama’s election, coverage of Iraq has followed the administration’s public emphasis on the drawing down of the war. Following the announcement in October of a full withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of the year, reports in major U.S. newspapers have focused on issues of security in Iraq after the U.S. military’s departure from the country. On November 6, for example, The New York Times ran a front-page story with the title, “Leaving Iraq, U.S. Fears New Surge of Qaeda Terror.” This echoed a news analysis piece published two weeks earlier, which focused on the scaling back of plans to build huge U.S. consulates in politically and economically important cities in Iraq.
This picture of an Iraq emptied of U.S. influence is illusory. In the end, the neocon dream of Iraq as a U.S. client state didn’t come true. But long after December 31, 2011, the United States will continue to have a significant diplomatic and military presence there. Although the Iraqi parliament rejected the U.S. proposal to allow 5-10,000 U.S. troops to remain in Iraq, Obama and Prime Minister Maliki are scheduled to meet in December to continue discussing the issue. Meanwhile, the United States has already established an agreement to keep at least that many troops in neighboring Kuwait. Within Iraq, there will be private security contractors, and Baghdad will be host to the largest embassy in the world – the main base for an army of diplomatic personnel that will carry out security and covert intelligence operations throughout the country.
For Americans who opposed the war, visions of a post-American Iraq are especially tempting. But they are also deceptive. In addition to sparking our consciousness about the health and environmental impact of the war, the ongoing crisis in Fallujah should wake us up to the fact that in multiple ways — most of which are currently ignored or suppressed by the U.S. spin machine — the legacy of the U.S. war in Iraq is far from over.
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47 Comments so far
Show AllIncluding World War II, all wars now result in many more civilian than military casualties. When weapons of mass destruction such as cluster bombs, napalm, high-yield explosives, and depleted uranium are used, as they are now by the U.S. & NATO forces, huge numbers of civilian casualties will result. Far from being "collateral damage" (a disgusting euphemism), these civilian casualties are inevitable and well-known to military planners, who obviously do not care.
This is why modern warfare must be condemned without exception. This is why state terrorism, which is what modern warfare is, is much worse than terrorism by al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, or other such groups. This is why we must stop our taxes from being used by the Amerikan Empire to kill, mutilate, and irradiate people around the planet. Neither wing of the Corporatist-Wall Street-Militarist Party will ever support a humane, enlightened foreign policy. This is why we must shun both Dems and Repubs: they both embrace the slaughter of civilians as a "necessary" part of Amerikan foreign policy so corporate profits can continue to rise along with campaign contributions to our war criminals in government and along with body counts of people under the bombs of U.S. imperial militarism.
The US will burn for the crimes it has committed. Karma overlooks nothing.
I have read on a veterans web site that science researchers studied the soil of Fallujah attempting to find the level of depleted uranium in the soil of Fallujah They wanted to find out how much depleted uranium could be the cause of all the birth defects.
The scientists found ENRICHED URANIUM, which leads to the conclusion that we used nuclear bombs on that city.
It is very saddening to face the fact of the level of evil and greed of our government. All this is due to the horrible corruption of our elected officials. Congress must be changed. We must vote out of office the whole bunch of corporate stooges who now control our government. Your rep is not working in your interests, but is a servant of the top 1%. Vote out all incumbents. Don't worry that a new official will be rotten. That is a maybe. You KNOW the current rep doesn't heed you and your opinions. As long as we keep choosing the lesser evil the evil grows election by election. Let's try a new tack. Kick the Korrupt out of Kongress!
does anyone else find it ironic that the largest us embassy in the world is in a country that a vast majority of the us population could not locate on a map? hmm ...
Good for you! But you've piqued my curiosity, Harriet!
"Why on Earth?" indeed. I for one would appreciate it if you provided a little more detail about the ruckus-- whether you were persuaded or hassled into lowering the sign, what was said to (or "at") you, etc.
Is it your sense that the quasi-rioters were themselves personally upset at the sign's pithy and plainly true content? Or were they disturbed because they considered it too provocative or alienating to the public, and somehow... gack... "off message"?
Inquiring minds want to know. ;)
I second that emotion!
Thanks for the clarification, Harriet.
FWIW, it's pretty close to my guess.
The political confusion you mention is compounded by a tactical or procedural confusion.
In public protest, there is always the problem of finding a message, tone, and balance that doesn't unduly offend, frighten, alienate, or otherwise put off the observers whom the protestors are striving to influence and persuade.
The "you can catch more flies with honey..." concept is invoked as a rule of thumb.
But there's another rule of thumb dictating that if one dilutes, euphemizes, and sanitizes inconvenient, controversial truths and risky but unavoidable respectful confrontation to a point of diminishing returns, one ultimately nullifies or neutralizes the message or agenda one sets out to share.
To put it less convolutedly, if you try to simply woo the public with smarmy, inoffensive messages, you pretty much wind up with smarmy, vapid, noncommittal support.
The benefit of opposable thumbs is lost if one thumb is kept firmly stuck up one's collective fundament.
I'm reminded of the pithy moral to James Thurber's excellent modern fable, "The Bear Who Let It Alone":
you might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
"Returning Hero Tax Break" USA law not differentiated from Soviet jargon.
the thin veil of illusion is all that is required to placate a sleeping and medicated public
when it comes to the iraqis and afghans, appealing to the better senses of an ignorant and viscous amerikan public is a waste of time
consider what we have done to our vets - keeping in mind of course that the irradiation experienced by the iraqis applies to our soldiers as well
"n the eight years after 9/11, VA has treated and diagnosed more than 425,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at VA facilities, an average of 258 new, first-time patients every day.
While the press and public are often focused on the more than 5,000 deaths from the two wars, a tidal wave of wounded, injured, and ill continue flooding into VA, with no end in sight. Beginning today, VCS starts publishing official VA reports obtained by VCS using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at our web site. "
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/veterans-category-articles/1216-paul-sullivan-and-lauren-hohle
and that is from 2009, let's see - at an average of 250 new applicants a day times the 700 odd days since 2009 we get 179, 9000
suicides in active service members and vets are sky high
"So far in 2011, 243 soldiers have committed suicide, only 62 less than took their lives in all of 2010. At least 468 service members from all military branches died by suicide in 2010—more than died in combat. And the numbers are likely even worse among veterans. The VA estimated that 6,000 veterans took their lives in 2009."
http://iava.org/blog/army-suicides-rise-october
again that figure is from 2009 - let's see 6000/year would give us another 12000 suicides
the remains dumped in landfills
"US Air Force officials admitted that from 2003 to 2008, body parts sent from war zones to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were burned before being handed to a private contractor for disposal in Virginia.
Family members of the dead troops were not aware of the practice, which emerged amid anger over earlier disclosures that remains were also lost and mishandled by mortuary officials at the base.
“We could have done it better,” Brig Gen Les Kodlick"
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2011/11/11/remains-of-us-troops-killed-in-iraq-dumped-in-a-landfill/
could have done it better.......don't be too hard on yourself general
homeless
" 50 percent: Rate at which veterans are more likely than other Americans to become homeless. The Obama administration has set a goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.
About 75,000: Number of veterans who are homeless on any given night, according to estimates from the Veterans Administration.
About 20,000: Number of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were homeless in the past five years according to the Veterans Administration.
5.5 percent: Percentage of homeless vets who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in the overall homeless population, according to the Veterans Administration."
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/11/366801/homeless-veterans-by-the-numbers/
from the guardian
"Iraq littered with high levels of nuclear and dioxin contamination, study finds
More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.
Areas in and near Iraq's largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/iraq-nuclear-contaminated-sites
here's a link for some reading about gulf war syndrome - still denied by the military of course
Chronic Bacterial and Viral Infections in Neurodegenerative and Neurobehavioral Diseases, by Prof. Garth Nicolson, Laboratory Medicine, 2008; 39(5):291-299. pdf doc
Chronic Mycoplasmal Infections in Gulf War Veterans' Children and Autism Patients by G.L. Nicolson et al., Medical Veritas 2005; 2:383-387. pdf doc
Gulf War veterans: Evidence for chromosomal alterations and their significance by J. Nigs and G.L. Nicolson, J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2004; 12(1):79-83 rtf doc
High Prevalence of Mycoplasmal Infections in Symptomatic (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) Family Members of Mycoplasma-Positive Gulf War Illness Patients by G.L. Nicolson et al. J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2003; 11(2):21-36. pdf_doc
Gulf War Illnesses: Chemical, Biological and Radiological Exposures Resulting in Chronic Fatiguing Illnesses can be Identified and Treated by Garth Nicolson et al. J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2003; 11(1): 135-154 rtf doc
Anthrax Vaccine: Historical Review and Current Controversies by Nass & Nicolson, Journal of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine 2002; 14(4): 277-286 rtf doc
Gulf War Illnesses: Role of Chemical, Radiological and Biological Exposures
War and Health, H. Tapamainen, ed., Helsinki , Zed Press, 2002, pp. 431-446 rtf doc
Gulf War Illnesses-Causes and Treatments.
Armed Forces Med. Develop. 2001; 2: 41-44. rtf doc
The Anthrax Vaccine Controversy.
Questions About its Efficacy, Safety and Strategy.
The Medical Sentinel 2000; 5(2): 97 - 101 rtf doc
Anthrax Vaccine: Controversy Over Safety And Efficacy
Antimicrobics and Infectious Disease Newsletter (Elsevier Science) 2000 ; 18(1) : 1 - 6 rtf doc
Gulf War Illnesses: Complex Medical and Scientific and Political Paradox
Medicine, Conflict & Survival 1998; 14: 74-83 rtf doc
http://www.immed.org/illness/gulfwar_illness_research.html
so we have done quite a lot to iraq but never forget we do it to ourselves too
Wow, thanks for the info.
I never could understand why people who were invaded and fought back were called terrorists or insurgents. If it happened here, we would do the same.
You may be interested in the website thrivemovement.com. It details what is really happening in the world and why. Most important, is who is behind it, and how long this has been in the works.
The DU is also for population control, as are the vaccines and the drugs that most Merikans take to get through the day.
I emailed Wounded Warriors Project, rumored to be a Hannity scam, and asked 2 questions.
Isn't that the job of the VA? And do you have a website for wounded Iraqi's?
They didn't respond.
I am sorry, but I feel no sympathy at all for those that died in the wars after 2005.
Before, I think they were caught up in the False Flag BS of 9/11.
But how can any of those soldiers think it was ok to kill innocent civilians, or blow away the houses to make sure they were empty?
I am with Rev Wright.
Here's Dr. Buby talking about Fallujah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-hwHfv1K_vA
i remember hearing that as u.s. troops moved into fallujah, women and children were allowed safe passage, but the men, the husbands and adolescent sons were sent back to be slaughtered as "suspected" insurgents. although, i do not comprehend how a person defending his or her own community fits the definition of insurgent. also, we learned about white phosphorous. OUCH!!!!! the cruelty boggles the mind! of late we learn of evidence nuclear weapony.
today, we hear the sabre rattling toward persia, the fear mongering, lest nuclear power gets into the wrong hands.
too late, it already has.
Unfortunately it would be highly unlikely to see anyone in the corporate media actually refer to those Afghans and Iraqis who are defending their country from U.S. and NATO forces as being properly called freedom fighters.
*Comment deleted by site administrators as spam: identical, repetitive comments posted on multiple articles*
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
No one is safe from such an intentionally callous disregard for human life!
I doubt that there a whole lot of people that would change their minds about Fallujah even were the truth fully exposed.
I was pointing to the dangers of DU Munitions even prior to the atack on Fallujah. Shortly after that attack and attempted Genocide there were all manner of studies linking birth defects to the use of chemical muntions and the use of DU munitions.
Among the American readers , even those that did not support the war in Iraq, there was nothing but denial because as one put it "The United States of America is a humane nation and would not use such weapons on other peoples if they knew they would cause such harm"
Others dismissed my links as naught more then propaganda served up by "Anti-Americans".
People that after 200 years still think "The Founding Fathers" as some sort of Gods concerned about Human rights and the liberty of all are NOT going to change their minds on Fallujah.
They simply can not face what a ruthless and savage nation they live in. Others indeed get it but I doubt it enough.
The USA likes to point to "Terrorists" of other nations when those people chop the heads off captives or raid a village and execute the people. Pol Pot was a ruthless mass murderer! Indeed he was but so too is the United States of America. The murderers in the USA are an order of magnitude worse and that because they hide behind their technologies as they commit those murders so as to give the appearance it not really their doing." It was the bomb that exploded that killed those 8 children and not the man who launched it".
This is a sickness.
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge grew out of conditions caused by the massive US bombings of Cambodia (called "Operation Thunder") and the illegal 1971 US invasion of Cambodia.
As the KR developed their reign of terror, they were "covertly" assisted by both the Chinese and US governments, as a counterweight to perceived Vietnamese hegemony in the region.
The Vietnamese did indeed invade Cambodia and ended the Khmer reign of terror quite violently. The withdrew relatively quickly after they destroyed the Khmer Rouge and Khmer Rouge crimes of humanity were made public.
The US and China continue to muck around in what's left of Cambodia and the rest of the region while the Khmer people suffer horribly.
A fairly close analogy to what is happening in Fallujah today.
Thanks GwNorth for reminding us. History matters.
Solidarity,
tj
"You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children into the world"
Bob Dylan, Masters of War
I believe history will record that the U.S. attack on Fallujah was itself a war crome of large proportions, containing within itself many individual war crimes, and itself contained within the U.S. war of aggression that is the supreme war crime.
You are right. It has come to light this week that, not only did the US military use weapons with Depleted Uranium, but, as has now been proven from tissue samples of babies born with birth deffects, ENRICHED Uranium.
The article just says "slightly enriched" Uranium. I think it goes beyond that.
This is a massive war crime. Details inside this video by nuclear scientist Dr. Busby.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-hwHfv1K_vA
All DU contains about 1% of other isotopes of uranium, that doesn't make them enriched weapons, just DU containing the normal 1% of isotopes (U234 and U235). These things are simply bad and we need to stop using them on civilian areas.
John Shade,
Watch the video before you open your mouth and insert your foot in it!
THIS IS A NEW WEAPON!
I think in the future when you write about this town a little history about how old it is and it’s importance in the world before we leveled. It would as so be interesting on how many soldiers have come down with whatever and their children, does Caputi have any ideas on this? No the us military doen’t care about them any more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah
GwNorth, you are right but too many still think Amerika right or wrong. How sad for this nation as it crumbles into a 3rd/4th world nation for it citizens and citizens around the world that have a mineral or oil that they elite want.
Thanks on the update
Fallujah, the new Guernica for the 21st Century.
Thank you for this very important article. I ran across several scientific articles, about a year ago or longer, that discussed the cover-up of the use of depleted uranium in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and other places. I will post links to them if I find them again!
These articles stated unequivocally that DU weapons had been used since the first Gulf War, and that the first Bush administration knew then that DU caused severe birth defects. Since then, scientists have discovered that DU's effects are multi-generational; if the defects don't appear in a child born today, they will appear in future generations. DU is a death sentence, not only to people living today, but to their descendants.
Apparently, the water, air and earth in Iraq are so contaminated that everyone has been poisoned. And DU is airborne; a fatal particle is just a speck, almost invisible. It has been carried by the wind throughout the world : the ultimate blowback.
Scientists in India state that its effects are documented there, and that if the general population understood what had happened (not what might happen, but what already had been done to them), there would be a popular uprising of unimaginable proportions. These scientists suggest that the suppression of the truth regarding DU is directly tied to the fear of worldwide revolution. People would no longer have anything to lose.
In the U.S., returning soldiers are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder when they are actually suffering from DU poisoning. And DU is regularly transported back to the U.S. with every shipment of supplies or equipment. I would imagine that the same holds true for America's allies.
As I said, I will look for the links to these articles, and post them. They were all from extremely credible sources. When I first read them, I was shocked that not even progressive websites were carrying this information. Hopefully, Hannah Gurman will be the first of many to bring this issue to public attention.
I remember writing at the time that even if the US war in Iraq was legal (which it wasn't) or was being fought on other than false pretenses (again, not the case) the very methods of US warfare, DU munitions and such, were certainly not.
DU weapons are specifically legal under international law. Sorry. They ought not be, but they are.
"There is no specific treaty ban on the use of DU projectiles. There is a developing scientific debate and concern expressed regarding the impact of the use of such projectiles and it is possible that, in future, there will be a consensus view in international legal circles that use of such projectiles violate general principles of the law applicable to use of weapons in armed conflict. No such consensus exists at present."
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/nato061300.htm#IVA2
Hmmm
Israel ordered America to destroy all the countries in the middle east that stand in the way of Israel taking control of the entire region. So that is just what we are doing. We did not attack because of 9-11 (israel attacked us not a bunch of muslims with box cutters) we did not attack because of weapons of mass destruction. The ONLY country in the middle east with weapons of mass destruction is israel. We did not attack to allow democracy to flourish. America has put (secretly in some cases)pro israeli, pro rothchild bank, pro big oil military regimes into every county we destroy. And people make no mistake the ONLY thing we are doing in each of these countries is murdering millions of innocent civilians, destroying infrastructure (not related to foreign explotation which arrives within minutes of end of "hostilities") and leaving behind as much toxic and damaging materials as possible to ensure maximum casualties for decades after we leave. In short shock and awe was and is the largest terrorist operation in modern times. The only 2 groups that are benefiting are israel of course and a relative handful of multinational corporations that are being fronted by all sorts of ex politicians and military "leaders" the US, Briton, israel etc.
Britain, not Breton.
Project censored (Sonoma State Collete, CA) detailed the use of DU in about 2005, at which time we had dropped some 250,000 times the amount of radiation than Hiroshima by that time. Also, we were using NDU (non-depleted uranium) also, putting both in smart bombs and many other munitions for which its use had no value. Except to contaminate the area with U, half life of over 2bln years!
DU has a use in armor piercing shells with its great mass, but also does tungsten, which is not radioactive. My guess is that back in Reagan or Daddy Bush's years, the military made a deal with the nuclear industry to get rid of its waste. There were radiation related illnesses and birth defects from the Gulf War in 1991, as well as in Bosnia.
Hard to imagine. And, in all likelihood, those same munitions were used in Libya. What else would a smart bomb be???
I haven't seen any references to any NDU munitions at all and question the accuracy of that statement. There isn't any reason to use NDU over DU as they have the same effects. In all DU (U238) there is some small amount of U235 and U234, about 1% which would account for it being found in hair samples so I do not doubt that the doctors there are finding it present.
As for the use of DU in smart bombs, some smart bombs are penetrators (some are not) so why would they NOT have DU? Your statement about tungsten is correct, except tungsten is much more expensive and hard to work with (machining-wise). direct fire weapons are being supplied now with tungsten penetrators now over DU and this will become the most prevalent round in tanks certainly over time.
Although uranium is not as lethal a chemical poison as plutonium it is nevertheless a chemical poison.
Another sickening act committed by the US and Obama let the Bush Administration off the hook for it.
Agent Orange redux times X...
......I, too, have been writing (and talking) about DU for years, to little effect.
......"But it's 'DEPLETED' so it cain't be bad---it's ONLY uranium." Or, "WE wouldn't hurt OUR OWN like that... ."
...... At some levels the American people have Common Sense, but at another level the ignorance is maddening. The same people who "believe" in God don't think radiation is a problem because they can't see it, smell it, taste it, feel it, hear it, touch it, experience it---until it's too late.
...... Every soldier returning from DU war zones who has sex is poisoning his lover.
...... And "God Bless America... ."
.....-30-
"Every soldier returning from DU war zones who has sex is poisoning his lover."
Please. You are worse than the Americans you claim have no Common Sense. Even if a soldier were exposed and presumably most if not all have to some extent, that doesn't rub off on others. The damage done by the DU may cause mutations in the sperm or egg, but that does NOT mean that the uranium is present there and most certainly does NOT transfer from person to person unless they never take baths.
I'm a bit confused by this article, or at least the second paragraph. Fallujah was part of the Sunni triangle and was definitely not in opposition to Saddam Hussein. That being said, both of the American assaults on this area were undoubtedly war crimes. I still have video captured from a Russian website about the Iraq war concerning the battles in Fallujah and Ramadi. I realize this might upset some Keyboard Kommandos, but the whole war was a crime and it is impossible to defend the indefensible.
Here are a few links to DU articles/organizations/studies:
http://www.thepowerhour.com/articles/du_effects.htm
http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/10.html
http://stgvisie.home.xs4all.nl/ud_main.html
Fallujah was a monstrosity on many levels- why the town was chosen for murder in the first place, the instructions given to the troops, the persistent wilful and premeditated killing and abuse- as someone else said, many atrocities within the big one, and the almost total news blackout. Dhar Jamail's book is a pretty good place to get lots of info and background. Also for me some of the most gut wrenching reporting was from Jo Wilding and Circus 2 Iraq.she and her friends. In one scene she was waving her arms and yelling at some troops because there is a badly wounded man on his front steps. if family members try to grab their wounded, the troops will kill them- snipers posted on every roof. Jo did manage somehow to get the guy in an ambulance, and as they drove off to the hospital, she freaked as who wouldn't when she found the ambulance and herself under heavy sniper fire that was , explained the driver, standard for the U.S. troops- shooting at ambulances.
in one incident after another, during both the ferocious assaults, the depths of military depravity were on full view for anyone willing to look- maybe 5-6 non- Iraqi journalists and a few ordinary people like Jo who had to do something. the world still does not know, and may never find out. once a toddler was playing in back of his house, and he heard gunshots. when he went to see what it was, he saw both his parents dead in the front yard, the troops still there, guns smoking. they quickly killed him too before he even had time to cry.
finally this: a marine Colonel called Gareth Brand speaking for all the u.s. military: "The enemy has a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Fallujah and we're going to destroy him".
It was our Oradour (France) or Putten (Netherlands) or Warsaw (Poland). The difference is that the Iraqis will not "win this war" (= occupy the USA) hence will not be able to bring the war-criminals to their own version of the Nuremberg trial.
" Toniolo questioned the report’s claim that the researchers conducted a random sampling of houses in the study area and observed that, among other biases, the study did not address socioeconomics as a factor in the health of the population still living in Fallujah. Zelikoff explained that the findings omitted important information concerning the background of the individuals in the study, including smoking, contagious disease, and the quality of maternal health care."
Not enough rich people were sampled so the entire report should be discounted?
over: Precisely! Not one jot or tittle goes unnoticed.
So many fine comments, CD posters!
I'll add this: A friend of mine whose son was in Iraq told him in October of 2004 that they were just waiting for the Presidential election, (Nov 4th), and soon after, were going in to Fallujah and bomb the hell out of it!
Four days later...the U.S. Imperial death and destruction machine destroyed that city, committing crimes against humanity, and unleashed weapons of mass destruction on people who did nothing to us.
When WW3 is initiated because of American hubris and this exceptionalism nonsense, the civilian public won't have to go to a theater to see a war film for entertainment like they did during and after the "war to end all wars" and WW2. They'll have firsthand experience.
The first article on this horror was Patrick Cockburn's:" Toxic Legacy of U.S. Assault on Fallujah Worse Than Hiroshima, The shocking rates of infant mortality in Iraqi city raise new questions about battle."Common Dreams 7-24-10
The second article was Robert C. Koehler"s The suffering of Fallujah" Common Dreams 7-29-11.
I cannot read this article because as hard as I try for almost 30 years I cannot raise the consciousness of the people of America to understand the evil of the United States policy of aggression against the Iraqi people whether it be War, Economic Sanctions , Pre-emptive Strike, Occupation, Selective Prosecution of leader of Help The Needy Charity, Rafil Dhafir, or" The Unexamined Story of Fallujah " by Hannah Gurman .Although I have been writing Letters to the Editor for over 30 years and 90% are published, my letters about Falllujah have not been published.
Jan. 10, 2007 George W. Bush announced to the nation:" ..Mistakes Have Been Made.." As a registered Nurse if I made a serious mistake , I would have been sued. Bush should be in prison or at least sued for every penny he and his cronies have by the Iraqis and the U.S. troops who have the sense to know how they were deceived and betrayed.
The issue of depleted uranium just refuses to go away quietly.
In the article published on Saturday, November 26, 2011 by Foreign Policy in Focus, “The Under-Examined Story of Fallujah” written by Hannah Gurman, she begins by stating:
“Seven years after the U.S. invasion of Fallujah, there are reports of an alarming rise in the rates of birth defects and cancer. But the crisis, and its possible connection to weapons deployed by the United States during the war, remains woefully under-examined”.
This is, of course, entirely in keeping with official NATO/US policy. As far back as the Balkan campaign, NATO’s website at http://www.nato.int/du/home.htm, updated on 17-Mar-2005 10:21 (Brussels time) asserted:
“In January 2001, news media in many parts of the world carried reports that postulated links between NATO's use of Depleted Uranium ammunition in Kosovo and Bosnia with allegedly higher incidences of leukemia, other cancers, and other negative health effects said to be occuring among NATO troops who had served in those areas and among local civilian populations.
Although a very large body of existing scientific and medical research clearly established that such a link between Depleted Uranium ammunition and the reported illnesses was extremely unlikely, NATO Secretary General George Robertson immediately established an Ad Hoc Committee on Depleted Uranium to serve as a clearing house for information to be shared among interested nations.
To date, the scientific and medical research continues to disprove any link between Depleted Uranium and the reported negative health effects. Furthermore, the present evidence strongly suggests that NATO troops serving in the Balkans are not suffering negative health effects different from those suffered by their colleagues who have not served in the Balkans. Nevertheless, NATO is not complacent about this matter, and will continue to share information about this issue.”
The site goes on to list several entirely NATO-related web pages, all of which are unanimous in claiming that no health risks exist for civilians and NATO troops.
Again: According to NATO, "To date, the scientific and medical research continues to disprove any link between Depleted Uranium and the reported negative health effects".
So, now we can all rest in the knowledge that any appalling infant deformities, rare and not-so rare cancers etc. documented by on the ground observers have nothing whatsoever to do with the indiscriminate lobbing of DU because the scientific and medical research controlled and funded by NATO has not made any connection between depleted uranium ordinance and the multiplying health issues in the regions where these weapons were used
With ever increasing possibilities that the next sovereign nation to be so discretely nuked will be Iran, a massive international public uproar is desperately needed before it is too late, and another innocent population is ravaged by the US/NATO/Western Alliance.
the readers can't dismiss an observation that the NYU professrs judith zelikoff and gordon friedman carry jewish names that are normally associated with the khazars jewish converts. these are the type of activists who are most likely found among the israelis operatives, similar to the 10 neocones who wrote a letter to president clinton urging him to declare war on iraq but didn't.one shouldn't perhaps overlook the feelings of those poeple who are the prime engine of fabricating lies about WMD as a selling point for the war.if these elequent professors are such good samaritans and are concernd about humanity, why don't they follow up with their own investigative research that is supposidly free from bias to get to the truth?
This studies will go nowhere and when the real ones are completed, they will be ignored or buried. "We had to destroy the village, in order to save it"--Remember that? This is the same story about Fallujah all over again. That one then was never rebuilt either. Everywhere the US has bases, boots on the ground, there is death and mayhem and toxic waste. It is the way war is done. The US doesn't know how to rebuild. It's policy is submission by intimidation which usually backfires and this city is a great example. It wasn't a problem until the US made it so and then all the weapons at their disposal were used as an experiment to see how well they worked. And then we left. Why are we hated? That is the reason. We are global terrorists.