A deformed baby in Fallujah
A report from BBC reporter John Simpson today finally revealed to the English-speaking world what everyone living near the Persian Gulf has known all along: the US-led occupation of Iraq since 2003 not only led to the toppling of the Baath Party but also to a public health disaster whose most disturbing feature is a vast increase in birth defects among Iraqi children.
According to Simpson, major birth defects in the city of Fallujah, a city of some 310,000 inhabitants that was the scene of ferocious combat between US and insurgent forces in 2004, have skyrocketed to at least thirteen times the rate measured in Europe. Pediatrician Samira al-Ani told the journalist that she now sees two to three cases at her American-built hospital each day instead of one case every one or two months before the war. The defects range from heart problems, tumors, missing limbs and paralysis to brain damage. One child was born with three heads. A British-based Iraqi researcher called Malik Hamdam reports seeing "footage of babies born with an eye in the middle of the forehead, the nose on the forehead." The situation has become so serious in Fallujah that public officials are urging local women to stop reproducing altogether.
Today's BBC report isn't exactly a scoop. The global press, particularly the Guardian, has been reporting on the phenomenon for years, although you'd never guess it judging by what shows up about Iraq in the American mass media.
What is causing this epidemic? There has been no official inquiry so far, but local officials assume the defects arose from the weapons used by US forces in 2004, when they pounded the city with munitions laced with white phosphorus and depleted uranium. Much of the rubble was simply dumped into the Euphrates River, which the local population uses as a water supply. Both white phosphorus and depleted uranium are believed to cause cancers and birth defects. So far the US military denies any knowledge of these reports.
Yes, we all know that "war is hell" and "freedom isn't free." But isn't this a darkly ironic outcome in a war that was purportedly waged to save innocent people from "weapons of mass destruction"...?
For a detailed video report, click HERE.
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And actually, freedom is free, it's freeing oil that's costly. We will look back in irony one day as we realize that our lust for oil to "preserve" our way of life will be exactly what destroyed us. I have no sympathy for our coming time of despair. We will have fought hard for it.
So, so SAD and despicable. Thanks for showing one of the consequences of our thirst for oil and war.
What I can't figure out is, given our history, why people don't steer clear. Do they expect us to change? There have to be better ways to deal with the US than to invite us to bomb them.
And "freedom isn't free"?!! You bought into the myth sold by the Fascist wealthy elite, and successfully, to the unthinking masses who have been brainwashed to believe they live in the "greatest nation on earth" instead of one of the most racist and hypocritical. The military-corporate complex operates for profit by the wealthy, for the wealthy, and of the wealthy.
The blood, the misery, suffering, deceptions, torture, now birth defects that the USA has wrought in Iraq is the essence of evil. Want to know the definition of "evil"? It's what's been done in Iraq for profit by soulless men.
At least 18 countries are known to have DU in their arsenals:
* UK
* US
* France
* Russia
* China
* Greece
* Turkey
* Thailand
* Taiwan
* Israel
* Bahrain
* Egypt
* Kuwait
* Saudi Arabia
* India
* Belarus
* Pakistan
* Oman
Most of these countries were sold DU by the US, although the UK, France and Pakistan developed it independently.
Only the US and the UK are known to have fired it in warfare. It was used in the 1991 Gulf War, in the 2003 Iraq War, and also in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s and during the NATO war with Serbia in 1999.
While its use has been claimed in a number of other conflicts, (e.g. Vietnam) this has not been confirmed. It has been available since the 1960's and was tested extensively in Hawaii.
Bottom line in all of this (For Me) is that "Human Beings" develop this and other horrifying methods of killing each other.
No single country in isolation is wholly responsible for this, “human beings are! I am not defending the USA here nor am I defending the land of my birth (UK).
I am simply saying that “WE”, all of us on this planet, MUST start looking at planetary solutions to our hatred(s) for one another.
--“WE”, all of us on this planet, MUST start looking at planetary solutions to our hatred(s) for one another.--
I agree!
I’m certain the author recognized my question as rhetorical. Fighting for freedom is like f**cking for virginity. It makes no sense.
And my comment wasn't directed at you.
Mea Culpa
I should have paid closer attention to the entire comment thread.