Antony Loewenstein
"Evidence of US war crimes in Iraq are almost too frequent to document. “Our” side is brutal and remains so. Back in 2006, I heard two speakers in Sydney explain the situation at that time and included were discussions of the use of napalm by the US in Fallujah.
So how to explain this?
"Doctors in Iraq’s war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.
The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja’s over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.
Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems – are unprecedented and at present unexplainable."
Let me explain the "unexplainable," the forces of war and the toxins as well as the physical reactions to such atrocites cause these defects. There you have it in a sentence, mystery solved.
ReplyDeleteThere need to be studies to find the causes of these birth defects. Could there be chemical spills still lose? Whatever the cause, it needs to be investigated ASAP to prevent future deformities.
ReplyDelete<span>Could there be chemical spills still lose?</span>
ReplyDelete------------
Ha ha!
Anything but facing the truth! Amazing!! ANYTHING!
What do you think the truth is? For example, I would want to know in what specific areas the birth defects are taking place and then analytically determine possible causes.
ReplyDeleteChilling.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, one wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions that a massive deadly assault by the U.S. that included depleted uranium and chemical warfare, had anything to do with a dramatic spike in birth deformities!!
<p><span><span style=" font-family: Calibri;">Tonight, in Fallujah
ReplyDeleteWe wait
For the known
For the follow-up
To the fighter planes
To the rockets
To the long days of shelling
To the depleted uranium killing us slowly,
We wait
To see their tanks
Their tanks will come first
They remind us of the Israelis
They remind us American planes killed our cousins
In Palestine
Killed them with American rockets,
Now
They have come for us</span></span>
<p><span><span style=" font-family: Calibri;">- Iraqi poet Sam Hamod</span></span>
<p><span>http://public.csusm.edu/artisticrights/hamod/this_night/</span>
Annie, I doubt you know what depleted uranium is. Please feel free to prove me wrong. I have yet to see a single medical study that states with a high confidence interval that DU causes birth defects. I have asked many people about this. As best as I can determine, unless people are in close proximity with a DU vehicle for a long period of time, it doens't have negative consequences.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't GIs have negative affects from DU?
By the way, as you know Annie, Al Qaeda used chemical weapons in their terrorist attacks against Falluja and other Al Anbar civilians. Do you really believe that America secretly backs Al Qaeda?
There could be many causes for birth defects. Chemical spill from a factory maybe? Whatever the cause is, it needs to be investigated ASAP.
Maybe some of you would volunteer to go to Iraq and conduct a scientific investigation. I think the GoI (Gov of Iraq) should conduct an investigation.
r.s. today the Fallujans live in freedom. They are ruled by a city government they elected, and a provincial government that they elected. They have representatives in Iraq's CoR (Council of Representatives) that they have elected.
ReplyDeleteTheir security is managed by the Falluja police and Al Anbar provincial police.
The Iraqi Army (which completely stupid westerners think is some type of occupation force) completed its withdrawal from Falluja years ago.
The Iraqi Army has handed "ALL" security responsibility for Al Anbar province to the Al Anbar police.
The war in Al Anbar ended more than two years ago. It is ancient history for AlAnbaris. If you want to help them, then help your local Iraqi Chamber of Commerce attract investment in Falluja. The Iraqi Chamber of Commerce in America and the Iraqi American community is facilitating investment or investing in Falluja.
If you live in Australia, why don't you help as well? Why don't you contact your local Iraqi Australian group and ask how you can help?
The horrors of the US Agent Orange defoliation campaign in Vietnam could ultimately be dwarfed by the horrors caused by the depleted uranium weapons which the US began using in the 1991 Gulf War (300 tons), and which it has used much more extensively - and in more urban, populated areas - in the Iraq War and the now intensifying Afghanistan War.
ReplyDeleteIn September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 babies born, 24% of which died within their first week of life. Worse yet, fully 75% of the babies born that month were deformed. This compares to August 2002, six months before the US invasion, when 530 live births were reported with only six dying in the first week, and only one deformity.
The deformed and dead babies in Iraq should make us demand a cleanup of Iraq and Afghanistan, medical aid for the victims, and a ban on all depleted uranium weapons.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/?q=node/400
"The war in Al Anbar ended more than two years ago."
ReplyDeleteThe survivors will envy the dead.
Maybe some of you would volunteer to go to Iraq and conduct a scientific investigation.
ReplyDelete:-D
<span> If you want to help them, then help your local Iraqi Chamber of Commerce attract investment in Falluja.</span>
ReplyDeleteYou are inadvertantly or intentionally hitting them out of the ballpark today, anan! Business? Investment? No, that would be too, too 21st century! it is so much easier to root for the murderous resistance.
Annie, I doubt you know what depleted uranium is.
ReplyDelete------------------
I doubt you know what Annie knows or doesn't know..
<span style="">I am not trying to attack anyone VZA. I would really be delighted in r.s. would volunteer his time for his local Iraqi Chamber of Commerse of Iraqi Australian group (assuming he is an Aussie.)
ReplyDeleteI have seen presentations on investment opportunities in Falluja VZA. Many Iraqi American groups have lead business delegations there.
Among Iraqis, whatever they think about PM Maliki or America, there is a consensus to attract investment into Iraq.
It is interesting that the people who have a problem with this are either non Iraqi Sunni Arabs, or supremely stupid Western leftists (who are far dumber than the non Iraqi Sunni Arabs.) I have yet to meet an Iranian or a Shiite who didn't want investment in Iraq (even Muqtada talks about his plans for encouraging investment), although I am sure they exist.
I don't know what it is with many Western Leftists. Why are they so stupid? Hell, even Asian leftists think they are stupid. Most non Americans laugh at them, and many Western leftists are too stupid to understand that they are being laughed at.</span>
Thanks for this r.s.
ReplyDeleteCould something have happened back in 1991? This needs to be investigated.
I don't know that this happened, but what if the allies bombed a WMD facility in 1991, and it spilled into civilian areas. I was very concerned about precisely this in 1991.
However, r.s.' data suggests against this, since the spike is post 2002. Could a WMD facility have been bombed in 2003? I am guessing out load.
r.s. Can you find an academic article written in a scholarly journal about this? If you do, could you e-mail this MNF-I and ask them for comment. You could also try to get a comment on it from the provincial government of Al Anbar and PM's office.
Well anan, I think both the Right and the Left can be pretty stupid. Neither wing of political thought has a monopoly on stupidity. Witness some of the hysterical right wing talk about President Obama. Now, they are screaming about Obama bowing to the Japanese emperor. He was just being polite for goodness sakes.
ReplyDeleteAs for Iraq, you must know that the hardcore Leftists will never admit to anything getting better. They would rather see Iraq go up in flames than see it progress if it means that any strategy of the U.S. and Iraqi governments is working. Sad, but unfortunately true.
You mean hardcore western leftists. The rest of the world is more reasonable.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I don't expect them to give credit to America. They can give credit to the Iraqis for progress and work with Iraqis to facilitate Iraqi success. What is wrong with that?
VZA, some right wing people such as Anne Coulter are also nuts. Anne Coulter is so crazy and nasty, I consider her another lefist in her anger and attitude.
Can you tell the hard right apart from the hard left? It is very hard to do.
Let us not discount the possibility that aliens from outer space caused it. You and Vza make me sick and your ridicules discussion about business and investment or whatever is off topic and highly insensitive to the victims of this shocking war crime.
ReplyDeleter.s. Have you seen briefings and interviews by the Falluja mayor and city council? What Fallujans care about right now is the economy and basic services. To improve the economy, Fallujans want to encourage business development and investment. Please don't take my word for it.
ReplyDeleteAsk the Fallujan Mayor and council members on your own. If you are really serious about it, please e-mail Molly and ask her to give you my e-mail address.
I can try to get you the e-mail and phone numbers of the Fallujan city council. If they don't respond to you, then I would suggest asking MNF-W, or the Al Anbar Provincial Reconstruction Team to ask them on your behalf. Not that that would guarantee you an answer.
Your best bet would probably be calling the Fallujan council member cell phone numbers directly. Please have an Arabic speaker (preferably one who understands the Iraqi dialect well) with you when you make the phone call. You might identify yourself as a journalist from a prominent website (this one works.) This would be a true statement if you published an article through TGIA and Molly on this blog about what you found out.
Personally, I wold be very interested in what you found out. I hope to be surprised by what they tell you.
My response has nothing to do with the poor victims, but with the often hysterical nature of the exchanges between many of you and anand.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that an investigation would reveal what is the cause and what is needed, but I will not automatically accept the charge against the U.S. regardless of what dear ANTONY has to say, or your other guy, (who charges people money, btw, for interpreting their dreams!)
<span>This needs to be investigated.</span>
ReplyDeleteUh, did you happen to notice that a link was posted? Have you tried putting "Fallujah birth defects" into Google or another search engine? Not sufficiently "scholarly written"? The article say doctors in Fallujah are appealing to the international community for studies TO BE DONE. Maybe you think that until they can get the resources together to sponsor a study, they should not be considered credible? Did you see the picture of the infant? A merciful death would be the best hope for this poor baby.
Why don't you step back and try to see the forest and not just the trees.
Ann, the doctors are right to ask that a study be done. Perhaps something can be done to prevent future defects of this kind.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you think the GoI hasn't yet conducted a study? Or have they conducted studies and they were inconclusive?
Ann, have you considered directly e-mailing or calling these Fallujah doctors and asking them about their perspectives?