Muntader Al-Zaidi

"Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora."
~Muntader Al-Zaidi

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23535.htm

Depleted Uranium in Iraq

The Truth Of Iraq's City Of Deformed Babies:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23406.htm

comments :
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/tf2777/article23406_htm/

" The claim that Saddam Hussein's government did not keep records of the health and deformaties of Iraqi children represents the usual complete and utter deliberate misinformation one would expect from "Sky News"investigation team..

In fact, very detailed records have existed since 1991 of the health of Iraqi children and the unborn who were effected by 800 tons of depleted uranium dust that saturated Iraq from the most toxic war in history carried out by the US in the Gulf.

In conjunction to this depleted uranium, there was also massive amounts of assorted deadly toxic chemicals released into the environment of Iraq by the US's bombing of Iraq's industrial and manufacturing plants.

Iraq's Ministry of Health kept very precise records of Iraqi children who had been born deformed through the effects of depleted uranium and these toxic chemicals, as well as the children whose health had been effected by no clean water to drink,US led enforced starvation which caused many diseases, and US's denial of medicines to alleviate the children's ongoing pain and suffering.

The 'investigative team' obviously needs to inform themselves further on this subject, For instance,for starters they could research Iraq's submission to the United Nations' Centre for Human Rights, Geneva - 16th January, 1995."Rights of the Child" etc.

Pictures of Iraq's babies such as these,can be viewed from as far back as 1992.These pictures represent the ongoing stream of Iraqi childrens' suffering that has been endured for the past 19 years. The US genocide on the Iraqi people of Fallujah is merely another addition. And the US ensures that they still suffer.

Under Bill Clinton 750,000 Iraq children 5 years and under died from US-led UN genocide carried out against them. Well,after all,the US does boast it is the biggest and best at everything.

And from this, interestingly, few Americans appear to see Bill Clinton as being guilty of crimes against humanity. Bearing in mind 750,000 Iraqi child deaths equals approx 250 September the 11ths.

Sadly,the overwhelming majority of the people of the US know very little of the real truth of Iraq. Nor are they aware of the detail of continuing crimes that have been carried out against the Iraqi people by their government for a record 19 years and still going.

Perhaps the readers should question why "Sky News" whom have been lying down on the truth of this matter for the past 19 years, now only in the past 15 months takes up this issue.

Yet again,their hypocrisy knows no bounds."
anne | 09.02.09 - 6:21 am | #
_____________________________________________________

" Geologist Leuren Moret is an independent scientist and internationally recognized expert on radiation, D.U., and public health. She estimates that "one millionth of a gram [of depleted uranium] accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment."

Leuren Moret states, "In a cubic meter of air there are one billion particles a tenth of a micron in diameter. An ordinary man breathes twenty-eight cubic meters of air a day and for that reason our soldiers internally contaminated to depleted uranium have billions of particles of depleted uranium distributed throughout their bodies."
Re | 09.02.09 - 6:56 am | #
_______________________________________________________

Depleted Uranium remains radioactive for 4.5 Billion years


http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/77.html

"Depleted uranium weapons:

Depleted Uranium itself is a chemically toxic and radioactive compound, which is used in armour piercing munitions because of its very high density. It is 1.7 times denser than lead, giving DU weapons increased range and penetrative power. They belong to a class of weapons called kinetic energy penetrators.

It is now clear that DU was used on a large scale by the US and the UK in the Gulf War in 1991, then in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, and again in the war in Iraq by the US and the UK in 2003. It is suspected that the US also used DU in Afghanistan in 2001, although both the US and UK governments have denied using it there. However, leaked transport documents suggest that US forces in Afghanistan have DU weapons
The DU oxide dust produced when DU munitions burn has no natural or historical analogue. This toxic and radioactive dust is composed of two oxides: one insoluble, the other sparingly soluble. The distribution of particle sizes includes sub-micron particles that are readily inhaled into and retained by the lungs.

From the lungs uranium compounds are deposited in the lymph nodes, bones, brain and testes. Hard targets hit by DU penetrators are surrounded by this dust and surveys suggest that it can travel many kilometres when re-suspended, as is likely in arid climates. The dust can then be inhaled or ingested by civilians and the military alike.

It is thought that DU is the cause of a sharp increase in the incidence rates of some cancers, such as breast cancer and lymphoma, in areas of Iraq following 1991 and 2003. It has also been implicated in a rise in birth defects from areas adjacent to the main Gulf War battlefields.

Soft target impacts, typical of aircraft strikes, tend to leave the penetrators partially intact as the vast majority miss their targets. In the Balkans more than 31,000 30mm penetrators were fired; UNEP reported that these corroding penetrators were likely to contaminate groundwater and drinking water supplies and should be removed.

While we have a reasonable idea how much DU was used in the Balkans (12,700kg) and the 1991 Gulf War (290,300kg), there is little data on the extent of its use following the 2003 invasion in Iraq. One estimate put the total at 140,000kg by early 2004; with far more being used in urban areas than in 1991. This was chiefly a product of a move towards asymmetric warfare but also an increasingly casual approach to DU’s use.

The US consistently refused to release data on the locations of DU strikes to UNEP and post-conflict instability has made assessing the true extent of contamination virtually impossible.

The chief radiological hazard from uranium 238 is alpha radiation. When inhaled or ingested, alpha radiation is the most damaging form of ionising radiation. However, as U238 decays into its daughter products thorium and protactinium, both beta and gamma radiation are released, increasing the radiation burden further. Therefore DU particles must be considered as a dynamic mixture of radioactive isotopes.

Inside the body alpha radiation is incredibly disruptive. The heavy, highly charged particles leave a trail of ionised free radicals in their wake, disrupting finely tuned cellular processes. In one day, one microgram, (one millionth of a gram), of pure DU can release 1000 alpha particles. Each particle is charged with more than four million electron volts of energy; this goes directly into whichever organ or tissue it is lodged in. It only requires 6 to 10 electron volts to break a DNA strand in a cell and these emissions cover a sphere with a radius of 6 cells.

Novel effects from internal emitters are highlighting the hazards posed by exposure to internal alpha radiation. This includes the Bystander Effect - whereby cells adjacent to those struck by alpha particles also exhibit signs of radiation damage, and Genomic Instability, where the descendants of radiation damaged cells show increased rates of mutations: the precursor to cancer growth.

Ionizing radiation is a human carcinogen at every dose-level, not just at high doses; there is no threshold dose and any alpha particle can cause irreparable genetic damage."

_____________________________________________________

Iraq since 1991:

1991 Gulf War - 400,000 dead Iraqis
1991 - 2003 Sanctions against Iraq - 1 million dead Iraqis
2003 - 2009 Invasion and Occupation of Iraq - 1.4 million dead Iraqis

Iraq's society, infrastructure, economy destroyed
Iraq's Land, Earth, Water and Air permanently until the end of time contaminated with Depleted Uranium causing cancer, death and horrific birth deformities.
_____________________________________________________

The Destruction of a Civilization

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23342.htm

"The sustained bloody purge of Iraq under US occupation resulted in the killing 1.3 million Iraqi civilians during the first 7 years after Bush invaded in March 2003. Up to mid-2009, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has officially cost the American treasury over $666 billion. This enormous expenditure attests to its centrality in the larger US imperial strategy for the entire Middle East/South and Central Asia region. Washington’s policy of politicizing and militarizing ethno-religious differences, arming and encouraging rival tribal, religious and ethnic leaders to engage in mutual bloodletting served to destroy national unity and resistance. The ‘divide and rule’ tactics and reliance on retrograde social and religious organizations is the commonest and best-known practice in pursuing the conquest and subjugation of a unified, advanced nationalist state. Breaking up the national state, destroying nationalist consciousness and encouraging primitive ethno-religious, feudal and regional loyalties required the systematic destruction of the principal purveyors of nationalist consciousness, historical memory and secular, scientific thought. Provoking ethno-religious hatreds destroyed intermarriages, mixed communities and institutions with their long-standing personal friendships and professional ties among diverse backgrounds. The physical elimination of academics, writers, teachers, intellectuals, scientists and professionals, especially physicians, engineers, lawyers, jurists and journalists was decisive in imposing ethno-religious rule under a colonial occupation. To establish long-term dominance and sustain ethno-religious client rulers, the entire pre-existing cultural edifice, which had sustained an independent secular nationalist state, was physically destroyed by the US and its Iraqi puppets."

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." U.S President James Madison 1751-1836

Dubya and his justification for killing 1.4 million Iraqis

The following article can be found here :

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush

JAMES A. HAUGHT
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush’s strange behavior in Lausanne University’s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: “When President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.” France’s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline “A Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.” But other news media missed the amazing report.
Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.
Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. My own paper, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada’s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a “stranger-than-fiction disclosure … which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.” Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.
The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”
Recently, GQ magazine revealed that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attached warlike Bible verses and Iraq battle photos to war reports he hand-delivered to Bush. One declared: “Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.”
It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars. For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.
James A. Haught is the editor of the Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&