The greatest crime against humanity in all historic time has now been committed by the United States government. It dwarfs Joseph Stalin's killing of 7,000,000 Ukrainians in the 1930s and Adolph Hitler's killing of 6,000,000 Jewish people in the 1940s. This crime will cause the premature deaths of TENS of MILLIONS of people and will give a horribly debilitating disease to TENS of MILLIONS more. It is indiscriminate mass murder - genocide. My statements may be dramatic, but they are absolutely true.
Since October of 2001, the United States military has used approximately 3,000 tons of depleted uranium munitions against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. This will soon cause the serious health problems to include respiratory disease, kidney problems, rashes, birth defects, and the number of cancers of those people to jump to over 500,000 people each year. How do I know this? Because the United States military used 375 tons of depleted uranium munitions against Iraq in 1991 and the cancer rate in children measured in Iraqi hospitals rose from 32,000 per year in 1990 to 130,000 in 1997. According to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official reports, U.S. casualties from Gulf War 1 now exceed 180,000 and already over 30,000 are now disabled from Gulf War 2. We've now used eight times what we did in 1991 and radiation has long been known to cause cancer. This is well known by our federal government.
In a document dated October 30, 1943 and declassified June 5, 1974, three major scientists (Drs. James Conant, A. H. Compton, and H. C. Urey) wrote to Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves, who was the head of the atom bomb project, concerning "Radioactive materials as a military weapon." In that document they stated:
"As a gas warfare instrument the material would be ground into particles of microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment for such a casualty"
Proponents of depleted uranium weaponry will state that depleted uranium is only half as radioactive as normal uranium, which is true. This would mean that it would take TWO millionths of a gram accumulating in a person's body to be fatal according to Conant, Compton and Urey. Unfortunately, it isn't known exactly how much uranium ore would be sufficient to cause death over a short period of time, but we do know it caused the cancer deaths of workers during the two years the Manhattan Project existed in making our first three atomic bombs. Since then, scientists have learned a lot more about the debilitating effects to animals exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels.
In fact, increased cancer rates downwind of American nuclear power plants are well documented, even though not well reported. Nuclear power plants in the United States release small amounts of radioactive gases on a daily or weekly basis. Compared to the depleted uranium usage in Iraq and Afghanistan, these are extremely small amounts, but the communities that live within fifty miles of the normal downwind area from these nuclear power plants have higher rates of cancer. One particularly telling fact is where nuclear reactors have been shut down for a few years and then restarted. The cancer rate among infants and young children who were born after the shutdown quickly fell to national averages, before rising again after the reactors were restarted.
It takes about eight tons of regular uranium ore to make one ton of enriched uranium to be used in nuclear power plants. This leaves seven tons of depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is composed primarily of three isotopes of uranium; it is 99.8% of U-238, 0.2% of U-235 and 0.0008% of U-234; collectively one microgram of it will constantly emit about 120 alpha particles every day for millions of years. One alpha particle has enough energy to disrupt the genetic information in the nucleus of a cell, but when this happens hundreds of local cells are affected by the instability of the zapped cell.
To get a better understanding how radiation affects a human body, think of it this way. We live in a dynamic universe. We are constantly bombarded with radiation from outer space, even though we are far from the sun and other stars. There are trace amounts of uranium and radon among other naturally decaying elements throughout the surface of the Earth. Collectively, these sources affect all of the cells in our body, but it is a question of the rate of impact on our cells. On average each cell in a body is hit about one to two times a year from a natural source of radiation. Compare that with one millionth of a gram of depleted uranium ingested into a body - this will hit thousands of cells every day. In terms of the rate of increase, this means that many of the cells that are nearby depleted uranium particles are being zapped at a rate that is 100,000 times more than normal. This will either kill the cells or cause massive genetic defects.
The mechanism for this crime against humanity is as follows. A depleted uranium projectile smashes into a vehicle or building.
For example, each Abrams tank round contains about 10 pounds of solid depleted uranium while each 30 mm round fired by the A10 Warthog has about 3/4 pound of solid depleted uranium. After the collision, about half of the projectile is turned into powder 10 microns (ten one millionths of a meter) or smaller. A human hair is normally between 60 and 100 microns thick and that proverbial millionth of a gram of depleted uranium would fill a cube 37 microns on each side. This dust now blows wherever the wind takes it. We have already found depleted uranium in Iraq twenty five miles from an impact site. This radioactive dust blows in cities, in parks, on crops, in the rivers, and everywhere. They can be breathed in or ingested from food and drink. Particles on the order of 2.5 microns are perfect for implanting themselves in our lungs. A small number of these would be like smoking over ten packs of cigarettes every day forever and children one, two and five years old are getting this into their lungs.
If we used 375 tons of depleted uranium in the first Gulf War, think how the people of Iraq and Afghanistan will feel and be affected now that we used 3,000 tons of depleted uranium against them. And its terrible effects will be there forever.
Although many Americans believe that we are making life better for Iraqis because we removed a brutal dictator and are giving them democracy, Hussein averaged a few thousand tortures and murders per year (and they were highly directed at his political dissidents), whereas we will soon be causing the deaths and terribly debilitating diseases of hundreds of thousands of people per year and these deaths will include babies and infants (Hussein seldom purposefully ever hurt the very young).
What we are doing is indiscriminate genocide of the Muslim people in the Middle East. The wind blows in all directions and Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Syria and Turkmenistan are all Muslim countries and are on Iraq's and Afghanistan's borders.
Does it make sense to destroy Iraq in order to save it?
Is this the will of the compassionate Christian or the politically responsible Republican or Democrat? Is our federal government doing a good thing? Not being a Christian or a Republican or a Democrat, I don't understand it. Even though I'm not a Christian, Muslim or Jew, I still believe that you are good people, but as terribly uninformed as I was a few months ago.
You may ask: why are we doing this. The answer seems clear to me. Corporations are the driving force behind our federal government. They have taken control of the executive branch of the federal government which has eclipsed the legislative and judicial branches. The executive branch is no longer responsive or accountable to the will of the people, and is out of control. They are highly affected by corporate lobbyists and take their direction from corporations because money talks.
The defense industry lobbyists want the federal government's supply of depleted uranium. Since the nuclear power industry has found no acceptable way to safely dispose of the leftover radioactive materials they produce, there are over 900,000 tons of depleted uranium still lying around waiting to be made into military weapons because it has no other commercial use and it makes big profits for the defense industries in not having to produce it themselves. These big profits can then be used to make large donations to federal politicians who follow corporate directives. It's a vicious and deadly cycle.
Now I know many people are caught up in the eternal debate of who's better, Democrat or Republican, when in fact they are just two sides of the same coin. The reality is that both parties are controlled at higher levels and many things that are problems to society are huge money-makers to the above partisan forces. Depleted uranium is one such problem. While many Americans are misdirected, people in the Middle East are dying and will soon start to die unnecessarily by the hundreds of thousands each year and for as long as they live in those regions. And what's even worse is that as long as we keep using depleted uranium weapons, we will be permanently polluting more and more of the Earth.
Don't think that this depleted uranium won't affect us here in the United States. 30,000 returning soldiers have depleted uranium in their urine. This means that many of them will have it in their semen and genetic damage and birth defects will start to skyrocket here at home. This is a Pandora's Box that is still open. Do you have the personal integrity and humanity to shut it?
It is still not too late. U.S. Army and the Department of Defense have regulations and orders in place that mandate medical care for all DU casualties and require thorough environmental clean up of all DU contamination
( http://www.traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_3_ques.html ), but our nation's military leaders and President Bush simply refuse to comply with these legal requirements. This makes sense from a business point of view, because ultimately corporations would lose too many profits.
Christians, would Jesus want us to keep polluting the Middle East with deadly radioactive waste?
Abraham Lincoln said, "To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." In the case of being silent about depleted uranium, we would also be accomplices to murder.
Criticism of the government is not incompatible with good citizenship; it is a prerequisite. For some reason, many people believe that criticism of the government is unpatriotic, when in fact it is the most important responsibility of a patriotic citizen and is the very first change that our founding fathers made when amending our Constitution.
Victor Connor
Note: This article has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Doug Rokke. Doug is the former head of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project, who replied the following:
"Vic: This is excellent~! I did some minor editing.
thank you Doug Rokke"
Vic Connor has a B.S. in Physics, M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and was accepted to do doctoral work in three different subjects: physics, computer science and mathematics. Professionally, he worked at the Endicott, NY IBM engineering lab as a design engineer and software programmer and later as a systems engineer at a sales branch. He also worked as an assistant professor of Applied Computer Science at Illinois State University.
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