Gulf War Syndrome: again?

Yesterday I saw a shocking documentary from the BBC about the use of depleted uranium missiles in the two Gulf Wars and the war in Bosnia. The US Government never really admitted the use of these weapons. And it was not until a German doctor, Dr. Siegwart-Horst Gunther, became suspicious about the sudden increase of children with abnormal cancers, tumours and terrible deformities, that rumours became to spread about the use of uranium shells. He proved the use of uranium during the first Gulf War, and its correlation with the Gulf War Syndrome, but the Pentagon didn’t listen to him. You see, uranium shells were very handy weapons: they penetrated every tank like butter and exploded inside, causing bodies to char instantly.
But Dr. Gunther went on with his investigations. A few examples:

  • Armed with a Geiger teller, he investigated several tanks who were blown to pieces by the Americans. The Geiger teller totally flipped, and according to the manual, the noise of the instrument indicated that one should IMMEDIATELY leave this area. Levels up to 30,000 times the normal background radiation were measured. And yet, young children were playing on these tanks.

  • He picked up a small remainder of an empty uranium shell and went to Germany to investigate it properly. After visiting 3 universities, he was told to come back on Monday. When he arrived that day, police was all around and men in white protection suites grabbed the little piece of metal, put it in secured boxes and drove off. Dr. Gunther was later on fined because he was walking around in Berlin with a piece of metal, highly contaminated with radioactive elements, thus dangering the general health and safety of the Berliners. He refused to pay so they imprisoned him for five weeks. All this happened, while Iraq was filled with a total of 300 tons of depleted uranium missiles, often used as toys by little children.

  • At a parking lot in Basra, a colleague of him gathered some dust from a place where once a destroyed tank stood. After examination they found out that about 60% (!) of the dust was pure uranium. The colleague stayed only for two weeks in Iraq, but that was enough to triple the amount of radioactive uranium in his urine.

  • There are clues which seem to suggest that also highly radioactive reprocessed uranium and even plutonium is used in some of the laser guided missiles. How else could they penetrated through the six floors of the headquarters of the main radiostation of Baghdad, without being destroyed by the impacts? A core of depleted uranium couldn’t handle this magnitude.

  • Uranium has a half-life of 4,5 billion years. Once the uranium lies there, its radiation level remains deadly for thousands of years.

  • About 150,000 soldiers are said to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome to some extent. One Englishman for instance worked with the uranium shells for months. Later on, he became sick and gave birth to three genetically sick children. This guy was also the first one ever to won a case about GWS against the UK Government. Everyday however, thousands of children in Iraq are suffering from the side effects of the intense radiation. Many children are born with leukemia, sometimes without eyes or even without a head every day, though you never hear of them. Same thing, to a lesser extent though, happens in Bosnia.

  • What’s the US Army doing about it? After the first Gulf War they made a training TV clip in which they warn against the various dangers of the use of depleted uranium. However, due to the efficiency and level of destruction of these weapons, they reasoned it’s better not to ban their use.

  • The silence about the topic suggests the governments are hoping will all pass in a few decades, once the main victims are dead, buried and forgotten. However, most of the 150,000 soldiers have families and many of them got children after they returned from their missions. Many of these children suffer from genetic diseases (mainly immunological distortions) and their DNA has changed dramatically. These children will also get children, and so on… the severe genetic mutations, and its accompanying genetic diseases, will spread until it’s become like an epidemic plague. It will take some time though, but if you calculate in centuries… you’ll see where this is going. And I’m not even talking about the children of Iraq and Bosnia. Baghdad is a becoming a genetic timebomb.

While all of this is happening, Bush keeps talking about how he planted the seed of democracy in Iraq, how his coalition forces won the war and how the people are freed from the dictatorship of Saddam. He forgets to mention however that instead of Saddam, the people of Iraq now need to cope with headless children and a silent timebomb in the form of thousands of rusting uranium shells all over the country. Why don’t the Democrats use this film as propaganda? Perhaps they also reason it’s better to keep these uranium missiles… I mean, after all they’re pretty handy aren’t they?

Saddam was bad because he tortured thousands of people, but the pain he caused will slowly be eased within a couple of generations. Bush however is worse because he poisoned the Iraqis and it will have its effect for many many decades. Strictly speaking, the wounds Saddam caused can be healed to some extent. Unfortunately this can’t be said when people mess with your DNA…

Really tragic :sad:

Why hate on just America? :grrr:

cadu.org.uk/intro.htm

If your country uses Nuclear power that produces depleted uranium, it is guilty of the same charge! and maybe to it’s own people.

yeah, cant just blame this only on america…

Because the documentary was only about the use of American missiles. Thus I was only referring to that country. I know other countries also play the same dirty game, though most of them on a smaller scale than the US. Except perhaps Russia… Just read about Mayak where they discharged HIGHLY radioactive waste into the rivers for many decades. The consequences are perhaps worse than what happened in Iraq. But that wasn’t the point. If they also talked about Russia, I would have mentioned it ofcourse. The Iraqi genetic timebomb however is created mainly by the Americans and to a lesser extent, the British, because they were the leading coalition forces.

What can i say. Barbaric action.

And i dont see no point protecting US at all at this conversation. They are consciously polluting other country with radiation, like the bombs itself werent enough. Kinda reminds me of the old saying of salting the enemy land.

With same logic you could say that if your country produces insect killing chemicals its the same guilty charge as it was when US spread agent orange all over Vietnam’s nature.

I think the biggest reason of so many people being anti american, is because you speak of yourself as the best country in the world and talk about how perfect everything is and at the same time bash other countries…

Lets take for example all this hype about weapons of massdestruction, which country has most of them? usa… not only usa have all this weapons, but they have been used in the past aswell.

The problem is that usa thinks they are better than rest of the world, when in reality you are no better, and do alot of horrible stuff aswell…
Even clusterbombs is still being used in iraq war, even though they do alot of harm to civilians.
Iraq was for example no threat against america, still they got bombed like hell…
I also still believe that the Iraq war was all about money and had nothing to do with helping the iraqi people, or making the world safe.
I dont have anything against usa itself, just the leaders…

There is no perfect country…

Mystic, sorry to seem if I was angry, but if the topic of the dangers of depleted Uranium is to be shared we should point out the World’s dangers, not just Iraqs.

linnnunhammas, I’m not protecting these crimes against Iraq. I want to point the finger to humanity instead of the US. The US may have polluted Iraq with depleted Uranium, but some countries are recycling these products into consumer use and into their own people.

Tomas, what you mention is sometimes sadly true, but not always. The reverse can be said also. I think some expect too much from America, and we are expected to be or act perfect. The slightest sign of an infection in our country gets the most vicious attack from the world. Anytime the US steps out of bounds we have the world to answer to.

No, we are not perfect, but we are looked upon as World leaders. Our imperfections are put on public display, dissected, critized, headliners for newspapers all over the world, and then exaggerated into the sub-culture of propagandist. Many want to blame all of the World’s problems on only one country. It’s not that simple.

All of Iraq’s past, present, and future problems can’t be blamed on only America. The after effects of depleted Uranium is just now being understood. The claim of a “DNA Timebomb” used by America is misleading. You can’t honestly say that Bush, Rumsfeld, or any other American official made the decision to use a bomb to mess up Iraqis DNA.
Messing with or mutating any human DNA is going to affect humanity, not just stay in the boundries of Iraq. US and British troops are also surrounded by this stuff.

Once it can be proven that depleted Uranium has such horrid effects, you can bet that it will one day be banned or regulated.

this makes me wonder how many toxins we are bombarded with back on home… I mean, they don’t give a damn about human life, who knows what kind of chemicals we are sitting on right now.

They have tested radiation on US civillians in the past and all sorts of horrible shit.

viva la revolucion! (is yanked away by secret police)

I completely agree with you Tomas.

As I said before, I was only referring to thát particular coverage. It wasn’t my intention to talk about the general dangers of depleted uranium in all its aspect, but about the specific case of uranium contamination in Iraq coming from American and British weapons. You’ve got a point though :smile:

And who do you think gave us this image of America? Ever since you rescued us during WW2, Europeans here got to know America as an allmighty all-powerful nation, almost like a Holy Nation which has the technological means to protect us against potential enemies, especially communism. America was seen as a transmitter of peace and freedom. I don’t think this brainwashing happened on purpose. It was more a reaction upon the doom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Cold War, together with many scientific developments such as the conquest of the moon. It’s probably far more complicated than this… But in the end it gave us nonetheless this picture of a country who brought peace, freedom and justice to the rest of the world and who stopped the spreading of communism. Since Vietnam, cracks appeared in that image. The country which was admired by many just seemed to be an ordinary one. It was all big talk but in the end it lacked perfection just as every other country. The difference with other countries however is the image America created about itself. Their pride about their own capacities led to arrogance so they played judge everywhere in the world. Instead of bringing peace, they adjusted their motives as it suited them best. At least, that’s the picture we got here. The mistakes America has made are always seen through the lense of an obsolete, utopic view we once had of America. This way, the effects are always exaggerated and criticism is always harder than when the same mistakes are done by other countries. It’s just a normal action - reaction.

True. But you can’t deny America has played, and still plays, an important role in these problems.

Dr. Gunther and another Canadian doctor (forgot about his name) made detailed accounts of the effects of depleted uranium, and this ever since 1991. If the Americans say they don’t really understood the after effects, then it’s because they didn’t pay attention to the work of these investigators.

But they knéw these weapons cause genetic diseases. They even made training clips about it! The effect of uranium on the DNA is known for decades. So they must have known that when you use 300 tons of this stuff, there will be a certain health danger. I’m not saying they used these weapons on purpose to mess with Iraqi DNA, but they ignored its effect on humans. Efficiency and level of destruction clearly had more priority than the human aspect. As is so often the case…

True, hence the GWS and the mention of a genetic timebomb. But why do they ignore it so much??

Oh but it is proven. Want to see some picts perhaps?
Thereby, the findings of dr. Gunther were closely examined by other scientists (most of them were Germans) and they come to the same conclusion: he proved the correlation between the use of depleted uranium missiles in the first Gulf War, and the sudden increase in leukemia, cancer and abnormal birth deformities. They didn’t ban the use of these weapons, because there was no need to do it: the public hardly knew anything about so they didn’t protest, and they were highly efficient weapons. So why ban them?

you dont understand, the army has one goal: to complete its mission. if they had a munition that killed hundrads of civilians that helped them complete their mussion, they would not hesitate to use it.

oh wait ‘if they had’ ?

Yeah too bad… To reach their goal, all means were allowed in spite of the humanitarian consequences. Pure Machiavellian politics…
Even after they “completed their mission” in May 2003, they told the ignorant world how they brought peace to the Iraqi people and defeated the dangers of Saddam’s WMD. Granted, the guerilla war afterwards was not solely due to the coalition forces, but their presence alone, an ally of Israel now occupying an Islamic country, clearly catalyzed the anti-American feelings. But still, what an hypocrisy…