''Depleted Uranium: The war crime that has no end''

[Guest guest]

" topthedoc " <topthedoc

Sat, 02 Apr 2005 11:14:29 -0000

''Depleted Uranium: The Bush war crime that has no end''

 

 

 

''Depleted Uranium: The war crime that has no end''

 

http://tinyurl.com/6g4f6

 

 

by Paul Rockwell, YellowTimes.org / www.unobserver.com

February 25th, 2004

 

 

" Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity. " —Dr. Doug

Rokke, U.S. Army health physicist

 

 

(YellowTimes.org) ñ The international dispatches about the U.S.

invasion and occupation of Iraq - replete with graphic details about

overcrowded hospitals, U.S. cluster bomb shrapnel buried in the

flesh of children, babies deformed by U.S. depleted uranium, farms

and markets destroyed by U.S. bombs ñ do not make pleasant reading.

The mounting evidence from the invasion of Iraq establishes what

many Americans may not want to face: that the highest leaders of our

land violated many international agreements relating to the rules of

war. Unless we address the war crimes of the Bush administration -

and the prima facie evidence is overwhelming - we betray our

conscience, our country, and our own faith in democracy.

 

The United States is bound by customary law and international laws

of war: the Hague Conventions of 1889 and 1907, the Geneva

Conventions of 1949, and the Nuremberg Conventions adopted by the

United Nations, December 11, 1945 - all of which set limits beyond

which, by common consent, decent peoples will not go. Under the

Constitution, all treaties are part of the supreme law of the land.

Humanitarian law rests on a simple principle: that human rights are

measured by one yardstick. Without that principle, all jurisprudence

descends into mere piety and power. Nor do violations of the laws of

war by one belligerent vindicate the war crimes of another.

Of all the violations of the laws of war by the highest officials of

our country, none is more alarming or portentous than the

widespread, premeditated use of depleted uranium in Iraq. Eleven

miles north of the Kuwaiti border on the " Highway of Death, "

disabled tanks, armored personnel carriers, gutted public vehicles ñ

the mangled metals of Desert Storm - are resting in the desert,

radiating nuclear energy. American soldiers who lived for three

months in the toxic wasteland now suffer from fatigue, joint and

muscle pain, respiratory ailments - a host of maladies often known

as the Gulf War Syndrome.

 

Ever since the end of Desert Storm, when the Pentagon unloaded 350

tons of depleted uranium, American officials have been well aware of

the health hazards of the residue that is collected from the

processing of nuclear fuel. When President Bush and the Pentagon

authorized the use of depleted uranium for the shock-and-awe

campaign against Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration not

only committed a war crime against the people of Iraq, it

demonstrated reckless disregard for the health and safety of

American troops.

 

Article 23 of the Geneva Convention IV is clear and unambiguous: ìIt

is forbidden to employ poison or poisoned weapons, to kill

treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army,

to employ arms, projectiles or material calculated to cause

unnecessary suffering.î The Geneva Protocol of 1925 explicitly

prohibits ìasphyxiating, poisonous or other gasses, and all

analogous liquids, materials or devices.î

 

The radiation produced by depleted uranium in battle is a poison, a

carcinogenic material that causes birth defects, lung disease,

kidney disease, leukemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, bone cancer, and

neurological disabilities.

 

 

 

 

 

Continued at .....

 

http://tinyurl.com/6g4f6