MORET: From That Pentagon Death Star, And The University That Poisoned The World

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Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:04:31 -0700 (PDT)

MORET: From That Pentagon Death Star, And The University That

Poisoned The World

 

 

 

April 24, 2006 4:14 PM

 

From That Pentagon Death Star,

And The University That Poisoned The World

By Leuren Moret

 

 

SPECIAL TO THE ICONOCLAS

 

 

Two images changed my life when I visited the Peace Museums in

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 2000, on my first trip to Japan. I

had worked as a geoscientist in two U.S. Nuclear weapons labs –

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Lawrence Livermore National Lab –

but I never knew what a nuclear weapon really was, nor the horrific

effects of radiation on the environment and biological systems. Now I

know.

 

In the Hiroshima Museum, as a nuclear weapons lab whistleblower I

wandered through the exhibits with TV cameras in my face, keeping it

together by stuffing my emotions. I walked past the mangled lunch

boxes and tricycles, thinking of the school children as I looked at

the watches and clocks stopped at the moment the first thermonuclear

weapon detonated on a human population.

 

Shadows of people vaporized on stones, and on the steps of a building

where one had sat, waiting for the bank to open on that fateful

morning. A diorama showed the reality of dying people walking through

the streets of Hiroshima with skin dripping and hanging from their

bodies. In another image a man stood looking down at his eyeball he

held in his hand. When I looked up at a model of LITTLE BOY, the

atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, I lost it and broke down in sobs

which did not stop until half an hour later, half way through a press

conference. The cameras continued to roll, capturing my horror and

real feelings of the realization that scientists had made that

" gadget " possible. I am a scientist, I worked in those laboratories of

death.

 

And I am a graduate of the University of California, which will

forever be known as " the University that poisoned the world " . The

University managed those laboratories of death, unchallenged, for more

than 60 years.

 

Three days later in the Nagasaki Peace Museum, I saw FAT MAN, the

first plutonium atomic bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki. There were

photos taken by a local photographer just hours after the bomb

destroyed the city. People were standing on a bridge absolutely

devastated, lying on the ground dying, patterns from their kimonos

burned into their skin. And then I saw THE photo. A young mother

standing with her kimono open barebreasted, with a vacant stare, while

she nursed her dying baby. Sobbing overwhelmed me once again, and

still brings tears to my eyes when I think of that image, which is

burned into my brain by now. I am a mother, and in that moment I knew

that mother could have been me, with the life of my baby taken from

me, or any other mother around the world. Radiation respects no living

thing. That is when I made the decision to spend the rest of my life

doing research and educating the public about radiation. I never knew

that I could make a difference. Now I know that, as a citizen

scientist, empowering others is the best way of all.

 

I started by writing a Letter to the Editor, not expecting to have it

published, but it was. And then I started writing articles about

depleted uranium which I had learned about from a journalist, Akira

Tashiro, whom I met in Hiroshima on that first trip to Japan. In 2002

he asked me to write the Forword to his prize-winning book DISCOUNTED

CASUALTIES: THE HUMAN COST OF DEPLETED URANIUM. Then I was asked to be

an expert witness in Japan for the International Criminal Tribunal for

Afghanistan in 2003. Marion Fulk, a Manhattan Project scientist and

Livermore nuclear weapons program researcher, prepared me with the

best science in the world for my testimony. The testimony resulted in

a very strong conviction on depleted uranium weapons, illegal under

all laws, war conventions, US Federal Code, and US military law. In

fact, during testimony the exposure of the original 1943 Manhattan

Project plan to develop it as a radioactive poison gas weapon,

convinced the international panel of Judges to make two additional

charges: it was a crime against the environment, and President George

W. Bush was guilty of war crimes by knowingly exposing his own troops

to illegal radioactive weaponry.

 

My motivation to expose the horrible truth about depleted uranium,

resulted in very unexpected successes. One of the most important

actions was taking a bill, introduced and stuck in limbo in the

Connecticut legislature, to New Orleans on a speaking tour in March

2005. I joined antiwar protestors and veterans marching through the

streets of New Orleans on March 19. We ended up standing on the white

marble steps of the antebellum Louisiana Supreme Court in the heart of

the French Quarter. While I stood in the hot sun describing the

horrors of depleted uranium weapons, a withered grinch of a security

guard glared out at me from behind the locked doors of the Courthouse,

while a police van across the street secretly videotaped our speeches.

Bob Smith, a Vietnam veteran, came up afterwards and asked me for a

copy of the Connecticut depleted uranium bill originally written and

introduced by Pat Dillon. Dillon is an epidemiologist and was the

Speaker of the House in Connecticut, a position she lost shortly after

her bill was introduced.

 

Much to my complete shock, Bob Smith and Ward Reilly, two Vietnam era

veterans, took it to the Louisiana legislature. They told two

legislators willing to introduce the bill to " white out Connecticut

and write in Louisiana " . It was quickly passed unanimously by the

legislature and signed into law by the Governor within a few months.

What I didn't know then, was that bill would set States rights against

Federal rights, and National Guardsmen against regular military

personel, busting the depleted uranium issue open on a national scale.

Because state governments have legal jurisdiction over the National

Guard, the state bill requiring mandatory testing for depleted uranium

exposure did not cover regular military personel. This angered the

regular soldiers who were frustrated and angry over being " kicked to

the curb " by the Pentagon and Veterans Administration. The state is

legally entitled to force the Pentagon to pay the costs of

implementing the bill, because the Pentagon is in violation of its own

mandates, directives and orders which require training, testing, and

treatment for soldiers handling depleted uranium.

 

In May of 2005, Congressman McDermott M.D. (D-WA), introduced a

depleted uranium bill in Congress. Attached to the bill as a

supporting document was an entire issue of President Bush's hometown

newspaper in Crawford, Texas, THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST, which Leon

Smith, the Editor, had dedicated to " What is DU? " . On March 1, 2006, a

second issue " Have DU Will Travel " came out with extensive interviews

with scientists. After covering Cindy Sheehan and Camp Casey last

summer, the paper is now widely read in Washington DC. Recently,

Editor Leon Smith published a book called THE VIGIL: 26 DAYS IN

CRAWFORD, TEXAS about Camp Casey.

 

Today, more than 15 states have introduced a depleted uranium bill,

and Louisiana and Connecticut have passed theirs. It has created a

nightmare for the Federal Government and put the Pentagon in permanent

PR counterspin as well as exposed 15 years of official coverup under

three Presidents and corruption in Congress. Our children, our sons

and daughters, have been sent off to the battlefields of the Middle

East and Central Asia to become uranium meat. The cost of their care

has been dumped on the state medical facilities. Their families have

been destroyed, not to mention their lives. It is time for citizens

and state elected officials to pass depleted uranium bills which will

help all soldiers by putting pressure on the Federal Government.

Each of us has a part to play by demonstrating at local facilities

like Alliant (manufacturer of depleted uranium weapons), writing

letters to local newspapers, contacting elected officials,

counter-recruiting in schools, or just passing on the information so

that others can become aware. Put a song in their hearts by sending

" Johnny Got A Gun " * to your local radio station or Indymedia site to

play on the air.

 

Depleted uranium is Washington's secret nuclear war.

 

 

 

Leuren Moret is an independent scientist and Environmental

Commissioner in the City of Berkeley. She is featured in documentary

films on depleted uranium: BEYOND TREASON (2005), BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

(2005), BAGDAD RAP(2004). They can be purchased by contacting her at

<leurenmoret.

 

 

*Download the MP3 file for " Johnny Got A Gun " -

http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/5801.php

 

 

 

http://miami.indymedia.org/news/ 2005/12/3233.php

 

 

Johnny Got a Gun - Protest Song

 

By: Johnny's Dad

 

 

 

July 7, 2005

(Please distribute freely.)

MP3 - http://radio.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/5801.php

 

They gave my boy a gun,

loaded with uranium.

war complex profits rise

you filthy rotten scum!

 

Our leaders lie and deceive,

to feed their corporate friends greed,

pre-emptive war is what we need

while our veteran's kids are born with no feet

 

Our children will cry,

" what have you done?

You believed a lie?

Now look what has come "

 

Propaganda blows,

agitation grows,

blood and oil flows

the right wing knows

 

Our children will cry,

" what have you done?

You believed a lie?

Now look what has come "

 

Politicians working for you and me?

Neo-cons and mega money

Now we're voting electronically

PLEASE WAKE UP!

 

Fascist screws tightening down,

Corporations control your town,

Climate change is....

just around the corner....

 

They won't spend a dime

destroying the environment is no crime

they got a place in the Cayman Ils

you filthy rotten scum

 

How is the air?

How is the ice?

Oceans are diluting,

but why stop polluting?

 

They won't spend a dime

destroying the environment is no crime

they got a place in the Cayman Ils

you filthy rotten scum

 

(new verse)

 

They brought my boy back

then they sent him back to Iraq

oil simply must flow

Stop loss, stock price, mega money is just like crack

 

Our children are being murdered

Who profits - Halliburton

they got a place in the Cayman Ils

you filthy rotten scum

 

They gave my boy a gun

said he'd get an education

they gave my boy a gun

loaded it up with uranium .

 

 

 

If the crazies and the psy ops aren't after you, then you're barking

up the wrong tree.

 

~ S.P. ~