Weapons of Indiscriminate Destruction

There are weapons that go on killing and the US specializes in them. These weapons exert their destructive capability long after the battle or war is over. In one case, this destruction continues for generations. Yes, I am talking about two common weapons - landmines and depleted uranium casings. These "tools of the trade" are zealously defended by the United States even though most of the rest of the world is (or is working on) banning them.

The US has consistently argued for the supposed safety of depleted uranium which is used to harden the casings of shells, mortars, and other penatrating projectiles. One assumes that the US public goes along with the safety myth, because it is called depleted uranium after all. Unfortunately, DU is still radioactive and remains radioactive for roughly 4.7 BILLION years. The wide spread use of DU casings in both of the US-Iraq conflicts, and in Kosovo are leaving a (not so) hidden nexus of destruction.

It is clear that DU causes illness and birth defects. Not just the dust from exploded projectiles, but being around them at all. This was brought home by the invesitgative reporting of Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now in his Daily Times article The war's littlest victim. In this article Gonzalez focuses on US National Guardsman Spec. Gerard Darren Matthew, who had a bizarre set of symptoms that are likely linked to his exposure to DU. The kicker though for Matthew (and likely other US forces) was when his child was born with birth defects.

Birth defects as a consequence of DU exposure are widespread in Iraq, and have been since the first Gulf War. During the first Gulf War, the US used an estimated 200 tons of depleted uranium. There have been no total estimates I know of for the current invasion. But it is estimated that 200 tons of DU weapons were used on Baghdad alone in April 2003 and that at least 300,000 Iraqis have been directly exposed. Among the reported effects in the article above are:

Leukaemia has already become the most common type of cancer in Iraq among all age groups, but is most prevalent in the under-15 category. It has increased way above the percentage of population growth in every single province of Iraq without exception.

Women as young as 35 are developing breast cancer. Sterility among men has increased tenfold.

The use of DU weaponry is banned by most countries because of its ongoing destructive and indescriminate effects on civilian populations. The US however has chosen to ignore these consequences. Likewise, the US has consistently refused to join the landmine ban, and Bush just opted out of US cooperation again this last week in the upcoming meeting of the Ottawa Convention.

The US is a big user of landmines and has refused to sign the treat (as have Russia and China), even though these unexploded munitions kill or maim an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people (primarily children) every year, and kill someone in the world every 22 minutes. The US is a major deployer of landmines, but the widest use is likely in so-called "cluster bombs." Cluster bombs were widely used by the US in both Afghanistan and Iraq. These are bombs containing hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of "bomblets" - many of which explode on impact and many that do not explode until they are disturbed by a child, adult, animal, or passing vehicle. (You may remember the emergency ration drops in Afghanistan where the rations were very close to the same coloration as the cluster bomblets. There was concern that people (especially children) would run to gather up bomblets thinking they were food packets. Or conversely, that no one would get the rations for fear that they were bomblets).

The use of both depleted uranium and landmines are considered humatiarian issues. IT is well passed time when the US take the step of stopping our use of such weapons and sign the treaties. Daddy Bush wouldn't do it, CLinton wouldn't do it, and it looks like GW won't do it either. It would seem to me that the Bush base could be mobilized around these issues since they are supposedly concerned about life. The death and mutilation of children by weapons of indisicrimanate destruction would seem to be an issue on which concensus could be found. Perhaps GW would listen to his base, since he certainly doesn't listen to the public in general.

Articles of Interest
11/29/04 Mulama, IPS, Plant a Landmine, and Reap Years of Destruction

11/28/04 AFP, Landmines Among 'Most Pressing Humanitarian Issues of Our Time'

11/27/04 AFP Bush Rules Out US Role at Global Conference on Land Mines

5/15/03 Wolf, UTJ Emerging disaster - Iraq

5/22/03 Wolf, UTJ Nukes are nukes

3/17/04 Smallman, Al Jazeera, Iraq's real WMD crime

11/27/04 Smallman, Al Jazeera, Victim blows lid on uranium risk

9/30/04 Gonzalez, Daily News, The war's littlest victim

3/18/04 Tamimi, Al Jazeera, Chaos versus hope in Iraq

Posted by rowan at November 29, 2004 8:19 AM | TrackBack | [eMail this article!] |