Greetings to all Email Update
Members,
Will wonders never cease?
On April 17,
2006 I received a telephone call from the office of my senator, Senator
Saxby Chambliss of Georgia acknowledging receipt of my
email urging him to co-sponsor the DU bill. This call was from a senior
aide but was most interesting.
I was informed
that the DU bill is tied up in committee in the House, has not made it to
the Senate but he will strongly recommend that the
Senator co-sponsor the bill. That was after I told him about our
affiliate recently being in Bahrain and testing people there and finding a
very high percentage were DU positive.
I also advised
him to dig deep to learn more about the Gulf War Syndrome, the Bosnia
Syndrome and the current developing Iraqi Freedom Syndrome.
Most of that seemed to get his attention, especially the part that he
might be DU positive too.
They know I am a conservative and why I do not support
Bush/Cheney.
I want to thank
those members of the list that have signed the petition:
http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/modules.php?name=ePetitions&op=more_info&ePetitionId=3&show_signers=1&min=0#shownOrNotSigners
That list grew by over 100 yesterday and most of the people
are on the email update list.
Yes, I signed
it and never ask anyone to sign something that I will not sign on to.
One of the more
recent additions to the email list sent the following four items.
Americans and many foreigners are starting to see the picture and
what has to be done.
The following
excerpt is from a book, and like Eve not staying away from the Forbidden
Fruit there are such people that would not let the paint dry.
That is especially true of politicians and Big Defense contractors.
"No one would be that stu-"
Susan stopped. Of course someone would be that stupid. Some humans would
do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch
in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying "End-of-the-world Switch.
PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH", the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.
Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time
What type of
environmental group would touch on the horrors of DU and then abandon the
subject? In my opinion one that cannot see a way to generate massive
donations on that subject.
The Natural
Resources Defense Council ran the following article. We contacted them in
November, December and January and not a single return
telephone call about doing something about DU. Over time I have become
convinced that it is yet another creature of MK Ultra to keep Americans
divided into camps. One look at their board of trustees can find several
Neocons or direct ties to Neocons that could not care less about the
environment. http://www.nrdc.org/about/board.asp
They have proven that in DC on a daily basis since they got
into positions to effect policy.
LETHAL
WEAPONS
The Remains of War
During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, American and
British troops fired more than 860,000 rounds of ammunition tipped with
depleted uranium (DU),
a highly toxic by-product of the uranium-enrichment process used to make
nuclear weapons and nuclear-reactor fuel. Operation Desert Storm
marked the first time that DU weapons had been used so extensively in
combat, and U.S. military leaders were more than pleased with the results.
While conventional munitions tend to blunt on impact, bullets and shells
made from DU, which is 1.7 times denser than lead, actually become sharper
as they bore through armor plating. "DU gave us a huge advantage over
their tanks," said Army Colonel James Naughton at a March 2003 Pentagon
press briefing.
The U.S.
military used about 320 tons of DU in the first Gulf War. In the most
recent Iraqi conflict, British and U.S. troops fired 1,000 to 2,000
tons of DU munitions from Abrams tanks, Apache attack helicopters, A-10
tank-buster planes, and other war machines. U.S. troops previously
used DU weapons in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Much of the depleted
uranium is still there, in the form of dust and munitions fragments.
Now a
growing body of evidence suggests that DU weapons remain deadly long after
the shooting stops. On impact, DU munitions produce a
quick-burning, finely grained powder that can enter the body through
shrapnel wounds or inhalation. The United Nations Environment Programme
announced in March that it had found DU contamination in Bosnian soil and
groundwater. In mid-April, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific
institution, said that some soldiers may suffer from "kidney damage and an
increased risk of lung cancer," depending on their levels of DU exposure.
Children who play on former battlefields are especially at risk, warned
the society. The British findings prompted the U.K. Ministry of Defense to
offer urine tests to its veterans returning from Iraq to check for DU
levels. But the U.S. Department of Defense has no plans to implement a
comprehensive
DU-testing program for its soldiers, and has also refused to remove DU-contaminated
fragments from Iraq and other former battle sites. To defend
what they call their "silver bullet," Department of Defense spokesmen
contend that their own study, performed on 90 veterans exposed to high
levels
of DU during the first Gulf War, detected no adverse health effects.
However, the group studied constitutes only a fraction of the
approximately 900
vets who were exposed to high levels of DU, and even those studied are not
entirely healthy: One developed a bone tumor; another has lymphoma.
Meanwhile, U.S. companies, such as Alliant Techsystems, a subsidiary of
Honeywell Systems, and Primex Technologies, a subsidiary of General
Dynamics, continue to step up their production of DU weapons. Munitions
manufacturers in France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Pakistan have
followed suit, while Israel and Thailand are also amassing smaller stocks
of DU weapons.
For the
last decade, Dan Fahey, a Navy veteran and weapons expert who served in
the 1991 Gulf War, has been pressuring the Department of Defense
to acknowledge that not nearly enough is known about the long-term hazards
of DU. His persistence, and that of others, may finally be paying off.
The U.N. Environment Programme has recommended that DU's effects be
studied in Iraq as soon as it's feasible. And seven members of Congress
recently introduced a bill mandating the study of DU's environmental and
health effects wherever the substance has been deployed by the U.S.
military.
-- Steve Hawley
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/03sum/briefings.asp
They can do all
of their Robert Redford ads and promo pieces, but the bottom line is that
they will not take a stand on what might be one of the most
serious issues on environmental pollution and detriment to human life.
Thinking back, it is a well known fact that air and surface testing of
nuclear weapons caused massive amounts of nuclear fall out across the
United States and those same environmental groups have never taken a hard
line on that either.
Sure, they have
the 100 or so demonstrators show up to protest a nuclear power plant or
nuclear test, but the ongoing, non-stop, focused efforts are
either not there or are few and far between.
DU is a serious
and deadly environmental pollutant and the environmental groups do not
touch it with a ten-foot pole. Why? Because of politics and such stances
would hurt their fund raising efforts.
That is how our
national capital works folks. Even when the battle lines are clear cut,
many will not take a stance because it would ruffle certain feathers
and their fund raising would come under attack. They are more worried
about their annual intake of dollars than they are the annual results of
their efforts.
It is more about their jobs than their effectiveness at those jobs. There
is no benchmark except dollars and like a bureaucracy - job performance is
a minor factor.
There is a dear
price to pay for standing up for the truth, especially a truth that runs
contrary to the policies of our government and the Wealthy Elite and
corporate interests those policies were sought by for implementation.
In a way, it is
like being more concerned about the photo op than the subject matter of
the photo. It is a tool of policy that is closely tied to commerce and
getting results for government and certain corporate interests than it is
about protecting the environment or human lives.
The United
Nations has been tracking the DU problem but for some reason they rarely
do much even though their own UN peace keeping personnel
are getting sick from DU exposure. Over the weekend I watched Hotel
Rwanda. It was noteworthy that the UN peace keepers there could stand
guard but not shoot. Close to 1 million people slaughtered (literally)
and the UN was observing, watching as the genocide was in full swing.
A
Google search just on UK web sites brings up interesting articles:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=depleted+uranium&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGi
including:
US
forces' use of depleted uranium weapons is 'illegal'
'Cancer appears to have
increased between seven and 10 times and deformities between four and six
times,' according to the UN subcommission.
The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the
battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military experts
say
1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure.
In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped
bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some
500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to
radioactive debris left in the desert.
The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied
veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of
anophthalmos
cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births
should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just
two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank
rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without
the crowns
of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.
A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe
illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused
fingers.
Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military personnel cannot
willfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the
environment
and then ignore the consequences of their actions.
'To do so is a crime against humanity.'
http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
Soldiers are
instruments of policy so the use of the weapons is not soldier driven; it
is driven by the politicians and the Big Defense contractors that
make lots of money making the US military the world’s foremost killing
machine. Said another way, the crime against humanity does not originate
with the soldiers; it originates with the government and those industries
that stand to gain the most from the War Racket.
It is not hard
to find information about DU but what is hard to find are cohesive efforts
to achieve results, those mainly being putting a stop to the use
of those weapons, addressing the health consequences and cleaning up the
mess that has been made. In a way, the DU efforts of many are like the
New Age Movements that were intentionally done in cloning fashion under
the CIA MK Ultra program so the groups would spend more time arguing or
disagreeing over form than focusing on substance.
That is how one
puts progress at a standstill.
As one of the
readers pointed out, the DU weapons have already been banned so why pursue
another ban? We are finding many Americans do not
know what DU is or that there is a problem in using banned weapons or that
they have been banned. For a nation that likes to puff its chest out and
talk of rule of law, the United States is one of the worst nations in
violating international law as Washington, DC sees fit. The UK is just as
guilty
since they like to pound targets with DU weapons and then ignore the
problems there and at home with their soldiers too.
As a corporate
type, I expect returns for my time, energy and investment so my focus is
on results rather than how many articles or radio shows or
speaking engagements I can arrange. I do not want to discuss the problem;
I want to discuss the solutions.
We have
Traprock Peace,
www.BanDepletedUranium.org
, www.gulfvetsurvey.org
and CADU just to mention a few and what is missing is those groups working
together on the problem to affect a solution. There seem to be no
conservative groups working on this matter except us so maybe we can start
a trend. True Conservatives like clean air, clean water and good health
too.
Every time I
send out an email update and show you a new link I get many emails from
certain quarters about what bad folks they are and I
should not spread their message.
Welcome to CADU
The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium (CADU) was
launched in 1999 to focus specifically on trying to achieve a global ban
on the manufacture,
testing, and use of depleted uranium weapons.
We also have a strong interest in identifying
the extent of its civilian use and achieving as much limitation of this as
possible.
Please take a moment to sign the International Coalition to Ban Uranium
Weapon's online petition by clicking on the image below, we currently have
in excess of 190,000 signatures worldwide - make yours count too.
http://www.cadu.org.uk/
In a note to his fellow conspirators on New Year's Eve 1943, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer wrote: "The ultimate question for a responsible person to ask
is
not how he is to extricate himself heroically from the affair, but how the
coming generation is to live."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4906502.stm
I don't know the effective, moral or enlightened way to respond under
these conditions, but 'omnicide' is a not good addition to the
resume of Homo S. Sapiens.
[comment by the sender of these four items]
The evidence is
overwhelming that DU is deadly, harmful to your health and the practice of
using those weapons should be stopped. That is a proverbial
bottom line with me. There does not need to be another article or speech
on the nature of the problem except to educate those that do not know yet
there is a problem.
That is why we
are focusing on the DU Detoxification Centers and bringing together the
medical, scientific and capital resources necessary to affect
a solution. Many of the soldiers do not have the time remaining to
discuss the matter to death for they are truly facing life threatening
problems. Some
of our soldiers do not have even 30 days before the effects go past the
point of no return so time is a commodity they do not have. At a very
minimum
they are facing degraded health to the point they can no longer have
productive lives and every second, hour, day is precious and possibly the
difference.
One of the least understood phrases in the English language is
time is of essence.
That phrase usually makes most people slow down when they need
to grasp the concept and move in a timely manner.
The biggest
propaganda machine ever assembled is the combination of our intelligence
agencies, the media and the US government. To fight that machine
will take tens of millions of people that are on the same page and driving
home the same message.
Enough is
enough and it stops now. Yes, time is of essence.
In the last six
pages of the book I wrote,
One-Way Ticket to
Crawford, Texas, I provided a quote from a movie about one
of our most famous
generals as to what is wrong with Imperialistic goals and agendas such as
has been put forth by Bush – Cheney and those that preceded them:
"For over a thousand years Roman
conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a
tumultuous parade. In the procession came
trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories,
together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The
conquerors
rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before
him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot
or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a
golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is
fleeting."
Gen. George C. Patton
It is in
subjugation, humiliation and harm to the living and unborn that the heart
of a terrorist is born. When all avenues of addressing a just grievance
are blocked, when all hope is denied, there will be problems. When hope
is denied hate takes it place.
That is why I
maintain that Financial Terrorists, those that have a greed that cannot be
sated, are the root cause of all other forms of terrorism.
Because of 9-11
the United States has been out being the premier terrorists on the face of
this planet. The results of what our government has
done purportedly in our name and defense is leaving behind a legacy that
makes 9-11 pale in comparison. Do the math – what our government
has done makes 9-11 pale in comparison.
We either put a
stop to the insanity or we will suffer the consequences of blow back.
Best regards,
Karl W B
Schwarz