The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Mukilteo Beacon columnist Larry Simoneaux, in a December 21st piece entitled "Christmas In Afghanistan" discusses a friend's daughter's experiences in the 82nd Airborne division of some or other branch of the military. He says he's "reminded me of how lucky we are, as a nation, to have always had sons and daughters like" his friend's.

Leaving aside for now the blatantly illegal, immoral, and nonsensical invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan (see my "War On Terror" Talking Points for a low-down), we, as a nation, have an awfully funny way of expressing our "gratitude".

Depleted Uranium is the waste product created from the production of fuel for nuclear reactors. A radioactive heavy metal, it sports a radioactive half-life of 4.5 Billion years. The United States fired off at least 300 tons of Depleted Uranium munitions during the first Gulf War, as well as something like 40 tons in the Balkans, and perhaps 500 tons in Afghanistan. Since it was never cleaned up, the radioactive particles are still there, blowing around, contaminating whatever it is they happen to come into contact with.

The cancer rate in southern Iraq has jumped by 1,800% since the Gulf War, and in a report from the field in Afghanistan in October of this year, the team was "shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing." The report also speculates that Natural Uranium munitions, 100 times more radioactive than DU munitions, were used in Afghanistan, while a different study warns that Natural Uranium munitions will be used in the upcoming war in Iraq.

But let's assume that we don't care how many niggers get nuked, and focus on the Vets that we, as a nation, are so lucky to have serving us. Vietnam Veteran Doug Rokke, formerly the U.S. Army's DU team health physicist, has lamented that while the U.S. incurred only 760 immediate casualties in the Gulf War, there are now over 200,000 (more than a quarter of the total deployed) Vets who have filed Gulf War-related casualty claims -- the fabled "Gulf War Syndrome". The Department of Veterans Affairs has determined that in nearly 160,000 of these cases, the cause was Gulf War exposures and injuries.

What's more, the Pentagon claims that troops are not being given any new protection training for the upcoming war, and apparently will not be afforded much in the way of protective gear.

Now, uh, whose weapons of mass destruction are the major concern, here?

Posted by Eddie Tews at December 30, 2002 04:52 PM