Note by HealthWrights staff
The Obama Administration's moral outrage toward the Syrian government for its use of chemical weapons is drastically hypocritical -- and its threat to bomb that country as "retaliatory punishment," if carried out, would be a blatant violation of International law.
birth defectsAs the following article makes clear, the United States has a long has a long criminal history of using chemically and biologically toxic weapons, at genocidal levels, leaving behind genetic aberrations that continue their cruel damage for generations. Two of the most drastic examples are in Vietnam and in Iraq. In Vietnam, the US military's country-wide spraying of "Agent Orange" not only cost uncounted lives but its pervasive genetic damage unleashed a pandemic of cancer and birth defects that are still passed down from generation to generation. Similarly, in Iraq, the criminal use of Depleted Uranium (DU) in missiles to penetrate the heavy armor of tanks has left behind a high incidence of congenital malignancies and genetic deformities.
Perpetuating this damage for millions of innocent people is the fact that the US government has consistently denied the chemical and biological "collateral damage" caused by these toxic weapons. Adding to these injuries, even at present, is the US government's pressure on the World Health Organization to withhold publication of a recent extensive study on the extensive harm still being caused by use of DU in the US Attack on Iraq nine years ago (see below).
Cleary, the US military industrial complex has other than humanitarian reason for wanting to "punish" Syria's President Assad for using chemical weapons. Just as the "9-11" disaster was conveniently used to justify preexisting plans to bring down the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, so the "use of chemical weapons" was convenient pretext for high-level plans to bring down the Syrian government. The reasons lie in the power plays of the transnational Oil Industry, and the Banking System, whose gigantic lobbying force has trumped democratic process both in the United States and globally.
WHO Refuses to Publish Report on Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq Caused by Depleted Uranium Ammunition
Global Research, September 13, 2013
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has categorically refused in defiance of its own mandate to share evidence uncovered in Iraq that US military use of Depleted Uranium and other weapons have not only killed many civilians, but continue to result in the birth of deformed babies.
This issue was first brought to light in 2004 in a WHO expert report “on the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population resulting from depleted uranium (DU) weapons”. This earlier report was “held secret”, namely suppressed by the WHO:
The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO. (See Rob Edwards, WHO ‘Suppressed’ Scientific Study Into Depleted Uranium Cancer Fears in Iraq, The Sunday Herald, February 24, 2004)
Almost nine years later, a joint WHO- Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was to be released in November 2012. “It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever.”
To this date the WHO study remains “classified”.
According to Hans von Sponeck, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations,
“The US government sought to prevent the WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers.” (quoted in Mozhgan Savabieasfahani Rise of Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq: World Health Organization Refuses to Release Data, Global Research, July 31, 2013
This tragedy in Iraq reminds one of US Chemical Weapons used in Vietnam. And that the US has failed to acknowledge or pay compensation or provide medical assistance to thousands of deformed children born and still being born due to American military use of Agent Orange throughout the country.
The millions of gallons of this chemical dumped on rural Vietnam were eagerly manufactured and sold to the Pentagon by companies Dupont, Monsanto and others greedy for huge profits.
Given the US record of failing to acknowledge its atrocities in warfare, I fear those mothers in Najaf and other Iraqi cities and towns advised not to attempt the birth of more children will never receive solace or help.
A United Nations that is no longer corrupted by the five Permanent Members of the Security Council is what is needed.
