The War of Self-Annihilation

Dear Mr. President,
The military sanitizes war, hides the ugly reality with euphemisms like “collateral damage” (civilians killed), “enhanced interrogation” (torture) and the latest one, “kinetic event” (dropping a bomb or firing a missile at a target). If an obscenity of war can’t be obscured by euphemisms then lies and denial work for awhile—like denial of the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam or depleted uranium (DU) in the Gulf War. It took decades for the military to acknowledge the effects of Agent Orange but linkage between DU and an increase in cancers, birth deformities and other medical problems is still denied; they cite studies showing DU is harmless—the U.S. UK, France and Israel have all blocked studies by the UN.) But the physical evidence is overwhelming—wherever DU munitions were used—Kuwait, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan—the rate of childhood leukemia and birth deformities rose significantly over the next decade and health problems of those exposed to DU skyrocketed. I read that in a 3 week period in 2003 we used more than 100 tons of DU munitions in Iraq (oh, there’s the weapons of mass destruction!). Another article had this: in September 2009, there were 170 births in Fallujah General Hospital; 42 died within 7 days and 31 of those who died were deformed. In August 2002, there were 530 births in the same hospital; 6 died within 7 days and only one had a birth defect. Remember the Bunker Busters we used in Baghdad and Tora Bora trying to kill Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden? Each one contains 1.5 tons of DU. In Afghanistan some Bunker Busters were dropped within a half kilometer of villages; everyone watched the planes, watched the bombs drop, the explosions. A fine dust settled over everything and within 24 hours everyone was suffering the symptoms of radiation sickness. The half-life of DU is 4.468 billion years. 4.468 billion years! That’s almost as long as Earth has existed. DU scrambles DNA in people, plants and animals and that gets passed on from generation to generation. “[T]housands upon thousands of Iraqi children will suffer for tens of thousands of years to come. This is what I call terrorism.” Dr. Ahmad Hardan, adviser to WHO, 2003. Our War of Terror is no longer just against children, Mr. President, it’s a war against Mother Earth herself. Forget terrorists, forget global warming, even; DU is making Earth uninhabitable. War is an obscenity but the use of DU takes obscenity to a new level. This is a war of self-annihilation.