to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” - Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam”

www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml

excerpt:

This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.

Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.

This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff.

Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as “spectacular … and a matter of concern.”

This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate – the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define.

In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”

Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.

Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.

The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II.

Read the complete article and pray for those in military service, 'cus the elitists in our government seem to think they deserve NO consideration.

Mike

Hang on, my tinfoil beanie is slipping off my head.

Ok, I just stapled it back on. Continue with the thread.

Dumb Stupid Animals?  HeHe, he had a double negative.

tagged

sfbayview

Uhhhhhhhh, ok. That's all I needed to see. Just the url alone is enough to say that this was likely the work of hippy alarmists. I know a helluva lot of people who were in the sandbox during Gulf War 1. We have a helluva lot of folks here who were there. Yet I haven't met a one of them with Gulf War Syndrome. If their figures were anywhere close to accurate, then every other Gulf War vet we'd meet would be dead or disabled. That's bullshit!

I know we've had some mystery illness relating to that war. But it's highly more likely that they were exposed to a chemical weapon of some sort that was reponsible.

Don't we train in times when war isn't going on? It would seem that there would be a few of these DU shells that get used from time to time during the course of live fire. We have them stored somewhere don't we? People make them don't they? People handle them and come in contact with them, right? Why are 52% of these people not sick or disabled? It's odd that this only seems to happen during times of war, considering that isn't the only time they are exposed to these weapons.

So I said it before and I'll say it again, this is just hippy, anti-war, garbage propaganda. If DU rounds cause such illness, then they would do so in times of peace just the same as they would in times of war.

-CH  

I have treated about a dozen DS1 vets for sports type injuries. Of them 0% have "GWS". It is a very small sample size, but none of these guys were REMF's. I would call this extremely suspect. When it is reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, I might pay a little closer attention.

Quoted: I have treated about a dozen DS1 vets for sports type injuries. Of them 0% have "GWS". It is a very small sample size, but none of these guys were REMF's. I would call this extremely suspect. When it is reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, I might pay a little closer attention.

Amen!

Now a question...........

Isn't it true that the ratio of support personnel to combat troops are about 10-1? If their figures are correct, which have something on the order of 300,000 to 400,000 afflicted, that just seems to be erroneous considering we only had about 500,000 guys in theatre, does it not? Many of these troops were in the rear and never even exposed to action, so how could DU shells have made them sick?

I would be greatly alarmed if I thought our weapons were killing our soldiers. I would be even more alarmed if it was happening at the rate described. But there is just something with that article that doesn't make sense. I think it isn't factual and instead media driven from the most liberal city in the world. And the fact that it's being mentioned now, only a few months from election day, seems to reinforce that.

-CH

WHOA there.....!!!  
Scare tactic numbers with no descriptions abound!!!

"
Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.

"


"11,000 are dead".  OK, HOW did they die?  Notice they don't tell you that nugget of info.  

"325,000 on PMD".  OK, 325,000 out of the 580,400 who served in GW1 OR out of the entire military?  Where did that number come from?

"56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems."   They clearly do NOT state that they are talking about serving in GW1.  They allow the reader to make that inference.  The writers just do some division and say that 56 percent of 580,400 is 325,000.  

"This astounding number".  Did anyone get taught when they were young that if something SEEMS unbelievable that it might not be true?

"Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only"  This is a flat out lie.  Umm, 16 months of intense sunlight .  The sun is a known cancer causing agent.  Us white folk from the temperate zone are not conditioned to be exposed to such intense sun.  

"developed malignancies "  What kind?  Reference above line about sun.  


This is a typical scare tactic type article from a communist paper (c'mon, San Francisco?  That city known for its unwavering support of the US Military?)  Using numbers and facts that if not simply drawn out of thin air are misquoted, trimmed and rephrased to the will of the authors.  EVERY single time that cancer and illness has been used by the media to "prove" radon, powerlines, garbage dumps, etc.  real research comes in after the scare and proves it to be false.  EG, Erin Brockovich.  But once the damage has been done by the halftruths and lies, real science is boring and is left out.

This is from FAS:
"Depleted uranium results from the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. Natural uranium is a slightly radioactive metal that is present in most rocks and soils as well as in many rivers and sea water. Natural uranium consists primarily of a mixture of two isotopes (forms) of uranium, Uranium-235 (U235) and Uranium-238 (U238), in the proportion of about 0.7 and 99.3 percent, respectively. Nuclear reactors require U235 to produce energy, therefore, the natural uranium has to be enriched to obtain the isotope U235 by removing a large part of the U238. Uranium-238 becomes DU, which is 0.7 times as radioactive as natural uranium. Since DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, there is very little decay of those DU materials."

Try some facts on:  Gulf War Illness

ETA : True facts on Uranium  Read this.  It is real science.  Radiation from natural uranium CANNOT penetrate SKIN.  DU is 0.7 times as radioactive.  Do the math.

Quoted: sfbayview Uhhhhhhhh, ok. That's all I needed to see. Just the url alone is enough to say that this was likely the work of hippy alarmists.

Not hippys… Black activists…

"San Francisco Bay View
National Black Newspaper "

ARRRRGH!  How can anyone BELIEVE this nonsense?

I don't have any illness or malignancies.  NO ONE in my unit has Illness or Malignancies.  Except for one guy killed by his brother,  NO ONE has died.   NO ONE has GWS.

How a seemingly rational person can even give this a moment of serious consideration just amazes me.  

Of course,  you don't have to be rational to have a political agenda.

The Title pissed me off, so I didn't even read the article.

Quoted: pass the reynolds wrap, please.

I can't. That pesky Bigfoot stole all of mine so that the satellites wouldn't get him.

DU is used in the rounds on the navy's ciws.  If this was a health problem the gunners mates who deal with those rounds would have shown signs LONG before the first gulf war.

The problem is if DU gets ingested and your skin is no longer protecting you.   Alpha radiation is harmless as long as your recieving it externally.   Internally it can lead to cancer if enough is ingested.   Normally its people that are getting a consistent exposure over an extended period of time that have to worry.     The odds of the DU rounds getting into the systems of 325000  GI's are infinitesmal.  

Besides, isn't Gulf War Illness caused by the oil fires?  I'm a gulf war veteran but I spent my time in a sub so was never exposed to DU rounds or oil fires, but its my understanding that GWI is directly related to smoke inhalation from oil fires.   People who put out fires for oil companies can develop the same problems which is why they have special gear.

Seems like a FUD piece to me.

Kissenger was an NCO in the US Army during WWII.

I once wound up listed as an "Oppressor of The People" in the forerunner of this paper.  I know what happened in the incident in question.  A partner and I fought some dude who was trying to kill himself; we won,  he went to the hospital for cuckoo treatment.  He then wrote an article in this paper where I wound up being portrayed as slightly more cruel and evil than Heinrich Himmler.  This is all crap.

what about miltary women??????????????????????????????????

Wasn't GWS also linked to the improper disposal/destruction of a massive chem/bio weapon cache in An-Nasseriyah (southern Iraq)?

I was at the actual site last year with the rest of SST7(site survey team 7) and that's what 2 team mates told me -(my OIC - a USMC LTC, and XO an USAF LTC - both were GW1 vets)

Personally what irked me about this article was the comments attributed to Kissinger.

However, that said this is not some off the wall slant on DU here, (true, this article showed up on another news site I frequent, but I always prefer to link directly to the source, which in this case I was unfamilar with) as any cursory examination of the data out there reveals. There are references to the article at the bottom, you might want to review them. This just happens to be one of the issues my friends and I track.

I had never heard that comment made by Henry Kissinger, though I have read other comments just as telling by him, and I don't care for his opinion on anything. YMMV

Here's an old article:
abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Living/dumunitions030505.html

excerpt:
Rokke said he and many other members of his team have suffered serious health consequences from their exposure to DU munitions during the cleanup after the first Gulf War. Rokke said 30 members of his cleanup team have died. He also said he has 5,000 times the acceptable level of radiation in his body, and suffers from reactive airway disease due to uranium poisoning.
Rokke contends that troops' exposure to depleted uranium is tied to the little-understood Gulf War syndrome.
"As of May 2002," according to Rokke, "over 221,000 Gulf War vets were listed as permanently disabled. When I spoke out within the military about how bad this stuff was, my life ended, my career ended. I received threats, warnings, sent to the reserve from full active duty."

Here's Mr Rokke's own website data:
www.downwinders.org/rokke.htm

excerpt:
In that memorandum dated October 30, 1943, senior scientists assigned to the Manhattan Project suggested that uranium could be used as an air, water, and terrain contaminant. According to the letter sent by the Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee on the "Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon" to General Groves (October 30, 1943) inhalation of uranium would result in "bronchial irritation coming on in a few hours to a few days". This is exactly what happened to those of us who inhaled DU dust during Operation Desert Storm, U.S. and KFOR soldiers and civilians in the Balkans, and residents of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The subcommittee went on further to state that "Beta emitting products could get into the gastrointestinal tract from polluted water, or food, or air. >From the air, they would get on the mucus of the nose, throat, bronchi, etc. and be swallowed. The effects would be local irritation just as in the bronchi and exposures of the same amount would be required. The stomach, caecum and rectum, where contents remain for longer periods than elsewhere would be most likely affected. It is conceivable that ulcers and perforations of the gut followed by death could be produced, even without an general effects from radiation". Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, reported by physicians, and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include: (a) Reactive airway disease, (b) neurological abnormalities, (c) kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, (d) rashes, (e) vision degradation, cataracts, and night vision losses, (f) gum tissue and teeth problems, (g) lymphoma, (h) various forms of skin and organ cancer, (I) neuro-psychological disorders, (j) uranium in semen, (k) sexual dysfunction, and (l) birth defects in offspring. Similar health effects also have been documented in uranium processing facility employees of and residents living near Puducah, Kentucky, Portsmouth, Ohio; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington who made the DU. Employees at uranium manufacturing or processing facilities in New York, Tennessee, Iowa, Massachusetts, and the four corners area of southwest Colorado also have repeatedly reported health effects similar to those reported by verified Gulf War DU casualties. Iraqi and other humanitarian agency physicians are reporting the same health effects in exposed populations. Scottish scientists recently verified that residents of the Balkans were excreting uranium in their urine. This indicates that the uranium is mobile in the environment and is more evidence to support what we found during the DU tests in 1994 and 1995. Consequently we can not ignore the serious adverse health effects from DU exposures and these known effects substantiate the banning of DU munitions.

As Rokke is a former military man I found his views/information quite informative, seems he learned about DU first hand.

Additional DU info here: www.traprockpeace.org/depleteduranium.html

And to be fair here's the Military's on take on this subject:

www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/index.htm

and unlike most ya commenting on this thread I HAVE READ the majority of not only this data but research done by the Brits, Dutch and other foreign countries. Unlike most of ya who prefer to sling snide comments and criticisms, whose idea of reading is the bio page on Playboy, I read alot and on a wide variety of subjects.

Speaking strictly for myself the mistreatment of those defending our country "by any means" known or unknown represents the most despicable behavior and traitorous act a country or military can do to it's soldiers. It's bad enough that some of those wounded at Walter Reed right now are having their meger pay deducted to pay for injuries sustained in combat, but to think that a few years down the road they may be payiing a bigger price, chaps my ass.

One only has to look to find contrary views and opinions to the Military's slant, who BTW are NOT the most trusted sources of information where their narrow interests are concerned.

How quickly we forget the troops used as guinea pigs during the early A-bomb testing or the US Government's 1932 Tuskeegee Syphilis Experiments. Where was the military's sense of responsibility in those instances?

Mike

So, you think that "enviromentalist" scientists are non-slanted, un-biased sources of information and anyone that does research that finds nothing wrong or even finds a positive light about the US military is biased and full of shit.

Your comment as to the intelligence and reading habits of others on this forum "whose idea of reading is the bio page on Playboy" is not only insulting, rude and wrong; it shows an obvious lean towards a liberal thought bias of "I am always right, don't bother me with facts"

There is obviously nothing that is going to sway your thoughts on this.  Fine. Believe what you want, however, try to avoid insulting fellow forum members by attacking their intelligence.

Quoted: So, you think that "enviromentalist" scientists are non-slanted, un-biased sources of information and anyone that does research that finds nothing wrong or even finds a positive light about the US military is biased and full of shit. Your comment as to the intelligence and reading habits of others on this forum "whose idea of reading is the bio page on Playboy" is not only insulting, rude and wrong; it shows an obvious lean towards a liberal thought bias of "I am always right, don't bother me with facts" There is obviously nothing that is going to sway your thoughts on this.  Fine. Believe what you want, however, try to avoid insulting fellow forum members by attacking their intelligence.

Obviously NOT as, you have show your own lack of literacy by not bothering to read what was posted.

FWIW, I made no profession of belief either way here simply posted an article I found interesting.

My views were expressed here:

Speaking strictly for myself the mistreatment of those defending our country "by any means" known or unknown represents the most despicable behavior and traitorous act a country or military can do to it's soldiers. It's bad enough that some of those wounded at Walter Reed right now are having their meger pay deducted to pay for injuries sustained in combat, but to think that a few years down the road they may be payiing a bigger price, chaps my ass.

Take ya've got a problem with that comment too......

And BTW, here's Rokkes' and cohorts' resume:
Dr. Doug Rokke, Former U.S. Army's DU team health physicist Former U.S. Army's DU Project Director
George Angus Parker, Formerly Sgt with the 1st Field Laboratory Unit, Biological-Warfare Detection Unit. Porton

Sound like "enviromentalist" scientists, to you?

Guess ya missed that, typical of a 26 year old punk that doesn't read........

I consider myself open-minded, which is why I posted the Military's views, that and the fact that there is evidence there that they are aware/know of the dangers of DU, but downplay it.

I saw the same crap posted on Democratic underground yesterday (don't ask why I was there, it is a sucky story), complete with the Kisinger quote.

Now, there's a web-site I never bother wasting my time with........

Mike

Quoted: Quoted: So, you think that "enviromentalist" scientists are non-slanted, un-biased sources of information and anyone that does research that finds nothing wrong or even finds a positive light about the US military is biased and full of shit. Your comment as to the intelligence and reading habits of others on this forum "whose idea of reading is the bio page on Playboy" is not only insulting, rude and wrong; it shows an obvious lean towards a liberal thought bias of "I am always right, don't bother me with facts" There is obviously nothing that is going to sway your thoughts on this.  Fine. Believe what you want, however, try to avoid insulting fellow forum members by attacking their intelligence. Obviously NOT as, you have show your own lack of literacy by not bothering to read what was posted. FWIW, I made no profession of belief either way here simply posted an article I found interesting. My views were expressed here: Speaking strictly for myself the mistreatment of those defending our country "by any means" known or unknown represents the most despicable behavior and traitorous act a country or military can do to it's soldiers. It's bad enough that some of those wounded at Walter Reed right now are having their meger pay deducted to pay for injuries sustained in combat, but to think that a few years down the road they may be payiing a bigger price, chaps my ass. Take ya've got a problem with that comment too...... And BTW, here's Rokkes' and cohorts' resume: Dr. Doug Rokke, Former U.S. Army's DU team health physicist Former U.S. Army's DU Project Director George Angus Parker, Formerly Sgt with the 1st Field Laboratory Unit, Biological-Warfare Detection Unit. Porton Sound like "enviromentalist" scientists, to you? Guess ya missed that, typical of a 26 year old punk that doesn't read........ I consider myself open-minded, which is why I posted the Military's views, that and the fact that there is evidence there that they are aware/know of the dangers of DU, but downplay it. I saw the same crap posted on Democratic underground yesterday (don't ask why I was there, it is a sucky story), complete with the Kisinger quote. Now, there's a web-site I never bother wasting my time with........ Mike

EDITED TO Change:  Ahh screw, it you are not worth arguing with, plus I may be 26 but I have many more years of life left.