Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Iraqi Doctors Call Depleted Uranium Use "Genocide"

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Iraqi Doctors Call Depleted Uranium Use "Genocide"

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from TruthOut.

This veteran independent journalist who covered one of the many recent war crimes committed by Empire directors--the invasion of Iraq--now focuses our limited attention span on one of the long lasting effects of nuclear material used in US munitions during that war. It isn't pretty. This is another indictment of "American exceptionalism" in which the US ruling class has now wrapped itself after constructing an Empire among the ruins left over from WWII when nations were so vulnerable.

Contamination from depleted uranium (DU) munitions is causing sharp rises in congenital birth defects, cancer cases and other illnesses throughout much of Iraq, according to numerous Iraqi doctors.

Iraqi doctors and prominent scientists believe that DU contamination is also connected to the emergence of diseases that were not previously seen in Iraq....