- On Easter Sunday, I received an email
from a person in Tulsa, OK that is not on the list. He has written a letter
to the editors of Stars & Stripes. Like him, I am not holding
my breath that Stars & Stripes will run the letter since they like
to heap out massive doses of manure for the mushroom soldiers, but it is
a worthwhile read.
-
- From: nuspl
-
- Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 2:20 PM
- To: letters@stripes.com
- Cc: shanel@stripes.osd.mil
- Subject: radiation contamination from
DU ordinance, banned weaponry
-
- to: The Editor, Stars and Stripes
- re: "Study: Depleted uranium could
damage DNA" By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
- Mideast edition, Saturday, April 15,
2006
-
-
- Dear Sirs,
-
- I understand you can only run articles
with DoD approval, and that your dedication to the First Amendment
for U.S. Military servicemen is therefore hampered, but you need not contribute
to the DoD dis-information campaign on DU by publishing its prevaricating defense
of DU ordinance. Nor do you need to support the Pentagon's obstructionist
attitude towards a truly independent study of the 35,000 returning Iraq
veterans with "ill -defined medical conditions". Half of
those conditions are due to DU exposure in the battle zone; this exposure adds
to the mortality rate among returning veterans. The title of your
article should have been: Negligence of Government Costing U.S. Lives -- DU
illnesses Swept Under the Rug
-
- At least your article finally broaches
the danger of rapid-growth cancerous tumors, due to exposure to DU.
This is evidence that the DoD's methodology in testing for radiation
exposure and contamination by DU nano-particles has been the wrong methodology
all along. The paragraph you provide on DoD's own research is based
on a methodology that did not even test for the alpha- and beta-particle
radiation that is the major source of chromosomal damage in U.S. veterans
of foreign war, from DU exposure. The DoD only tests for gamma-radiation
in its methodology. McDermott's bill is therefore the least that
can be done for U.S. servicemen, to enable the research to keep up with
scientific understanding of both the short-term and the long-term risks
these weapons pose to life and limb.
-
- I do question some of the quotes you
provide from Diane Stearns: Veterans returning from Iraq, Gulf War
I, have been shown to have radioactive particles in their urine even 4-5
years after exposure on the battlefield, including isotopes of man-made
U-236, according to Dr. Durakovic (resigned from U.S. army, in protest) and
other independent studies. There is most definitely "radioactivity
in people being tested", contrary to Stearns' statement.
-
- There are some gross inaccuracies
in the article about the nature of DU ordinance: The source of the
threat is not that bullets are "coated" with uranium; rather,
DU penetrator rods are at the core of the major ordinance being used in
bombing campaigns, and this ordinance then becomes a radioactive aerosol
("poison gas") upon contact with the target, otherwise leaving
radioactive debris around the target, including the ubiquitous ceramic
dust that coats servicemen's clothing, should they be exposed to this contaminated
environment.
-
- Please follow up this article with
an article on the costs to the civilians in Iraq who are exposed to the
DU fragments and shards, or DU-destroyed tanks and buildings covered in
radioactive dust, which the U.S. in its negligence has failed to clean
up, contrary to U.S. military regulations. Our troops should
be aware that the ordinance they are being asked to lock and load is a
weapon banned by law, due to the indiscriminate nature of the death and
disease that it spreads wherever it is used.
-
- Each of these DU bombs is a "dirty
bomb", according to Dr. Rokke (retired / disabled, U.S. army veteran).
U.S. airmen in particular should have the information they need to decide
whether they are being asked to commit war crimes each time they launch
a DU weapon. The Air Force should be denouncing the Pentagon's cover-up
of the death and disease caused to U.S. servicemen and to innocent bystanders
among Iraqi civilians. If the bombs are "dirty", causing
mass illnesses, then U.S. airmen cannot continue to believe the fable that
their bombs are "precision" weapons.
-
- Until soldiers with a conscience start
to speak out against DU and begin to have their views published in your
paper, denouncing their commanders' addiction to the use of DU weapons
in the battlezone, your paper will not be upholding the principles of the
First Amendment.
-
- As ever,
- T. Nuspl, Ph.D.
- in Tulsa, U.S.A.
- email: nuspl@cox.net
-
-
- Dr. Nuspl is a history professor at the
University of Tulsa and actively involved in trying to get Uranium weapons
banned.
-
- http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/modules.php?name=ePetitio
ns&op=more_info&ePetitionId=3&show_signers=1&min=300
-
- Please sign that petition if you have
time. I did and noticed that there are others on the email update
list that have signed it too.
-
- What is apparent to me is that a critical
mass is being reached where Americans are smelling the BS coming out of
Washington, DC and find the odor distasteful. Rancid usually has
that effect on the human senses.
-
- That is as it should be for I also know
that the American people are among the greatest on this planet for present
and past history. We have a history of rushing to the aid of others
in distress, the most recent examples being the earthquake in Pakistan,
the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.
-
- It is time for Americans to realize that
things are so bad here we need to help ourselves for no one else is going
to help.
-
- Army Regulation 700-48 requires that
all personnel exposed to DU be treated within 24 hours. They do not
and even when the soldiers return home they ignore them.
-
- The Post-Deployment Health Assessment,
or PDHA, requires the military to tell the soldier what they have been
exposed to. Instead of doing as required they give a questionnaire
to the soldiers where the soldier is supposed to tell them the invisible
substances that he or she has been exposed to.
-
- That is low-life and so typical of our
government and the Pentagon. They are weasels and cowards when it
comes to facing the consequences of their conduct.
-
- Best regards,
-
- Karl
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