The United States takes the matter of three-headed babies very seriously by William Blum

[ensho]

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/the-united-states-takes-the-matter-of-three-headed-babies-very-seriously-by-william-blum/


-snip-

The BBC reported last month that doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the United States during its fierce onslaughts of 2004 and subsequently, which left much of the city in ruins. “It was like an earthquake,” a local engineer who was running for a national assembly seat told the Washington Post in 2005. “After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was Fallujah.” Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe.

The BBC correspondent also saw children in the city who were suffering from paralysis or brain damage, and a photograph of one baby who was born with three heads. He added that he heard many times that officials in Fallujah had warned women that they should not have children. One doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 — when she saw about one case every two months — with the situation now, when she saw cases every day. “I’ve seen footage of babies born with an eye in the middle of the forehead, the nose on the forehead,” she said.

-snip-

One could fill many large volumes with the details of the environmental and human horrors the United States has brought to Fallujah and other parts of Iraq during seven years of using white phosphorous shells, depleted uranium, napalm, cluster bombs, neutron bombs, laser weapons, weapons using directed energy, weapons using high-powered microwave technology, and other marvelous inventions in the Pentagon’s science-fiction arsenal … the list of abominations and grotesque ways of dying is long, the wanton cruelty of American policy shocking. In November 2004, the US military targeted a Fallujah hospital “because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.” 2 That’s on a par with the classic line from the equally glorious American war in Vietnam: “We had to destroy the city to save it.”

How can the world deal with such inhumane behavior? (And the above of course scarcely scratches the surface of the US international record.) For this the International Criminal Court (ICC) was founded in Rome in 1998 (entering into force July 1, 2002) under the aegis of the United Nations. The Court was established in The Hague, Netherlands to investigate and indict individuals, not states, for “The crime of genocide; Crimes against humanity; War crimes; or The crime of aggression.” (Article 5 of the Rome Statute) From the very beginning, the United States was opposed to joining the ICC, and has never ratified it, because of the alleged danger of the Court using its powers to “frivolously” indict Americans.

So concerned about indictments were the American powers-that-be that the US went around the world using threats and bribes against countries to induce them to sign agreements pledging not to transfer to the Court US nationals accused of committing war crimes abroad. Just over 100 governments so far have succumbed to the pressure and signed an agreement. In 2002, Congress, under the Bush administration, passed the “American Service Members Protection Act”, which called for “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by … the International Criminal Court.” In the Netherlands it’s widely and derisively known as the “Invasion of The Hague Act”. 3 The law is still on the books.

-long snip that leads to US lack of population control to help stop climate change-
--------------------------


for all intents and purposes we killed the country of Iraq. we caused these horrible birth defects. we caused Iraqi women not to get pregnant because of the horrible birth defects.

yet we are all for more babies to be born in the US. the US that causes most of the reasons climate change is happening.

down with the pentagon, down with anything nuclear, down with toxic coal, down with monsanto, down with mass animal food concentration camps.

more power to the smart thinkers of the world. our only hope for the survival of the human specie.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. WHOA!!! Weapons "using directed energy" and"neutron bombs"???

I had heard that Bosnia and later Iraq were testing laboratories for new weapons, but had no idea
of exactly what the hell they had been using.
Anybody know more about this?
With links, preferably?

[Javaman]

6. I did a bit of googling...

There are two climes.

1) the US used neutron bombs when bombing baghdad the first time in 2003

2) The US used a neutron bomb in 2007 on the baghdad airport or fallujah or someplace else.

No confirmations, only supposition.

All reports seem to come from either sketchy sources or 3rd party.

[kristopher]

20. That was the airport in 2003 according to this article

http://www.workers.org/2007/world/neutron-bomb-0510/
Not vouching for the validity, but this is the text:

In an April 9 interview reported by Al Jazeera, Saifeddin Fulayh Hassan Taha al-Rawi says that, “U.S. forces used neutron and phosphorus bombs during their assault on Baghdad airport before the April 9, 2003, capture of the Iraqi capital.”

The bombs incinerated about 2,000 elite Republican Guard troops but left the buildings and infrastructure at the airport intact, he added. (aljazeera.net)

The neutron bomb is designed to produce a minimal blast while releasing a massive wave of neutron and gamma radiation, which can penetrate armor or several feet of earth. This radiation is extremely destructive to living tissue. (britannica.com) The bomb has been in the U.S. arsenal for decades but has never been used in combat before.

While no major U.S. media have reported on the neutron bomb charge, David Hambling, author of “Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World,” says there’s something to it. Hambling notes that the U.S. has already admitted to the use of phosphorus weapons in the Iraq invasion.

Writing on April 13 for the Danger Room blog at Wired, Hambling says that from the description al-Rawi gives in the Al Jazeera interview of a series of explosions that killed the occupants of buildings without destroying the structures, “Interestingly, there is a weapon in the U.S. arsenal designed to do exactly that. ... The AGM-114N.”

Hambling continues, “On May 15th, 2003, just a few weeks after the action at Baghdad airport, Donald Rumsfeld praised the new weapon. ... Although officially described as ‘metal augmented’ or even ‘hyperbaric,’ the new warhead is not distinguishable from thermobaric weapons which produce the same sort of enhanced blast with a lower overpressure and longer duration for more destructive effects. Like many thermobarics, the AGM-114N used finely powdered aluminum. The military are generally quiet about thermobarics because they have received such bad press. Human Rights Watch criticized them because they ‘kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area.’

[Javaman]

26. I do believe that phosphorus bombs were used, but I still believe

it's a stretch for Al Jazeera to claim a neutron bomb was used.

It would be really hard to hide that evidence, especially today.

I would think that US soldiers would have also been exposed to the effects as well. Granted there are many birth defects being reported by ex-soldiers in their newborns but I believe that is more an effect from DU than from a neutron bomb. I would think there would be many reported cases of thyroid issues among soldiers and civilians, if so.

but given george w. moron* and his evil room full of dopes, my suspension of belief only goes so far.

[democrank]

2. U.S. takes this "very seriously"..............right.

Until when? Until the next time we decided to use whatever the hell we want to because we can?

[BrklynLiberal]

3. I do not have any doubts that we caused alot more harm than good in the Middle East

by invading Iraq...and all the bullshit that followed. The entire world will never be the same...in a negative way.

[Echo In Light]

4. PNAC - that's the entire point

[Javaman]

5. Neutron bombs? I hadn't heard about that. nt

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Neutron bombs?

Is this before or after they released the kraken?

[Statistical]

19. Exactly. +1

[ensho]

8. lets not get off track re: neutron bombs when the subject is babies

malformed babies

caused by us.

[14thColony]

10. Crap!

And of course my post appears one minute later under yours. You're right, my point was just that people will all too easily jump on that one thing to try to denigrate the entire issue and make it disappear.

[Echo In Light]

12. "COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x281170

[conscious evolution]

16. How the hell did I miss that!

Thanks for the link.

[Echo In Light]

17. No prob

[piedmont]

21. Lies eat away credibility.

"malformed babies

caused by us."

Yes, by our neutron bombs. Right?

[14thColony]

9. A neutron bomb is a full-on thermonuclear weapon

As in big flash, mushroom cloud, and lots of stuff gets vaporized. If we had used one in Iraq, somehow I think someone would have noticed. That and things like listing microwave weapons and directed energy weapons separately (microwave weapons are a subset of DEWs) does detract somewhat from the author's position.

There is more than enough evidence of all the inhumane things we DID do that the author's position would have been better served sticking to the mountain of indisputable evidence instead of inserting what appear to be rumors.

[DCKit]

14. ^ What you said.

It's hard to swallow the rest as being credulous with that bitter little pill stuck in the middle.

That said, the use of depleted uranium is abhorrent - as are the directed energy weapons.

Just think of the fun we'll have when the psychopaths who got a real taste for killing and torture in the M.E. all come home.

[kristopher]

22. There are low yield neutron bombs

And if I understand the technology right, its advantage is that it kills without the property destruction you describe.

The most alarming of these is the nuclear warfighting. The Israelis have developed, by several accounts, low yield neutron bombs able to destroy troops with minimal damage to property.112 In 1990, during the Second Gulf War, an Israeli reserve major general recommended to America that it “use non-contaminating tactical nuclear weapons” against Iraq.113 Some have speculated that the Israelis will update their nuclear arsenal to “micronukes” and “tinynukes” which would be very useful to attack point targets and other tactical or barrier (mining) uses.114 These would be very useful for hardened deeply buried command and control facilities and for airfield destruction without exposing Israeli pilots to combat.115 Authors have made the point that Israeli professional military schools do not teach nuclear tactics and would not use them in the close quarters of Israel. Many Israeli officers have attended American military schools where they learned tactical use in crowded Europe.116


Cite for that line is: Hersh, Seymour M., The Samson Option. Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), p319

Appears in

THE THIRD TEMPLE'S HOLY OF HOLIES:
ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Warner D. Farr, LTC, U.S. Army

The Counterproliferation Papers

Future Warfare Series No. 2

USAF Counterproliferation Center

Air War College

Air University

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm

[14thColony]

23. Low-yield neutron bombs did exist/do exist

Although the US Gov claims all our neutron bombs have been dismantled. To be sure, back in the heyday of the neutron bomb, (1970s-1980s) the goal was smaller and smaller flash zones with more short-duration high-intensity radiation output. But no matter how you cut it you're still setting off a thermo-nuke, even a bitty one, and I would think that would be hard to miss. During Gulf War II (1991) even our giant "daisy-cutter" conventional bombs were so visible that at least one, viewed from tens of kilometers away, was accidentally reported as a tac nuke detonation.

The Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org) specialize in this sort of thing. I'll have to check out what they say.

[hedgehog]

11. The British government whipped up hatred against "the Hun"

during WWI by publishing accounts of atrocities in Belgium that never happened. Having been lied to once, people tended to discount reports of Nazi atrocities until the camps were liberated.

In this age of Photoshop, I am very suspicious of any reporting based on a second hand account of a photograph. The authenticated photo I can't forget is of the little boy who lost his entire family and both arms at the shoulders due to American bombs at the start of the war. We shouldn't let ghoulish speculation distract us from the real harm we've done.

[ensho]

13. guess you can't get any closer to the truth then the Drs./mothers in Iraq

nt

[thereismore]

15. But but we only used white phosphorus in a legal, approved way, to illuminate the battlefield.

And what business do civilians have on a battlefield anyway. Anyway, at least the three-headed baby is now free, after Saddam is gone. Do I need a sarcasm thingy?

[LLStarks]

18. 3-headed babies? Cyclops babies? Hox gene mutations are terrible... nt

[Mari333]

24. the horrors of the warcrimes in Iraq will continue and no one will be held accountable

each president and Congress covers the ass of the last one. they set a precedent for each other.

shameful, our country.

[HughMoran]

25. oops