Editor’s Note: A pivotal moment in modern world history occurred 65 years ago when President Harry Truman authorized the dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, effectively ending World War II.
However, the mythology that the U.S. government then constructed around the attacks to rationalize the horrific slaughter to the American people represented the start of a new conflict, a propaganda war that would justify the transformation of the U.S. political system from a Republic to an Empire, as Gary G. Kohls notes in this guest essay:
Since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, millions of Americans have not wanted to address honestly the horror of that moment. Many were willing to swallow the post-war propaganda about the destruction of the city as necessary to avert the even worse death and devastation from a full-scale U.S. invasion of Japan.
To conceal the full, horrible truth about the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, General Douglas MacArthur applied censorship of post-war information coming out of Japan, especially the photographic documentation of what the atomic bombs had done.
Even the passage of time did not end the determination of some Americans to insist on the moral high ground, despite living in the only nation ever to detonate an atomic bomb against human targets.
In 1995, when the Smithsonian Institute was preparing an honest, historically-accurate display dealing with the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings, the balanced presentation ran into political trouble.
Amid much right-wing reactionary wrangling from various ultrapatriotic veterans groups all the way up to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the GOP-dominated Congress, the Smithsonian was forced to eliminate all the painful but contextually important parts of the story, especially the Japanese civilian stories.
So, we had another example of politically powerful conservative groups heavily influencing public policy - and altering real history - because they were afraid of revealing unpleasant and potentially “unpatriotic” historical truths.
The historians did have a metaphorical gun to their heads, of course, but in the melee, the mainstream media - and therefore the public - ignored a vital historical point. And that is this: The war could have ended quickly without the atomic bombs and without much additional bloodshed.
Diplomacy could have ended the war without the American land invasion of Japan, which the subsequent propaganda campaigns (rationalizing the use of atomic weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations) had claimed would otherwise be necessary.
American intelligence, with the full knowledge of President Harry Truman, was aware of Japan's desperate search for ways to honorably surrender weeks before Truman gave the fateful order to incinerate, without warning, nearly 100,000 defenseless civilians of Hiroshima.
American intelligence data, revealed in the 1980s, showed that the contingency plans for a large-scale U.S. invasion (planned for no sooner than Nov. 1, 1945) likely would have been unnecessary.
Japan was working on peace negotiations with the Allies through its Moscow ambassador as early as April of 1945 (roughly the point when its Axis ally Germany faced total defeat in Europe). Truman knew of these developments, the U.S. having broken the Japanese code years earlier, and all of Japan's military and diplomatic messages were being intercepted.
On July 13, 1945, Foreign Minister Togo said: "Unconditional surrender (giving up all sovereignty) is the only obstacle to peace."
The war could have ended through diplomacy by simply conceding a post-war figurehead position for the emperor – who was regarded as a deity in Japan. That reasonable concession was refused by the U.S. in its demand for unconditional surrender.
Still, the Japanese continued searching for an honorable peace through negotiations but the devastating bombs were dropped anyway. And after the war, interestingly, the emperor was allowed to remain in place as spiritual head of Japan, the very condition that made the Japanese leadership refuse to accept the surrender terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
So the questions that need answering to figure out what really happened are two: 1) Why did the U.S. refuse to accept Japan's only demand concerning its surrender (retaining the emperor), a point that was conceded after the fact, and 2) with the war essentially at an end without needing to use the bombs, what were the reasons to proceed?
Shortly after WWII, military analyst Hanson Baldwin wrote: "The Japanese, in a military sense, were in a hopeless strategic situation by the time the Potsdam Declaration (insisting on Japan’s unconditional surrender) was made on July 26, 1945."
Admiral William Leahy, top military aide to President Truman, said in his war memoirs, I Was There: "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan.
“The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages."
And General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a personal visit to President Truman a couple of weeks before the bombings, urged him not to use the atomic bomb. Eisenhower said: "It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting [negotiations], was a double crime."
Truman proceeded with the plans to use the bombs. There are a number of factors that contributed to Truman’s decisions.
1) The U.S. had made a huge investment in time, mind and money ($2 billion in 1940 dollars) to produce three bombs, and there was no inclination - and no guts - to stop the momentum.
2) The U.S. military and political leadership – as did many ordinary Americans - had a tremendous appetite for revenge because of Pearl Harbor and other bloody battles in the Pacific.
Mercy wasn't in the mindset of the U.S. military or the war-weary populace, and the missions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki were accepted -- no questions asked -- by those who were fed the sanitized version of events.
3) The fissionable material in Hiroshima's bomb was uranium and Nagasaki’s was plutonium. Scientific curiosity was a significant factor that pushed the project to its completion, even if peace was at hand.
The Manhattan Project scientists and U.S. Army director of the project, Leslie Groves, wanted answers to the multitude of questions raised by the project, including “what would happen if an entire city was leveled by a single nuclear bomb?”
The decision to use both bombs had been made well in advance of their actual deployment, with the first attack leaving no time for a war-devastated Japan to respond before the second bomb was dropped.
The three-day interval was unconscionably short, especially since Japan’s communications and transportation capabilities were in shambles, and no one, not even the U.S. military, much less the Japanese high command, fully understood what had happened at Hiroshima on Aug. 6.
The Manhattan Project was so top secret that even General Douglas MacArthur, commanding general of the entire Pacific theatre, had been kept out of the loop about the existence of the bombs until five days before Hiroshima.
4) The Russians had proclaimed their intent to enter the war with Japan 90 days after V-E Day (Victory in Europe, May 8), which would have been Aug. 8, two days after Hiroshima was bombed.
Indeed, Russia did declare war on Japan on Aug. 8 and was advancing eastward across Manchuria when Nagasaki was incinerated. The U.S. didn't want Japan surrendering to Russia (soon to be fingered as a future enemy) so the first nuclear "messages" of the infantile Cold War were sent.
Russia indeed received far less of the spoils of war than they had anticipated, and the two superpowers were instantly mired in the Cold War stalemate that eventually resulted in their mutual moral and economic bankruptcies that happened a couple of generations later.
An estimated 80,000 innocent and defenseless civilians, plus 20,000 essentially weaponless young Japanese conscripts died instantly in the Hiroshima bombing.
Hundreds of thousands more suffered slow deaths from agonizing bums, radiation sickness, leukemia and infections for the rest of their shortened lives, and generations of the survivor's progeny inherited horrible radiation-induced illnesses, cancers and premature deaths.
Largely withheld from the American public was the fact that 12 American Navy pilots, their existence well known to the U.S. command, were instantly incinerated in the Hiroshima jail on Aug. 6.
The 75,000 Nagasaki victims who died in the Aug. 9 carnage were virtually all civilians, except for the inhabitants of an allied POW camp near Nagasaki's ground zero. They were incinerated, carbonized or instantly vaporized by a scientific experiment carried out by obedient, unaware scientists and soldiers who were just doing their duty.
The War Department knew of the existence of the POWs and, when reminded, simply replied: "Targets previously assigned for Centerboard (code name for the Kokura/Nagasaki mission) remain unchanged."
So the official version of the end of the war in the Pacific contained a new batch of myths that took their place among the long lists of myths that Americans are continuously fed by our corporate, military, political and media opinion leaders, the gruesomeness of war being altered to glorification in the process.
Some of the other sanitized realities, of course, include what really happened in the U.S. military invasions and occupations of the countries of North Korea, Iran, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Philippines, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Colombia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc.
This list doesn’t cover the uncountable Pentagon/CIA covert operations and assassination plots in the rest of the known world.
But somehow most of us still hang on to our shaky "my country right or wrong" patriotism, desperately wanting to believe the cunningly-orchestrated myths that say that our nation only works for peace, justice, equality, liberty and spreading democracy while being blind to the obvious reality that the U.S. mainly supports right-wing quasi-military dictatorships that make the world safe for exploitive predatory capitalism.
While it is true that the U.S. military has faced down the occasional despot, with necessary sacrifice from American soldiers, more often than not the methods of rationalizing the atrocities of war are identical to those of the "godless communists" or "evil empires" on the other side of the battle line.
Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, are just two more examples of the brutalization of a "total war” political agenda, which is always accompanied by the unforgivable human slaughter that is euphemistically called "collateral damage" or "friendly fire."
It might already be too late for Americans to stand up for real justice and real peace to effectively confront the usually well-hidden ruling elite.
However, rather than being silent about the bankrupting and insurgency-provoking war-making that our multinational corporations (with the eager assistance of the Pentagon and the heavily-lobbied Congress) are provoking all over the planet, people of conscience need to start acknowledging, and then courageously teaching, the whole truth of history.
We need to start owning up to the innumerable international war crimes that have been orchestrated in our names by the multitude of war profiteers, both foreign and domestic, that have been in positions of power and influence during the last 65-plus years.
Doing what is right for the whole of humanity for a change, rather than just doing what is advantageous for our over-privileged, over-consumptive and unsustainable American way of life, would be real honor, real patriotism and an essential start toward real peace.
Dr. Gary G. Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic mental health care, dealing extensively with the totally preventable and difficult to treat reality known as posttraumatic stress disorder, which is always a consequence of violence. He is also a student of European fascism. He is a member of the Community of the Third Way (a local Every Church A Peace Church affiliate) and the Just Peace Committee of Peace Church UCC in Duluth, Minnesota. On Aug. 8, 2010, these two organizations will be sponsoring a public showing of “White Light Black Rain,” the powerful documentary about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings as told from the perspective of the hibakusha, the survivors of the bombs.
CANCER, INFANT MORTALITY AND BIRTH SEX-RATIO IN FALLUJAH, IRAQ 2005-2009 By Chris Busby, Malak Hamadan, and Entesar Ariabi International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH) Vol. 7, No. 7, Pages 2828-37 http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/
(06-21) 04:00 PDT PERSIAN GULF -- The explosions that rocked Jerry Wheat's armored personnel carrier in the Iraqi desert blew off his helmet and filled the interior with searing heat and dense smoke.
Burned and bleeding, shrapnel embedded in his neck and back, Wheat ripped off his armor as he stumbled out of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle with other soldiers.
"I thought I was on fire," he said. "My clothes were smokin'."
A year later, Wheat found that the metal shards he'd carried in his body since the war were radioactive. It was his father - a technician at Los Alamos National Laboratory - who told him the shrapnel was "hot."
Now top Army officials are acknowledging the military ignored its own rules by failing to provide medical screenings to Wheat and other Gulf War soldiers who came into contact with the dust and debris created by radioactive ammunition.
The Pentagon admitted this year that "thousands" may have been exposed on the battlefield.
"We probably should have done bioassays (medical tests) on some Gulf War soldiers - but not all," said Col. Bob Cherry, the Army's radiation safety officer. "We didn't. In that sense we didn't follow Army Regulation 40-5."
Veterans advocates say the admission bolsters their call for legislation guaranteeing care and compensation for troops exposed to a variety of toxins in the gulf - even if scientists cannot draw a direct link between their illnesses and exposure.
Pentagon's role
Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Washington, D.C., described Cherry's statement as a concession "that the Pentagon blew it."
"A Gulf War vet can now say that after seven years the Pentagon is admitting a horrendous error of untold consequences for the health of veterans," he said.
"The Pentagon's negligence, incompetence and insensitivity are mind-boggling, given the high number of undiagnosed illnesses, the lack of health screening at the time, the lack of medical research today and the reluctance of the Pentagon to admit anything."
The ammunition, used for the first time in combat in the gulf, rips through tanks, the Pentagon says, "like a hot knife through butter."
Fired by U.S. tanks and aircraft, the ammunition is made of "depleted uranium," a heavy metal that is 60 percent as radioactive as uranium. The metal is a cheap and plentiful waste product of the process of enriching uranium for use in nuclear power plants and weapons.
Army Regulation 40-5 - the Army's preventive medicine bible - says medical tests "will be performed when radioactive materials are used in such a manner that they could be inhaled, ingested, or absorbed into the body."
Its chapter on radiation protection is based on regulations from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
It says the rules apply "to all elements of the Army."
Cherry said the Army followed the regulation in Somalia, a United Nations peacekeeping mission that began in late 1992. He said it is now in force in Bosnia, Korea and the Persian Gulf.
No contamination warning
In the gulf, combat medics patched up Wheat and sent the 23-year-old cavalry scout on his way. Wheat, who earned a Purple Heart for his injuries and a Bronze Star for valor, returned to his base in Germany.
No one warned him his gear was contaminated with radioactive and toxic residue.
"My gear was filthy - everything was covered in this dust," said Wheat, who now works for the post office in New Mexico. "We weren't allowed to wash our clothes. My sleeping bag had 80 shrapnel holes in it. I had to sleep in it for three more weeks. My cigarette cartons had holes in them. So did my cigarettes. Sometimes when I smoked a cigarette a little piece of metal would fall out."
Wheat's father tested the shrapnel with a Geiger counter.
"There was nothing in my medical records that said I'd been hit with depleted uranium," Wheat said. "They weren't checking for anything like that."
The Pentagon hadn't warned soldiers about the hazards of contact with the dust or debris of depleted uranium explosions. Last year, Cherry called the failure to train troops "an oversight."
In a recent interview, Cherry defended the decision not to provide medical screenings during the Gulf War.
Only in peacetime
Cherry initially said the Army's radiation protection regulations applied only in peacetime.
"When people are going out and shooting at each other, an OSHA regulation is the least of their worries," Cherry said.
"If an infantry commander is leading 120 armed infantrymen into combat, he isn't going to worry about DU exposure, he's worried about bullets flying around. He's probably not even aware of OSHA regulations. He's interested in achieving the mission and keeping his soldiers alive. And applying regulations may not help in doing that."
But when pressed, Cherry said the regulation should have applied to Gulf War soldiers.
"After all the shooting is over, and nobody is getting shot at or the battle is won, then we go back to our peacetime posture," he said.
Cherry downplayed health problems tied to the radioactivity. He said depleted uranium's heavy metal properties - it is twice as dense as lead - are the primary concern, and those hazards were minimal in the gulf.
Other experts say the long-term effects of radiation exposure represent the greatest health concern.
Cherry's statements stunned veterans advocates.
"It seems the Army thinks it can disregard safety measures on a whim, or if they're inconvenient," said Dan Fahey, author of "Case Narrative: Depleted Uranium Exposures," a 1998 report on Gulf War health hazards.
"That attitude shows a basic lack of concern for the health and welfare of soldiers," said Fahey, a staff member at Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco veterans' rights group. "That's why we've got more than 100,000 sick Gulf War veterans."
Sullivan, of the National Gulf War Resource Center, said the Army can't pick and choose which regulations it will enforce.
"If you draw out the Pentagon's argument, it would be OK for a commander to ignore every regulation - as long as soldiers don't collapse and die until after they're discharged," he said.
Tons of uranium dust
By the end of the war, 630,000 pounds of depleted uranium dust, fragments and penetrators - the ammunition's spear-shaped projectile - were scattered in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, the Pentagon has said.
New Army training videos advise soldiers to minimize the time they spend around blast sites, maximize their distance, and wear protective clothing, including gas masks if they will be exposed to the dust or debris for more than a few minutes. The video says contaminated dust can be ingested if gloves are not worn, and the dust is not washed off before eating, drinking or using the latrine.
So far, the Pentagon has enrolled Wheat and 32 other veterans and active duty soldiers in a monitoring program at the Baltimore Veterans Affairs Hospital. All of them are friendly-fire survivors.
But the number represents less than one-third of the 113 soldiers involved in friendly-fire incidents.
"That means that 80 vets who the Pentagon has just acknowledged exist have been denied specialized medical care and treatment for the last seven years - for reasons the Pentagon has never explained," Fahey said.
In March, Bernard Rostker, head of the Pentagon's Gulf War Illnesses Office, said the other people "will be contacted and enrolled in the VA program this spring."
But a spokesman in Rostker's office said Wednesday that none has been contacted, because the Pentagon has to notify military hospitals first. The expanded list includes soldiers who were not wounded and those who rushed to the aid of crews.
Rostker also announced plans to extend the monitoring program to soldiers who worked in or around vehicles struck by the ammunition, and to soldiers who took part in the cleanup after an 18-hour fire at the Doha Ammunition Depot in Kuwait.
"A few hundred" affected
"While we don't have a specific count of the number of people (involved), we know that it is likely to be a few hundred, and we will build a more complete list as we notify those whose names we already have," Rostker said.
Fahey said the Pentagon has "grossly underestimated" the number of soldiers involved in those incidents. He estimates the group includes about 4,000 people, based on the number of soldiers stationed at Doha and those downwind of the fire.
Rosalie Bertell, president of the International Institute for Public Health, a nonprofit research center in Toronto, said depleted uranium fires create an aerosol - a fine mist of radioactive particles - that can travel for miles.
"If it does fall to the ground, it can easily go back into the air," said Bertell, an expert on radiation and health. "That's probably the major pathway of exposure for the greatest number of Gulf War soldiers. It would be a miracle if nobody breathed it."
She said exposure may cause cancers, and may also damage marrow if it lodges in bone.
Bertell, an epidemiologist, said its non-cancerous effects - anemia, reproductive problems and an inability to fight infections and tumors - already may be afflicting veterans.
The Pentagon does not plan to provide special screening to soldiers who climbed on contaminated Iraqi equipment or who were stationed downwind from fires.
If Army Regulation 40-5 had been enforced in the gulf, medics would have collected urine samples, nasal swipes and respirator filters from soldiers, and shipped them to an Army lab in Maryland. They would have called the Army Surgeon General in Washington, D.C., to report shrapnel injuries.
Those were the instructions outlined in an Oct. 14, 1993, memorandum to the commander of the American troops in Somalia from Army headquarters.
Col. Eric Daxon, the Army's nuclear science officer, said the instructions reflect lessons learned in the gulf.
Medical screenings
The memo said the Army should do medical screenings on soldiers who inhaled smoke from a depleted uranium fire, worked in a contaminated environment, or were in a vehicle or structure hit with the ammunition.
Daxon said the Army's first priority in the Persian Gulf was saving the lives and limbs of injured soldiers.
"I wouldn't want anything to slow that (emergency medical care) down at all," Daxon said. "Kids dying and kids losing legs - that's not what we're about."
Daxon said the Army didn't plan to do medical testing for depleted uranium exposure during the Gulf War.
"Part of the problem was, we didn't expect to shoot ourselves," Daxon said, referring to friendly-fire incidents.
But a study published before the war said the soldiers at highest risk for exposure were ground troops returning to the battlefield after the ammunition had been fired.
The 1990 study, by an Army contractor, said health hazards linked to exposure - kidney problems and cancer - were manageable only with proper "industrial hygiene controls and monitoring, field practice . . . and medical surveillance."
Wheat, who was healthy when the war began, fell ill a few months after. He suffers from periodic weight loss, severe abdominal, joint and body pain, fatigue, respiratory problems, migraines and a tumor in his shoulder.
He said the Albuquerque VA Hospital's diagnosis for his Gulf War ailments is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Cherry said no medical screenings have been done on soldiers deployed to the gulf since the war.
"There simply is no need unless the ammunition is fired," he said.
But Swords to Plowshares' Fahey worries that U.S. soldiers are living and training in contaminated areas. In 1997, training exercises took place in Kuwait at the site of a major Gulf War battle.
"The military decided to leave the area intact to provide a realistic training environment - disregarding the hazards that remain from the use of depleted uranium," Fahey said.
High radioactivity level
The Pentagon's Rostker said 1994 tests of damaged Iraqi tanks in a Kuwaiti storage yard showed high levels of radioactivity at the site where the rounds pierced the armor - but not on the rest of the tank or in the surrounding soil.
Rostker said tests also were done on oil, water and sand throughout Kuwait, and nothing above background levels of radioactivity was found.
"Because of the recent deployment in the gulf, we've asked them to redo the tests - just to make sure," Rostker said. "The best thing about Dan (Fahey) is that he's forcing us to go back and make sure of our facts. And that's good.
"At this point, the concerns he's expressed are not supported by the evidence, but we're looking again." <
This documentary and original investigative report exposes a 19 year secret US government program whose consequence resulted in the needless suffering and deaths of our brave gulf war veterans. Total dead since 1991 — over 75,000. Does anyone care? Could your father, husband, son or daughter be among those our government considers expendable?
Voices of Homeless Veterans
From 1991 to 2003, hundreds of thousands of our bravest men and women sought help from the Veterans Administration, from the Defense Department, from the White House, all to no avail. The official word was that Gulf War Syndrome did not exist. So they suffered in silence. Tens of thousands died from these conditions. Many lost their homes because of the high costs to pay for medical care themselves. Independent investigations, including those conducted by many of the Gulf War veterans themselves, showed multiple causes behind Gulf War Syndrome, including experimental vaccines, exposure to depleted uranium (DU), and toxicity from biological and chemical weapons, oil fires and other environmental contaminants.
The current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are manifesting with an entirely new series of physical and mental illnesses and diseases. Some are being recognized, such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but many others are not. Hundreds of thousands of our veterans are living in destitution, are incarcerated, have attempted or committed suicide, and can no longer fit into a normal family life. And yet the government once again, as it did to previous Gulf War vets, turns its backs on them. This is an American tragedy, and that is where our story begins.
American troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are sinking ever lower into the abyss of the lost and forgotten. Severe depression, confusion and an existential lack of purpose swarms across our armed forces and our government barely notices. We are witnessing annual illness increases in practically every category of physical, emotional and mental health: physical combat injuries, PTSD, brain trauma and depression, impaired immune systems, common and rare cancers, diabetes, reproductive disorders, a wide variety of inflammatory conditions among many other ailments. Over-extended and multiple deployments are shattering soldiers’ and veterans’ lives. The fabric of their social relationships is rapidly deteriorating. Divorce rates and broken homes are commonplace, and a homeward bound ticket is only an assurance many will return as damaged goods, courtesy of our government’s negligence and disregard for human health.
And upon their return to Kansas, away from America’s killing fields in the Middle East, there awaits an economy in collapse under the weight of astronomical federal debt and corporate greed, recessionary unemployment and rising homelessness, hungry children and rampant poverty, and now a new American culture every bit as disoriented and fearful about its future.
Welcome to America’s brave new world of global PTSD!
The Middle East: Healthy In, Broken Out
Before the Vietnam War, the severe psychological conditions warriors’ and soldiers’ experienced on the battlefield went under a variety of names: war neurosis, combat fatigue, neurasthenia, shell shock and others. Today these psychological states have been tossed under the umbrella term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and although GIs are screened to assure mental vitality and stability before deploying into combat, we are experiencing record numbers of servicemen and women returning emotionally and mentally impaired. During no other war, including Vietnam, are GIs as psychically damaged as those now serving and returning from tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. If a veteran does not already experience symptoms of PTSD or any one of a number of neurological and emotional illnesses, he or she will very likely do so in the future. The DoDmedical authorities are ambiguous regarding the reasons for the rising statistics. It has even required the creation of new disorders, like Prolonged Duress Stress Disorder, to reflect mental conditions specific to the current wars, such as those related to duress from two or more extended deployments.
It appears odd that many vets being diagnosed for PTSD, depression and other mental impairments never experienced direct combat. Yet all deployed troops to Afghanistan and Iraq share one thing in common. They have all stood on Middle Eastern soil and breathed and lived in its highly toxic and chemically contaminated environment.
Testimonies from DoD health officials about the rate of serious mental impairment among active-duty GIs and veterans are contradictory. The Army’s top psychiatrist, Brig. General Loree Sutton told Congress that about 17 percent of our troops are on psychiatric medications. However, in later interviews she reduced her estimate substantially to 2-4 percent.[1] Other military officials tout other conflicting numbers giving a clear message that either the military is clueless about the seriousness of mental illness among our troops, or is having one hell of a time keeping their lies in order. As this investigation will outline, there is far greater reason to suspect intentional deception on the DoD’s behalf rather than assume the upper echelons of our military’s health institutions are simply fools unqualified in their roles to oversee the health and well being of our armed forces.
Independent research places the military’s mental health figures much higher. The June 2010 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry published a study of 18,300 Army soldiers screened at 3 and 12 month intervals following deployment in Iraq. The study found that using “the least stringent definition” for PTSD, rates now range between 20 and 30 percent, and depression rates are at 11.5 and 16 percent.[2] Together this accounts for almost a third of our troops now suffering serious functional mental impairment.
Surprising, the Rand Corporation’s own analysis–surprisingly, because Rand has for many years been little more than an obedient lapdog for the Pentagon’s bidding in churning out confounded research and statistics for disreputable motives–conforms closely with the independent study’s results. According to Rand’s 2008 analysis, 300,000 soldiers returning from the Middle East campaigns will experience PTSD and an additional 320,000 will suffer traumatic brain injuries.”[3]
All attempts to conduct accurate analysis is compounded because “the Veterans Health Administration systematically delays and denies sick veterans medical care and masks it with bogus documentation,” according to an investigation conducted by Nora Eisenberg at City University of New York. In a leaked internal memo from the Deputy Undersecretary for Health Operations and Management, William Schoenhard, the VA is gaming the system thus “diminishing patient [veteran] access to treatment.”[4] There are many thousands of veterans waiting as much as a year to receive diagnosis and treatment for a large variety of physical and mental illnesses. As a consequence, any health statistics for veterans released by the government and military are skewed and grossly underestimate the gravity of veterans’ plight.
As of the final quarter of 2009, over 537,000 among the 2.04 million veterans who have served in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) have sought healthcare from VA facilities. These veterans account for approximately 9 percent of the total 5.7 million Veteran Affairs patient population for all wars and years. According to the Armed Force Health Surveillance Center, veterans with VA healthcare access represent only 28% of all OEF/OIF veterans.[5] Many veterans, such as those serving in the National Guard and many Reservists, which number almost half of all deployed military personnel, do not have VA benefits. Their health conditions remain outside of the VA’s monitoring capabilities.
According to Veterans for Common Sense, veteran medical facilities receive 9,000 new patients per month, 1 new active duty or veteran patient every 5 minutes.[6] A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reports that these figures reflect a far more realistic picture of the casualty figures resulting from America’s combat escapades in the Middle East.[7] The three most common diagnoses are musculoskeletal ailments (joint and spine disorders), mental illness, and a category of 160 ill-defined abnormalities that allude specific diagnosis known as “Symptoms, Signs and Ill-Defined Conditions.” These conditions comprise 52 percent, 48 percent and 46 percent respectively for the over half million OEF and OIF vets in the latest VA health care utilization report.[8] Although no less than 244,000 veterans have been diagnosed with a mental illness and an additional 144,000 with PTSD,[9] the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration are making every effort to limit cases of PTSD to behavioral diagnosis and to keep it distant from the far greater health threat of environmental toxins permeating the Afghanistan and Iraqi landscapes.
The fumes of cover-ups and scandals arise when we repeatedly hear the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs agencies refusing to acknowledge potential organic causes, for example, the long-term exposure to neurological toxic chemicals and heavy metal particles, such as depleted uranium (DU), strewn by the winds over the sands of Afghanistan and Iraq, for PTSD and other common mental illnesses. Active and non-active duty persons visiting VA clinics and hospitals for mental and emotional complaints are not tested for any chemical toxicity that might be interfering with normal brain function. Because the DoD and VA refuse to associate DU poisoning as a possible cause behind the onset of PTSD, and continues to propagandize the safety of depleted uranium, such testing is discerned to be unwarranted.
In the meantime, the military and VA clinics have succeeded in building a medical assembly, a flowing treadmill pushing through soldiers and veterans from short standardized examination to an arrow pointing the way to the pharmacy.
Homeward Bound to Nothing
The nation’s dire recession and lack of jobs is one significant contributor to rising homeless among veterans. As of March 2010, veterans from the OEF and OIF campaigns officially faced a 14.7 unemployment rate, 5 points above the Department of Labor’s estimated national average.[10] However, actual unemployment statistics repeatedly show almost a doubling of national unemployment after hidden populations of those no longer receiving benefits, unqualified to receive benefits, or people holding down minimum wage part-time jobs are accounted for; therefore we can realistically predict over a quarter of vets are now unemployed. A National Alliance to End Homelessness study calculated one out of four veterans are homeless.[11] The National Coalition for the Homeless figures are still greater at 33 percent and 1.5 million veterans are now at high-risk to become homeless “due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing.”[12] What is absent from these equations is the large number of veterans physically and/or mentally incapable of seeking and holding a job.
The Department of Veterans’ Affairs estimates 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night;[13] however, more independent analysis shows the figure can be as high as 300,000,[14] and upwards to 840,000 veterans will experience homelessness during the course of a year. But the actual number is certainly higher. Incidences of AWOL are increasing as more and more OEF and OIF soldiers run away from redeployment, often to seek reliable treatment for PTSD and mental illnesses the military ignores in order to sustain troop levels in combat zones. Homelessness then becomes a viable option to avoid capture.
The majority of homeless veterans now suffer from some type of mental illness, including PTSD, and about 76 percent are struggling with substance abuse. In a report found in the September 2009 issue of Management Science, the journal of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, a minimum of 35% returning Iraq vets are anticipated to have PTSD. The VA system is unable to meet the demand, and there is a backlog of over 1 million and rising claims for Veteran Benefits.[15] Yet even when claims are met, the standard compensation for a positive PTSD diagnosis is only $67 a month and free medications. Veterans Affairs claims 97 percent of homeless vets are men, however, a separate report from the National Coalition for the Homeless finds female vets with PTSD and traumatic brain injury more likely to become homeless.[16] Women are enrolling in VA programs in record numbers. There have been 230,000 women, 11 percent of military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in the VA’s files. As of 2009, 66 percent seeking care were under 30 years and 60 percent were evaluated with PTSD. Equally traumatic are the high incidences sexual harassment women are subject to. In 2008, one in five women screened through the system experienced military sexual trauma.[17]
Divorce and broken homes are extremely high among today’s returning veterans. Rachel Feinstein who directs the residential care center New Directions for homeless vets in West Los Angeles has stated that “what’s unique about the men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan is that they’re not able to integrate with their family.”[18] The city of Los Angeles leads the nation for urban areas with over 27,000 homeless veterans in its streets. In Florida, with the third highest rate of veteran homelessness, local coalitions estimate 19,000 veterans are without a roof over their heads on any given night. In order to deal squarely with the growing number of veterans with serious physical and mental illnesses filling our urban and rural areas, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government estimates the VA will need to double its budget to keep abreast of veteran health needs.
Why the Epidemic in Military and Veteran Suicides?
Political activist and journalist David Swanson offers one of the more poignant reasons for rising suicides among our troops and veterans, “US troops are increasingly killing themselves, perhaps in part because they have no better idea than the sentators who fund the slaughter what its purpose is.”[19]
Active duty GI and veteran suicides have skyrocketed so dramatically that even major news sources are compelled to report it. June 2010 witnessed the highest rate of active duty suicides on record, one per day.[20] What the major media stories don’t tell us is that traumatized and mentally impaired soldiers are dangling for survival on a thin thread of lethal cocktails of antidepressants, benzodiazepines, antiepileptics, atypical psychoactive medications, and a variety of pain drugs. In an earlier study of nearly 1,000 active duty suicide attempts, over a third of the soldiers were on psychoactive drugs.
Veteran suicide rates are much higher and have reached 18 per day. This accounts for 20 percent of the nation’s annual 30,000 suicides.[21] One out of seven suicide attempts will be successful. But suicide prevention hotlines provide a more chilling scenario: 10,000 calls per month and 400 per month requiring immediate rescue efforts.[22]
Since only 5 of 18 veterans are under direct VA care, it is very likely more veterans are taking their lives than is being reported. Moreover, the military has already established a past record of reporting some suicides, such as an overdose when a soldier is thoroughly doped up on a cocktail of prescribed medications, as death by natural causes. Official figures, therefore, greatly underestimate the truth underlying the suicide epidemic.
Government and military psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers are not knowledgeable enough in treating the seriousness of many mental conditions. Navy Commander Mark Russell, a mental health specialist, found that almost 90 percent of psychiatric staffs servicing veterans have no formal training in PTSD therapies. Within the active duty ranks, the bottom line for treatment has been indiscriminate, multiple drug prescriptions. A startling 98 percent of military personnel seeking assistance for mental complications are simply being drugged and returned to their units.[23]
Dr. Peter Breggin, one of our nation’s foremost experts about the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs being given to numerous active duty military personnel and veterans, has documented that these drugs can produce the same mental disturbances that define PTSD, such as hyperarousal, insomnia and paranoia. Furthermore, many psychotropic drugs have been proven to increase risks of suicide and some are under litigation for this reason. In the civilian population, approximately 33 percent of psychiatric hospital admissions are due to adverse drug reactions.[24]
Among the more common antidepressants prescribed by military and VA mental health practitioners are Paxil, Prozac, the mood stabilizer Klonopin, Neurontin (an anti-convulsive not indicated for PTSD but given anyway), and the controversial Seroquel, which has been associated with increased psychosis, the onset of diabetes, heart attacks and sudden death. There are now 26,000 lawsuits against AstraZeneca, the maker of Seroquel, in civil courts. Risperdal, a potent brain chemistry changing drug given for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and certain autisms, is also being dispensed to make soldiers “fit” for combat. Neither Seroquel or Risperdal have been approved for treating PTSD, and both are under Congressional investigation for being over-prescribed for unapproved mental conditions.[25] There are now reports of soldiers taking up to a dozen different meds at any given time.
A recent study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs discovered that veterans from the current Afghan and Iraq wars are more likely to commit suicide by violent means. In fact, the University of Michigan researcher publishing the study found violent suicide deaths, particularly by firearms, are now most common.[26] This is a trend never before witnessed among active duty personnel and veterans from previous wars. It is also a trend that finds a parallel in the large number of veterans arrested for violent crimes, serving prison terms or on correctional probation.
Penny Coleman, a widow of a veteran who committed suicide, has been investigating suicide and crime rates among all war veterans. Although accurate numbers of veterans now in correctional institutions are unavailable, it is estimated that in 2007, there were 703,000 under supervision and approximately 1.2 million vets arrested.[27]
And once released from prison, marked as a felon, there is little chance a job awaits them during a severe recession. The street or forests, therefore, become their best options.
It’s the Toxins, Stupid!
The simple fact is, unless you are fully garbed in state-of-the-art protective gear 24/7, your risks of developing any one or more of a variety of cancers, having neurological brain damage giving rise to any number of symptoms similar to PTSD, depression and mental impairment, and loss of reproductive function multiples many fold as soon as you touch down in the Middle East. One soldier who was struggling with terminal colon cancer described the environment he was stationed as a toxic dump of “oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and a sulfuric acid factory” all polluting the air.[28]
During the first Gulf War, at least 320 tons of DU were released across the deserts. According to Prof. Malcolm Hopper’s calculations at the University of Sunderland in the UK, the actual death toll of American and British troops during the campaign, which saw only a tiny number of combat-related deaths, is now about 21,000. While these figures go unreported, Hopper contributes the cause of death “due not just to DU exposure but to the astounding amounts of organophosphate poisoning from various toxins (or supposedly anti-toxins) given to the troops as preventive medicine.”[29] However, according to the last VA report in February 2008–the Gulf War Veterans Information System–the government lists the actual veteran death toll from Gulf War illness at over 75,000.[30]
Dr. Doug Rokke, a retired Major who served as the Director of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project in the mid-90s, and a specialist in uranium clean-up efforts, has been an advisor for DU science and health to the CDC, US Institute of Medicine, Congress and the DoD. Rokke has been at the forefront in efforts to alert health and military officials about DU’s enormous health risks. After Operation Desert Storm, he was the officer in charge of cleaning up the mess and assessing environmental risks due to the invasion. During the course of his mission, Rokke said, he received an order, the Los Alamos Memorandum, “which was a direct order to lie in all the reports about the health and environmental effects from uranium munitions in order to sustain their use and avoid all liability.” Throughout his months in Saudia Arabia in clean up efforts, Rokke and his team received “numerous orders to provide medical care and numerous orders to ignore them and numerous orders to lie, cheat, steal and do whatever you have to do.”[31]
Dr. Rokke is now convinced that the DoD’s own reports stating that almost 20 percent of active duty personnel in the current military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq are non-deployable because of severe illness, is the direct result from prolonged exposure to the toxic swamp that has become the middle east. He has also observed in his research that with respect to the causes of death among OEF and OIF personnel for medical reasons, there is a surprising proportionality with the medical causes of death among veterans from the first Gulf War. What GIs from both campaigns share is their high exposure to chemical toxicity, multiple toxic vaccines, and in particular depleted uranium.[32]
During the Bush-Cheney freedom wars, depleted uranium tonnage used in Iraq increased 5-fold to over 1500 tons. Iraq’s environment minister claims there are 350 sites contaminated with DU from bombing campaigns.[33] Once detonated, these highly toxic munitions radiate oxidized nano-size radioactive uranium particles in a gaseous state that infiltrate the lungs, digestion system and skin of anyone coming in contact with Iraq’s environment.
The nuclear chemist Marion Falk was a member of the Manhattan Project. While employed at the National Laboratory at Livermore, he developed the “particle theory” about how DU affects human DNA and RNA. Based on Fulk’s research of DU-related malignancies, and later research conducted by Dr. Alexandra Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in 2001, the Pentagon has known for almost 2 decades about DU’s serious disease and reproductive risks, especially in its nano-form, which reacts differently in the human body and is far more toxic than in its natural isotope.[34]
The US Department of State’s fact sheet for the health effects of depleted uranium continues to state that it “poses no serious health risks,” that it “has not affected the health of Gulf War veterans,” and that “depleted uranium does not cause birth defects.” The US government wants us to believe that the epidemic in genetic deformities and still births among Iraqi children is due to “Iraqi military use of chemical and nerve agents in the 1980s and 1990s.”[35] Per the question of whether or not DU causes cancer, the State Department reassures us by citing only a single study of uranium workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory between 1943-1947 who showed no observable increase in cancer. Moreover, more recent clinical studies relied upon by the DoD to deny DU’s health risks have been conducted in rat experiments and studies with soldiers injured by DU-containing shrapnel, rather than the more widespread form of oxidized DU as inhaled or swallowed atmospheric nano-particles.
Investigative journalist and scholar Robert Koehler notes there is a grave problem in the government’s DU argument. Afghanistan is now experiencing a gradual and steady increase in abnormal birth defects, not dissimilar to those escalating throughout Iraq (infants and still births born without limbs, numerous tumors, deformed genitalia, etc.). Afghanistan has nothing to do with Sadaam’s biological and chemical weaponry, but more likely has everything to do with the 600 tons of DU munitions the US and its British allies launched to destroy al-Qaeda strongholds and eradicate the Taliban. Although the US government continues to deny using DU munitions in its Afghanistan campaign, a classified manual to NATO was recovered by the Bundeswehr’s Center for Communications in Germany in 2005 acknowledging that DU-core weapons were used in US aircraft and armor piercing incendiary weapons.[36]
Dr. Rokke draws attention to a little known physician guideline distributed by the US Department of Veteran Affairs known as the Commission’s Guide to Veteran Specific Issues. The manual gives complete acknowledgement of the health problems related to depleted uranium exposure. Among the symptoms–some similar to those being diagnosed as PTSD and other mental illnesses–are “sleep problems, mood swings, symptoms in the upper and lower respiratory system, neuropsychological symptoms including memory loss, chronic fatigue, immune dysfunction syndrome, skin rashes, unusual hair loss, aching joints, headaches, abdominal pains, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, all of the female problems related to menstrual disorders” explosive diarrhea and constipation, all the neurological system disorders such as numbness in limbs, multiple chemical sensitivity and birth defects.”[37] So, while there is unquestionable evidence that the government is fully aware that hundreds of pounds of DU tonnage used to ravish Afghanistan and Iraq is a leading cause for the numerous medical complaints and diseases erupting within our armed forces, its public face is to completely deny this very fact.
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, at the Uranium Medical Research Center in Canada, sent a team in 2002 to examine soil and urine samples for uranium among Afghani civilians. His findings were startling. “Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium internal contamination” and results were 100-400 times greater than levels found in veterans from the first Gulf War. When BBC interviewed Dr. Durakovic, he stated that the most disturbing discovery is that in the absence of multiple oil fires and pesticide use, and no known experimental vaccines, such as the experimental squalene-laced anthrax vaccine given to Desert Storm personnel, the same symptoms were emerging among Afghanis as were among veterans from the Gulf War.[38] In a further study testing deployed soldiers from the 442nd Military Police Company, Durakovic discovered several had traces of another uranium isotope, U-236, which is only produced in a nuclear reaction process.”[39] This is another highly dangerous form of uranium being used in the Middle East that the Pentagon has been hiding from American citizens and our troops.
In her testimony to the International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan, Leuren Moret, a former geologist for Livermore Laboratories and an expert on DU’s health and environmental impact, stated “It is estimated that one millionth of a gram [of DU] accumulating in a person’s body would be fatal. There are no known methods of treatment.”[40] According to radiation expert Dr. Rosalie Bertell, who has consulted for the DoD, “each tiny milligram [radioactive uranium] shoots about 1,251,000 powerful radioactive bullets a day with a range of about 20 cells of the human body for thousands or even billions of years.”[41] And let there be no mistake, depleted uranium is only “less than one half of 1 percent of the uranium isotope 235,” the isotope used for making a nuclear bomb.[42]
There are many independent studies about depleted uranium’s effects on the health of renal and liver functions, DNA mutagenesis leading to diverse cancers, and the skeletal, gastrointestinal, reproductive, cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Yet very few studies have been conducted on the human health dangers after depleted uranium has been ignited at high temperatures following explosion and vaporized into oxidized nanoparticles contaminating atmosphere, soil, water and penetrating the physical body. But what concerns us most for understanding the epidemic of mental illness among servicemen is uranium’s affects on the brain and central nervous system, and its impairment of the immune system that can lead to symptoms veterans often complain about, such as chronic fatigue. Our soldiers willingly admit they are experiencing symptoms of depression and traumatic stress. Their understanding of these mental disturbances follow the official rhetoric from military psychiatrists and health counselors who limit their causes to the shocking experiences and extended periods of duress soldiers encounter during deployment. A possible organic cause, such as chemical or radiological toxicity, is being completely ignored by military physicians and medical staff.
Prolonged exposure to depleted uranium can damage the brain’s cerebellar vermis. Studies show vermis atrophy in over 40 percent of schizophrenics, as well as symptoms such as deep feelings of guilt, anxiety, and paranoia. The vermis is responsible primarily for determining spatial relations, the body’s ability to sense itself in relationship to other people and objects.[43] When damaged or impaired, our sense of space, nearness and distance, becomes distorted. In addition to veterans experiencing flashbacks, reliving traumatic experiences in the war or re-witnessing a horrific event, another PTSD characteristic is hyper-vigilance, the state of constant alertness although the enemy terrorist or potential IED is spatially thousands of miles away. There are no specific studies investigating the vermis’ relationship to abnormal states of hyper-vigilance, however, personal stories by vets reveal repeated patterns of a loss in their spatial reasoning and raises the serious question of DU poisoning.
In one of the most important peer-reviewed summaries on depleted and natural uraniums’ toxicological effects compiled by Duke University and published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, uranium poisoning induces electrophysiological changes in the brain’s hippocampus, the region of the brain partly responsible for memory.[44] When the hippocampus is damaged or undergoes biomolecular stress, one condition that arises can be amnesia; however, only new memories prior to injury are forgotten. Earlier memories nevertheless remain.
Retired Air Force Captain Joyce Riley is the spokesperson for the American Gulf War Veterans’ Association. A career nurse, she flew missions in support of Operation Desert Storm. During an interview Riley shared her data after interviewing 8 veterans serving prison terms for killing members of their families. One vet serving a life sentence in Florida beheaded his wife and sliced up his 13 year old son. According to Riley’s investigations, this vet, as well as the others, were respected citizens in their communities and there was no indication they did not love their wives and children dearly. She suspects the excessive number of mood altering and antipsychotic medications, especially when given in combination with a frequently prescribed statin drug results in transient periods of amnesia. What astonished Riley after her interviews is that each spoke about a period of 3-6 hours where they have no memory of the event.[45] While over medication can be one likely cause for the amnesiac states experienced by these veterans, DU effects upon their hippocampus could equally have contributed to their loss of memory at the time of the crimes.
A recent article in the Navy Times, “Study Links Weak Immune Systems, PTSD,” notes that military personnel diagnosed with PTSD have more compromised immune systems and are “less likely to turn on immune system genes.”[46] The researchers at the University of Michigan Department of Epidemiology simply assume it is a psychological condition that is giving rise to certain changes in biological function, whereas human studies in DU poisoning show consistently genetic mutagenesis associated with immune function impairment. This can lead to such conditions as flu-like illnesses, visual impairment, brain inflammation and hepatic disorders that are also appearing and more and more frequently in vets. This list of symptoms are the same biomarkers the Michigan scientists found among those vets enrolled in their study.
No End in Sight
As long as the White House continues to wage its wars, more radioactive munitions will be utilized and more soil, water, villages and cities will be doomed in a sea of toxicity for many hundreds of years. And as long as the economy remains cowering like a wounded animal, the ready, willing and brave American men and women will embrace the promises and honors bestowed in serving the traditions of the armed forces esteemed past. But that that time when the government truly served and protected the nation’s esteemed military legacy is history.
Today the agenda is to “take the finest and turn them into wretched, sick, pathetic human beings that have to beg for every single thing that they can get,’ says former Captain Joyce Riley. “They go in the strongest and they come out absolutely made to grovel on their knees to get anything from the federal government.”[47]
Clearly there is a sadistic irony that we are implementing on our troops. We are asking our brave men and women in the United States, whether in the reserve, National Guard, or enlisted troops, to serve in dangerous environments including Afghanistan and Iraq. While there, we allow them to be exposed to biological and chemical agents, experimental vaccines, environmental toxins ranging from the byproducts of air pollutants released from burning oil wells to depleted uranium and then, we bring them home, and not only refuse to properly thank or treat them, but even go so far as to deny that their illnesses even exist. For 19.5 years we have denied that Gulf War Syndrome exists. As a result, many of our veterans have gone bankrupt because their conditions are not covered under any government programs for assistance. We are not referring to the rare case; we are referring to hundreds of thousands of human beings.
We achieve high marks for getting our men and women into battle; indeed, we are skilled at entering the conflict. We have failing grades getting them out and treating them for conditions that they suffer on our behalf. It is time to change and improve our grades. One suggestion would be that upon returning to the United States, veterans would stay at small “Re-entry’ centers, established and located in every state. These would be similar to those used to in combat zone, where our veterans would have access to hospitals, counseling centers, quality meals and living quarters. They would have to spend at least two weeks or more, not just going through various stress tests, but authentic, psychological behavioral modification to help them make a transition from a deadly combat zone mindset to a civilian, peaceful mindset. It would be, essentially, a half-way house to help our men and women transition back into society. For individuals suffering from physical or psychological conditions, or a combination of both, they would then be sent to private or public facilities paid for by the government so they do not fall into the current giant vortex and end up either depressed, homeless, living in a tent, sleeping under bridges, going to prison for hitting their spouses, contemplating suicide, and then being forgotten.
The American public has a responsibility to care for these people. Whether you are for or against the war is irrelevant. You must be for the people completely who risk their lives to defend us. We are not doing that, we have not done that, we have failed miserably. It is time to rectify this, to approach Republicans and Democrats alike, and demand that our veterans receive the care and appreciation they have valiantly earned. This is everyone’s problem. They have protected us. It is now our duty to step up and protect them.
Richard Galeis the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotech and genomic industries. Gary Null, PhD is the host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressivedocumentary films, including Prescription for Disaster (2008)and Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own (2007).
NOTES
[1] Edwards, Jim. “Military Use of Antipsychotics Threatens New Headaches for AstraZeneca, J&J” CBS Business Network (BNET). March 25, 2010
[2] Thomas JL, Wilk TJ, Riviere LA, McCurk D, Castro CA, Hoge CW. “Prevalence of Mental health Problems and Functional Impairment Among Active Component and National Guard Soldiers 3 and 12 Months Following Combat in Iraq.” Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010; 67 (6): 614-623
[4] Eisenberg, Nora. “Leaked Internal Memo Shows How VA Systematically Screws Over Wounded Vets to Maintain Performance Grades.” Alternet.org June 20, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/147388/
[5] VA Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards. “Analysis of VA Health Care Utilization among Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans.” February 2010.
[6] Bandzul, Thomas “Rehabilitating Wounded Veterans to Enable Them to Improve Their Health Outcomes” (powerpoint presentation). Veterans for Common Sense. April 10, 2010
[7] Sandels, Alexandra. “US Iraq and Afghanistan War Casualties Top 500,000″ Los Angeles Times. June 24, 2010
[8] VA Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards. Op cit.
[9] Bandzul, Thomas, Op cit.
[10] Houston, Michael “New Veterans Face Record Unemployment” Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. April 2, 2010.
[11] House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “Our Nation’s Veterans: Stopping Suicides and Ending Homelessness” press release. November 16, 2007
[15] Atkinson MP, Wein LM. “A Dynamic Model for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among US Troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom” Management Science. September 2009. http://masci.journal.informs.org/cgi/reprint/55/9/iv
[16] National Coalition for the Homeless. Op cit.
[17] James, Susan. “Traumatized Female Vets Face Uphill Battle” ABC News March 2, 2010
[18] Glanz, Aaron. “Domestic disputes leave Iraq veterans homeless.” National News. June 30, 2007.
[19] Swanson, David. “The Crematorium of Empires.” Opednews.com July 15, 2010.
[20] Zoroya Gregg. “Army Reports Record Number of Suicides for June” USA Today. July 16, 2010
[21] Clifton, Eli. “US Suicide Rate Surged Among Veterans.” IPS News. January 13, 2010.
[22] Bandzul, Thomas Op cit.
[23] “Military Faces Mental Crisis” USA Today. January 17, 2007.
[24] Breggin, Peter. “Driving Soldiers Crazy with Psychiatric Meds.” Huffington Post. May 15, 2010.
[25] Edwards, Jim. Op. cit
[26] Ilgen MA, Conner KR, Valenstein M, Austin K, Blow FC. “Violent and Nonviolent Suicide in Veterans with Substance Use Disorders” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 71 (4), 473-479
[27] Coleman, Penny. Op. cit
[28] “Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure” Arizona Daily Star November 2, 2007
[29] King, Tim “Israel’s Declining Sperm Quality Tied to Depleted Uranium Exposure.” Countercurrents.org. April. 15, 2010
[30] Interview with Dr. Doug Rokke. “A special investigation on Gulf War Syndrome”. The Gary Null Show. The Progressive Radio Network. Broadcast April 15, 2010
[39] Bollyn, Christopher. “Depleted Uranium Blamed for Cancer Clusters Among Iraq War Vets” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. August 15, 2004. http://www.wagingpeace.org.
[40] Koehler, Robert. “Silent Genocide” Information Clearing House. March 25, 2004.
[41] King, Tim, Op cit
[42]Nichols, Bob. “PTSD, infertility and other consequences of war,” Veterans Today. April 27, 2010.
[43] Sandyk R, Kay SR, Merriam AE. “Atrophy of the cerebellar vermis: relevance to the symptoms of schizophrenia” Int’l Journal Neuroscience. 1991 April 57 (3-4): 205-12.
[44] Craft ES, Abu-Qare AW, Flaherty MM, Garofolo MC, Rincavage HL, Abou-Donia MB. “Depleted and natural uranium: chemistry and toxicological effects,” J Toxicol and Environ Health. 7:297-317, 2004
[45] Interview with Capt. Joyce Riley. “A special investigation on Gulf War Syndrome”. The Gary Null Show. The Progressive Radio Network. Broadcast April 15, 2010
[46] Kennedy, Kelly. “Study Links Weak Immune Systems, PTSD,” Navy Times. May 20, 2010.
While most people trace the dawn of the nuclear era to August 6, 1945, and the dropping of the atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, it really began three weeks earlier, in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, with the top-secret Trinity test. Its sixty-fifth anniversary will be marked -- or mourned, if you will -- tomorrow, July 16.
Entire books have been written about the test, so I'll just touch on one key issue here briefly (there's much more in my book with Robert Jay Lifton, Hiroshima in America). It's related to a hallmark of the age that would follow: a new government obsession with secrecy, which soon spread from the nuclear program to all military and foreign affairs in the cold war era.
In completing their work on building the bomb, Manhattan Project scientists knew it would produce deadly radiation but weren't sure exactly how much. The military planners were mainly concerned about the bomber pilots catching a dose, but J. Robert Oppenheimer, "The Father of the Bomb," worried, with good cause (as it turned out) that the radiation could drift a few miles and also fall to earth with the rain.
Indeed, scientists warned of danger to those living downwind from the Trinity site but, in a pattern-setting decision, the military boss, General Leslie Groves, ruled that residents not be evacuated and kept completely in the dark (at least until they spotted a blast brighter than any sun). Nothing was to interfere with the test. When two physicians on Oppenheimer's staff proposed an evacuation, Groves replied, "What are you, Hearst propagandists?"
Admiral Williams Leahy, President Truman's chief of staff -- who opposed dropping the bomb on Japan -- placed the weapon in the same category as "poison gas." And, sure enough, soon after the shot went off before dawn on July 16, scientists monitored some alarming evidence. Radiation was quickly settling to earth in a band thirty miles wide by 100 miles long. A paralyzed mule was discovered twenty-five miles from ground zero.
Still, it could have been worse; the cloud had drifted over loosely-populated areas. "We were just damn lucky," the head of radiological safety for the test later affirmed.
The local press knew nothing about any of this. When the shock wave had hit the trenches in the desert, Groves' first words were: "We must keep the whole thing quiet." This set the tone for the decades that followed, with tragic effects for "downwinders" and others tainted across the country, workers in the nuclear industry, "atomic soldiers," those who questioned the building of the hydrogen bomb and an expanding arms race, among others.
Naturally, reporters were curious about the big blast, however, so Groves released a statement written by W.L. Laurence (who was on leave from The New York Times and playing the role of chief atomic propagandist which he called the greatest "honor" that could come to a newspaperman) announcing that an ammunition dump had exploded.
In the weeks that followed, ranchers discovered dozens of cattle had odd burns or were losing hair. Oppenheimer ordered post-test health reports held in the strictest secrecy. When W.L. Laurence's famous report on the Trinity test was published just after the Hiroshima bombing he made no mention of radiation at all. Instead he hailed the birth of the atomic age, likening the Trinity blast to God declaring, "Let there be light."
Even as the scientists celebrated their success at Alamogordo on July 16, the first radioactive cloud was drifting eastward over America, depositing fallout along its path. When Americans found out about this, three months later, the word came not from the government but from the president of the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, who wondered why some of his film was fogging and suspected radioactivity as the cause.
Fallout was absent in early press accounts of the Hiroshima bombing as the media joined in the triumphalist backing of The Bomb and the bombings. When reports of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki afflicted with a strange and horrible new disease emerged, General Groves, at first, called it all a "hoax" and "propaganda" and speculated that the Japanese had different "blood." Then the military kept reporters from the West from arriving in the atomic cities, until more than a month after the blasts, when it controlled access in an early version of today's "embedded reporters" program.
When some of the truth about radiation started to surface in the US media, a full-scale official effort to downplay the Japanese death toll -- and defend the decision to use the bomb -- really accelerated, including the deep-sixing of footage of the survivors shot by an American film crew, leading to an effective decades-long "Hiroshima Narrative." But that's a story for another day.
Greg Mitchell, former editor of Nuclear Times, writes the new MediaFix blog for The Nation, where this first appeared. He is co-author with Robert Jay Lifton of "Hiroshima in America." Email: epic1934@aol.com Twitter: @gregmitch
2-15. Multinational operations planning requires that the staff be aware of the environmental constraints placed on multinational operations by international agreements applicable to U.S. forces. Military material restrictions, such as limitation on depleted uranium ammunition, may also limit the method by which U.S. forces conduct multinational operations. Additionally, the military must consider foreign nation cultural and historical sensitivities as a factor in planning multinational operations. Many international forces with which U.S. forces operate may have different standards for integrating environmental considerations. U.S. forces will have to coordinate and sometimes assist multinational forces in integrating environmental considerations to ensure consistent standards and levels of protection for the environment, the civilian population, and deployed Soldiers and Marines.
scrivo alla S.V. poiché ancora giace un silenzio sinistro ed insostenibile sui nostri uomini caduti con tutta probabilità a causa dell’utilizzo dell’uranio impoverito nelle missioni di pace nelle quali abbiamo partecipato con spirito di sacrificio, abnegazione. Valore umano e professionale riconosciuto a livello Internazionale. Faccio presente alla S.V. che vi sono tantissime famiglie lasciate completamente sole che oltre al dolore subiscono il dramma e la beffa del loro Stato che in dieci anni ancora non è riuscito a mettere una parola “fine” al caso dell’UI.
Figli d’Italia che giurano ad una Bandiera e se questa è la risposta questo tricolore sembra non avere più significato.
Come è possibile che dopo tanti anni ancora non vi sia chiarezza?
Come è possibile lasciare sole le famiglie dei sopravvissuti che si caricano di spese insostenibili?
Come risarcire chi non ce l’ha fatta, ammesso che si possa quantificare in denaro una vita di un giovane caduto per la nostra pace?
Come la S.V. ben saprà l’UI è una sostanza radioattiva e tossica principalmente costituita dall’isotopo U-238 contenente una piccola percentuale dell’isotopo fissionabile U-235. Anche se la sua radioattività è il 40% in meno dell’uranio fissile, è sempre ben 60 volte più radioattivo del materiale che si trova in natura. Una proprietà caratteristica dell’UI di cui poco si parla è la piroforicità: si tratta della capacità dell’UI di autoincendiarsi a temperatura ambiente in determinate condizioni e di innescare incendi. E anche se non s’incendia perde in un anno lo 0.5 della sua massa.
Le emissioni dell’UI sono date principalmente da particelle “alfa” che per certi versi sono più insidiose dei “gamma” dell’uranio 235 perché possono essere respirate e non vengono segnalate dai contatori Geyger.
I danni provocati dell’UI, o meglio dalle radiazioni da questo emesso, sono di tipo cancerogeno, mutagenico-genotossico. Inoltre leucemie, tumori, malformazioni.
I soldati americani parlano del “Metallo del Disonore”; noi abbiamo decine e decine di soldati che attendono verità e giustizia.
Le morti dei militari colpiti da queste sindromi tumorali si assomigliano tutte, ma non sono state finora riconosciute ufficialmente. Questi mali portano alla morte, ma la morte non porta al riconoscimento della causa di servizio: NESSUN RISARCIMENTO.
Perchè a chi parte per certi teatri di guerra si consiglia “caldamente” di: “astenersi dal procreare nei successivi 3 anni dal rientro dalla missione?”.
Perché in tempi di ristrettezze economiche non si istituisce un fondo che garantisca le cause di servizio a tutti quei militari che s’ammalano nello “svolgimento del loro dovere” e compriamo meno “aerei”?
Perchè non istituire una Commissione Interministeriale (Difesa -- Lavoro -- Salute -- Esteri)?
Perchè la S.V. non si fa promotore di una Commissione a livello Europeo per accertare cosa sia accaduto anche agli altri uomini e figli d’Europa?
Da un uomo di Destra, da un Ministro di Destra ci aspettiamo ed esigiamo verità, coraggio e determinazione Sig. Ministro.
Ci aspettiamo che da domani queste nostri uomini che giurano fedeltà alla Patria ed al Tricolore abbiano semplicemente la Giustizia ed il Rispetto dovuto.
Da parte Nostra, Sig. Ministro, sia certo che non caleremo mai il sipario su questa “tragedia di Stato”.
Sicuro che la S.V. leggerà queste poche ma significative righe, sono certo che farà quanto necessario per questi uomini della Patria e che la questione non ls lascerà indifferente.
L’occasione mi è gradita per inviare alla S.V. distinti saluti.
Maurizio Guarino Presidente Nazionale e Fondatore Associazione Politico Culturale “Destra Razionale – Sapere Aude” Coordinatore Nazionale “Alleanza Europea”
Uranio impoverito. La verità. Giulia Di Pietro intervista Falco Accame
Edito da Malatempora, 2006
101 pagine, € 10,00
ISBN 8884250366
di Falco Accame, Giulia Di Pietro Compra su IBS.it
Presente nel Centro di Documentazione
Quarta di copertina
La verità sull’uranio impoverito, criminale prodotto della guerra, ma anche della disonestà di chi produce e per la guerra e per la pace, grida in queste righe di uno dei grandi vecchi del nostro sentire civile. E’ il generale Falco Accame, forse unico che nelle forze armate, e poi da parlamentare e poi da cittadino si sia battuto per la verità dell’agghiacciante mortifero uranio impoverito che, silenzioso e implacabile, uccide. Mentre i media fingono, tacciono, distorcono, sottovalutano. Mentre la commissione parlamentare che per anni ha cercato di tirar per le lunghe è arrivata a conclusioni vergognose, che insultano le molte, molte morti che esso ha prodotto, produce e produrrà, se non sarà fermato.
Dopo la vergogna di Marghera, questa dell’uranio impoverito è l’altra grande vergogna italiana la più terribile delle menzogne all’italiana. Recensione
«La contaminazione con la polvere UI inquina cibo ed acqua. Non mangiate assolutamente cibo non controllato. Particelle che fossero state inalate possono causare danni ai tessuti interni nel lungo termine. […] L’UI è un metallo pesante chimicamente tossico e radioattivo». Queste sono le disposizioni di sicurezza per le forze della KFOR operanti nei Balcani del 22 novembre 1999. Queste disposizioni sono arrivate con grande ritardo. I militari statunitensi si erano preoccupati della questione subito dopo la guerra del Golfo, mentre i militari francesi avevano emanato questa disposizione anni prima. Sei lunghi anni sono trascorsi prima che venissero resi noti i rischi da uranio impoverito ai militari e ai civili italiani.
Nel frattempo bisogna tener conto, secondo alcune stime di 40-50 morti e 300 ammalati, secondo altre di 30 morti e 80 ammalati. I dati esatti non sono conosciuti visto che l’UI viene usato anche in territorio italiano per le esercitazioni nei poligoni di tiro. Ulteriore scandalo è causato dalla mancata attuazione della legge che consentirebbe ai malati di usufruire di un indennizzo.
Di fronte a questa vergognosa situazione tutta italiana, interviene il Ministero della Difesa per bocca del suo Ministro Martino, secondo la cui relazione i nostri militari impiegati all’estero non corrono nessun pericolo riguardo all’uranio impoverito, non lo usano loro e non lo usano militari di altri paesi che collaborano con loro.
Una lunga intervista al generale Accame utile per smascherare senza prese di posizioni ideologiche tutte le bugie e le mezze verità raccontate sull’UI.
di Filippo Di Blasi
«Nanopathology» è una parola inventata da me, anche se ora comincia ad essere di uso corrente: significa patologie da micro e nano particelle. Con una macchina di nuovo tipo, un microscopio elettronico di tipo ambientale, non solo riusciamo a individuare delle cose molto piccole, ma anche abbiamo sviluppato una tecnica innovativa per vedere all’interno dei tessuti patologici. Una nuova tecnica di indagine per osservare l’infinitamente piccolo Con questa tecnica riusciamo a vedere cose che sono molto piccole. Siamo abbastanza avvezzi a sentire l’espressione PM10: si tratta delle particelle che non ci fanno girare in auto la domenica e vuol dire 10 micron. Ebbene, in questo momento noi stiamo lavorando con particelle che sono più piccole di un micron, che si avvicinano ai nanometri (siamo arrivati fino a dieci nanometri): sono le dimensioni delle proteine e dei virus, quindi stiamo lavorando con qualcosa che è veramente molto piccolo. Perché ne parliamo? Perché effettivamente in questo modo riusciamo a vedere dei corpi estranei all’interno dei tessuti patologici.
L’uranio impoverito produce nanopolveri che entrano irreversibilmente nell’organismo umano Fonte: www.cadu.org.uk
Dall’uranio impoverito all’analisi dei tessuti Quando scoppiò il caso dell’uranio impoverito, mi dissi: se c’è dell’uranio, andiamo a vederlo all’interno dei tessuti patologici, perché solo così si può dimostrare una correlazione tra l’uranio e la patologia eventualmente sviluppata. Se sta fuori, questo tipo di uranio impoverito non dà grossi problemi. Ho potuto analizzare il midollo, un pezzetto di fegato, un colon, un polmone, delle sezioni di campioni biologici. In alcuni casi ho avuto più campioni dello stesso paziente; per esempio, midollo, sperma e sangue. Nelle biopsie sono state trovate particelle tonde. E’ importante soffermarsi sulla forma rotondeggiante: lo scienziato dei materiali sa che le forme rotondeggianti provengono da combustioni ad altissima temperatura. A duemila gradi vengono prodotte insolite particelle Queste particelle, a mio avviso, si presentano strane. E’ stata rinvenuta nel tratto digestivo, nello stomaco, una particella di zirconio rotondeggiante, anzi tondissima, di 50 micron, quindi abbastanza grande. Trovare nell’ambiente una particella di zirconio così tonda è tecnicamente difficile. Lo zirconio, infatti, ha un’altissima temperatura di fusione e la rotondità della particella relativa al caso che sto illustrando è necessariamente dovuta ad una temperatura superiore almeno ai 2.000 gradi. Oltre i duemila gradi: cosa accade con la combustione dell’uranio impoverito Ho avuto modo di leggere il rapporto annuale del 1977 della base militare di Eglin, in Florida, nel quale sono stati valutati gli effetti sull’ambiente dell’esplosione di una bomba all’uranio impoverito. Gli americani fecero esplodere simili bombe nel deserto del Nevada per raccogliere poi elementi di uranio impoverito che, in realtà, non furono trovati. Vennero invece raccolti i prodotti della combustione determinata dall’uranio impoverito. Quando esplodono, bombe di questo tipo creano temperature superiori ai 3.000 gradi che fondono tutto ciò che si trova nel crogiuolo. Il rapporto della base statunitense ha dimostrato che le particelle rinvenute da quelle esplosioni avevano una forma perfettamente rotondeggiante, mentre la loro composizione chimica era determinata ovviamente dai materiali fusi presenti nel crogiuolo. Nel deserto del Nevada c’era solo sabbia, ma in una zona di guerra le esplosioni fanno fondere i materiali presenti (ad esempio, parti di un carro armato), creando quindi un inquinamento ambientale in cui si rilevano tutti gli elementi soggetti alla combustione avvenuta. Se si bombarda una raffineria o una fabbrica di armi, dall’esame dei residui della combustione che segue le esplosioni si possono individuare tutti i composti chimici presenti al momento del bombardamento. Il rapporto sulla base di Eglin già nel 1977 poneva l’accento sulle polveri create da questo tipo di esplosioni, le cui dimensioni erano al di sotto del micron. Il sito governativo dal quale era possibile reperire il rapporto è stato oscurato. Le nanoparticelle tondeggianti Esaminando il caso di un tumore della pleura abbiamo trovato piccolissime particelle di antimonio. Da una biopsia polmonare è risultata la presenza di tungsteno, materiale utilizzato nella produzione di lampadine: ritrovarlo all’interno di un polmone non è assolutamente normale. Nel caso di un linfoma di Hodgkin è stata rinvenuta una particella molto particolare perché composta da fosforo, cloro, piombo e cromo. E’ importante ricordare tale composizione per verificare non solo le problematiche di salute riferite all’uranio impoverito, quanto anche quello di indagare sui soggetti che abitano le zone limitrofe al poligono di Salto di Quirra in Sardegna. E il piombo è tossico. Ricordo, ad esempio, che nel XVIII secolo a Venezia esisteva una scuola di vetrai che produceva bellissimi vetri al piombo, attualmente esposti nei musei; ebbene, tutte le persone che operavano in quella scuola sono decedute in maniera anomala per via degli effetti tossici del piombo. Dalla biopsia del midollo osseo di un altro soggetto è stato rinvenuto anche del titanio, mentre abbiamo esaminato il caso di un soldato sminatore, che faceva cioè brillare gli armamenti nemici, al quale è stato diagnosticato un cancro della prostata. Dagli esami effettuati è risultata la presenza di notevoli quantità di metalli pesanti (bismuto, ferro, cobalto e tungsteno). In letteratura è risaputo che i metalli pesanti sono cancerogeni. Dalle immagini relative alle cellule esaminate è possibile notare che la loro forma è sempre rotondeggiante. Numerosi sono stati i casi in cui abbiamo rinvenuto particelle di acciaio, e quindi piombo, di antimonio misto a cobalto, lega che prima non conoscevo, pur lavorando nel settore dei biomateriali da molti anni. Ho ritrovato questo tipo di lega in un soldato americano che ha operato nella prima guerra del Golfo. E’ strano. Io non ho delle risposte. Ho solo delle evidenze.
… … … …
Dott.ssa Antonietta Gatti
Note: Riduzione dell’audizione tenuta il 18 maggio 2005 davanti alla commissione parlamentare di inchiesta presso il Senato della Repubblica. Titolazione e adattamento a cura di Alessandro Marescotti. Il testo integrale è reperibile presso http://www.senato.it/ Articolo originale in http://italy.peacelink.org/
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