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Depleted Uranium -
Letter To Stars & Stripes

From Karl W B Schwarz
kwbschwarz2@snet.net
4-17-6 
 
On Easter Sunday, I received an email from a person in Tulsa, OK that is not on the list. He has written a letter to the editors of Stars & Stripes.  Like him, I am not holding my breath that Stars & Stripes will run the letter since they like to heap out massive doses of manure for the mushroom soldiers, but it is a worthwhile read.
 
From: nuspl  
 
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 2:20 PM
To: letters@stripes.com
Cc: shanel@stripes.osd.mil
Subject: radiation contamination from DU ordinance, banned weaponry
 
to: The Editor, Stars and Stripes
re: "Study: Depleted uranium could damage DNA" By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, April 15, 2006
 
 
Dear Sirs,
 
 I understand you can only run articles with DoD approval, and that your dedication to the First Amendment for U.S. Military servicemen is therefore hampered, but you need not contribute to the DoD dis-information campaign on DU by publishing its prevaricating defense of DU ordinance.  Nor do you need to support the Pentagon's obstructionist attitude towards a truly independent study of the 35,000 returning Iraq veterans with "ill -defined medical conditions".  Half of those conditions are due to DU exposure in the battle zone; this exposure adds to the mortality rate among returning veterans.  The title of your article should have been: Negligence of Government Costing U.S. Lives -- DU illnesses Swept Under the Rug
 
 At least your article finally broaches the danger of rapid-growth cancerous tumors, due to exposure to DU.  This is evidence that the DoD's methodology in testing for radiation exposure and contamination by DU nano-particles has been the wrong methodology all along.  The paragraph you provide on DoD's own research is based on a methodology that did not even test for the alpha- and beta-particle radiation that is the major source of chromosomal damage in U.S. veterans of foreign war, from DU exposure. The DoD only tests for gamma-radiation in its methodology.  McDermott's bill is therefore the least that can be done for U.S. servicemen, to enable the research to keep up with scientific understanding of both the short-term and the long-term risks these weapons pose to life and limb.
 
I do question some of the quotes you provide from Diane Stearns:  Veterans returning from Iraq, Gulf War I, have been shown to have radioactive particles in their urine even 4-5 years after exposure on the battlefield, including isotopes of man-made U-236, according to Dr. Durakovic (resigned from U.S. army, in protest) and other independent studies.  There is most definitely "radioactivity in people being tested", contrary to Stearns' statement.
 
 There are some gross inaccuracies in the article about the nature of DU ordinance:  The source of the threat is not that bullets are "coated" with uranium; rather, DU penetrator rods are at the core of the major ordinance being used in bombing campaigns, and this ordinance then becomes a radioactive aerosol ("poison gas") upon contact with the target, otherwise leaving radioactive debris around the target, including the ubiquitous ceramic dust that coats servicemen's clothing, should they be exposed to this contaminated environment.
 
 Please follow up this article with an article on the costs to the civilians in Iraq who are exposed to the DU fragments and shards, or DU-destroyed tanks and buildings covered in radioactive dust, which the U.S. in its negligence has failed to clean up, contrary to U.S. military regulations.   Our troops should be aware that the ordinance they are being asked to lock and load is a weapon banned by law, due to the indiscriminate nature of the death and disease that it spreads wherever it is used. 
 
Each of these DU bombs is a "dirty bomb", according to Dr. Rokke (retired / disabled, U.S. army veteran).  U.S. airmen in particular should have the information they need to decide whether they are being asked to commit war crimes each time they launch a DU weapon.  The Air Force should be denouncing the Pentagon's cover-up of the death and disease caused to U.S. servicemen and to innocent bystanders among Iraqi civilians.  If the bombs are "dirty", causing mass illnesses, then U.S. airmen cannot continue to believe the fable that their bombs are "precision" weapons.
 
Until soldiers with a conscience start to speak out against DU and begin to have their views published in your paper, denouncing their commanders' addiction to the use of DU weapons in the battlezone, your paper will not be upholding the principles of the First Amendment.
 
As ever,
T. Nuspl, Ph.D.
in Tulsa, U.S.A.
email: nuspl@cox.net
 
 
Dr. Nuspl is a history professor at the University of Tulsa and actively involved in trying to get Uranium weapons banned.
 
 http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/modules.php?name=ePetitio
ns&op=more_info&ePetitionId=3&show_signers=1&min=300
 
Please sign that petition if you have time.  I did and noticed that there are others on the email update list that have signed it too.
 
What is apparent to me is that a critical mass is being reached where Americans are smelling the BS coming out of Washington, DC and find the odor distasteful.  Rancid usually has that effect on the human senses. 
 
That is as it should be for I also know that the American people are among the greatest on this planet for present and past history.  We have a history of rushing to the aid of others in distress, the most recent examples being the earthquake in Pakistan, the Indonesian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. 
 
It is time for Americans to realize that things are so bad here we need to help ourselves for no one else is going to help.
 
Army Regulation 700-48 requires that all personnel exposed to DU be treated within 24 hours.  They do not and even when the soldiers return home they ignore them.
 
The Post-Deployment Health Assessment, or PDHA, requires the military to tell the soldier what they have been exposed to.  Instead of doing as required they give a questionnaire to the soldiers where the soldier is supposed to tell them the invisible substances that he or she has been exposed to.
 
That is low-life and so typical of our government and the Pentagon.  They are weasels and cowards when it comes to facing the consequences of their conduct.
 
Best regards,
 
Karl
 

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