An article in The Independent appeared on July 24th, 2010, reporting on the deadly and poisonous after-effects of the United States occupation of Iraq. The report focuses on Fallujah especially, where the rates of infant mortality, cancer, birth defects and leukemia have now surpassed those shown in the survivors of the 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In Fallujah, the study shows “a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait” (1). These effects come in the wake of the US-led assault on Fallujah and are connected with the use of depleted uranium in the weapons of US Marines, as well as white phosphorus and other illegal weapons used by the imperialists.
The major news outlets, of course, are not creating much of a buzz over this genocide against the Iraqis or the fact that our government still supports occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Outright denial of these facts has been the modus operandi of our rulers. The lives of the Iraqis and the citizens of Fallujah have been denied entry into the imperial news. This story came hot on the heels of the famous classified video of US Apache helicopters killing Reuters cameramen in Baghdad being published by Wikileaks, but the media refused to report it.
The reason for this cover-up is that scientific evidence now exists of the genocide against the people of Fallujah and Iraq by the United States. Initial reports of “Gulf War Syndrome” and the epidemics of disease, cancer and birth defects in southern Iraq were at first met with widespread disbelief. However, the facts remain that the United States government is responsible for untold war crimes in the two countries, and many other countries the world over. The US has a long history of using chemical weapons on civilians in war time, as the Korean and Vietnam Wars show, among others. Now, the horrors of the capitalist system are finally, if slowly, being revealed to the world.
Categories: Anti-War, Government, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Iraq, Japan, Second World War, United States History
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