Iraq Getting Worse; 11 More Dead Today, Over 300 This Year Alone

i'm going along with the other stuff you said...but i guess what i meant was that are these really attributable to america or are they attributable to no saddam? there is a significant difference there.

with that said is it better that he is gone or is it too soon to even tell?

 

ok well how about the most populous places in the world like asia? africa is a trainwreck and will continue to be. there is nothing we can do about it. so much has to change over there it isn't even funny. on the other hand you have a place like china where things are getting better...just a guess but i think its population is greater than africa's. europe isn't the ****hole it was before 1950. you don't have the threats of constant war over there like you did 60 years ago. things have become much better in america too. japan is a much better off place as well. they are no longer a warrior nation that threatens to take over nations like they were 60 years ago.

by more communication i meant the internet. how would we be able to talk to our chinese friends and learn more about china if we didn't have the internet here....just an example. the world is becoming much smaller and information is traveling much faster and its much easier to access. that can only be a positive thing if more communication is going on.

how can you say that people's willingness to start wars has increased in the past 30 years? how long was europe killing itself for before WWII? how about china? how about japan?

then you talk about the advances being for military purposes and to that i say so what. they are being used mostly for civilian purposes.

 

i mean to say that without saddam there then there is no one to come down hard on any dissenters. people were afraid to take action under saddam. with america there they are not afraid to take action and further they have the cause of uniting against america as their rallying cry.

so i guess is it better that this violence is going on now or was it better with saddam in power controlling this crap. is it similar to tito?

 

how many people did polio kill? spanish flu? and other diseases of the early 20th century?

until we had vaccinations for these things were we much more susceptible to them...now we aren't and may more people are living as a result. the same can be said with the development of antibiotics.

now the next major problem to conquer is how to defeat a virus. if we learn that then that could be the next greatest accomplishment in human history...and that is not overstating things.

 

I think the only thing I've *ever* agreed with you about is that Derrick Thomas gets to be on anyone's 10 favorite Alabama players list but this post completely cracked me up...

 

If this becomes common knowledge on the Arab street, I think we'll be even less popular.


http://www.sundayherald.com/40096
Radiation experts warn in unpublished report that DU weapons used by Allies in Gulf war pose long-term health risk
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor


An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium (DU) weapons has been kept secret.
The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.

Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards.

Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.

“Our study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population,” Baverstock told the Sunday Herald.

“There is increasing scientific evidence the radio activity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to human cells than is assumed.”

Baverstock was the WHO’s top expert on radiation and health for 11 years until he retired in May last year. He now works with the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Kuopio in Finland, and was recently appointed to the UK government’s newly formed Committee on Radio active Waste Management.

While he was a member of staff, WHO refused to give him permission to publish the study, which was co-authored by Professor Carmel Mothersill from McMaster University in Canada and Dr Mike Thorne, a radiation consultant . Baverstock suspects that WHO was leaned on by a more powerful pro-nuclear UN body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“I believe our study was censored and suppressed by the WHO because they didn’t like its conclusions. Previous experience suggests that WHO officials were bowing to pressure from the IAEA, whose remit is to promote nuclear power,” he said. “That is more than unfortunate, as publishing the study would have helped forewarn the authorities of the risks of using DU weapons in Iraq.”

These allegations, however, are dismissed as “totally unfounded” by WHO. “The IAEA role was very minor,” said Dr Mike Repacholi, the WHO coordinator of radiation and environmental health in Geneva. “The article was not approved for publication because parts of it did not reflect accurately what a WHO-convened group of inter national experts considered the best science in the area of depleted uranium,” he added.

Baverstock’s study, which has now been passed to the Sunday Herald, pointed out that Iraq’s arid climate meant that tiny particles of DU were likely to be blown around and inhaled by civilians for years to come. It warned that, when inside the body, their radiation and toxicity could trigger the growth of malignant tumours.

The study suggested that the low-level radiation from DU could harm cells adjacent to those that are directly irradiated, a phenomenon known as “the bystander effect”. This undermines the stability of the body’s genetic system, and is thought by many scientists to be linked to cancers and possibly other illnesses.

In addition, the DU in Iraq, like that used in the Balkan conflict, could turn out to be contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive waste . That would make it more radioactive and hence more dangerous, Baverstock argued.

“The radiation and the chemical toxicity of DU could also act together to create a ‘cocktail effect’ that further increases the risk of cancer. These are all worrying possibilities that urgently require more investigation,” he said.

Baverstock’s anxiety about the health effects of DU in Iraq is shared by Pekka Haavisto, the chairman of the UN Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict Assessment Unit in Geneva. “It is certainly a concern in Iraq, there is no doubt about that,” he said.

UNEP, which surveyed DU contamination in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2002, is keen to get into Iraq to monitor the situation as soon as possible. It has been told by the British government that about 1.9 tonnes of DU was fired from tanks around Basra, but has no information from US forces, which are bound to have used a lot more.

Haavisto’s greatest worry is when buildings hit by DU shells have been repaired and reoccupied without having been properly cleaned up. Photographic evidence suggests that this is exactly what has happened to the ministry of planning building in Baghdad.

He also highlighted evidence that DU from weapons had been collected and recycled as scrap in Iraq. “It could end up in a fork or a knife,” he warned.

“It is ridiculous to leave the material lying around and not to clear it up where adults are working and children are playing. If DU is not taken care of, instead of decreasing the risk you are increasing it. It is absolutely wrong.”

 

We liberated them with long term health effects.

 

The long-term implications of DU shells littering the place was reported months ago. If treeman were here (he's in hiding), he could give us a long-winded explanation as to why this is a bogus, liberal inspired Trojan Horse. Perhaps someone else will enlighten us? bama?