Populist Advances Economic Reforms Across Latin America
SECOND IN A SERIES ON LATIN AMERICA
By Christopher Bollyn
The economic reforms and nationalist policies being advanced by Hugo Chavez, the populist president of Venezuela, are liberating Latin American nations from the suffocating grip of the international financial oligarchy.
The wide-ranging reforms promoted by Chavez are being financed by the immense oil wealth of Venezuela, the world’s fifth-largest exporter of oil. The year 2006 brought increased state control of Venezuela’s oil production.
Venezuela, with the largest proven oil reserves outside of the Middle East, produces more than 3 million barrels of oil per day. On Jan. 1, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez announced that 32 privately operated oil fields had come under state control with the start of 2006.
In 2001, Venezuela passed a law requiring oil production to be carried out by companies in which the government held the majority share. The deadline for the oil companies to convert their operations to joint ventures in which the state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) has the controlling stake expired at midnight on Dec. 31, 2005.
The oil fields that came under state control on New Year’s Day produce about 500,000 of Venezuela’s declared production of 3.2 million barrels a day. The Venezuelan state could own as much as 90 percent in some of the new ventures, depending on how much the private companies had invested in the field.
The soaring price of crude oil has allowed Chavez to support other nations and economic reforms across the region. From Argentina, for example, Venezuela purchased more than $1 billion in bonds in 2005 and may buy as much as $2 billion more.
“Venezuela has been supporting Argentina in freeing it from International Monetary Fund debt, and we will continue, as much as we can, to help Argentina end its dependence on the IMF,” Chavez said.
The Venezuelan investment allowed Argentina’s President Nestor Kirchner to completely pay off its $9.8 billion debt to the IMF on Jan. 3.
“With this payment, we are interring a significant part of an ignominious past,” Kirchner said.
Many Argentines believe that the IMF was responsible for the disastrous economic policies that caused the financial crisis of 2001 and then abandoned the country to recover on its own.
BANK OF THE SOUTH
Chavez has proposed the creation of a new multilateral bank to free the region from IMF influence and the increasing “dollarization” of the region. He called on Brazil and Argentina to contribute some of their international reserves to help fund the new regional bank.
During a recent speech in Brazil, Chavez called for the creation of the “Bank of the South” to “allow us to manage all this money for our own interests,” he said. “Venezuela would bring a part of its reserves; Brazil would bring a part of its reserves, Argentina, too, and other countries.”
Chavez said South American countries should disinvest from rich countries that “manipulate, lend and make a lot of money off our resources.”
Venezuela’s central bank, for example, sold $10 billion of U.S. bonds and other U.S. assets in the first half of 2005.
“How stupid we’ve been,” said Chavez. The Bolivian president-elect, Evo Morales, met Chavez in Caracas as he began a seven-nation world tour. Morales said he and the Venezuelan president were united in a “fight against neo-liberalism and imperialism.”
Morales and Chavez represent a growing number of Latin American leaders who are opposed to U.S. attempts to impose a “free trade” agreement on the region.
Morales, a Socialist, is the first Bolivian politician to be elected with an absolute majority having won 54 percent of the vote. Morales is also the first Indian to come to power in Bolivia where 85 percent of the population is indigenous.
During the trip, Morales discussed his plans to nationalize Bolivia’s vast natural gas holdings, the second largest in South America. “Hydrocarbons and their nationalization—we’re going to talk about that,” Chavez said as he met Morales at Caracas’s international airport.
If the United States “wants bilateral diplomatic and commercial relations, it will have them, but without submission, without subordination, without conditions and without blackmail,” Morales said in Cuba.
On his return from Cuba, Morales held a private meeting with U.S. Ambassador David Greenlee. Representatives declined to give details.
“We join in the task of Fidel [Castro] in Cuba and Hugo in Venezuela to respond to the needs of the national majorities,” Morales said in Caracas the following day, Jan. 3. “The time of the people has arrived. This is the new millennium of the people.”
“We are going to change Bolivia. We are going to change Latin America,” he said. Chavez referred to the three nationalist presidents as “an axis of good.”
Chavez offered to provide Bolivia with diesel fuel, trade benefits and financial assistance for the social reforms Morales has proposed. Venezuela provides some 200,000 barrels a day of subsidized oil to Cuba and 12 other nations in Central America and the Caribbean Basin.
Chavez said Venezuela would supply 150,000 barrels of diesel fuel monthly to Bolivia. “I won’t accept you paying us a cent, you are going to pay us in agricultural products,” Chavez said.
Venezuela will also donate $30 million to Morales’s government following his Jan. 22 inauguration, Chavez said. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed a proposal from Chavez to develop three-way cooperation between Tehran, Caracas and La Paz on energy.
Chavez proposed cooperation in the field of oil and gas and asked Iran to supply Bolivia with the technical assistance required to help the Morales government nationalize its oil and gas industry. Morales said he intends to nationalize Bolivia’s vast natural gas holdings but not touch foreign oil and gas companies.
“I don’t want to prejudice anybody. I don’t want to expropriate or confiscate any wealth,” Morales said on a recent trip to Santa Cruz, the center of Bolivia’s gas production. “I want to learn from the businessmen.”
(Issue #3, January 16, 2006)
Link: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/chavez_influence_growing.html
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
The Global March of Islamic Banking
By Phar Kim Beng
Next month Birmingham, the home of one of the United Kingdom's largest Muslim communities, will become the headquarters of the Islamic Bank of Britain; in London, there is already an Islamic stock brokerage. The spread of Islamic banking and finance throughout the world may not provide the exciting headlines that result from extremist Islamist terrorism, but it is arguably of farther-reaching importance - and enjoys the support of the Koran itself.
Islamic banking operations now exist in about 100 countries, with an estimated US$300 billion in assets, and are growing at 10-15% a year, according to Gohar Bilal, a former visiting scholar at the Islamic Legal Studies program of Harvard Law School.
Like any bank that complies with Islamic law, the new bank in Birmingham will not pay or charge interest on its transactions. Naturally, it will also appeal for its business primarily to European Muslims, who number nearly 2 million in Britain alone.
This is not to say that non-Muslim banks are ignoring this market. For example, Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp (HSBC) in England already offers pension and home-loan schemes and a stockbroking service that comply with Islamic law (Sharia).
Still, the introduction of Islamic banking in Europe is tentative at the moment, meaning that it will at first focus on high-net-worth customers so as to recoup investments as soon as possible. In the long run, however, given the growth of the Muslim community in Europe, and the fact that non-Muslims will not be excluded from these services, Islamic banking and finance could turn out to be a useful bridge across societal gaps.
The growth of Islamic banking might seem remarkable in the context of the current image of Islam as an atavistic religion of terror and violence, a condition aggravated by the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the world watched in horror the acts perpetrated by the extremists. Indeed, Muslims themselves have for decades ignored the advances in Islamic banking, distracted by ideologues bent on creating Sharia-compliant states.
Yet Islamic banking is no less important than Islamic law at the state level, as it was mentioned in the Koran in four different revelations. According to Professor Muhammad Ariff of the Malaysia Institute of Economic Research (MIER): "The first revelation emphasizes that interest deprives wealth of God's blessings. The second revelation condemns it, placing interest in juxtaposition with wrongful appropriation of property belonging to others. The third revelation enjoins Muslims to stay clear of interest for the sake of their own welfare. The fourth revelation establishes a clear distinction between interest and trade, urging Muslims to take only the principal sum and to forgo even this sum if the borrower is unable to repay. It is further declared in the Koran that those who disregard the prohibition of interest are at war with God and His Prophet."
A pioneering effort led by Ahmad El Najjar took the form of a savings bank based on profit-sharing in the Egyptian town of Mit Ghamr in 1963. This experiment lasted until 1967, by which time there were nine such banks in the country. These banks, which neither charged nor paid interest, invested mostly by engaging in trade and industry, directly or in partnership with others, and shared the profits with their depositors. Thus they functioned in essence as saving-investment institutions rather than as commercial banks. The Nasir Social Bank, established in Egypt in 1971, was declared an interest-free commercial bank, although its charter made no reference to Islam or Sharia.
Islamic banking has been adopted at the national level in Pakistan, Sudan and Iran, and those countries have decided to Islamize the whole of their banking systems. In Malaysia, where progressive Islamization is being carried out, total assets of the Islamic banking industry rose by $3.5 billion or 20.8% to $20.5 billion by the end of 2003.
Islamic banking is not restricted to Islamic institutions purely. In 1996 Citicorp set up CitiIslamic Investment Bank in Bahrain. Following this precedent, financial institutions ABN Amro, American Express, ANZ Grindlays Bank, Chase Manhattan, Deutsche Bank, Nomura Securities and Union Bank of Switzerland now all have in-house Islamic units.
In the past, Islamic banking has been held back by complacency - the tendency to sit back and wait for Muslim investors to walk in the front door. Recently, however, a number of institutions have aggressively developed the market, including Dar Al-Mal Al-Islami Trust, Islamic Development Bank, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Corp, Al Baraka Group and Kuwait Finance House.
In predominantly Muslim countries, the central bank has a Sharia board, whereby panels of Islamic jurists seek to advise both the central bank governors and private commercial banks on what is legal and prohibited in Islam.
Yet despite the monumental advances in Islamic banking, one hardly hears any Islamic preachers, least of all extremists, calling for more of them, or acknowledging Islamic banking as a clear form of progress made in the name of Islam. Rather, they insist that implementing Islamic law and Islamic states constitute the two platforms of building "true" Islam.
Such a fixation is curious, if not pernicious. After all, while the Prophet Mohammed, whom all Islamic extremists insist Muslims must emulate, was a great law giver and statesman, facts that history does not dispute, he was also a merchant. In fact, prior to becoming the Prophet of Islam, he was known as an affable, able and honest trader by all the Arab tribes - two qualities that attracted Khadijah, a businesswoman of prominent standing, to make a marriage proposal to the Mohammed, to which he accepted.
In pursuing a form of puritanical Islam, Islamic extremists have sadly politicized the corporate memory and culture of Islam. They have also reduced the repertoire to which Islam could appeal to further its revival, such as through innovations in Islamic banking and finance.
Next month Birmingham, the home of one of the United Kingdom's largest Muslim communities, will become the headquarters of the Islamic Bank of Britain; in London, there is already an Islamic stock brokerage. The spread of Islamic banking and finance throughout the world may not provide the exciting headlines that result from extremist Islamist terrorism, but it is arguably of farther-reaching importance - and enjoys the support of the Koran itself.
Islamic banking operations now exist in about 100 countries, with an estimated US$300 billion in assets, and are growing at 10-15% a year, according to Gohar Bilal, a former visiting scholar at the Islamic Legal Studies program of Harvard Law School.
Like any bank that complies with Islamic law, the new bank in Birmingham will not pay or charge interest on its transactions. Naturally, it will also appeal for its business primarily to European Muslims, who number nearly 2 million in Britain alone.
This is not to say that non-Muslim banks are ignoring this market. For example, Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp (HSBC) in England already offers pension and home-loan schemes and a stockbroking service that comply with Islamic law (Sharia).
Still, the introduction of Islamic banking in Europe is tentative at the moment, meaning that it will at first focus on high-net-worth customers so as to recoup investments as soon as possible. In the long run, however, given the growth of the Muslim community in Europe, and the fact that non-Muslims will not be excluded from these services, Islamic banking and finance could turn out to be a useful bridge across societal gaps.
The growth of Islamic banking might seem remarkable in the context of the current image of Islam as an atavistic religion of terror and violence, a condition aggravated by the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the world watched in horror the acts perpetrated by the extremists. Indeed, Muslims themselves have for decades ignored the advances in Islamic banking, distracted by ideologues bent on creating Sharia-compliant states.
Yet Islamic banking is no less important than Islamic law at the state level, as it was mentioned in the Koran in four different revelations. According to Professor Muhammad Ariff of the Malaysia Institute of Economic Research (MIER): "The first revelation emphasizes that interest deprives wealth of God's blessings. The second revelation condemns it, placing interest in juxtaposition with wrongful appropriation of property belonging to others. The third revelation enjoins Muslims to stay clear of interest for the sake of their own welfare. The fourth revelation establishes a clear distinction between interest and trade, urging Muslims to take only the principal sum and to forgo even this sum if the borrower is unable to repay. It is further declared in the Koran that those who disregard the prohibition of interest are at war with God and His Prophet."
A pioneering effort led by Ahmad El Najjar took the form of a savings bank based on profit-sharing in the Egyptian town of Mit Ghamr in 1963. This experiment lasted until 1967, by which time there were nine such banks in the country. These banks, which neither charged nor paid interest, invested mostly by engaging in trade and industry, directly or in partnership with others, and shared the profits with their depositors. Thus they functioned in essence as saving-investment institutions rather than as commercial banks. The Nasir Social Bank, established in Egypt in 1971, was declared an interest-free commercial bank, although its charter made no reference to Islam or Sharia.
Islamic banking has been adopted at the national level in Pakistan, Sudan and Iran, and those countries have decided to Islamize the whole of their banking systems. In Malaysia, where progressive Islamization is being carried out, total assets of the Islamic banking industry rose by $3.5 billion or 20.8% to $20.5 billion by the end of 2003.
Islamic banking is not restricted to Islamic institutions purely. In 1996 Citicorp set up CitiIslamic Investment Bank in Bahrain. Following this precedent, financial institutions ABN Amro, American Express, ANZ Grindlays Bank, Chase Manhattan, Deutsche Bank, Nomura Securities and Union Bank of Switzerland now all have in-house Islamic units.
In the past, Islamic banking has been held back by complacency - the tendency to sit back and wait for Muslim investors to walk in the front door. Recently, however, a number of institutions have aggressively developed the market, including Dar Al-Mal Al-Islami Trust, Islamic Development Bank, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Corp, Al Baraka Group and Kuwait Finance House.
In predominantly Muslim countries, the central bank has a Sharia board, whereby panels of Islamic jurists seek to advise both the central bank governors and private commercial banks on what is legal and prohibited in Islam.
Yet despite the monumental advances in Islamic banking, one hardly hears any Islamic preachers, least of all extremists, calling for more of them, or acknowledging Islamic banking as a clear form of progress made in the name of Islam. Rather, they insist that implementing Islamic law and Islamic states constitute the two platforms of building "true" Islam.
Such a fixation is curious, if not pernicious. After all, while the Prophet Mohammed, whom all Islamic extremists insist Muslims must emulate, was a great law giver and statesman, facts that history does not dispute, he was also a merchant. In fact, prior to becoming the Prophet of Islam, he was known as an affable, able and honest trader by all the Arab tribes - two qualities that attracted Khadijah, a businesswoman of prominent standing, to make a marriage proposal to the Mohammed, to which he accepted.
In pursuing a form of puritanical Islam, Islamic extremists have sadly politicized the corporate memory and culture of Islam. They have also reduced the repertoire to which Islam could appeal to further its revival, such as through innovations in Islamic banking and finance.
Letter From Venezuela
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
2-17-6
The Bush administration, which has demonstrated an appalling disregard for the rule of law and the welfare of its own people, is viciously attacking Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, a populist leader who is using his nation's immense oil wealth to improve the lives of his people and his neighbors including many Americans.
ISLA MARGARITA, Venezuela The ongoing war of words being waged between the Bush administration and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez was in full swing as I traveled from Miami to Caracas, the capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the outrageous comparison of Hugo Chávez with Adolf Hitler in the beginning of what The Washington Post reported as having been "an especially ugly week in the hostile relationship" between the Bush administration and the increasingly popular Chávez.
The week started with Venezuela expelling a U.S. naval attaché on charges of spying, which led to the expulsion of a senior Venezuelan diplomat from Washington, and ended with the U.S. blocking a deal in which Venezuela was to buy coastal patrol boats from Spain. While Spain had initially said it would replace the U.S.-made components on the boats with French-made parts, by the end of the week Spain had suddenly cancelled the lucrative contract with no explanation provided.
Rumsfeld, who serves under a president who was, in fact, not elected by the people, made a rather odd comment comparing two legally elected leaders: "Chávez was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally," Rumsfeld said, "And then consolidated his power." The "populist leadership" of Chávez, which appeals to "masses of people," Rumsfeld said,
is "worrisome" to the Bush administration.
After a week in Venezuela, however, I have yet to meet a Venezuelan who has expressed any worries or concerns about the populist reforms initiated by Chávez. The Venezuelans and foreigners I have met have nothing but praise for the wide-ranging improvements Chávez has brought to the people. They talk frequently of the improved public hospitals and schools where medical treatment and education are now provided free of charge.
Venezuelans often ask if I am American. When I tell them that I am from Chicago they seem pleased and go out of their way to be helpful. I am writing from Playa El Yaque on the south coast of Isla Margarita, where American windsurfers in 1984 first discovered ideal sailing conditions with consistent strong winds and smooth seas. Since then it has become an international haven attracting windsurfers and kite-surfers from all over the world.
Driving through Caracas in a large American-made car from the 1980's, the taxi driver told me that Venezuela's cheap gasoline was "a gift" from Chávez. A gallon of gas costs less than 280 Bolivars, the equivalent of about 12 U.S. cents, and it costs less than $2 to fill the tank. Likewise, Venezuela provides subsidized oil and gas to dozens of nations throughout the Caribbean Basin and Latin America.
"Chávez is making friends while Bush is earning enmity," was the title of Andres Oppenheimer's article in The Miami Herald on February 9. "You don't have to be a genius to figure out why Washington is losing influence in Latin America," Oppenheimer wrote. "While Chávez is making headlines with vows to give about $3.7 billion a year to his neighbors, the Bush administration wants to cut back its estimated $1.2 billion in U.S. foreign aid to the region."
Hundreds of thousands of poor Americans in five Northeastern states have been on the receiving end of Venezuela's generosity. This winter alone, hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans from Pennsylvania and New York to Maine and Vermont have received more than 25 million gallons of subsidized heating oil for their homes.
"LYNCHING" CHÁVEZ
Late last year as oil prices spiked, a dozen U.S. senators asked 10 major oil companies to donate a portion of their record profits to help the poor. As USA Today reported, "Only Citgo [a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company] responded, dispatching tankers to housing projects in New York and Massachusetts in what Felix Rodriguez, the company president and chief executive, called a purely 'humanitarian' gesture.
"Rodriguez said that Chávez had ordered the giveaway so poor Americans wouldn't have to choose between food and heat."
But rather than showing appreciation, the USA Today article by David J. Lynch carried a photo of motorists pumping gas at a Citgo gas station with the alarming caption, "Chávez could destroy the U.S. economy in 90 days, an energy banker said."
"What if Chávez closed Citgo's refineries?" the CIA-linked newspaper asked?
"He'd only have to do that for 90 days, and he'd destroy our economy," Matthew Simmons, "a prominent energy investment banker," told Lynch. "He actually has our livelihood in his hands," Simmons said.
"At the high point of oil and gas prices, a dozen U.S. senators of both parties appealed to oil companies' 'sense of corporate citizenship' to help less fortunate Americans get through the winter in the face of cuts in federal assistance," Fadi Kabboul of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington wrote to USA Today in response to the Lynch article. "Citgo did its part. No other oil company has done so. It makes the criticism in the article seem petty."
So why is the Bush administration so hostile to Chávez? Why is a government that shares its oil wealth with its people and neighbors considered a threat? Why is the foreign leader who was first to offer help to the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast viewed as harboring evil intentions by the controlled media and the federal government whose own response to the dire plight of its citizens has been called "late, uncertain and ineffective," by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)?
The answer to these questions is obvious. Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter with the largest proven reserves outside of the Mideast, has long been considered by the "big oil" companies as America's own privately-run gas station. Chávez, however, has put an end to foreign control and plundering of Venezuela's oil resources and the immense profits they generate. One does not have to look far to see that, over the decades, very little of this nation's oil wealth has trickled down to the average Venezuelan.
Venezuela is particularly strong in refining capacity. As I rode past the sprawling refinery outside of Puerto de la Cruz, I was amazed at the size of Venezuela's second largest refinery, which covers thousands of acres. Venezuela's largest refinery, the Paraguana Refining Center is five times larger with a capacity of nearly 1 million barrels per day.
Venezuela also owns a 50 percent equity interest in the Hovensa refinery on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which has a capacity of 500,000 barrels per day, and it leases the huge Emmastad refinery on the nearby island of Curacao. Over decades, most of the products produced at these refineries have been exported to the U.S.
The Bush administration and the "big oil" money behind it are clearly displeased with the change in ownership, the nationalization of Venezuela's oil fields, which Chávez brought about. These plutocrats are now engaged in an international political and propaganda campaign to malign the popular leader who has stood up to their global tyranny.
New Year's Day 2006 saw the return of Venezuelan state control over 32 privately operated oil fields. Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez said the state successfully completed "the recovery" of the 32 fields whose control had been ceded to private hands in the 1990s under concessions allowing companies to independently pump oil under contract.
In 2001, Venezuela passed a law requiring oil production to be carried out by companies majority-owned by the government. The deadline for converting the privately-owned operating agreements into joint ventures in which the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), would hold the controlling stake was Dec. 31.
While other oil companies went along with the conversions, Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas, resisted the contract changes, the Associated Press reported on Jan. 4. The conversions to joint ventures with PDVSA "will significantly reduce the oil companies' share of profits and control over operations and could also undermine the value of their Venezuelan assets," AP reported.
Venezuela's stake could be as much as 90 percent in the new ventures. The amount of investment made by the private companies in the fields will determine the amount of control they have, Ramirez said
American Free Press
2-17-6
The Bush administration, which has demonstrated an appalling disregard for the rule of law and the welfare of its own people, is viciously attacking Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, a populist leader who is using his nation's immense oil wealth to improve the lives of his people and his neighbors including many Americans.
ISLA MARGARITA, Venezuela The ongoing war of words being waged between the Bush administration and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez was in full swing as I traveled from Miami to Caracas, the capital of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the outrageous comparison of Hugo Chávez with Adolf Hitler in the beginning of what The Washington Post reported as having been "an especially ugly week in the hostile relationship" between the Bush administration and the increasingly popular Chávez.
The week started with Venezuela expelling a U.S. naval attaché on charges of spying, which led to the expulsion of a senior Venezuelan diplomat from Washington, and ended with the U.S. blocking a deal in which Venezuela was to buy coastal patrol boats from Spain. While Spain had initially said it would replace the U.S.-made components on the boats with French-made parts, by the end of the week Spain had suddenly cancelled the lucrative contract with no explanation provided.
Rumsfeld, who serves under a president who was, in fact, not elected by the people, made a rather odd comment comparing two legally elected leaders: "Chávez was elected legally, just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally," Rumsfeld said, "And then consolidated his power." The "populist leadership" of Chávez, which appeals to "masses of people," Rumsfeld said,
is "worrisome" to the Bush administration.
After a week in Venezuela, however, I have yet to meet a Venezuelan who has expressed any worries or concerns about the populist reforms initiated by Chávez. The Venezuelans and foreigners I have met have nothing but praise for the wide-ranging improvements Chávez has brought to the people. They talk frequently of the improved public hospitals and schools where medical treatment and education are now provided free of charge.
Venezuelans often ask if I am American. When I tell them that I am from Chicago they seem pleased and go out of their way to be helpful. I am writing from Playa El Yaque on the south coast of Isla Margarita, where American windsurfers in 1984 first discovered ideal sailing conditions with consistent strong winds and smooth seas. Since then it has become an international haven attracting windsurfers and kite-surfers from all over the world.
Driving through Caracas in a large American-made car from the 1980's, the taxi driver told me that Venezuela's cheap gasoline was "a gift" from Chávez. A gallon of gas costs less than 280 Bolivars, the equivalent of about 12 U.S. cents, and it costs less than $2 to fill the tank. Likewise, Venezuela provides subsidized oil and gas to dozens of nations throughout the Caribbean Basin and Latin America.
"Chávez is making friends while Bush is earning enmity," was the title of Andres Oppenheimer's article in The Miami Herald on February 9. "You don't have to be a genius to figure out why Washington is losing influence in Latin America," Oppenheimer wrote. "While Chávez is making headlines with vows to give about $3.7 billion a year to his neighbors, the Bush administration wants to cut back its estimated $1.2 billion in U.S. foreign aid to the region."
Hundreds of thousands of poor Americans in five Northeastern states have been on the receiving end of Venezuela's generosity. This winter alone, hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans from Pennsylvania and New York to Maine and Vermont have received more than 25 million gallons of subsidized heating oil for their homes.
"LYNCHING" CHÁVEZ
Late last year as oil prices spiked, a dozen U.S. senators asked 10 major oil companies to donate a portion of their record profits to help the poor. As USA Today reported, "Only Citgo [a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company] responded, dispatching tankers to housing projects in New York and Massachusetts in what Felix Rodriguez, the company president and chief executive, called a purely 'humanitarian' gesture.
"Rodriguez said that Chávez had ordered the giveaway so poor Americans wouldn't have to choose between food and heat."
But rather than showing appreciation, the USA Today article by David J. Lynch carried a photo of motorists pumping gas at a Citgo gas station with the alarming caption, "Chávez could destroy the U.S. economy in 90 days, an energy banker said."
"What if Chávez closed Citgo's refineries?" the CIA-linked newspaper asked?
"He'd only have to do that for 90 days, and he'd destroy our economy," Matthew Simmons, "a prominent energy investment banker," told Lynch. "He actually has our livelihood in his hands," Simmons said.
"At the high point of oil and gas prices, a dozen U.S. senators of both parties appealed to oil companies' 'sense of corporate citizenship' to help less fortunate Americans get through the winter in the face of cuts in federal assistance," Fadi Kabboul of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington wrote to USA Today in response to the Lynch article. "Citgo did its part. No other oil company has done so. It makes the criticism in the article seem petty."
So why is the Bush administration so hostile to Chávez? Why is a government that shares its oil wealth with its people and neighbors considered a threat? Why is the foreign leader who was first to offer help to the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast viewed as harboring evil intentions by the controlled media and the federal government whose own response to the dire plight of its citizens has been called "late, uncertain and ineffective," by Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)?
The answer to these questions is obvious. Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter with the largest proven reserves outside of the Mideast, has long been considered by the "big oil" companies as America's own privately-run gas station. Chávez, however, has put an end to foreign control and plundering of Venezuela's oil resources and the immense profits they generate. One does not have to look far to see that, over the decades, very little of this nation's oil wealth has trickled down to the average Venezuelan.
Venezuela is particularly strong in refining capacity. As I rode past the sprawling refinery outside of Puerto de la Cruz, I was amazed at the size of Venezuela's second largest refinery, which covers thousands of acres. Venezuela's largest refinery, the Paraguana Refining Center is five times larger with a capacity of nearly 1 million barrels per day.
Venezuela also owns a 50 percent equity interest in the Hovensa refinery on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which has a capacity of 500,000 barrels per day, and it leases the huge Emmastad refinery on the nearby island of Curacao. Over decades, most of the products produced at these refineries have been exported to the U.S.
The Bush administration and the "big oil" money behind it are clearly displeased with the change in ownership, the nationalization of Venezuela's oil fields, which Chávez brought about. These plutocrats are now engaged in an international political and propaganda campaign to malign the popular leader who has stood up to their global tyranny.
New Year's Day 2006 saw the return of Venezuelan state control over 32 privately operated oil fields. Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez said the state successfully completed "the recovery" of the 32 fields whose control had been ceded to private hands in the 1990s under concessions allowing companies to independently pump oil under contract.
In 2001, Venezuela passed a law requiring oil production to be carried out by companies majority-owned by the government. The deadline for converting the privately-owned operating agreements into joint ventures in which the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), would hold the controlling stake was Dec. 31.
While other oil companies went along with the conversions, Exxon Mobil Corp. of Irving, Texas, resisted the contract changes, the Associated Press reported on Jan. 4. The conversions to joint ventures with PDVSA "will significantly reduce the oil companies' share of profits and control over operations and could also undermine the value of their Venezuelan assets," AP reported.
Venezuela's stake could be as much as 90 percent in the new ventures. The amount of investment made by the private companies in the fields will determine the amount of control they have, Ramirez said
Monday, June 06, 2005
"Globalization is broken"
By Clyde Prestowitz
Jun 2, 2005, 08:14
first published by Axis of Logic
American pressure on Beijing to revalue the yuan is now dominating the news, but China is following Japan as a manifestation of a much bigger problem. Globalization is broken. As now structured, it is undermining U.S. productive capability and becoming unsustainable.
Without fundamental change in the rules of globalization, any conceivable yuan revaluation now won't have much impact on world economic imbalances. Remember that in the 1980s economists said a revaluation of the Japanese yen between 20 percent and 30 percent would balance trade. But the yen has more than doubled since then, and Japan still maintains a large trade surplus both globally and with the United States, as do all of the world's major economies.
The real problem is that globalization is a different game for many countries than it is for America. While China's peg of the yuan to the dollar is now the focus of criticism, most Asian countries have long managed their currencies to keep them weak against the dollar in order to stimulate their exports. Japan has spent over $300 billion in currency intervention in recent years to keep the dollar up and the yen and export prices down. In addition, many countries offer tax holidays, financial incentives and protected markets to attract new facilities in "strategic" industries that no one expects to move just because currencies fluctuate.
These actions follow from policies specifically aimed at accumulating large trade and dollar surpluses as a matter both of stimulating growth from exports and of assuring national economic sovereignty by avoiding dependence on foreign lenders.
While U.S. state governors extend financial incentives to attract investment, they have only peanuts to offer compared with foreign countries and of course, do not control their own currencies. The federal government has long shown no interest in attracting foreign factories to its shores or keeping U.S. factories there. Rather, America's emphasis is entirely on consumption-led growth. Banks aggressively offer credit cards to students with only part-time jobs. Home equity loans with tax-deductible interest payments are used to pay for vacation trips. Not only does the White House call for tax cuts in war time, but tells consumers it's their patriotic duty to buy more. Americans at all levels really do believe that debt and deficits don't matter.
The confluence of America's consumerism with the strategic, export-led growth policies of many other countries has produced a world with one net consumer, the United States, which now consumes about $700 billion a year more than it produces. All other major economies are net sellers, depending directly or indirectly on U.S.-bound exports for much or all of their growth. Because America consumes more than it makes, it must borrow from abroad to finance its excess consumption. In a kind of vendor finance program, a few foreign central banks provide the financing by buying U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.
Thus, globalization has evolved into a kind of pyramid scheme. To maintain global growth, the United States must consume and borrow ever more while foreign banks buy ever more U.S. Treasuries so their producers can export ever more.
America has long been ambivalent about this situation. Consumers love the low import prices, U.S. chief executives love the foreign tax holidays and the U.S. government loves the foreign lending that helps keep U.S. interest rates low. But the chronically overvalued dollar and the foreign investment incentives also cause a steady transfer of production and technology abroad while putting downward pressure on wages and building large foreign claims on future U.S. income. This results in political pressures and U.S. charges of unfairness against trading partners with big surpluses. In the past, cosmetic fixes like "voluntary" export restraint agreements were used to relieve pressure while the fundamental forces kept operating until the next fix.
Now the sustainability of the system has been put into question by the entrance of three billion new players from China, India and the former Soviet bloc at a moment when the Internet and global air express have negated time and distance along with the long standard economic assumptions that labor, capital and technology don't move between countries.
These new players are unusual. While having the low wages of developing countries, several hundred million of them have first-world skills. That they are effectively next door and also planning to grow by exporting to U.S. markets dramatically increases the pressure on an already stressed system. Even for America there are ultimate limits on consumption and borrowing. U.S. borrowing already absorbs 80 percent of the world's available savings. At 100 percent, the global economy will be in deep crisis.
The only way to avoid that is to insist that the globalization game be played the same way by all its players. Sure, China needs to revalue, but without other big changes, globalization as we know it will be on life support.
(Clyde Prestowitz is the author of ''Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East.'')
Jun 2, 2005, 08:14
first published by Axis of Logic
American pressure on Beijing to revalue the yuan is now dominating the news, but China is following Japan as a manifestation of a much bigger problem. Globalization is broken. As now structured, it is undermining U.S. productive capability and becoming unsustainable.
Without fundamental change in the rules of globalization, any conceivable yuan revaluation now won't have much impact on world economic imbalances. Remember that in the 1980s economists said a revaluation of the Japanese yen between 20 percent and 30 percent would balance trade. But the yen has more than doubled since then, and Japan still maintains a large trade surplus both globally and with the United States, as do all of the world's major economies.
The real problem is that globalization is a different game for many countries than it is for America. While China's peg of the yuan to the dollar is now the focus of criticism, most Asian countries have long managed their currencies to keep them weak against the dollar in order to stimulate their exports. Japan has spent over $300 billion in currency intervention in recent years to keep the dollar up and the yen and export prices down. In addition, many countries offer tax holidays, financial incentives and protected markets to attract new facilities in "strategic" industries that no one expects to move just because currencies fluctuate.
These actions follow from policies specifically aimed at accumulating large trade and dollar surpluses as a matter both of stimulating growth from exports and of assuring national economic sovereignty by avoiding dependence on foreign lenders.
While U.S. state governors extend financial incentives to attract investment, they have only peanuts to offer compared with foreign countries and of course, do not control their own currencies. The federal government has long shown no interest in attracting foreign factories to its shores or keeping U.S. factories there. Rather, America's emphasis is entirely on consumption-led growth. Banks aggressively offer credit cards to students with only part-time jobs. Home equity loans with tax-deductible interest payments are used to pay for vacation trips. Not only does the White House call for tax cuts in war time, but tells consumers it's their patriotic duty to buy more. Americans at all levels really do believe that debt and deficits don't matter.
The confluence of America's consumerism with the strategic, export-led growth policies of many other countries has produced a world with one net consumer, the United States, which now consumes about $700 billion a year more than it produces. All other major economies are net sellers, depending directly or indirectly on U.S.-bound exports for much or all of their growth. Because America consumes more than it makes, it must borrow from abroad to finance its excess consumption. In a kind of vendor finance program, a few foreign central banks provide the financing by buying U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.
Thus, globalization has evolved into a kind of pyramid scheme. To maintain global growth, the United States must consume and borrow ever more while foreign banks buy ever more U.S. Treasuries so their producers can export ever more.
America has long been ambivalent about this situation. Consumers love the low import prices, U.S. chief executives love the foreign tax holidays and the U.S. government loves the foreign lending that helps keep U.S. interest rates low. But the chronically overvalued dollar and the foreign investment incentives also cause a steady transfer of production and technology abroad while putting downward pressure on wages and building large foreign claims on future U.S. income. This results in political pressures and U.S. charges of unfairness against trading partners with big surpluses. In the past, cosmetic fixes like "voluntary" export restraint agreements were used to relieve pressure while the fundamental forces kept operating until the next fix.
Now the sustainability of the system has been put into question by the entrance of three billion new players from China, India and the former Soviet bloc at a moment when the Internet and global air express have negated time and distance along with the long standard economic assumptions that labor, capital and technology don't move between countries.
These new players are unusual. While having the low wages of developing countries, several hundred million of them have first-world skills. That they are effectively next door and also planning to grow by exporting to U.S. markets dramatically increases the pressure on an already stressed system. Even for America there are ultimate limits on consumption and borrowing. U.S. borrowing already absorbs 80 percent of the world's available savings. At 100 percent, the global economy will be in deep crisis.
The only way to avoid that is to insist that the globalization game be played the same way by all its players. Sure, China needs to revalue, but without other big changes, globalization as we know it will be on life support.
(Clyde Prestowitz is the author of ''Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East.'')
Friday, May 27, 2005
Psychiatrist Blows The Lid On Antidepressants
By Jon Rappoport
NoMoreFakeNews.com
5-27-5
For the past year, I've been receiving communications from a practicing American psychiatrist, who has an office in the southeastern US. He sees patients privately and also works at a large hospital. Increasingly, this man has been expressing doubts about the drugs he has been prescribing.
Now, he has blown the lid off his own profession, and it appears he is ready to switch careers or become an alternative practitioner.
Here is an excerpt from our recent conversation:
Q: Why do you doubt the drugs?
A: They're toxic and injurious.
Q: Which ones?
A: All of them.
Q: And in particular?
A: The antidepressants. Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, and so on. They are not showing, on balance, good results, and patients have been experiencing adverse effects.
Q: Such as?
A: Sleeplessness, nightmares, erratic behavior, highs and lows, crashes, attempts to commit suicide, exacerbated depression, violence, dramatic personality changes.
Q: Why do you think this is happening?
A: To be honest, I don't know. But my sense is, in general, that the drugs interfere in unpredictable ways with various neurotransmitter systems. I also believe they can work extreme changes in blood sugar levels and electrolyte levels. You know, it's not hard to create these effects with chemicals. The body is not able to integrate them in its normal functioning. I would compare it to suddenly setting up all sorts of roadblocks and detours and forced lane changes on a busy highway. You will get big trouble.
Q: Have you tried to communicate your concerns to colleagues and medical groups?
A: For a short time, I did. But I was given the cold shoulder. I got the distinct feeling I was being treated like some wayward child who had his facts all wrong.
Q: Who do you blame for this drugging catastrophe?
A: At the moment, everybody. The doctors, the drug companies, the FDA, the psychiatric teaching institutions, even the press. And at some point, patients are going to have to take responsibility and not follow the orders of their doctors.
Q: Do you believe that doctors should cut back and give the drugs to some people and not others?
A: That sounds good, but there is no way to know what effects the drugs will cause in any given individual, especially as time passes. Even in the short term, I have seen some frightening things.
Q: Do you believe the profession of psychiatry has made some kind of overarching deal with the drug companies?
A: Yes. The drug companies are everywhere. They stick their noses into everyone's business.
Q: What lies about the drugs have you had to purge from your own mind?
A: The main one is that they're some kind of miracle breakthrough. Another one is that I can rely on the judgments and certifications of the FDA. We're playing Russian Roulette out here. It's a very dangerous situation.
Q: Do you believe that some of the school shootings have resulted from children being on the antidepressants?
A: I didn't, until one day a sixteen-year-old patient of mine showed up for his appointment with a 9mm hand gun. Then I began to comb back through reports on a bunch of those shootings. I can tell you, it focuses the mind to see a young patient sitting across from you---you've put him on an antidepressant and now he's talking about "a new day" and he takes the gun out of his pocket and lays it on a table next to him by the Kleenex. You think to yourself, "I may have created a killer and his first victim could be me." People want to outlaw all guns. I'd start with the drugs.
Q: How about the diagnosis of depression itself?
A: I've come to realize that you can't do an interview with a patient and then come out with a shorthand assessment. It's wrong. It reduces all sorts of problems down to a label, and then you have your official gateway into the drugs.
Q: Your colleagues think you're over-reacting?
A: I think I'm under-reacting. I think we have an epidemic on our hands, but it has nothing to do with mental disorders. It has to do with the chemicals we're facilitating.
Q: This boy with the gun---were you able to talk him down?
A: I spent two hours with him that day. I told him he was having a reaction to the drug. At first, it made no sense to him. He was on a manic sort of ride. That really scared me---that I couldn't make him see what was happening to him. He was in the middle of an episode and he couldn't stand outside it. Finally, he eased up a little. He began to weep in my office. It wasn't really crying. Tears just ran down his cheeks while he was talking. He didn't seem to notice them. He had almost stopped being human. He was a...creature. He was on a mission of some kind. His view of the world had totally changed. In his mind set, destruction was the only course of action.
Q: And then?
A: He calmed down a little. I was afraid to ask him for the gun. He just picked it up and put it back in his pocket. After he left, I called his mother. She went home from her job and met him. I had asked her to call the police but she wouldn't. Later, she told me she sat and talked with him for a long time and then he handed over the gun. It was a very tense situation. I had her remove the bottle of pills from her medicine cabinet. Then I had to follow up. I weaned him slowly from the drug. It took two months. He finally sort of returned to being the person he was. Even then I wasn't sure he'd be okay. He was definitely addicted to the drug. Luckily, I didn't cut him off suddenly. He might have killed people during the withdrawal cycle.
Q: Did you continue to see this boy as a patient?
A: I did a nutritional assessment with the help of a doctor who is very good with that. We found the boy was having strange reactions to certain soft drinks that have speed-type boosters in them. We gradually weaned him off them. Then we discovered he was reacting to dyes and other chemicals in junk food. So we had to change his diet. That wasn't easy.
Q: He was addicted in several ways to chemicals.
A: That's right. There was peer pressure for him to keep eating junk. All his friends did. They called him weird for going off the food they were eating every day. Finally, I discovered that, five years before I saw him, he'd been on Ritalin for a year. You know, for ADHD. He'd been driven into depression by that. He basically felt, at eleven, that his life was over. All paths and interests were closed to him.
Q: How is he now?
A: Much better. But he's not all the way back.
Q: Do you think there is permanent brain damage?
A: I don't know. He's now living outside the US with his father. I get reports once in awhile.
Q: How does he feel about his own experience?
A: He wants it to be an example to other families.
Q: You didn't go into medicine to deal with this.
A: No. In school, my ideals were high. But I allowed myself to be led down the garden path. I fell for the sales pitch. I'm telling you, this is not a good situation. We are a society on the brink. Something has to be done.
Q: How do you feel about Bush's mental health screening program for all children?
A: All in all, it may turn out to be the worst thing he's done as president. It's just a tip of his hat to his pharmaceutical supporters. But the consequences---if this plan gets rolling---will be devastating.
Q: Is there some underlying principle at work here? Some paradigm that everyone is accepting that is putting us into a bad situation?
A: You know the answer to that. It's the combination of easy diagnosis plus the drug fix. The pill craze for everything. Take a drug and everything will work out. I see it as the classic street-drug promotion. Feel good. Take this drug and you'll feel different and better. Combine that with the basic immaturity of most people and you have the interlock. Why work out your problems and strive to have the life you want when you can arrive at the best destination with a pill? I'd take this a step further. If you stacked up all the tranquilizers and antidepressants, for adults, next to, say, marijuana, as a way of dealing with stress, I'd say that a very modest amount of a mild marijuana would be more successful than all those other drugs at the levels they're normally prescribed. If I were forced to recommend one or the other, I'd go with the marijuana. And I'd say the drug companies know this. Which is one reason why, in the US, the enforcement on marijuana has been stepping up. But again, you're always dealing with an individual. Each person is different. I've seen people who react very badly to pot. It affects them like a psychedelic.
Q: You're saying the science behind the antidepressants is false.
A: Absolutely. Judging by the effects of the drugs, it has to be. It may sound good and proper. All the right words are used. But I don't care about that anymore. I go by results. My eyes have been opened.
Q: Then why are the drug companies pushing these drugs?
A: I'm not an expert to speak to about that. Certainly there is the profit motive. But I think there is also the myth of progress.
Q: What do you mean?
A: That myth states that technology must keep making advances. It's the legend of forward motion. If technology is to be seen as good, it has to keep turning out better advances---otherwise something is wrong. And there can't be anything wrong.
Q: It's like a hectic race.
A: Yes. If you stop, you might fall down. Secrets might be exposed. Shortcomings might show up. So you have to keep pushing. You have to keep saying you're doing better and better. I'm sure you can see where this gets you. You make new mistakes to cover up old mistakes. You become careless. You lie. You hire promotion people to tout your work. You keep the whole thing rolling forward, no matter what. That's where we are.
Q: And you were carried on that wave.
A: For many years. But now I've stopped.
Q: Is it uncomfortable?
A: Not so much anymore. But at first I was very upset and angry. I was blaming everyone but myself. I felt like I was in chains, that my whole education and career were at stake. And I was my career. What else did I have? Getting off the boat was quite difficult. I had every advantage this society has to offer. I was---
Q: The expert.
A: Yes. That's a powerful feeling. People come to you with questions and you have the answers. If you don't, then you're thrown down in the pit with everyone else. Part of being a doctor is being above the pit, out of the problem. You're the solution. You don't want to fall. And the only thing that keeps you from falling is what you've learned. Your knowledge. When you see that that's based on lies, you don't know what to do. It's like being a priest and realizing that everyone gets to the far shore by his own means. You don't want to let go of the doctrine that put you on the pulpit.
Q: So what would a new paradigm look like?
A: For mental health? We have to get rid of all the old classsifications and disorders. We have to let all that sink into oblivion. That was wrong. That was largely fantasy.
Q: It was a story.
A: We told it, and now we have to stop telling it. Because we've ended up intervening in people's lives in a very pernicious way.
Q: Part of the story necessitated that kind of intervention.
A: Yes. And, not to take myself off the hook, but people want that kind of story, as you say. They want that "expert story." They want someone else to come in and tell them what to do and what to think and what drug to take.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: Because people have taken the easy path. They have opted for what I would call a flat version of reality. If they started adding dimensions on their own---
Q: They would be forced to tell their own story.
A: In the terms you're using, yes. That's what would happen.
Q: And how would society look then?
A: Much different. Much more risky, perhaps, but much more alive. Psychology and psychiatry don't allow for that kind of outcome. All mental disorders are constructs. They're named by committees, as I'm sure you know. They're a form of centralized pattern. In this context, the word "shrink" is very appropriate. That's what we've been doing. Shrinking down the perception of what reality and the mind are all about.
Q: Can you imagine what would happen if the lid were taken off?
A: I work with that idea every day now.
Q: And how does it look?
A: More and more appealing.
NoMoreFakeNews.com
5-27-5
For the past year, I've been receiving communications from a practicing American psychiatrist, who has an office in the southeastern US. He sees patients privately and also works at a large hospital. Increasingly, this man has been expressing doubts about the drugs he has been prescribing.
Now, he has blown the lid off his own profession, and it appears he is ready to switch careers or become an alternative practitioner.
Here is an excerpt from our recent conversation:
Q: Why do you doubt the drugs?
A: They're toxic and injurious.
Q: Which ones?
A: All of them.
Q: And in particular?
A: The antidepressants. Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, and so on. They are not showing, on balance, good results, and patients have been experiencing adverse effects.
Q: Such as?
A: Sleeplessness, nightmares, erratic behavior, highs and lows, crashes, attempts to commit suicide, exacerbated depression, violence, dramatic personality changes.
Q: Why do you think this is happening?
A: To be honest, I don't know. But my sense is, in general, that the drugs interfere in unpredictable ways with various neurotransmitter systems. I also believe they can work extreme changes in blood sugar levels and electrolyte levels. You know, it's not hard to create these effects with chemicals. The body is not able to integrate them in its normal functioning. I would compare it to suddenly setting up all sorts of roadblocks and detours and forced lane changes on a busy highway. You will get big trouble.
Q: Have you tried to communicate your concerns to colleagues and medical groups?
A: For a short time, I did. But I was given the cold shoulder. I got the distinct feeling I was being treated like some wayward child who had his facts all wrong.
Q: Who do you blame for this drugging catastrophe?
A: At the moment, everybody. The doctors, the drug companies, the FDA, the psychiatric teaching institutions, even the press. And at some point, patients are going to have to take responsibility and not follow the orders of their doctors.
Q: Do you believe that doctors should cut back and give the drugs to some people and not others?
A: That sounds good, but there is no way to know what effects the drugs will cause in any given individual, especially as time passes. Even in the short term, I have seen some frightening things.
Q: Do you believe the profession of psychiatry has made some kind of overarching deal with the drug companies?
A: Yes. The drug companies are everywhere. They stick their noses into everyone's business.
Q: What lies about the drugs have you had to purge from your own mind?
A: The main one is that they're some kind of miracle breakthrough. Another one is that I can rely on the judgments and certifications of the FDA. We're playing Russian Roulette out here. It's a very dangerous situation.
Q: Do you believe that some of the school shootings have resulted from children being on the antidepressants?
A: I didn't, until one day a sixteen-year-old patient of mine showed up for his appointment with a 9mm hand gun. Then I began to comb back through reports on a bunch of those shootings. I can tell you, it focuses the mind to see a young patient sitting across from you---you've put him on an antidepressant and now he's talking about "a new day" and he takes the gun out of his pocket and lays it on a table next to him by the Kleenex. You think to yourself, "I may have created a killer and his first victim could be me." People want to outlaw all guns. I'd start with the drugs.
Q: How about the diagnosis of depression itself?
A: I've come to realize that you can't do an interview with a patient and then come out with a shorthand assessment. It's wrong. It reduces all sorts of problems down to a label, and then you have your official gateway into the drugs.
Q: Your colleagues think you're over-reacting?
A: I think I'm under-reacting. I think we have an epidemic on our hands, but it has nothing to do with mental disorders. It has to do with the chemicals we're facilitating.
Q: This boy with the gun---were you able to talk him down?
A: I spent two hours with him that day. I told him he was having a reaction to the drug. At first, it made no sense to him. He was on a manic sort of ride. That really scared me---that I couldn't make him see what was happening to him. He was in the middle of an episode and he couldn't stand outside it. Finally, he eased up a little. He began to weep in my office. It wasn't really crying. Tears just ran down his cheeks while he was talking. He didn't seem to notice them. He had almost stopped being human. He was a...creature. He was on a mission of some kind. His view of the world had totally changed. In his mind set, destruction was the only course of action.
Q: And then?
A: He calmed down a little. I was afraid to ask him for the gun. He just picked it up and put it back in his pocket. After he left, I called his mother. She went home from her job and met him. I had asked her to call the police but she wouldn't. Later, she told me she sat and talked with him for a long time and then he handed over the gun. It was a very tense situation. I had her remove the bottle of pills from her medicine cabinet. Then I had to follow up. I weaned him slowly from the drug. It took two months. He finally sort of returned to being the person he was. Even then I wasn't sure he'd be okay. He was definitely addicted to the drug. Luckily, I didn't cut him off suddenly. He might have killed people during the withdrawal cycle.
Q: Did you continue to see this boy as a patient?
A: I did a nutritional assessment with the help of a doctor who is very good with that. We found the boy was having strange reactions to certain soft drinks that have speed-type boosters in them. We gradually weaned him off them. Then we discovered he was reacting to dyes and other chemicals in junk food. So we had to change his diet. That wasn't easy.
Q: He was addicted in several ways to chemicals.
A: That's right. There was peer pressure for him to keep eating junk. All his friends did. They called him weird for going off the food they were eating every day. Finally, I discovered that, five years before I saw him, he'd been on Ritalin for a year. You know, for ADHD. He'd been driven into depression by that. He basically felt, at eleven, that his life was over. All paths and interests were closed to him.
Q: How is he now?
A: Much better. But he's not all the way back.
Q: Do you think there is permanent brain damage?
A: I don't know. He's now living outside the US with his father. I get reports once in awhile.
Q: How does he feel about his own experience?
A: He wants it to be an example to other families.
Q: You didn't go into medicine to deal with this.
A: No. In school, my ideals were high. But I allowed myself to be led down the garden path. I fell for the sales pitch. I'm telling you, this is not a good situation. We are a society on the brink. Something has to be done.
Q: How do you feel about Bush's mental health screening program for all children?
A: All in all, it may turn out to be the worst thing he's done as president. It's just a tip of his hat to his pharmaceutical supporters. But the consequences---if this plan gets rolling---will be devastating.
Q: Is there some underlying principle at work here? Some paradigm that everyone is accepting that is putting us into a bad situation?
A: You know the answer to that. It's the combination of easy diagnosis plus the drug fix. The pill craze for everything. Take a drug and everything will work out. I see it as the classic street-drug promotion. Feel good. Take this drug and you'll feel different and better. Combine that with the basic immaturity of most people and you have the interlock. Why work out your problems and strive to have the life you want when you can arrive at the best destination with a pill? I'd take this a step further. If you stacked up all the tranquilizers and antidepressants, for adults, next to, say, marijuana, as a way of dealing with stress, I'd say that a very modest amount of a mild marijuana would be more successful than all those other drugs at the levels they're normally prescribed. If I were forced to recommend one or the other, I'd go with the marijuana. And I'd say the drug companies know this. Which is one reason why, in the US, the enforcement on marijuana has been stepping up. But again, you're always dealing with an individual. Each person is different. I've seen people who react very badly to pot. It affects them like a psychedelic.
Q: You're saying the science behind the antidepressants is false.
A: Absolutely. Judging by the effects of the drugs, it has to be. It may sound good and proper. All the right words are used. But I don't care about that anymore. I go by results. My eyes have been opened.
Q: Then why are the drug companies pushing these drugs?
A: I'm not an expert to speak to about that. Certainly there is the profit motive. But I think there is also the myth of progress.
Q: What do you mean?
A: That myth states that technology must keep making advances. It's the legend of forward motion. If technology is to be seen as good, it has to keep turning out better advances---otherwise something is wrong. And there can't be anything wrong.
Q: It's like a hectic race.
A: Yes. If you stop, you might fall down. Secrets might be exposed. Shortcomings might show up. So you have to keep pushing. You have to keep saying you're doing better and better. I'm sure you can see where this gets you. You make new mistakes to cover up old mistakes. You become careless. You lie. You hire promotion people to tout your work. You keep the whole thing rolling forward, no matter what. That's where we are.
Q: And you were carried on that wave.
A: For many years. But now I've stopped.
Q: Is it uncomfortable?
A: Not so much anymore. But at first I was very upset and angry. I was blaming everyone but myself. I felt like I was in chains, that my whole education and career were at stake. And I was my career. What else did I have? Getting off the boat was quite difficult. I had every advantage this society has to offer. I was---
Q: The expert.
A: Yes. That's a powerful feeling. People come to you with questions and you have the answers. If you don't, then you're thrown down in the pit with everyone else. Part of being a doctor is being above the pit, out of the problem. You're the solution. You don't want to fall. And the only thing that keeps you from falling is what you've learned. Your knowledge. When you see that that's based on lies, you don't know what to do. It's like being a priest and realizing that everyone gets to the far shore by his own means. You don't want to let go of the doctrine that put you on the pulpit.
Q: So what would a new paradigm look like?
A: For mental health? We have to get rid of all the old classsifications and disorders. We have to let all that sink into oblivion. That was wrong. That was largely fantasy.
Q: It was a story.
A: We told it, and now we have to stop telling it. Because we've ended up intervening in people's lives in a very pernicious way.
Q: Part of the story necessitated that kind of intervention.
A: Yes. And, not to take myself off the hook, but people want that kind of story, as you say. They want that "expert story." They want someone else to come in and tell them what to do and what to think and what drug to take.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: Because people have taken the easy path. They have opted for what I would call a flat version of reality. If they started adding dimensions on their own---
Q: They would be forced to tell their own story.
A: In the terms you're using, yes. That's what would happen.
Q: And how would society look then?
A: Much different. Much more risky, perhaps, but much more alive. Psychology and psychiatry don't allow for that kind of outcome. All mental disorders are constructs. They're named by committees, as I'm sure you know. They're a form of centralized pattern. In this context, the word "shrink" is very appropriate. That's what we've been doing. Shrinking down the perception of what reality and the mind are all about.
Q: Can you imagine what would happen if the lid were taken off?
A: I work with that idea every day now.
Q: And how does it look?
A: More and more appealing.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
How The US Is Nuking It´s Own Troops
Death By Slow Burn
What 'Support Our Troops' Really Means
By
Amy Worthington
The Idaho Observer
5-15-5
On March 30, an AP photo featured an American pro-war activist holding a sign: "Nuke the evil scum, it worked in 1945!" That's exactly what George Bush has done. America's mega-billion dollar war in Iraq has been indeed a NUCLEAR WAR.
Bush-Cheney have delivered upon 17 million Iraqis tons of depleted uranium (DU) weapons, a "liberation" gift that will keep on giving. Depleted uranium is a component of toxic nuclear waste, usually stored at secure sites. Handlers need radiation protection gear.
Over a decade ago, war-makers decided to incorporate this lethal waste into much of the Pentagon's weaponry. Navy ships carrying Phalanx rapid fire guns are capable of firing thousands of DU rounds per minute.(1) Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. ships and subs are DU-tipped.(2) The M1 Abrams tanks are armored with DU.(3) These and British Challenger II tanks are tightly packed with DU shells, which continually irradiate troops in or near them.(4) The A-10 "tank buster" aircraft fires DU shells at machines and people on the battlefield.(5)
DU munitions are classified by a United Nations resolution as illegal weapons of mass destruction. Their use breaches all international laws, treaties and conventions forbidding poisoned weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.
Ironically, support for our troops will extend well beyond the war in Iraq. Americans will be supporting Gulf War II veterans for years as they slowly and painfully succumb to radiation poisoning. U.S and British troops deployed to the area are the walking dead. Humans and animals, friends and foes in the fallout zone are destined to a long downhill spiral of chronic illness and disability. Kidney dysfunction, lung damage, bloody stools, extreme fatigue, joint pain, unsteady gait, memory loss and rashes and, ultimately, cancer and premature death await those exposed to DU.
Award-winning journalist Will Thomas wrote: "As the last Gulf conflict so savagely demonstrated, GI immune systems reeling from multiple doses of experimental vaccines offer little defense against further exposure to chemical weapons, industrial toxins, stress, caffeine, insect repellent and radiation leftover from the last war. This is a war even the victors will lose."(6)
When a DU shell is fired, it ignites upon impact. Uranium, plus traces of plutonium and americium, vaporize into tiny, ceramic particles of radioactive dust. Once inhaled, uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely. A single particle of DU lodged in a lymph node can devastate the entire immune system according to British radiation expert Roger Coghill.(7)
The Royal Society of England published data showing that battlefield soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of DU can suffer kidney failure within days.(8) Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled lethal radioactive dust is not breathing. In the first two weeks of combat, 700 Tomahawks, at a cost of $1.3 million each, blasted Iraqi real estate into radioactive mushroom clouds.(9) Millions of DU tank rounds liter the terrain. Cleanup is impossible because there is no place on the planet to put so much contaminated debris.
Bush Sr.'s Gulf War I was also a nuclear war. 320 tons of depleted uranium were used against Iraq in 1991.(10) A 1998 report by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances confirms that inhaling DU causes symptoms identical to those claimed by many sick vets with Gulf War Syndrome.(11) The Gulf War Veterans Association reports that at least 300,000 Gulf War I vets have now developed incapacitating illnesses.(12) To date, 209,000 vets have filed claims for disability benefits based on service-connected injuries and illnesses from combat in that war.(13)
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University, is a former army medical expert. He told nuclear scientists in Paris last year that tens of thousands of sick British and American soldiers are now dying from radiation they encountered during Gulf War I. He found that 62 percent of sick vets tested have uranium isotopes in their organs, bones, brains and urine.(14) Laboratories in Switzerland and Finland corroborated his findings.
In other studies, some sick vets were found to be expressing uranium in even their semen. Their sexual partners often complained of a burning sensation during intercourse, followed by their own debilitating illnesses.(15)
Nothing compares to the astronomical cancer rates and birth defects suffered by the Iraqi people who have endured vicious nuclear chastisement for years.(16) U.S. air attacks against Iraq since 1993 have undoubtedly employed nuclear munitions. Pictures of grotesquely deformed Iraqi infants born since 1991 are overwhelming.(17) Like those born to Gulf War I vets, many babies born to troops now in Iraq will also be afflicted with hideous deformities, neurological damage and/or blood and respiratory disorders.(18)
As an Army health physicist, Dr. Doug Rokke was dispatched to the Middle East to salvage DU-contaminated tanks after Gulf War I. His Geiger counters revealed that the war zones of Iraq and Kuwait were contaminated with up to 300 millirems an hour in beta and gamma radiation plus thousands to millions of counts per minute in alpha radiation. Rokke recently told the media: "The whole area is still trashed. It is hotter than heck over there still. This stuff doesn't go away."(19)
DU remains "hot" for 4.5 billion years. Radiation expert Dr. Helen Caldicott confirms that the dust-laden winds of DU-contaminated war zones "will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of time."(20) The murderous dust storms which ensnared coalition troops during the first few days of the current invasion are sure to have significant health consequences.
Rokke and his cleanup team were issued only flimsy dust masks for their dangerous work. Of the 100 people on Rokke's decontamination team, 30 have already "dropped dead." Rokke himself is ill with radiation damage to lungs and kidneys. He has brain lesions, skin pustules, chronic fatigue, continual wheezing and painful fibromyalgia. Rokke warns that anyone exposed to DU should have adequate respiratory protection and special coveralls to protect their clothing because, he says, you can't get uranium particles off your clothing.
The U.S. military insists that DU on the battlefield is not a problem. Colonel James Naughton of the U.S. Army Material Command recently told the BBC that complaints about DU "had no medical basis."(21) The military's own documents belie this. A 1993 Pentagon document warned that "when soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk."(22) A U.S. Army training manual requires anyone who comes within 25 meters of DU-contaminated equipment to wear respiratory and skin protection.(23) The U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute admitted: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."(24) The Institute also stated that, if the troops were to realize what they had been exposed to, "the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive."(25) For pragmatic reasons, DOD chooses to lie and deny.
Dr. Rokke confirms that the Pentagon lies about DU dangers and is criminally negligent for neglecting medical attention needed by DU-contaminated vets. He predicts that the numbers of American troops to be sickened by DU from Gulf War II will be staggering.(26) As they gradually sicken and suffer a slow burn to their graves, the Pentagon will, as it did after Gulf War I, deny that their misery and death is a result of their tour in Iraq.
Dr. Rokke's candor has cost him his career. Likewise, Dr. Durakovic's radiation studies on Gulf War I vets were not popular with U.S. officials. Dr. Durakovic was reportedly told his life was in danger if he continued his research. He left the U.S. to continue his research abroad.(27)
Naive young coalition soldiers now in Iraq are likely unaware of how deadly their battlefield environment is. Gulf War I troops were kept in ignorance. Soldiers handled DU fragments and some wore these lethal nuggets around their necks. A DU projectile emits more radiation in five hours than allowed in an entire year under civilian radiation exposure standards. "We didn't know any better," Kris Kornkven told Nation magazine. "We didn't find out until long after we were home that there even was such a thing as DU."(28)
George Bush's ongoing war in Afghanistan is also a nuclear war. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. announced it would stockpile tactical nuclear weapons including small neutron bombs, nuclear mines and shells suited to commando warfare in Afghanistan.(29) In late September, 2001, Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. would use tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan while Putin would employ nuclear weapons against the Chechnyans.(30)
Describing the Pentagon's B-61-11 burrowing nuke bomb, George Smith writes in the Village Voice: "Built ram tough with a heavy metal casing for smashing through the earth and concrete, the B-61 explodes with the force of an estimated 340,000 tons of TNT. It is lots of bang for the buck, literally two apocalypse bombs in one, a boosted plutonium firecracker called the primary and a heavy hydrogen secondary for that good old-fashioned H-bomb fireball."(31)
Drought-stricken Afghanistan's underground water supply is now contaminated by these nuclear weapons.(32) Experts with the Uranium Medical Research Center report that urine samples of Afghanis show the highest level of uranium ever recorded in a civilian population. Afghani soldiers and civilians are reported to have died after suffering intractable vomiting, severe respiratory problems, internal bleeding and other symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning. Dead birds still perched in trees are found partially melted with blood oozing from their mouths.(33)
Afghanistan's new president, Hamid Karzai, is a puppet installed by Washington. Under the protection of American soldiers, Karzai's regime is setting a new record for opium production. Both UN and U.S. reports confirm that the huge Afghani opium harvest of 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer.(34) Thanks to nuclear weapons, Afghanistan is now safe for the Bush-Cheney narcotics industry.(35) ABC News asserts that keeping the "peace" in Afghanistan will require decades of allied occupation.(36) For years to come, "peacekeepers" will be eating, drinking and breathing the "hot" carcinogenic pollution they have helped the Pentagon inflict upon that nation for organized crime.
As governor of Arkansas during the Iran-Contra era, Bill Clinton laundered $multi-millions in cocaine profits for then vice-president George Bush Sr.(37) As a partner in the Bush family's notorious crime machine, President Clinton committed U.S. troops to NATO's campaign in the Balkans, a prime heroin production and trans-shipment area. DOD's campaign to control and reorganize the drug trade there for the Bush mafia was yet another nuclear project.
For years, the U.S. and NATO fired DU missiles, bullets and shells across the Balkans, nuking the peoples of Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo. As DU munitions were slammed into chemical plants, the environment became hideously toxic, also endangering the peoples of Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary. By 1999, UN investigators reported that an estimated 12 tons of DU had caused irreparable damage to the Yugoslavian environment, with agriculture, livestock and air water, and public health all profoundly damaged.(38)
Scientists confirm that citizens of the Balkans are excreting uranium in their urine.39 In 2001, a Yugoslavian pathologist reported that hundreds of Bosnians have died of cancer from NATO's DU bombardment.(40) Many NATO peacekeepers in the Balkans now suffer ill health. Their leukemias, cancers and other maladies are dubbed the "Balkans Syndrome." Richard Coghill predicts that DU weapons used in Balkans campaign will result in at least 10,000 cases of fatal cancer.(41)
U.S. citizens at home are also paying a heavy price for criminal militarism gone mad. DOD is a pollution monster. The General Accounting Office (GAO) found 9,181 dangerous military sites in USA that will require $billions to rehabilitate. The GAO reports that DOD has been both slothful and deceitful in its clean-up obligations.(42) The Pentagon is now pressing Congress to exempt it from all environmental laws so that it may pollute and poison free from liability.(43)
The Navy uses prime fishing grounds off the coast of Washington state to test fire DU ammunition. In January, Washington State Rep. Jim McDermott chastised the Navy: "On one hand you have required soldiers to have DU safety training and to wear protective gear when handling DU...and submarines must stay clear of DU-contaminated waters. These policies indicate there is cause for concern....On the other hand the Department of Defense has repeatedly denied that DU poses any danger whatsoever. There has been no remorse about leaving tons of DU equipment in the soil in foreign countries, and there appears to be no remorse about leaving it in the waters of your own country."(44)
DU has been used in military practice maneuvers in Indiana, Florida, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Maryland and Puerto Rico. After the Navy tested DU weaponry on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, one third of the island's population developed serious illness. Many people show high levels of uranium in their bodies. Hundreds have filed a class action suit against the Navy for $100 million, claiming DU contamination has caused widespread cancers.(45)
The Navy's Fallon Naval Air Station near Fallon, Nevada, is a quagmire of 26 toxic waste sites. It is also a target practice zone for DU bombs and missiles. Area residents report bizarre illnesses, including 17 children who have contracted leukemia within five years. A survey of groundwater in the Fallon area showed nearly half of area wells are contaminated with radioactive materials.(46)
The materials for DU weaponry have been processed mainly at three nuclear plants in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, where workers handling uranium contaminated with plutonium have suffered for decades with cancers and debilitating maladies similar to Gulf War Syndrome.(47)
Emboldened by power-grabbing successes made possible by his administration's devious 9-11 project, President Bush asserts that the U.S. has the right to attack any nation it deems a potential threat. He told West Point in 2002, "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."(48) Thus, it is certain that Bush-Cheney future pre-emptive nuclear wars are lined up like idling jets on a runway. Both Cheney's Halliburton Corp. and the Bush family's Carlyle Group are profiteers in U.S. defense contracts, so endless war is just good business.(49)
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon will create special nuclear weapons for use on North Korea's underground nuclear facilities.(50) Next August, U.S. war makers will meet to consolidate plans for a new generation of "mini," "micro" and "tiny" nuclear bombs and bunker busters. These will be added to the U.S. arsenal perhaps for use against non-nuclear third-world nations such as Iran, Syria, Lebanon.(51)
The solution? Americans must stop electing ruthless criminals to rule this nation. We must convince fellow citizens that villains like Saddam Hussein are made in the U.S. as rationale for endless corporate war profits. Saddam was placed in power by the CIA.(52) For years U.S. government agencies, under auspices of George Bush Sr., supplied him with chemical and biological weapons.(53) Our national nuclear laboratories, along with Unisys, Dupont and Hewlett-Packard, sold Saddam materials for his nuclear program.(54) Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton in the late 90s when its subsidiaries signed $73 million in new contracts to further supply Saddam.(55) The wicked villain of Iraq was nurtured for decades as a cash-cow by U.S. military-industrial piranhas.
If America truly supports its troops, it must stop sending them into nuclear holocaust for the enrichment of thugs. Time is running out. If the DU-maniacs at the Pentagon and their coven of nuclear arms peddlers are not harnessed, America will have no able-bodied fighting forces left. All people of the earth will become grossly ill, hideously deformed and short- lived. We must succeed in the critical imperative to face reality and act decisively. Should we fail, there will be no place to hide from Bush-Cheney's merciless nuclear orgies yet to come or from the inevitable nuclear retaliation these orgies will surely breed.
Endnotes
1."DOD Launches Depleted Uranium Training," Linda Kozaryn, American Forces Press Service, 8-13-99.
2."Nukes of the Gulf War,"John Shirley, Zess@aol.com. See this article in archives at www.gulfwarvets.com.
3. BBC News, "US To Use Depleted Uranium," March 18, 2003; U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: "Early Performance Assessment of Bradley and Abrams," 1-2-92.
4."Nukes of the Gulf War," op. cit.
5. Ibid.
6. "Invading Hiroshima," William Thomas, 2-4-2003, www.willthomas.net
7. "US Shells Leave Lethal Legacy," Toronto Star, July 31, 1999; also "Radiation Tests for Peacekeepers in the Balkans Exposed to Depleted Uranium," www.telegraph.co.uk, 12-31-02.
8. "Depleted Uranium May Stop Kidneys In Days," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.com, 3-12-02; also "Uranium Weapons Too Hot to Handle," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.co.uk, 6-9-99.
9. "Navy Seeks Cash for More Tomahawks," David Rennie in Washington, Telegraph Group Limited, 1-4-03, news.telegraph.co.uk.
10. "Going Nuclear in Iraq--DU Cancers Mount Daily," Ramzi Kysia, CounterPunch.org, 12-31-01.
11."Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01, www.guardianlimited.co.uk.
12. "Gulf War Illnesses Affect 300,000 Vets," Ellen Tomson, Pioneer Press, www.pioneerplanet.com. See also American Gulf War Veterans Association at www.gulfwarvets.com.
13. "2 of Every 5 Gulf War Vets Are On Disability: 209,000 Make VA Claims," World Net Daily, 1-28-03, WorldNetDaily.com.
14. "Research on Sick Gulf Vets Revisited, "New York Times, 1-29-01; "Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning," Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier, The Sunday Times (UK) 9-3-02.
15. "Catastrophe: Ill Gulf Vets Contaminated Partners With DU," The Halifax Herald Limited, Clare Mellor, 2-09-01. This article is available in archives at www.rense.com.
16. "Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02; "US Depleted Uranium Yields Chamber of Horrors in Southern Iraq, Andy Kershaw, The Independent (London) 12-4-01.
17. "The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Gulf War Region with Special References to Iraq," Ross Mirkarimi, The Arms Control Research Centre, May 1992. See also Gulf War Syndrome Birth Defects in Iraq at www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html.
18. "The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm, Has Our Country Abandoned Them?," Life Magazine, November 1995; "Birth Defects Killing Gulf War Babies," Los Angeles Times, 11-14-94; "Depleted Uranium, The Lingering Poison," Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, 6-7-99.
19. "Depleted Uranium, A Killer Disaster," Travis Dunn, Disaster News.net, 12-29-02.
20. San Francisco Chronicle, 10-10-02.
21. "US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03.
22. "Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01.
23. "Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02.
24. "US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03.
25. US Army Environmental Policy Institute: Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army, Technical Report, June 1995.
26. "Pentagon Depleted Uranium No Health Risk," Dr. Doug Rokke, 3-15-03; also "The Terrible, Tragic Toll of Depleted Uranium," Address by Dr. Rokke before congressional leaders in Washington, D.C.,12-30-02; also "Gulf War Casualties," Dr. Doug Rokke, www.traprockpeace.org. 9-30-02.
27."Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning," Sunday Times (UK), Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier, 9-3-00.
28. "The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet: An Investigative Report," Bill Mesler, The Nation, 5-28-99, see www.thenation.com/ issue/961021/1021mesl.htm.
29. "Tactical Nukes Deployed In Afghanistan," World Net Daily, 10-7-01. 30. Ibid.
31. "The B-61 Bomb,The Burrowing Nuke" George Smith,VillageVoice.com 12-29-02.; also "Bunker-busting US Tactical Nuclear Bombs, Nowhere to Hide," Kennedy Grey, Wired.com, 10-9-01.
32."Perpetual Death From America," Mohammed Daud Miraki, Afghan-American Interviews, 2-24-03; also "Dying of Thirst," Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 11-17-2001.
33. Ibid.
34. "Afghanistan Displaces Myanmar as Top Heroin Producer," Agence France-Presse, 3-01-03. This article is at www.copvcia.com.;also "Opium Trade Flourishing In the `New Afghanistan,'" Reuters, 3-3-03.
35. "The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire," Michael C. Ruppert, Nexus Magazine, February-March 2000; The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill & Co., revised edition due May 2003; Drugging of America, Rodney Stich, Diablo Western Press, 1999; "Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms," Bob Djurdjevic, Truth In Media, April 2000, www.truthinmedia.org. 36. ABC News, February 27, 2003.
37. Compromised, Clinton Bush and the CIA, Terry Reed and John Cummings, S.P.I. Books, 1994; The Clinton Chronicles and The Mena Cover-up, Citizens for Honest Government, 1996; "The Crimes of Mena, Grey Money," Ozark Gazette, 1995 (see www.copvcia.com.)
38. "Damage to Yugoslav Environment is Immense, Says a UN Report," Bob Djurdjevic, 7-4-99, truthinmedia.org. This report was submitted to the UN Security Council on June 9, 1999; also, "New Depleted Uranium Study Shows Clear Damage," BBC News,8-28-99; also "NATO Issued Warning About Toxic Ammo," Associated Press, 01-08-01.
39. CounterPunch.org, 12-28-01.
40. "Hundreds Died of Cancer After DU Bombing--Doctor," Reuters, 1-13-01.
41."Depleted Uranium Threatens Balkan Cancer Epidemic," BBC News, 7-30-99.
42. "Many Defense Sites Still Hazardous," Associated Press, 9-24-02; also Old US Weapons Called Hidden Danger, Los Angeles Times, 11-25-02.
43. "Pentagon Seeks Freedom to Pollute Land, Air and Sea," Andrew Gumbel in L.A., 3-13-03, Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.
44. "Radioactive DU Ammo Is Tested in Fish Areas," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-11-03; Letter from Rep. McDermott to Department of the Navy: see "Navy Fired DU Rounds Into Waters Off Coast of Washington," 1-20-03, rense.com.
45."Cancer Rates Soar From US Military Use of DU On `Enchanted Island,'" www.telegraph.co.uk, 2-5-01; also "Navy Shells With Depleted Uranium Fired in Puerto Rico," Fox News Online, 5-28-99.
46. "The Fallon, NV Cancer Cluster And a US Navy Bombing," Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch.org, 8-10-02.
47. "DU Shells Are Made of A Potentially Lethal Cocktail of Nuclear Waste," Jonathon Carr-Brown, www.sunday-times.co.uk, 1-22-01.
48. "Preventative War Sets Perilous Precedent," Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers, 3-20-03.
49. PIGS at the Trough, Arriana Huffington, Random House, 2003 (New York Times best seller.); also "The Best Enemies Money Can Buy, From Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden Insider Connections and the Bush Family's Partnership With Killers of Americans;" Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness,10-10-01; also "Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group Gets Fat on War and Conflict," Jamie Doward, The Observer (UK), 3-25-03; also "Halliburton Wins Contract for Iraq Oil Firefighting, Reuters, 3-7-03; also "Cashing In-Fortunes in Profits Await Bush Circle After Iraq War, Andrew Gumbel, The Independent (London) 9-15-02; also "War Could Be Big Business for Halliburton," Reuters, 3-23-03.
50. "Pentagon Seeks a Nuclear Digger," Washington Post, March 10, 2003.
51. "Remember: Bush Planed Iraq War Before Taking Office," Neil Mackay, The Sunday Herald (UK) 3-27-03; also "US Mini-Nukes Alarm Scientists," The Guardian (UK) 4-18-01; also "US Nuclear First-Strike Plan--It Keeps Getting Scarier, Jeffrey Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review, 2-24-03.
52. Wall Street Journal, 8-16-90: The CIA supported the Baath Party and installed Hussein as Iraqi dictator in 1968.
53. "United States Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and Their Impact on the Health of Persian Gulf War Veterans," Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 1992, 1994; "U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup," Washington Post, 12-30-02.
54. "US Government, 24 US Corps Illegally Helped Iraq Build Its WMD," Hugh Williamson in Berlin, Financial Times, 12-19-02; "Full List of US Weapons Suppliers To Iraq," Anu de Monterice, coachanu@earthlink.net, 12-19-02.
55. Huffington, op. cit.
Amy Worthington is a reporter for The Idaho Observer
Copyright 2005 The Sierra Times
What 'Support Our Troops' Really Means
By
Amy Worthington
The Idaho Observer
5-15-5
On March 30, an AP photo featured an American pro-war activist holding a sign: "Nuke the evil scum, it worked in 1945!" That's exactly what George Bush has done. America's mega-billion dollar war in Iraq has been indeed a NUCLEAR WAR.
Bush-Cheney have delivered upon 17 million Iraqis tons of depleted uranium (DU) weapons, a "liberation" gift that will keep on giving. Depleted uranium is a component of toxic nuclear waste, usually stored at secure sites. Handlers need radiation protection gear.
Over a decade ago, war-makers decided to incorporate this lethal waste into much of the Pentagon's weaponry. Navy ships carrying Phalanx rapid fire guns are capable of firing thousands of DU rounds per minute.(1) Tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. ships and subs are DU-tipped.(2) The M1 Abrams tanks are armored with DU.(3) These and British Challenger II tanks are tightly packed with DU shells, which continually irradiate troops in or near them.(4) The A-10 "tank buster" aircraft fires DU shells at machines and people on the battlefield.(5)
DU munitions are classified by a United Nations resolution as illegal weapons of mass destruction. Their use breaches all international laws, treaties and conventions forbidding poisoned weapons calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.
Ironically, support for our troops will extend well beyond the war in Iraq. Americans will be supporting Gulf War II veterans for years as they slowly and painfully succumb to radiation poisoning. U.S and British troops deployed to the area are the walking dead. Humans and animals, friends and foes in the fallout zone are destined to a long downhill spiral of chronic illness and disability. Kidney dysfunction, lung damage, bloody stools, extreme fatigue, joint pain, unsteady gait, memory loss and rashes and, ultimately, cancer and premature death await those exposed to DU.
Award-winning journalist Will Thomas wrote: "As the last Gulf conflict so savagely demonstrated, GI immune systems reeling from multiple doses of experimental vaccines offer little defense against further exposure to chemical weapons, industrial toxins, stress, caffeine, insect repellent and radiation leftover from the last war. This is a war even the victors will lose."(6)
When a DU shell is fired, it ignites upon impact. Uranium, plus traces of plutonium and americium, vaporize into tiny, ceramic particles of radioactive dust. Once inhaled, uranium oxides lodge in the body and emit radiation indefinitely. A single particle of DU lodged in a lymph node can devastate the entire immune system according to British radiation expert Roger Coghill.(7)
The Royal Society of England published data showing that battlefield soldiers who inhale or swallow high levels of DU can suffer kidney failure within days.(8) Any soldier now in Iraq who has not inhaled lethal radioactive dust is not breathing. In the first two weeks of combat, 700 Tomahawks, at a cost of $1.3 million each, blasted Iraqi real estate into radioactive mushroom clouds.(9) Millions of DU tank rounds liter the terrain. Cleanup is impossible because there is no place on the planet to put so much contaminated debris.
Bush Sr.'s Gulf War I was also a nuclear war. 320 tons of depleted uranium were used against Iraq in 1991.(10) A 1998 report by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances confirms that inhaling DU causes symptoms identical to those claimed by many sick vets with Gulf War Syndrome.(11) The Gulf War Veterans Association reports that at least 300,000 Gulf War I vets have now developed incapacitating illnesses.(12) To date, 209,000 vets have filed claims for disability benefits based on service-connected injuries and illnesses from combat in that war.(13)
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University, is a former army medical expert. He told nuclear scientists in Paris last year that tens of thousands of sick British and American soldiers are now dying from radiation they encountered during Gulf War I. He found that 62 percent of sick vets tested have uranium isotopes in their organs, bones, brains and urine.(14) Laboratories in Switzerland and Finland corroborated his findings.
In other studies, some sick vets were found to be expressing uranium in even their semen. Their sexual partners often complained of a burning sensation during intercourse, followed by their own debilitating illnesses.(15)
Nothing compares to the astronomical cancer rates and birth defects suffered by the Iraqi people who have endured vicious nuclear chastisement for years.(16) U.S. air attacks against Iraq since 1993 have undoubtedly employed nuclear munitions. Pictures of grotesquely deformed Iraqi infants born since 1991 are overwhelming.(17) Like those born to Gulf War I vets, many babies born to troops now in Iraq will also be afflicted with hideous deformities, neurological damage and/or blood and respiratory disorders.(18)
As an Army health physicist, Dr. Doug Rokke was dispatched to the Middle East to salvage DU-contaminated tanks after Gulf War I. His Geiger counters revealed that the war zones of Iraq and Kuwait were contaminated with up to 300 millirems an hour in beta and gamma radiation plus thousands to millions of counts per minute in alpha radiation. Rokke recently told the media: "The whole area is still trashed. It is hotter than heck over there still. This stuff doesn't go away."(19)
DU remains "hot" for 4.5 billion years. Radiation expert Dr. Helen Caldicott confirms that the dust-laden winds of DU-contaminated war zones "will remain effectively radioactive for the rest of time."(20) The murderous dust storms which ensnared coalition troops during the first few days of the current invasion are sure to have significant health consequences.
Rokke and his cleanup team were issued only flimsy dust masks for their dangerous work. Of the 100 people on Rokke's decontamination team, 30 have already "dropped dead." Rokke himself is ill with radiation damage to lungs and kidneys. He has brain lesions, skin pustules, chronic fatigue, continual wheezing and painful fibromyalgia. Rokke warns that anyone exposed to DU should have adequate respiratory protection and special coveralls to protect their clothing because, he says, you can't get uranium particles off your clothing.
The U.S. military insists that DU on the battlefield is not a problem. Colonel James Naughton of the U.S. Army Material Command recently told the BBC that complaints about DU "had no medical basis."(21) The military's own documents belie this. A 1993 Pentagon document warned that "when soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk."(22) A U.S. Army training manual requires anyone who comes within 25 meters of DU-contaminated equipment to wear respiratory and skin protection.(23) The U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute admitted: "If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences."(24) The Institute also stated that, if the troops were to realize what they had been exposed to, "the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive."(25) For pragmatic reasons, DOD chooses to lie and deny.
Dr. Rokke confirms that the Pentagon lies about DU dangers and is criminally negligent for neglecting medical attention needed by DU-contaminated vets. He predicts that the numbers of American troops to be sickened by DU from Gulf War II will be staggering.(26) As they gradually sicken and suffer a slow burn to their graves, the Pentagon will, as it did after Gulf War I, deny that their misery and death is a result of their tour in Iraq.
Dr. Rokke's candor has cost him his career. Likewise, Dr. Durakovic's radiation studies on Gulf War I vets were not popular with U.S. officials. Dr. Durakovic was reportedly told his life was in danger if he continued his research. He left the U.S. to continue his research abroad.(27)
Naive young coalition soldiers now in Iraq are likely unaware of how deadly their battlefield environment is. Gulf War I troops were kept in ignorance. Soldiers handled DU fragments and some wore these lethal nuggets around their necks. A DU projectile emits more radiation in five hours than allowed in an entire year under civilian radiation exposure standards. "We didn't know any better," Kris Kornkven told Nation magazine. "We didn't find out until long after we were home that there even was such a thing as DU."(28)
George Bush's ongoing war in Afghanistan is also a nuclear war. Shortly after 9-11, the U.S. announced it would stockpile tactical nuclear weapons including small neutron bombs, nuclear mines and shells suited to commando warfare in Afghanistan.(29) In late September, 2001, Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. would use tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan while Putin would employ nuclear weapons against the Chechnyans.(30)
Describing the Pentagon's B-61-11 burrowing nuke bomb, George Smith writes in the Village Voice: "Built ram tough with a heavy metal casing for smashing through the earth and concrete, the B-61 explodes with the force of an estimated 340,000 tons of TNT. It is lots of bang for the buck, literally two apocalypse bombs in one, a boosted plutonium firecracker called the primary and a heavy hydrogen secondary for that good old-fashioned H-bomb fireball."(31)
Drought-stricken Afghanistan's underground water supply is now contaminated by these nuclear weapons.(32) Experts with the Uranium Medical Research Center report that urine samples of Afghanis show the highest level of uranium ever recorded in a civilian population. Afghani soldiers and civilians are reported to have died after suffering intractable vomiting, severe respiratory problems, internal bleeding and other symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning. Dead birds still perched in trees are found partially melted with blood oozing from their mouths.(33)
Afghanistan's new president, Hamid Karzai, is a puppet installed by Washington. Under the protection of American soldiers, Karzai's regime is setting a new record for opium production. Both UN and U.S. reports confirm that the huge Afghani opium harvest of 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer.(34) Thanks to nuclear weapons, Afghanistan is now safe for the Bush-Cheney narcotics industry.(35) ABC News asserts that keeping the "peace" in Afghanistan will require decades of allied occupation.(36) For years to come, "peacekeepers" will be eating, drinking and breathing the "hot" carcinogenic pollution they have helped the Pentagon inflict upon that nation for organized crime.
As governor of Arkansas during the Iran-Contra era, Bill Clinton laundered $multi-millions in cocaine profits for then vice-president George Bush Sr.(37) As a partner in the Bush family's notorious crime machine, President Clinton committed U.S. troops to NATO's campaign in the Balkans, a prime heroin production and trans-shipment area. DOD's campaign to control and reorganize the drug trade there for the Bush mafia was yet another nuclear project.
For years, the U.S. and NATO fired DU missiles, bullets and shells across the Balkans, nuking the peoples of Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo. As DU munitions were slammed into chemical plants, the environment became hideously toxic, also endangering the peoples of Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, Austria and Hungary. By 1999, UN investigators reported that an estimated 12 tons of DU had caused irreparable damage to the Yugoslavian environment, with agriculture, livestock and air water, and public health all profoundly damaged.(38)
Scientists confirm that citizens of the Balkans are excreting uranium in their urine.39 In 2001, a Yugoslavian pathologist reported that hundreds of Bosnians have died of cancer from NATO's DU bombardment.(40) Many NATO peacekeepers in the Balkans now suffer ill health. Their leukemias, cancers and other maladies are dubbed the "Balkans Syndrome." Richard Coghill predicts that DU weapons used in Balkans campaign will result in at least 10,000 cases of fatal cancer.(41)
U.S. citizens at home are also paying a heavy price for criminal militarism gone mad. DOD is a pollution monster. The General Accounting Office (GAO) found 9,181 dangerous military sites in USA that will require $billions to rehabilitate. The GAO reports that DOD has been both slothful and deceitful in its clean-up obligations.(42) The Pentagon is now pressing Congress to exempt it from all environmental laws so that it may pollute and poison free from liability.(43)
The Navy uses prime fishing grounds off the coast of Washington state to test fire DU ammunition. In January, Washington State Rep. Jim McDermott chastised the Navy: "On one hand you have required soldiers to have DU safety training and to wear protective gear when handling DU...and submarines must stay clear of DU-contaminated waters. These policies indicate there is cause for concern....On the other hand the Department of Defense has repeatedly denied that DU poses any danger whatsoever. There has been no remorse about leaving tons of DU equipment in the soil in foreign countries, and there appears to be no remorse about leaving it in the waters of your own country."(44)
DU has been used in military practice maneuvers in Indiana, Florida, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Maryland and Puerto Rico. After the Navy tested DU weaponry on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, one third of the island's population developed serious illness. Many people show high levels of uranium in their bodies. Hundreds have filed a class action suit against the Navy for $100 million, claiming DU contamination has caused widespread cancers.(45)
The Navy's Fallon Naval Air Station near Fallon, Nevada, is a quagmire of 26 toxic waste sites. It is also a target practice zone for DU bombs and missiles. Area residents report bizarre illnesses, including 17 children who have contracted leukemia within five years. A survey of groundwater in the Fallon area showed nearly half of area wells are contaminated with radioactive materials.(46)
The materials for DU weaponry have been processed mainly at three nuclear plants in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee, where workers handling uranium contaminated with plutonium have suffered for decades with cancers and debilitating maladies similar to Gulf War Syndrome.(47)
Emboldened by power-grabbing successes made possible by his administration's devious 9-11 project, President Bush asserts that the U.S. has the right to attack any nation it deems a potential threat. He told West Point in 2002, "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."(48) Thus, it is certain that Bush-Cheney future pre-emptive nuclear wars are lined up like idling jets on a runway. Both Cheney's Halliburton Corp. and the Bush family's Carlyle Group are profiteers in U.S. defense contracts, so endless war is just good business.(49)
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon will create special nuclear weapons for use on North Korea's underground nuclear facilities.(50) Next August, U.S. war makers will meet to consolidate plans for a new generation of "mini," "micro" and "tiny" nuclear bombs and bunker busters. These will be added to the U.S. arsenal perhaps for use against non-nuclear third-world nations such as Iran, Syria, Lebanon.(51)
The solution? Americans must stop electing ruthless criminals to rule this nation. We must convince fellow citizens that villains like Saddam Hussein are made in the U.S. as rationale for endless corporate war profits. Saddam was placed in power by the CIA.(52) For years U.S. government agencies, under auspices of George Bush Sr., supplied him with chemical and biological weapons.(53) Our national nuclear laboratories, along with Unisys, Dupont and Hewlett-Packard, sold Saddam materials for his nuclear program.(54) Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton in the late 90s when its subsidiaries signed $73 million in new contracts to further supply Saddam.(55) The wicked villain of Iraq was nurtured for decades as a cash-cow by U.S. military-industrial piranhas.
If America truly supports its troops, it must stop sending them into nuclear holocaust for the enrichment of thugs. Time is running out. If the DU-maniacs at the Pentagon and their coven of nuclear arms peddlers are not harnessed, America will have no able-bodied fighting forces left. All people of the earth will become grossly ill, hideously deformed and short- lived. We must succeed in the critical imperative to face reality and act decisively. Should we fail, there will be no place to hide from Bush-Cheney's merciless nuclear orgies yet to come or from the inevitable nuclear retaliation these orgies will surely breed.
Endnotes
1."DOD Launches Depleted Uranium Training," Linda Kozaryn, American Forces Press Service, 8-13-99.
2."Nukes of the Gulf War,"John Shirley, Zess@aol.com. See this article in archives at www.gulfwarvets.com.
3. BBC News, "US To Use Depleted Uranium," March 18, 2003; U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: "Early Performance Assessment of Bradley and Abrams," 1-2-92.
4."Nukes of the Gulf War," op. cit.
5. Ibid.
6. "Invading Hiroshima," William Thomas, 2-4-2003, www.willthomas.net
7. "US Shells Leave Lethal Legacy," Toronto Star, July 31, 1999; also "Radiation Tests for Peacekeepers in the Balkans Exposed to Depleted Uranium," www.telegraph.co.uk, 12-31-02.
8. "Depleted Uranium May Stop Kidneys In Days," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.com, 3-12-02; also "Uranium Weapons Too Hot to Handle," Rob Edwards, New Scientist.co.uk, 6-9-99.
9. "Navy Seeks Cash for More Tomahawks," David Rennie in Washington, Telegraph Group Limited, 1-4-03, news.telegraph.co.uk.
10. "Going Nuclear in Iraq--DU Cancers Mount Daily," Ramzi Kysia, CounterPunch.org, 12-31-01.
11."Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01, www.guardianlimited.co.uk.
12. "Gulf War Illnesses Affect 300,000 Vets," Ellen Tomson, Pioneer Press, www.pioneerplanet.com. See also American Gulf War Veterans Association at www.gulfwarvets.com.
13. "2 of Every 5 Gulf War Vets Are On Disability: 209,000 Make VA Claims," World Net Daily, 1-28-03, WorldNetDaily.com.
14. "Research on Sick Gulf Vets Revisited, "New York Times, 1-29-01; "Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning," Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier, The Sunday Times (UK) 9-3-02.
15. "Catastrophe: Ill Gulf Vets Contaminated Partners With DU," The Halifax Herald Limited, Clare Mellor, 2-09-01. This article is available in archives at www.rense.com.
16. "Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02; "US Depleted Uranium Yields Chamber of Horrors in Southern Iraq, Andy Kershaw, The Independent (London) 12-4-01.
17. "The Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Gulf War Region with Special References to Iraq," Ross Mirkarimi, The Arms Control Research Centre, May 1992. See also Gulf War Syndrome Birth Defects in Iraq at www.web-light.nl/VISIE/extremedeformities.html.
18. "The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm, Has Our Country Abandoned Them?," Life Magazine, November 1995; "Birth Defects Killing Gulf War Babies," Los Angeles Times, 11-14-94; "Depleted Uranium, The Lingering Poison," Alex Kirby, BBC News Online, 6-7-99.
19. "Depleted Uranium, A Killer Disaster," Travis Dunn, Disaster News.net, 12-29-02.
20. San Francisco Chronicle, 10-10-02.
21. "US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03.
22. "Depleted Uranium Symptoms Match US Report As Fears Spread," Peter Beaumont, The Observer (UK) 1-14-01.
23. "Iraqi Cancer, Birth Defects Blamed on US Depleted Uranium," Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 11-12-02.
24. "US To Use Depleted Uranium," BBC News, 3-18-03.
25. US Army Environmental Policy Institute: Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium in the U.S. Army, Technical Report, June 1995.
26. "Pentagon Depleted Uranium No Health Risk," Dr. Doug Rokke, 3-15-03; also "The Terrible, Tragic Toll of Depleted Uranium," Address by Dr. Rokke before congressional leaders in Washington, D.C.,12-30-02; also "Gulf War Casualties," Dr. Doug Rokke, www.traprockpeace.org. 9-30-02.
27."Tests Show Gulf War Victims Have Uranium Poisoning," Sunday Times (UK), Jonathon Carr-Brown and Martin Meissonnier, 9-3-00.
28. "The Pentagon's Radioactive Bullet: An Investigative Report," Bill Mesler, The Nation, 5-28-99, see www.thenation.com/ issue/961021/1021mesl.htm.
29. "Tactical Nukes Deployed In Afghanistan," World Net Daily, 10-7-01. 30. Ibid.
31. "The B-61 Bomb,The Burrowing Nuke" George Smith,VillageVoice.com 12-29-02.; also "Bunker-busting US Tactical Nuclear Bombs, Nowhere to Hide," Kennedy Grey, Wired.com, 10-9-01.
32."Perpetual Death From America," Mohammed Daud Miraki, Afghan-American Interviews, 2-24-03; also "Dying of Thirst," Fred Pearce, New Scientist, 11-17-2001.
33. Ibid.
34. "Afghanistan Displaces Myanmar as Top Heroin Producer," Agence France-Presse, 3-01-03. This article is at www.copvcia.com.;also "Opium Trade Flourishing In the `New Afghanistan,'" Reuters, 3-3-03.
35. "The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire," Michael C. Ruppert, Nexus Magazine, February-March 2000; The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill & Co., revised edition due May 2003; Drugging of America, Rodney Stich, Diablo Western Press, 1999; "Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms," Bob Djurdjevic, Truth In Media, April 2000, www.truthinmedia.org. 36. ABC News, February 27, 2003.
37. Compromised, Clinton Bush and the CIA, Terry Reed and John Cummings, S.P.I. Books, 1994; The Clinton Chronicles and The Mena Cover-up, Citizens for Honest Government, 1996; "The Crimes of Mena, Grey Money," Ozark Gazette, 1995 (see www.copvcia.com.)
38. "Damage to Yugoslav Environment is Immense, Says a UN Report," Bob Djurdjevic, 7-4-99, truthinmedia.org. This report was submitted to the UN Security Council on June 9, 1999; also, "New Depleted Uranium Study Shows Clear Damage," BBC News,8-28-99; also "NATO Issued Warning About Toxic Ammo," Associated Press, 01-08-01.
39. CounterPunch.org, 12-28-01.
40. "Hundreds Died of Cancer After DU Bombing--Doctor," Reuters, 1-13-01.
41."Depleted Uranium Threatens Balkan Cancer Epidemic," BBC News, 7-30-99.
42. "Many Defense Sites Still Hazardous," Associated Press, 9-24-02; also Old US Weapons Called Hidden Danger, Los Angeles Times, 11-25-02.
43. "Pentagon Seeks Freedom to Pollute Land, Air and Sea," Andrew Gumbel in L.A., 3-13-03, Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.
44. "Radioactive DU Ammo Is Tested in Fish Areas," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-11-03; Letter from Rep. McDermott to Department of the Navy: see "Navy Fired DU Rounds Into Waters Off Coast of Washington," 1-20-03, rense.com.
45."Cancer Rates Soar From US Military Use of DU On `Enchanted Island,'" www.telegraph.co.uk, 2-5-01; also "Navy Shells With Depleted Uranium Fired in Puerto Rico," Fox News Online, 5-28-99.
46. "The Fallon, NV Cancer Cluster And a US Navy Bombing," Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch.org, 8-10-02.
47. "DU Shells Are Made of A Potentially Lethal Cocktail of Nuclear Waste," Jonathon Carr-Brown, www.sunday-times.co.uk, 1-22-01.
48. "Preventative War Sets Perilous Precedent," Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers, 3-20-03.
49. PIGS at the Trough, Arriana Huffington, Random House, 2003 (New York Times best seller.); also "The Best Enemies Money Can Buy, From Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden Insider Connections and the Bush Family's Partnership With Killers of Americans;" Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness,10-10-01; also "Bush Sr.'s Carlyle Group Gets Fat on War and Conflict," Jamie Doward, The Observer (UK), 3-25-03; also "Halliburton Wins Contract for Iraq Oil Firefighting, Reuters, 3-7-03; also "Cashing In-Fortunes in Profits Await Bush Circle After Iraq War, Andrew Gumbel, The Independent (London) 9-15-02; also "War Could Be Big Business for Halliburton," Reuters, 3-23-03.
50. "Pentagon Seeks a Nuclear Digger," Washington Post, March 10, 2003.
51. "Remember: Bush Planed Iraq War Before Taking Office," Neil Mackay, The Sunday Herald (UK) 3-27-03; also "US Mini-Nukes Alarm Scientists," The Guardian (UK) 4-18-01; also "US Nuclear First-Strike Plan--It Keeps Getting Scarier, Jeffrey Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review, 2-24-03.
52. Wall Street Journal, 8-16-90: The CIA supported the Baath Party and installed Hussein as Iraqi dictator in 1968.
53. "United States Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and Their Impact on the Health of Persian Gulf War Veterans," Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 1992, 1994; "U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup," Washington Post, 12-30-02.
54. "US Government, 24 US Corps Illegally Helped Iraq Build Its WMD," Hugh Williamson in Berlin, Financial Times, 12-19-02; "Full List of US Weapons Suppliers To Iraq," Anu de Monterice, coachanu@earthlink.net, 12-19-02.
55. Huffington, op. cit.
Amy Worthington is a reporter for The Idaho Observer
Copyright 2005 The Sierra Times
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