> Stannard67 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> Lee
>> Greenwood's song Proud To Be An American was playing
>
> A fascinating text indeed. It doesn't matter if I lose it all - job,
> health insurance, house, whatever - at least I'm free! And you don't
> agree, I'll pull your ear off.
>
> Doug
'You No-Good, Unemployed, Communist Faggot' By Judith Moriarty NoahsHouse at adelphia.net
It was Gulf War I, and I was marching up the old Post Rd. in Connecticut for Peace. I carried a sign reporting on the number of our soldiers that had been killed thus far, when a sleek, silver BMW pulled up alongside me. The profusely sweating, purple faced man, his bejeweled ringed, sausage fingers, tightly gripping the hand tooled leather steering wheel, spit in my face screaming, "You no-good, unemployed, Communist faggot!" Never one to miss a chance for a flippant answer, I replied, "Hey, I have a job!"
This was a first time experience for me of the rabid, frothing, mindless, frightening vindictiveness that people are capable of. I had never been a part of the Vietnam era protests, but knew that if ever given the opportunity I would stand against the insanity of war. I had watched the parade of citizens on our downtown city streets screaming that Saddam needed to be killed. The news reported that he was comparable to Hitler! He was evil personified and needed to be wiped from the face of the earth.
I knew that up until a few weeks before Kuwait slant drilled into Iraqi oil fields, that we (government officials) had no problem doing business with this evil despot, supplying both Iraq and Iran with weaponry during the Iraq-Iran War, plus all kinds of chemicals, and weapons and agricultural credits. It was rather confusing how the gassing of citizens by both the Iranians and Iraqis had been benignly overlooked in the mid-eighties, but now he was evil! What was he before?
I demonstrated against war, for I knew, that if chemicals or biological weapons were used, our soldiers didn't stand a chance nor would any civilians. The magnitude of what might be unleashed in such warfare was too horrific to imagine! Kuwait hired one of America's most prestigious public relations firms to market the war. They are the ones who came up with the stories of babies being thrown from incubators, rapes etc. This came out months after the war in Senate Hearings.
What wasn't made known at this time was that victory as victory is imagined was never meant to happen. The war ended as abruptly as it had started, but not before the rag tag peasants of Saddam were incinerated at war's end escaping from Kuwait by taxi, busses, wagons, cars, and trucks. No, hardly Saddam's royal troops. Just impoverished peasants, not even having uniforms and many shoeless. In Iraq one doesn't have the option or privilege of refusing to go to war. You go or you and your family will be killed!
Unheralded, was the fact that Depleted Uranium was being used for the first time. No, our men, were not informed. Depleted Uranium is 99.5 percent of what is left when the most fissionable isotope is extracted from naturally occurring uranium. The extracted uranium is used in nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel or nuclear reactors. The 99,5 percent that is discarded cannot be put back into the mines, because after crushing and processing, the volume is greater than before it was removed. It is very radioactive and dangerous to all living things.
The Department of Defense got the idea to use depleted uranium in weapons because: it is very dense, has great penetrating power to cut through tanks like butter; it is "pyrophoric', which means that upon impact, it explodes into fire and smoke, creating submicroscopic radioactive particles which travel great distances. The United States has hundreds of thousands of tons of depleted uranium piled in heaps outdoors at Department of Energy facilities. War is a cheap way of disposing of it.
The half life of uranium is 4 billion years. It will continue acting internally on living things long after a war is finished. In 45 billion years it will no longer be a danger! The Army A-10 Thunderbolt II, the 'Warthog" fired most of the depleted uranium munitions in the Gulf War, between 300 to 800 tons. The Abrams Tank, the Marines M60, the U.S. F-16 and U.S. Apache helicopters have been fitted to fire Depleted Uranium munitions. Many cruise missiles contain Depleted Uranium balance weights.
The use of Depleted Uranium is no secret but the health hazards are denied. Gulf War Syndrome not only killed, maimed and made soldiers sick, they brought it home. See hearings held by Congressman Christopher Shays (R-CT.) . In a study of 251 Gulf War veteran's families in Mississippi, 67 percent of their children were born without eyes, ears or a brain, had fused fingers, blood infections, respiratory problems or thyroid and other organ malformations. The U.S. has manufactured and tested depleted uranium in 39 states. The cleanup bill---just for the depleted uranium---at the Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana would be $7.8 billion!
The United States has used Depleted Uranium weaponry in the Gulf, Kosovo, Serbia, Vieques Island, Torishima Island near Okinawa, and Afghanistan. It has sold Depleted Uranium to at least 23 countries. See Akira Tashiro's new book, "Discounted Casualties, The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium". <SNIP> <URL: http://www.abettertoday.com/you%20no%20good.htm >