Depleted Uranium - Mobile Armageddon

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Depleted Uranium -  Mobile Armageddon

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Subject: Mobile Armageddon


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Dissident Voice - Nov 3, 2004

Mobile Armageddon

By Reza Fiyouzat

As a naturalized citizen of the USA, I am grateful that this country
has established voting as a right of the citizenry, no matter how
well or poorly this right may be exercised at times. And, as an
Iranian long-time observer (and object) of things political, I can
safely expect that almost all that is of essential significance will
remain unchanged no matter who wins. And for these particular
US general elections, not even the tempo of atrocious behavior
toward Middle Easterners is expected to change. For the most
part, now that the voting is over, we are still left with all our
fundamental questions unaddressed and all our problems
growing worse.


At least for those Iraqi and Afghans who are inhaling uranium
fumes in their streets, ingesting uranium dust in their food,
drinking uranium particles in their water; and watching their
kids play in uranium-shielded vehicles after the soldiers are
through destroying with them. This radioactive poison, gassing
all the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and, downwind, of all
countries in the Middle East, will burn cancers into all organic
life forms, for the next four and a half billion years. We heard
not a single word from either major candidate that such a war
crime should be questioned, never mind stopped. This is the
equivalent of not caring to form an opinion over Nazis' gassing
of Jews and Gypsies in concentration camps.


Of course, all familiar with the history of colonization know
well that the schemes and intentions driving the atrocities in
Iraq are not new. For only the most famous example, Thom
Hartmann has a good overview: "Prior to Columbus' arrival,
some scholars place the population of Haiti/Hispaniola
 at around 1.5 to 3 million people. By 1496, it was down to
1.1 million, according to a census done by Bartholomew
Columbus. By 1516, the indigenous population was 12,000,
and according to Las Casas (who were there) by 1542 fewer
than 200 natives were alive. By 1555, every single one was
dead," (from  "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate
of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late" by
Thom Hartmann,  www.thomhartmann.com)


This dark history of ours, however, should not be 'quoted'
in the spirit of cynicism, to insinuate that humans are by
immovable nature perpetually afflicted with nothing but
greed, and mysteriously beyond any cure. Not at all. The
reference to history is done in the spirit of a warning, a call
to lift the heads and a plea for persuasion.


The singular mechanism of voting does not exhaust by a long
shot all that is meant by the word 'democracy'. If that were
the case, the Mullahs in Tehran could (and some perhaps do)
claim to be more democratic than the politicians in
Washington, DC, since, taken as a percentage of eligible
population that participated in the elections, more Iranians
participated in their Presidential and Parliamentary
elections of 1997 than did Americans in their Presidential
and Congressional elections of 1996 or 2000. Thus
rendered quantitatively, would it then be logical to conclude
that the Iranians practiced more democracy? Hardly!


Clearly voting alone does not guarantee a realistic control
over the decisions that truly shape our lives. As some among
the ancient Greeks would have it, to be a citizen implied
responsibilities far beyond the occasional casting of a ballot.
It would be indeed the antithesis of democracy when such
occasional casting of the ballot is only followed by a swift
disappearance behind the daily chores and duties and
obligations that comprise the 'comfort' of the private life,
little of which is truly private. Most of what we have in
private was gotten through very social and public means
It is indeed public questions that determine to the last
minutiae of our private lives.


Compared to the Greek ideal, then, it becomes clear how
deeply undemocratic and indeed anti-democratic all our
states are. Laws do get written, laws that change and affect
our lives, yet none of us (the people) are doing any of the
writing of the laws, nor exerting any real control over the
corporations that steal our common goods and natural
resources at the same time as they dictate laws to our
legislatures to the effect of our entrapment.


"As for the question of  administration, [the ancient Greeks']
system was one in which every citizen was expected to, and
got to serve in various capacities, chosen through a process
that has come to be known as sortition, a sort of selection by
lot. This magnificent mode of experimentation, this readiness
to learn by doing, has given humanity one of the most vibrant
epochs of its history," (To Be or Not to Be an Idiot, H.
Utanazad, March 3, 2003, www.iranian.com).


Within this ideal framework, what of those individuals who
chose not to participate in the making of the decisions which
shape the conditions of their lives? "They had a name -- those
Greeks -- for the occasional one who refused to get involved:
they called him the idiotes, the private person, the one who
cared not for the affairs of the community, or for politics,"
(ibid).


So, which are we? Citizens or idiots?


Post Mortem for Postmodernism

Each and every aspect and dimension of this juncture of
our history, as is always with our social class activities,
is a forced situation. There is nothing fatalistic about it,
and very little of it is based on chance or came about
randomly.


Ever since the appearance of the 'New Movements' for
social justice in the 1960s and 1970s, and the s
ubsequent seeming displacement of 'classes' by
'race/gender/identity/environment', the pragmatism of
the dispersed fights in concrete localities has dominated
the US left. Furthermore, as the New Movements have
diverged increasingly, activists of all localities, even while
fighting disconnected fights, have grown more timid with
every successive demand they have put forth, so as to
reassure all that they are not in any way form or shape
one of those 'big-picture' bad guys, to sooth any worries
that, God forbid, should they be engaged in trying to
change the system!


As a result, the followers of postmodernist oppositional
practices have abided loyally by a policy of standing
aside when it has come to 'big-picture' questions of big
narratives of systems and utopias; meaning, they have
voluntarily handed the most crucial domains over to the
boys with the guns running the current global system.


The postmodern activist in the USA should find it
instructive that politically what they preach would resonate
harmonically well with a majority of middle class parents all
over the world, as they persist to dissuade all from political
oppositional activity. My own homegrown type have been
repeating to their kids by rote: "Just tend to your own little
garden. Forget about politics! What can you do anyway?
See what happened when we tried to change things in Iran?
We ended up with a worse totalitarianism! See child? We
should have appreciated the Shah and kept our mouths
shut!"


Another point of contention, and one of irony, is that, at
any political juncture where the New Movements joined
hands with the workers the results were the most dramatic
openings in the political spaces previously undisputed, in
fundamental ways. The May 1968 uprisings of Paris were
perhaps the best example of this. But then, one must also
mention that this is the city that, almost a century prior to
the May uprisings of the 'Vietnam generation', had given
us the Paris Commune.


So, maybe the working class militancy does make a big
difference. Simply because working classes change shape
and form does not mean militancy can be safely dispensed
with; we have not entered some radically changed
universe simply because more aspects of our overlooked
humanity are raising their voices. The New Movements
did not displace classes, nor could they.


What did take place, however, was a very systematic
attack on the living standards as well as autonomous
institutions of the working classes, waged on all fronts:
from purely economic (systematic increases in temping,
reduction and where possible axing of benefits in more
and more industries, outsourcing, holding the workers
at ransom practically with the threat of relocation, while
reducing wages and taking rights away) to the legislative
(in the form of the so called 'deregulation' revolution);
all of which expanded and deepened radically the realms
governed by private capital. Not to forget the destruction
of the safety net for the most vulnerable portions of the
working classes, thereby dropping the floor even further,
all of this led by a group of rightwing activist political
representatives, starting most notably in the UK and the
US, by the end of 1970s. By the end of their rollback,
capital had maximum mobility, while labor was locked
into ghettoized, localized, dispersed parcels.


While the New Movements busied themselves with
over-estimations of their own impact and scope, the
infrastructure for all oppositional movements
deteriorated considerably.


Ultimately, the system has laughed all the way.
Feminism was reduced to having a seat at the table,
as was the race 'issue'; THE table; the only table; the
table at which decisions are made regarding the
perpetuation of starvation, disease and insecurity,
bombing or poisoning of innocent communities for
the price of a loot.


Very obviously women's liberation has not come about.
Nor has colonization ended. Nor have grand narratives
stopped dictating the shapes of our lives. And, indeed,
they continue to dictate life with special ferocity to the
people living outside the so-called Metropolis, away
from the North, distant from the First World.


Whatever the name, the reality is clear to us. A very
definite Totality does constitute our reality, and we
perceive clearly how the shitty end of this system ends
up where it does, and see clearly where the loot ends
up. We all exist in this totality, so we should not
mistake it for randomly put together contingent narratives.
The most productive intellectual tool that explains best
how our historical situation has specifically come to this
point is that old concept of the struggle of the SOCIAL
CLASSES!


The total emancipation of women today is negated
primarily by the uneven wage structure that is in
perpetuity a fundamental requirement for a capitalist
way of organizing social production. This, and not
simply the general history of patriarchy, explains the
specific and concrete shape of women's subjugation
today.


The decades of 1980s and 1990s were the decades
of rightwing restoration, resurgence, and renewed
dominance. With the collapse of the Soviet Union
the outright maniacal unleashing of unsheathed
capitalism became possible and immediately went
into effect. The collapse, or complete disappearance
of the US left, then, has been a long process. But,
with this election, we can without a doubt state
that in the US the true left, with the exception of
Nader, is now entirely located outside the officialdom.


Along with about 50% of the electorate that regularly
does not vote. And along with a great amount of truth
and un-pretty reality, under which we must continue
to labor.


Two Points for Agitation:

Taxation without Representation, Radioactive Poisoning


Yet, this is exactly the last place to act timidly!


Just because it was legal to own slaves did the slaves simply
surrender and lose their conviction that slavery was anything
but a crime against humanity?


One point that must be raised has to do with the question
of the degree of idiocy allowed. Did not the Declaration
of Independence have some bearing on the slogan, 'No
Taxation without Representation!'? But, on this day more
than ever, we have relinquished our representation for the
taxes we pay.


The question of the theft that is called taxation can be
turned around, though.


Here is a modest proposal. In the magnificently hi-tech
country of the USA, we have all the means and the
wherewithal to devise a simple re-introduction of
representation into our tax system. Imagine, if you will,
a system whereby, coupled with the documents we
submit for our taxes yearly, we are required to submit
also a list of priorities that dictate to the government
how our taxes are to be spent in the fiscal year to come.


So, for example, as a tax payer I can dictate to the
government that, of the taxes just received from me,
I would like them to spend 30% of it on various
welfare programs, 20% on education, 20% on national
healthcare, 20% on proliferation of artistic activities
among the elderly, and 10% on developing a sound
science of child psychology, so that we can stop
torturing and stupefying our kids. Thus, under this
system, the decision over the expenditure of our money
is not relegated to some 'expert' legislator, but is actually
carried out by us, so that each and every one of our
priorities is not only respected, but accounted for, and
our money is put where our collective mouths would
have been through that fiscal year.


By deciding the budgetary restraints of policies and thus
prioritizing expenditure, citizens become more politically
adept at the same time that they are becoming more
relevant in a real sense. So, where better to start
demanding rights of decision making than when you are
handing over your money to the government? Such a
reformulation of taxation system can bring about a real
lever of control exercised by the citizens over a myriad
of social policies, orientation of the foreign policy, trade,
would even have repercussions on industrial policy, and
could far more easily exert control over questions that
could lead to costly endeavors such as wars.


This is not a revolutionary idea. Loudly demanding that
governments be more accountable to the people, in a
very concrete way, in the light of the question of
representation for taxation, is a legitimate right that most
citizens of any bourgeois society can relate to without
being horrified that, God forbid, they be required to turn
into rabid revolutionaries, forced to abandon their families
and communities!


But, if enacted, such a practiced conception of taxation
would be far more conducive to creating more radical
conditions.


The second point is one of guilt on a mass scale. Yes,
we are repeating ourselves, and yes it is a good thing
to repeat what needs repeating; we are talking about
the use of uranium munitions. Did you hear about
those 'bunker-buster' bombs those nice guys in Israel
just bought, and received on time from their US
manufacturing clients? The type that is used daily,
weekly, monthly in Iraq and Afghanistan? The
bunker-busting capabilities of which brought to you
by uranium. A weapon of mass destruction. A nuclear
weapon of a new generation.


In view of the fact that the genocidal and omnicidal
(killing of all living things) impact of the US and the
UK's military tactics in using uranium munitions are
denied daily, while the clinical and the criminal
evidence piles higher and higher, and while other more
'mundane' atrocities are becoming normalized, we must
think of what lies ahead for those exposed to uranium
munitions.


As a result of the unprecedented proliferation of uranium
munitions by the US and the UK military forces in the
Gulf region between 1991 and August 2004, Terry Jemison
of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs has reported that 518,739
soldiers returning from the Gulf region in that 13-year
period are currently on medical disability. In that same time
period only 7,039 were injured on the battlefield.
Sixty-five percent of the post-war babies born to a group
of 400 returning soldiers were born with severe deformities
- missing brains, missing eyes, arms and legs and other
organs (from, "Depleted uranium: Dirty bombs, dirty
missiles, dirty bullets: A death sentence here and abroad,"
by Leuren Moret, San Francisco Bay View, August 18,
2004).


That is not counting the human cost of soldiers who
will never return, nor the tortured souls who will
return to shattered lives. The families of the military
personnel being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan must be
told this. It is everybody's duty to inform them of this
atrocity being committed against them by their own
government, which qualifies as a war crime. Just as
much an atrocity as being sent into harm's way to
secure no-bid contracts for Halliburton, Bechtel,
the Carlyle Group, and assorted oil, banking, and
construction cartels.


And the reports are clear that the bad boys in the
big business of war are aware of the growing
opposition to uranium weapons from US citizens,
and are therefore currently outsourcing the
manufacturing of uranium into munitions to Belgium
and South Africa.


Here is the truth as told in an email interview with
Leuren Moret, the courageous geoscientist, formerly
at Livermore National Laboratories, who has since
been informing the world of the horrors of uranium
munitions: "I called [a] veteran who was in munitions,
Special OPs, and has testified in Congress.  He is a
reliable source in my opinion, and has been in contact
with Joyce Riley and her program The Power Hour for
years.  After testifying in Congress after Gulf War-I, he
was put in military prison for telling the truth on the
floor of Congress ... He said that soldiers he is in touch
with who are on active duty told him that recently crates
of depleted uranium ballistics (bullets, missiles and
bombs) have been arriving at the port at Corpus Christi,
Texas.  There is a large US Army depot there where
munitions are stored for distribution to all branches of
the military.  There is also a quarantine station there
which may mean extra privacy for whatever they are
doing with the DU. The crates of DU ballistics are
labeled with point of embarkation as "Belgium" or "
South Africa".  He said that Belgium is where NATO
headquarters is located, and that the winds there blow
out to sea which would carry any depleted uranium
dust or residue away from populated areas.  The
munitions are being shipped to the US for storage and
deployment here.  He said the metal DU is shipped to
those countries for manufacturing, a way to appease
the outcry in the US against DU munitions."


Ms Moret said that depleted uranium weapons are
in violation of US laws and meet the federal definition
of Weapons of Mass Destruction: US CODE, Title 50:
Chapter 40, Section 2302: The term "weapon of mass
destruction" means any weapon or device that is
intended, or has the capability, to cause death or serious
bodily injury to a significant number of people through
the release, dissemination, or impact of - (A) toxic or
poisonous chemicals or their precursors; (B) a disease
organism; or (C) radiation or radioactivity." Depleted
uranium WMD are therefore illegal under US Military
Law, and all international treaties, agreements, and the
Geneva and Hague Conventions.


  "Our babies are dying again from global pollution
with low level radiation," Ms Moret warned.  "The
US and UK are turning this planet into a death star
- for greed, for profits, and to steal the mineral
resources from other countries to bolster the US and
UK economies. In a unit of 20 soldiers who served in
the 2003 Iraq war, 8 of those soldiers have
malignancies just 16 months later.  What will happen
to the other soldiers who have served or will be serving
in the contaminated regions?"


When I suggested that, following from the available
statistics, we can extrapolate that at least 50,000
returning soldiers will have died in a decade, Ms
Moret's objection was that my estimate was far
too low.


She said "Our children are becoming uranium meat
for someone else's profits, and that is not why we
had children."  She added that all future generations
born to contaminated people will continue to express
birth defects from their damaged DNA.


The planned and conscious proliferation of uranium
poisoning by the US and the UK governments can and
must be used in campaigns of organized, legal mass
mutiny. In this effort the clear clinical evidence that
exists of the effects of uranium munitions' use must be
widely disseminated among the armed forces of the US
and the UK being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. The
governments of the US and the UK must be held
accountable.


The Nazis were neat. Anal, if you will. They created
specific facilities to carry out their evilest deeds away
from the public eyes, so that they could maintain
their starched public appearance. One stereotypical
image of the Yanks, by contrast, is the sloppy type.
As tourists, they can stand out in a crowd of a million,
and as military beings they feel comfortable only when
they're leaving a huge mess everywhere they go. As go
the stereotypes, so does some of the reality. On a less
negative note, the American ruling classes are
perpetually retro-proactive. Meaning, in plain English,
they're always covering their tracks. This time, though,
they have a hell of a track to cover.


The history of mankind has consisted mainly in the
fight between the monkey within each and every
one of us and the human within all of us. Faced with
the monkeys, are we, let's ask again, are we going to
act as citizens or as idiots?


[Reza Fiyouzat is an applied linguist and freelance
writer working in Japan. Iranian by birth, bi-national
by passports (a US citizen), his writings have appeared
in  CounterPunch, and (in English and Portuguese) on
the Brazilian website Revista Espaco Academico.]

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