June 27, 2003

PILGER ACCUSED

BBC special correspondent John Sweeney in the latest Spectator:

I accuse John Pilger of cheating the public and favouring a dictator.

Read the whole, damning thing.

(Via Damian Penny.)

Posted by Tim Blair at June 27, 2003 06:06 AM
Comments

Pilger has never veered from his bootlicking support of dictators and damnation of the west.
His reporting is consistently marked by misuse of facts and suppression of facts.

Pilger is more than a cheater of the public.Yet no less unhappy are the newspapers who continue to pay a teller of grotesque stories.

Posted by: d at June 27, 2003 at 09:01 AM

I just don't see how it's all Saddam's fault. Like even if everything Sweeney says is true, all those dead babies are still at least partly the result of the imposition of the sanctions, in the sense that it wouldn't have happened if there had been no sanctions. Clearly Saddam was a capricious, mass-murdering f***wit, and if you put in him in a position where there's a potential gain from mass-murder and from behaving capriciously, then it can't be a surprise that he does in fact kill a bunch of people in a capricious way. While it may be true that:


The ministry was trying to make healthcare worse in Iraq, the goal being to blacken the name of UN sanctions, which Saddam detested as a brake on his power. The fewer drugs, the worse the equipment and the more dead babies, the better it was for the regime

Surely you should ask, who is responsible for creating that state of affairs? Well, partly Saddam, because said state of affairs were a consequence of the first Gulf War, which he started, and partly those who imposed the sanctions, because even though they knew that Saddam would behave in the worst possible way, they nevertheless imposed the sanctions which created a situation in which Saddam might gain if he killed some babies. Ergo: not all Saddam's fault.


Also, I fail to see what reason Pilger has "To omit the possibility that some of the cancers were caused by Saddam’s chemical weapons", on account of the fact that:


Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq. A Tennessee manufacturer contributed large amounts of a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in Gulf War diseases.

The facts that Sweeney describes could easily be placed within the context of an anti-American diatribe, so his contention that Pilger deliberately left these facts out because they didn't conform with his worldview simply isn't true. These facts did, elegantly, conform with Pilger's worldview.

Posted by: adam at June 27, 2003 at 10:13 AM

We can start with the objective of sanctions: an attempt to constrict Hussein's capacity to fund his weapons programme.

That attempt failed. What was suspected prior to the war has since been confirmed, an underground nuclear production factory. Other related components have been recently discovered ( cf. Alan Anderson's site ).Failed, because of the French, by Chirac, deal with Hussein, oil for building, plant and equipment.

The moral objection you propose is the fallacy of special pleading, which can be reduced to, sanctions made him do it.This sort of special pleading is typical of murderers such as Gerry Adams and western tard communistos. A first rate example is the US Democrats who, holding the sun shines out of Castro's bum,blame Castro's recent round of arrests, torture and murder on , yes, nasty old westerners maintaining contact with Cubans.
As for Pilger's omission of some evidence, it is habitual for Pilger to do so, as in , the man deliberately lies. And, they are not minor lies either. The guardian has published columns by Pilger on the war and prior history of murders in Iraq which are gruesome, and savage for the sheer, outright lying, not mere distortion of some facts, but outright lying. One of his articles purveys gruesome photographs of dead Iraqis which he uses to mount what is nothing less than a puerile conspiracy `theory' against the white-house.

What is wrong with Pilger ,indeed. To reiterate, the man is consistent, he did the same thing during the Vietnam war. The man is a savage, communisto inveterate hardened liar.

Posted by: d at June 27, 2003 at 10:39 AM

Sorry Adam, your justification is not merely repugnant, but also wrong. Though I am sure you should be getting used to it by now considering your world view has been pretty well repugned by every thinking person on the globe.

One of the single greatest evils of the Left has been moral relativity. Hence your misguided and plain wrong assertion that Saddam is not completely responsible for his action because that nasty old UN put all those mean sanctions on him. He just wanted to have fun and now those other big kids are being beastly to him.

Just cause he was murdering his own and his neighbouring people, that doesn't mean he was a bad person, just misunderstood. He was only having a bit of a laugh and I am sure he never really 'meant' to kill that million odd people. Still, bit of a laugh really. The way that they curl up and turn green like that. What a giggle.

Saddam is totally responsible for his actions. Not the UN, not "Society", not the great satan of the US, Him alone. He was the one depriving and murdering his people, he was the one diverting the funds from the oil for food program so that his country starved whilst he built his palaces and weapons programs. He was the one who is completely and totally responsible for his actions.

Sorry Adam, your inherent racism is coming to the fore. Why don't you just admit that you think that Middle East People can't be held responsible for their actions because they are not as developped as us white folk in the West. At least you would be a little bit honest.

Posted by: Todd at June 27, 2003 at 10:59 AM

" Clearly Saddam was a capricious, mass-murdering f***wit, and if you put in him in a position where there's a potential gain from mass-murder and from behaving capriciously, then it can't be a surprise that he does in fact kill a bunch of people in a capricious way."

This is how it works. Sadam does somthing evil US wants to do somthing about it. liberals want to oppose USA so they say dont take action or "X" will happen, sadam hears this and makes sure X happens because he wants the liberals to win the argument.
Conclusion?

Never do anything about evil people becaue they might do somthing evil in retaliation... oh wait we already trie that with hitler.. er...

"The facts that Sweeney describes could easily be placed within the context of an anti-American diatribe, so his contention that Pilger deliberately left these facts out because they didn't conform with his worldview simply isn't true. These facts did, elegantly, conform with Pilger's worldview."

Oh no Pilger is trying to prove the WAR was bad. So he will mount all the evidence he can find against the war. when the next liberal is talking about US corporations he will count the same deaths against them instead even if it contradicts himself.

Posted by: Scottie at June 27, 2003 at 11:06 AM

Adam, the basis of your argument seems to be that the responsibility of the West was to minimize the potential negative effects of Saddam's psychopathy.

I think that's a reasonable postion, but if you apply it to Iraq, 1991-2003, the international community would have had a choice between (a) behaving in a way that entrenched Saddam's power domestically and permitted him to pursue his territorial ambitions (because these conditions happen also to be those in which Iraqi civilians would be best off, once you concede that Saddam is staying in power), and (b) removing him.

Once it comes down to that choice, it seems to me that the inescapable logic of your moral position is that Saddam should have been removed earlier.

Oh, and Pilger's a dick. I want to slap him.

Posted by: Mork at June 27, 2003 at 11:23 AM

No discussion of Pilger is complete without a clear recognition of his approach --- i.e. a variation of the old Soviet Union's socialist realism, which accepted unquestioningly that it was your "duty" to represent material in a manner that advanced "the cause".
Once you accept this, no discussion of Pilger is necessary.

Posted by: Norman at June 27, 2003 at 11:39 AM

Pilger is a pillock - or is that being disrespectful of pillocks?

With regard to DU weapons, they have been around for a while and the Gulf wasn't the first place to have them used. What about all those training areas around the world where armed forces would have practiced with DU weapons? Why aren't we hearing claims of cancers from around those areas. And what about claims from service people who have subsequently trained in those areas?

I am happy to accept scientific peer reviewed proof that the use of DU weapons causes health problems (over and above those on the receiving end). So far none has been presented.

Posted by: Razor at June 27, 2003 at 12:10 PM

Hear, hear, Mork.

Posted by: Harry at June 27, 2003 at 12:22 PM

Saddam held back medical supplies from the doctors so more children would die because he knew that Pilger would blame it on the sanctions and America.

Maybe it wasn't Saddam's fault. I think it's Pilger who is responible for the one billion babies that died every day. A few million dead can also be credited to every news reported who filmed the dead baby parades. And Adam can take pride in killing atleast a 30 or 40 babies.

By the way Depleted Uranium can't cause any "Hiroshima effect" because it's less radioactive than Pilger's pecker. That's why they call it "depleted", and that's why people like Pilger like to call it DU instead.

Posted by: Shark Week at June 27, 2003 at 12:38 PM

Pilger can kiss my white American ass...and now going from the ridiculous to the sublime, whats the latest with the Jake Ryan Beer Fund, Tim???

Posted by: debbie at June 27, 2003 at 12:38 PM

Continuing with the DU weapons... Depleted uranium undoubtedly IS detrimental to those who ingest or inhale it, for reasons that apply to other heavy metals. The argument that it's harmful because it's radioactive, and therefore presents some sort of environmental hazard, is either deceitful or just ignorant. It sure does punch through armored vehicles, though, doesn't it? I suppose that is the real objection to those whose revealed truth is that America is always wrong.

Re: thiodiglycol. The morally blind Adam apparently has similar competence in chemistry and can't be bothered to check the Merck Index. Thiodiglycol isn't a known carcinogen, and in fact isn't even very toxic to animals (INCHEM describes the compound as "relatively non-toxic").

Posted by: Harry at June 27, 2003 at 12:54 PM

Pilger -- the only contemporary person I know of whose name has become a verb in the English language, i.e. "to Pilger", tell a lie.

I think that says it all right there.

Posted by: Susan at June 27, 2003 at 01:11 PM

So is everyone except Adam saying that *at no point* do those who impose sanctions become at least partly responsible for their effects? I mean it's been obvious for years that Hussein was using them to solidify his own power, oppress "his" people, kill cute babies etc. and the positives were pretty dubious.

And yeah, Todd, everyone who disagrees with you is secretly racist, you jackass.

Posted by: thesaintlyalangreenspan at June 27, 2003 at 01:28 PM

Great find, Tim. Sweeney has done excellent work on Saddam's staging baby funerals, and is one of the bright spots at the otherwise dismal BBC. I just put up a post on my blog with some further DU debunking links for anyone interested.

Posted by: BeezleBozo at June 27, 2003 at 02:27 PM

I had a chuckle reading "Purple Over Green - The History of the 2/2 Australian Infantry Battalion 1939 - 1945" On page 90 the author is quoting an Australian Soldier who had recently arrived in Greece after removing the Italians from Tobruk. His comment about the people in Greece was thus, "We saw civilians dressed as we used to dress before the war, civilians whom you could trust, in every way a contrast to the middle east"

My level of trust of anything that comes out of the mouth of any member of Saddam's old regime is about as high as that of my fore fathers in 1941.

Pilger may as well source his story from Comical Ali - who really cares. Pilger is an old leftie who selectivly uses information to forward his political agenda.

Those old diggers couldn't have summed it up any better for me - you can't trust the "Wogs", I'm sure they would have said the same of Pilger.

Posted by: Gilly at June 27, 2003 at 02:35 PM

CARE can feed, medicate and clothe a child for $1 per day. The US found over a billion dollars US hidden in Baghdad. That is 45 times as much money as CARE would need to feed and medicate the 60,000 children who died each year (UNICEF) during the 12 years of sanctions. 45 TIMES! The cost to feed and medicate those dead children would have been less than US30 million dollars.

With $4+ billion in oil sales every year under sanctions, how come Saddam could not find $2.5 million pa to feed Iraq's starving children? 0.0625 of 1 percent of his oil revenue!

And 'Adam' and 'thesaintlyalangreenspan' wonder why so many of us find their Leftist stupidty obscene!

Posted by: Paul Johnson at June 27, 2003 at 02:52 PM

'Paul Johnson': admittedly sharp as your arithmetical skills are (we could use a man like you here at the Fed), you've managed to neatly side-step the pretty obvious point made by 'Adam' and myself.

The money wasn't being used to feed and medicate indigent Iraqi kids, duh, and the program was having the opposite of its intended regime-destabilising effect, which was obvious to all before long (and some before sanctions were even imposed, I mean Saddam's never been a particularly nice guy; don't let photos of an idiotically beaming Donald Rumsfeld fool you). So to make it as plain as I possibly can: if you know something is having bad effect X, but you stick with it out of some combination of wretched stupidity and blind ideological faith, aren't you partly responsible for bad effect X?

Posted by: thesaintlyalangreenspan at June 27, 2003 at 03:06 PM

As for 'Alan's comments on thiodiglycol, he omits the facts that

1) thiodiglycol is a standard commercial chemical used in dyes and inks, and

2) that it was not 'transported to Iraq' by the company but sold to seemingly legitimate non-Iraqi organisations who then on-shipped it to both Iran and Iraq, and that the on-shipping network was broken up by US Customs.

As for isopropanol (the sarin component), it is used for purposes as diverse as preserving leather bookbinding and precipitating DNA.

Posted by: Paul Johnson at June 27, 2003 at 03:15 PM

Firstly, nowhere do i argue that Saddam does not bear responsibility for the deaths caused by the sanctions. All I say is that the responsibility is shared.

To "d", acquaint yourself with some facts, dude, any facts. for example, "A first rate example is the US Democrats who, holding the sun shines out of Castro's bum...", you know, except when they're signing into law even harsher sanctions on Cuba that include secondary boycotts [the Helms-Burton Act, as signed by Clinton] in violation of pretty much every known rule of international trade; or what about when the world was minutes away from its end during the cuban missile crisis, when Kennedy wouldn't back down on account of what he and his Democrat friends saw as Castro's trouble-making in the hemisphere; apart from that, they think the sun shines out of Castro's bum, right.

To Todd, I am no moral relativist. "Just cause he was murdering his own and his neighbouring people, that doesn't mean he was a bad person, just misunderstood", I'm not sure what part of my description of Saddam as a "capricious, mass-murdering f***wit" led you to believe that I was saying he wasn't a bad person. Jeebus dude, learn to read. It's fun. Also, your call that I'm racist against the darkies is just ridiculous. I'm actually not white, but more important, since I think that Saddam bears responsibility for his actions, I don't see how you can say that I think "that Middle East People can't be held responsible for their actions". Incidentally, I think that the West can also be held responsible for its actions, the sort of consistency which you'll note is the opposite of moral relativity.

To Scottie, "This is how it works. Sadam does somthing evil US wants to do somthing about it". Yeah, like when he gassed the Kurds in Halabja, the US did something about it: they gave him more chemical weapons. "Oh no Pilger is trying to prove the WAR was bad", well actually, if you read the article we're talking about, it asserts that Pilger is trying to prove that this west, specifically America, is bad, which is the assertion I'm responding to.

To Mork, I agree with you almost entirely, you strike me as a reasonable person and so forth. It would have been the best possible thing if the rebellions against Saddam post-Gulf War I had succeeded. I'll just say that revolutions from within tend not to happen when you're starving the country, contrast Iran and North Korea on the possibility of profound social change represented by a bunch of little rich kids. Go kids go. Maybe Saddam was starving the country, maybe the sanctions were, maybe a combination of both, but I'm of the opinion that without the sanctions, Saddam would not have stayed in power very long after 1991. But that's just my opinion.

To Razor, "What about all those training areas around the world where armed forces would have practiced with DU weapons?". Cancers believed related to the use of depleted uranium have been popping up in Afghanistan and the Balkans, as well as near US military training facilities in Okinawa, Japan and Vieques, Puerto Rico, which should answer your question.

To Shark Week, the idea that "Saddam held back medical supplies from the doctors so more children would die because he knew that Pilger would blame it on the sanctions and America" seems to ascribe to Pilger slightly more power than he has. The last i looked the powerful were not checking if their policies were OK with Pilger before implementing them. And depleted uranium (uranium 238) is radioactive, obviously not as radioactive as uranium 235, but that doesn't change the fact that it is, by any reasonable definition, radioactive. And it remains that way for billions of years given its half-life, which is roughly equal to the age of the Earth.

To Harry, I don't make a habit of regularly checking the Merck index, having no idea what the hell that is. I assume that the MI says that nerve gas is carcinogenic, and since Saddam didn't go about dropping unprocessed thiodiglycol on people, what the hell are you talking about? Also, prey tell what does the fabled Merck index have to say about whether or not depleted uranium is carcinogenic? Might this be the "real objection" I have to depleted uranium?

To Paul, your mathematical skills are impressive. If it costs $1/day to feed a child, then it could only cost "$2.5 million pa" to feed all of Iraq's children if there were only 6850 children in Iraq. Nice one, buddy. Maybe not "obscene" but certainly it qualifies as "stupidity". Whether Saddam could've mitigated the effects of the sanctions if he wanted to is beside the point, the argument is that we all knew in advance that he wouldn't because we knew he was a complete bastard. And going ahead with the sanctions in this state of affairs puts at least some of the responsibility for their consequences on the West.

Posted by: adam at June 27, 2003 at 03:23 PM

Mr. Greenspan: sometimes EVERY option available has negative consequences.

What do you think would have happened in Iraq if there had been no sanctions, and Saddam had been left in power?

Shangri-la?

Posted by: Mork at June 27, 2003 at 03:27 PM

Mork morked: "Mr. Greenspan..."

Finally, some respect.

No bud, I would not anticipate a Shangri-la-type situation developing, and I'm certainly not arguing for Hussein being left in power. He obviously should've gone in '91. Where did you get the impression that I thought otherwise?

Your first point is well taken tho'. I would nonetheless submit that the sanction regime, in addition to the withdrawal of support to the Iraqi opposition was perhaps not the best way to Do The Right Thing.

Posted by: thesaintlyalangreenspan at June 27, 2003 at 03:42 PM

We're not so different, you and I. Except you're Chairman of the Federal Reserve, of course.

Posted by: Mork at June 27, 2003 at 03:53 PM

Adam,

Actually a lot of people take Pilger and the many people like him very seriously. Their propaganda has fueled the compaign against the sanctions. So Saddam knew that he the more dead children the better chance Pilger and all the useful idiots had to repeal the sanctions. That's why you hear their statistics all the time. Saddam knew the bigger the number the better. So in an indirect way they are responsible for the death of many people.


DU is radioactive, just like smoke alarms. But the radiation is low and not a health risk. All the soldiers who have been exposed to DU and all the people who work in factories that produce DU have the same exact cancer rate as the rest of the population. The only people who have higher cancer rate are the ones who have been gassed by Sadam.

Posted by: Shark Week at June 27, 2003 at 03:58 PM

Oh, christ. Half-life again.

Look, the longer something's half-life is, the less radioactive it is. If Uranium has a half-life measured in millions of years, that means its radioactivity is extremely low. You think a long half-life means it's more dangerous? You've got it backwards.

Quick, what's the half-life of iron? Aluminium?

A banana is far more radioactive than DU, and so is a human body. DU can even be used as radiation shielding in some applications. I know a lot of people get the vapours when someone mentions uranium, but get over it. You live in a sea of radiation, and DU doesn't even rise above background noise levels.

Posted by: murray at June 27, 2003 at 04:47 PM

"You think a long half-life means it's more dangerous? You've got it backwards."

Well no, I don't. I think its radioactivity makes depleted uranium dangerous, and its half life makes the danger last for a goddamn long time. Since neither iron nor aluminium are radioactive, what the hell are you bringing them up for? Also, a banana is more radioactive than DU? Right: apparently according to you instead of a banana I should eat the equivalent weight of DU each day to reduce my exposure to radiation. Uh...huh. I would love to see a source on this.

Also, re that link to DU as "radiation shielding", you'll note that no "Polyethylene Encapsulated Depleted Uranium" was used in Iraq, so why are you bringing it up? It appears to have very little relevance to what we're talking about. Also, according to another document I found on that particular website, DU is radioactive, so maybe, just maybe, you'll accept that now.

Posted by: adam at June 27, 2003 at 05:16 PM

Adam, on Dems and Castros's sunny fat arse, go check out some things yourself.

Posted by: d at June 27, 2003 at 05:18 PM

"Greenspan",

Yes, at NO POINT do we become responsible for consequences the sanctions imposed against Iraq. We regret the harm suffered under the sanctions, but it's pretty clear that the choices of Saddam Hussein to deprive and abuse were the cause of that harm. He would have had his citizens maimed, raped, and murdered on an ongoing basis with or without sanctions. There were never any good choices. Letting Saddam entirely off the hook was certainly the worst, for obvious reasons.

It's true, as you say, that the Clinton adminstration pushed the sanctions regime for 8 years out of some combination of wretched stupidity and blind ideological faith, not to mention a lack of interest in any undertaking more strenuous than an occasional application of rhetoric and a few cruise missiles, but it was a good deal better than leaving Saddam to his own devices (quite literally).

Posted by: Harry at June 27, 2003 at 05:34 PM

Adam - read the article. Unsubstantiated crap. Get some scientific evidence.

In the mean-time well keep using the black pointy ammo because it is way-cool when it smacks the engine block of an enemy AFV 50 meters down the road, and that's before the ammo cooks off inside to send the turret about 100m in the air.

"TARGET DESTROYED - NEXT TARGET - ON - FIRE"

I Love that shit!

Posted by: Razor at June 27, 2003 at 05:39 PM

i like how, without any apparent irony, you can baldly assert, without substantiation that someone else peddles "Unsubstantiated crap". You sir, are outstanding.

Posted by: adam at June 27, 2003 at 06:11 PM

Ask and ye shall receive.

Iron and aluminium have infinite half-lives, and no, they're not radioactive. That's the point. The longer the half-life, the less radioactive something is. You seem to think that radioactive == dangerous, and it just ain't so. At sufficient doses, it can be dangerous, just like sodium, potassium, water, and a bunch of other things, but the dose makes the poison, and DU simply isn't radioactive enough to have any chance of harming you.

Look, call up journals of health physics on an academic search engine, look at the abstracts of papers dealing with ionizing radiation, and you'll see it said quite often that radiation is pretty much the best-understood carcinogen out there. They know exactly how much it'll take to make you sick, how much it'll take to kill 20% of people exposed, and so on. DU doesn't emit anywhere near enough radiation to harm anyone. You get far more concentrated doses of radiation in your food, from rocks, from radon gas and so on.

There's nothing mysterious about the radiation emitted by DU -- it's a weak alpha emitter, and that kind of radiation can't even penetrate your skin. If you inhale it, it's more dangerous, but it would be competing with millions of other alpha emissions taking place in your body all the time. It's not special at all.

And you miss the point about radiation shielding: DU is so harmless that it can be used to shield people from radiation. YES, it's radioactive. NO, that doesn't impress me.

Posted by: murray at June 27, 2003 at 06:12 PM

Adam -- give up the dangerously-radioactive-depleted-uranium schtick, already. Sure it's radioactive (all uranium is), but it's almost all U-238, which has a half life of 4.45 BILLION years. About the same as fruitcake, in other words. As Murray just tried to explain to you, the longer the half-life, the fewer nuclear disintegrations per mass per time. Ergo, the less radioactive.

A clue for you: the environment is full of radiation. Seawater is radioactive. Air is radioactive. Soil is radioactive. You are radioactive. Most of this is because of radioactive elements in the decay series from U-238 to Pb-206, especially radon. We're also bathed in low levels of high energy electromagnetic radiation from space. The sum total of all this is called "background radiation," and it's unclear whether background radiation is even bad for your health. The radiation from spent depleted uranium projectiles is quite lost against this background. Nugatory. Inconsequential.

In other words: move along. There's nothing to see here. And by the way, don't eat uranium. It's poisonous -- just like lead.

Posted by: Harry at June 27, 2003 at 06:13 PM

What the fuck is going on here? Actual Science being used to debunk leftist hysterics?

ISNT THERE A LAW AGAINST THAT?

COME ON PEOPLE THIS IS THE INTERNET HAVE A BIT OF RESPECT FOR THE CHILDREN!

Posted by: Yobbo at June 27, 2003 at 07:46 PM

I noted that Adam said;
"A Tennessee manufacturer contributed large amounts of a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in Gulf War diseases."

How is that exactly, seeing as no Sarin gas was used in either 1991 or 2003 Gulf War? Sarin is also made of many components, how would the individual manufacturers have known what they what they where selling would end up in nerve gas?

More importantly, seeing as the 1991 tank battles happened HUNDREDS OF MILES away from Basra, how did DU magically cover that distance and contaminate children, and then create cancers much faster than is medically accepted as being possible? There where no 1991 tank battles inside or around Basra. There where no A-10 air sorties either. So would Adam care to explain to us how Basra got affected by DU in 1991?

Posted by: wilbur at June 27, 2003 at 08:26 PM

Apparently the argument has shifted from "it's not radioactive" to "it is, but so is everything". Keep shifting those sands in my opinion, but you'll note that I've stayed in the same place. Depleted uranium *is* radioactive, it *is* harmful in sufficient quantities.

Also, good links dude, none of them disprove that last sentence I wrote. Also, let's see what the governments that use DU have to say about it. I'm sure they'll tell me the truth. Government scientist; unsure of the relevance of this, seeing as it doesn't say that eating in DU the mass equivalent of a banana is safer; I have previously debunked this whole DU-as-radiation-shield business; seems to support me on the radioactivity of U-238, wouldn't you say?

And I liked this from the British MOD:

...the US Government has carefully monitored the health of 33 of its soldiers who were exposed in extreme circumstances when DU rounds accidentally hit their vehicles during the Gulf Conflict. Some 17 of them have had DU shrapnel embedded in their bodies for the last 12 years, and yet they do not show signs of health problems attributable to DU.

Which of course leaves almost half of those "exposed in extreme circumstances" unmentioned.

And to Wilbur, I refer you to my earlier comments about learning to read. I didn't say that, I quoted someone else who did. Your quarrel is with him/her.

Posted by: adam at June 27, 2003 at 08:39 PM

This is almost like being at one of the Islamofascist forums, where DU seems to come up every five minutes. The way I understand it, DU has some 60% the radioactivity of uranium. As uranium is not a health hazard, DU is certainly not a health hazard.

If you think DU is a health hazard, please find and post details from a reputable source.

Posted by: ZsaZsa at June 27, 2003 at 08:52 PM

" Yeah, like when he gassed the Kurds in Halabja, the US did something about it: they gave him more chemical weapons."
paul adressed that as a highly misleading way of stating it and you must have read it because you answered his post and yet you ignored it.
It has even been adressed further on another post.
It seems that like pilger you haven't let evidence get in the way of a good story.

As regards the birth defects
since pilger kindly said this

- "The proportion of babies born with birth defects -without heads, brains, spines and limbs has dramatically increased from 11 per 100,000 births to 116 per 100,000 births -here again a dramatic tenfold increase in the incidence. --

I note this regarding birth defects in atomic bomb survivors children

- There is no statistically demonstrable increase in major birth defects considered in total or in any specific type among the children of atomic-bomb survivors.--

http://www.rerf.or.jp/eigo/radefx/genetics/birthdef.htm

Hmm unless they were mistaken (the survey covered 76,626 infants I would think that is enough) then an atomic bomb doesn't produce enough radiation to cause the effect he is talking about.. (they didnt say it doesnt have an effect but statistically they did not find one it is very odd if iraqi doctors observed one) what are they putting in their DU these days!!!

since 11 is very low I guess it is "under-reporting"

here is some reporting from michigan

During 2000, there were 8,848 cases of birth defects reported for children within the first year of birth. This translates to an incidence rate of 656.8 cases per 10,000 resident live births.

http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/PHA/OSR/BirthDefects/summary.asp

and Iraq had 11 per 10,000 ahah yeah right.

Posted by: Scottie at June 27, 2003 at 10:18 PM

The World Health Organisation says:
"1. In the kidneys, the proximal tubules (the main filtering component of the kidney) are considered to be the main site of potential damage from chemical toxicity of uranium. There is limited information from human studies indicating that the severity of effects on kidney function and the time taken for renal function to return to normal both increase with the level of uranium exposure.
2. In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer.
3. Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).
4. No consistent or confirmed adverse chemical effects of uranium have been reported for the skeleton or liver.
5. No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans.
6. Although uranium released from embedded fragments may accumulate in the central nervous system (CNS) tissue, and some animal and human studies are suggestive of effects on CNS function, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the few studies reported".

In other words, far more research is needed, and anyone who asserts that it is safe is at best jumping the gun. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the US Army recognises the potential dangers, by requiring army types who come within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain to wear some manner of mask and gloves, and further they say that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption". See also the opinion of scientists involved in the army's attempts to diagnose the disease. It's far from conclusive, but certainly is cause for concern.

Posted by: adam at June 27, 2003 at 11:05 PM

"Adam, the basis of your argument seems to be that the responsibility of the West was to minimize the potential negative effects of Saddam's psychopathy.

I think that's a reasonable postion, but if you apply it to Iraq, 1991-2003, the international community would have had a choice between (a) behaving in a way that entrenched Saddam's power domestically and permitted him to pursue his territorial ambitions (because these conditions happen also to be those in which Iraqi civilians would be best off, once you concede that Saddam is staying in power), and (b) removing him.

Once it comes down to that choice, it seems to me that the inescapable logic of your moral position is that Saddam should have been removed earlier.

Oh, and Pilger's a dick. I want to slap him."

mork, stop it! i agree with you! this is intolerable...i feel so dirty...

Posted by: Mr. Bingley at June 27, 2003 at 11:10 PM

There is nothing in the WHO report excerpt above that indicates that DU is in any way harmful. Even its heavy metal effects are dubious given that large amounts are unlikely to be ingested.

Why would anyone assume, given that DU is much less radioactive than uranium, that DU is a cause for concern?

Posted by: ZsaZsa at June 27, 2003 at 11:14 PM

Adam, in all seriousness, you're in way over your head. You simply don't have a decent grasp of what radiation is, or how it does damage. You might as well be arguing intently about the color shoes worn by the magical pixies who carry information to your computer.

Please do a little research, and don't comment on depleted uranium until you know what background radiation is.

Posted by: John Nowak at June 27, 2003 at 11:18 PM

Adam, I never said that DU wasn't radioactive. I said its radioactivity is extremely low and therefore harmless in radiotoxic terms. This is true. Isn't it?

Why is more research needed? There's nothing mysterious about ionizing radiation or the mechanisms by which it affects human health: it comes in a small number of flavours, and an alpha particle from a speck of DU inside your body is indistinguishable from any other alpha particle. (An alpha particle outside your body is utterly harmless.) Since your body experiences thousands of alpha decays every minute from background radiation, and DU is an extremely low radioactivity, weak emitter, the chances of it doing you any harm are pretty much nonexistent.

I should clarify my banana example, though. Gram for gram, DU is more radioactive than a banana (though still extremely weak), but you are likely to experience a much more intense dose of radiation from a banana (or a potato, or lettuce) than from DU, given that you won't be ingesting hundreds of grams of the stuff. If you did ingest that much, you'd have far more to worry about than its radioactivity. My point was that humans have evolved and still live in a sea of radiation, from a huge variety of sources. In fact, our distant ancestors lived in a far more intensely radioactive environment than we do. If radiation was as harmful as you seem to think it is, we wouldn't be here.

But the incontrovertible fact--based on epidemiological studies spanning seven decades and hundreds of thousands of human subjects--is that below a certain (very high) threshold, there are no detectable health effects from exposure to ionizing radiation from any source. In order to be harmed, you need one of two things: high radioactivity that overwhelms your body's defences, and enough material to supply that radioactivity. The former is usually found in materials with half-lives of days to decades, say I-131. As for the latter, even if you somehow got a chunk of DU in your body, you are at negligible risk from its radioactivity, since it is extremely low.

As for your MoD quote, I take "exposed in extreme circumstances" to mean that the soldiers were in close proximity to an exploding DU round. The ones with DU shrapnel lodged in their bodies would , of course, be the ones at highest long-term risk.

Adam, we know how weakly radioactive DU is--it's indistinguishable from background radiation. We know that there's no "magic ingredient" in DU that would render it more radiotoxic. Given these two facts, where's your argument?

Posted by: murray at June 28, 2003 at 01:13 AM

"And I liked this from the British MOD:
...the US Government has carefully monitored the health of 33 of its soldiers who were exposed in extreme circumstances when DU rounds accidentally hit their vehicles during the Gulf Conflict. Some 17 of them have had DU shrapnel embedded in their bodies for the last 12 years, and yet they do not show signs of health problems attributable to DU.

Which of course leaves almost half of those "exposed in extreme circumstances" unmentioned."

No it doesn't. Read it properly. Out of the 33 whose vehicles where hit by DU rounds, only 17 had shrapnel EMBEDDED IN THEM PERSONALLY. The rest where exposed to DU external to their bodies.

"And to Wilbur, I refer you to my earlier comments about learning to read. I didn't say that, I quoted someone else who did. Your quarrel is with him/her."

And with the person that quoted it, namely yourself. If you didn't believe it then why use it?

I noted that you still haven't answered the question- if DU ammunition was used hundreds of miles from Basra, how did it affect people there? And how did it affect them more than Saddam's gas weapons used in and around Basra?

Furthermore, when I ask an important and very relevant question like that, why did you change the subject and argue the semantics instead of the evidence?

Posted by: wilbur at June 28, 2003 at 01:41 AM

Adam -- the WHO verbiage simply says uranium is poisonous. So what? It's a heavy metal, and most heavy metals are toxic to animals. In regards to the Post-Intelligencer article, substitute the word "lead" for "depleted uranium" and the statement is still true in all respects. I'm surprised you're not in hysterics about car batteries.

It's pretty clear you don't have any technical training whatsoever -- not even freshman chemistry or physics -- and aren't really in a position to say anything intelligent on this subject. Nor do you seem interested in learning anything that might undermine your... shall we say _uncomplicated_ view of the world.

By the way, this was priceless:

"Keep shifting those sands in my opinion, but you'll note that I've stayed in the same place. "

No shit, Buckwheat. You can lead a horse to water, etc. etc.

Posted by: Harry at June 28, 2003 at 03:04 AM

On this Post-Intelligencer thing:

DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.

- Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 12, 2002 (Emphasis mine)

See that date? Now let's revisit one of Adam's statements:

...let's see what the governments that use DU have to say about it. I'm sure they'll tell me the truth. Government scientist [by way of dismissing one of my links]...

So we're expected to believe the word of two flunkeys of Saddam Hussein, but not of a scientist working for a liberal democracy making an argument based on publicly available, uncontroversial data.

But let's take the flunkeys' word for it: suppose that the radiation levels at the DU shell craters are 1,000 times background levels. OK. Average background levels of radiation are ~360 mrem/year, which is about 1 mrem/day, on average. That implies that radiation levels at the crater are at 1,000 mrem/day. But according to this data, health effects of acute* radiation exposure are undetectable below levels of 25,000 mrem.

(I welcome correction if I've misunderstood something here.)

So even by the flunkeys' own testimony, the levels of radiation at DU Ground Zero are harmless.

* "Acute exposure or an acute dose means the exposure is delivered in a short period of time. The exact time frame is not well defined but exposures received in hours or days are considered acute. The acute exposure does not necessarily mean a large and a lethal dose. It just mean a short time frame. Chronic exposure is exposure spread out through a longer period of time."

Posted by: murray at June 28, 2003 at 03:48 AM

I just love the fact that baathist Iraq had a "Iraq Department of Radiation Protection..."

It should have been looking in their own scientists backyards, who knows, they might have found something! :-)

Posted by: wilbur at June 28, 2003 at 04:20 AM

Big thing here is that the article is right and Pilgers whole article is rubbish and junk science. adam has to retreat very far from what pilger was actually saying to find defendable ground.
conclusion?
Basically what Tim wrote at the top.

Posted by: Scottie at June 28, 2003 at 04:40 PM

Scottie,

Yep, truth triumphs again.

Now if you would, please beam up the lefty loonies and transport them to somewhere man has never gone before, and leave them there.

Posted by: ZsaZsa at June 28, 2003 at 06:57 PM

I'm afraid you've fallen into the trap of believing John Sweeney, a joke journalist with a pathological hatred for John Pilger. He's made these claims before and when challenged replied not with facts but with vulgar abuse. I suggest you check your sources next time.

Posted by: Gerard, UK at July 1, 2003 at 01:26 AM