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Cancer Rate in Fallujah Worse than Hiroshima

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24

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    #32
    sponsoredwalk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Poccington wrote: »
    You said they lied about using WP?

    On people...

    a U.S. official release of December 2004 denied any WP use:
    U.S. forces have used [phosphorus shells] very sparingly in Fallujah, for
    illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy
    positions at night, not at enemy fighters.    [8] This U.S. Department of
    State website carried an addendum in November 2005, replacing the
    previous statement with the comment:

    We have learned that some of the information we were provided [in the
    above paragraph] is incorrect. White phosphorus shells, which produce
    smoke, were used in Fallujah not for illumination but for screening
    purposes, i.e., obscuring troop movements and, according to an article in
    Field Artillery[9] magazine , "as a potent psychological weapon against the
    insurgents in trench lines and spider holes…."
    The article states that U.S. forces used white phosphorus rounds to flush
    out enemy fighters so that they could then be killed with high explosive
    rounds.


    The specific aspect of use against humans was highlighted[10] after the
    documentary film Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre by Sigfrido Ranucci was
    aired on Italy's RaiNews24 and released on the internet.[5] In the film,
    Giuliana Sgrena quotes city refugees testimonies from Fallujah about the
    reported danger of weapons effects:

    In particular, some women had tried to enter their homes, and they had
    found a certain dust spread all over the house. The Americans themselves
    had told them to clean the houses with detergents, because that dust was
    very dangerous. In fact, they had some effect on their bodies, leading to
    some very strange things." The film also shows U.S. soldiers on film
    confirming to WP use against insurgents. U.S. ambassador to UK Robert
    Holmes Tuttle stated in November 2005, that U.S. forces "do not use
    napalm or white phosphorus as weapons".[11]

    However, within a week of ambassador Tuttle's statement, on November
    15, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Venable stated to the
    BBC that WP had been used as an antipersonnel weapon, and was quoted
    as stating: "It has been used as an incendiary weapon against enemy
    combatants".[12] In particular,

    Venable pointed out that WP was effective against enemy forces in
    covered positions that were protected from high explosives. "One
    technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position because the
    combined effects of the fire and smoke—and in some case the terror
    brought about by the explosion on the ground—will drive them out of the
    holes so that you can kill them with high explosives.[13] WP use is legal for
    purposes such as illumination and obscuring smoke, and the Chemical
    Weapons Convention does not list WP in its schedules of chemical
    weapons.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus#Use_in_Iraq_.282004.29


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    #33
    jackiebaron
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭jackiebaron


    Blay wrote: »
    Em..what regulation says WP is illegal for illumination use over populated areas?

    Also what do you class as "high calibres"?


    Third Geneva Protocol bans the use of incendiaries in civilian areas.
    It also bans the use of fragmentation, cluster or .50 calibre weapons for use against civilians OR combatants.
    Again...doesn't stop the Americans.


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    #34
    sponsoredwalk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Poccington wrote: »
    What has listening to civilians pleading with soldiers got to do with the incident? Yes they used tear gas to disperse the crowd, if you were in the middle of insurgent Iraq and a large protesting crowd is gathering you have to disperse it. It would be tactically stupid to allow a large crowd to gather in front of your troops. It should be noted that a US PSYOPS team first tried to persuade the civilians to disperse but the civilians wouldn't.

    US troops say they were fired on first, other sources disagree. Can you prove they weren't fired on? Unfortunately, civilians died in an incident where neither side can prove the other wrong.

    This sounds very apologetic I mean you're arguing that I'm blaming the U.S.
    for everything & challenging me to prove they didn't do it aggressively
    even though you know there is no proof so that you can continue
    your argument.

    I think you need to stop apologising for them & look at what happened

    "Following the collapse of the Ba'ath infrastructure in early 2003, local
    residents had elected a town council led by Taha Bidaywi Hamed, who
    kept the city from falling into the control of looters and common criminals.

    The town council and Hamed were both considered to be nominally
    pro-American, and their election originally meant that the United States
    had decided that the city was unlikely to become a hotbed of activity,
    and didn't require any immediate troop presence. This led to the United
    States committing few troops to Fallujah from the start.[12]
    Although Fallujah had seen sporadic air strikes by American forces, public
    opposition was not galvanized until 700 members of the 82nd Airborne
    Division first entered the city on April 23, 2003, and approximately 150
    members of Charlie Company occupied al-Qa'id primary school. On April 28,
    a crowd of approximately 200 people gathered outside the school past
    curfew, demanding that the Americans vacate the building and allow it to
    re-open as a school. The protesters became increasingly heated, and the
    deployment of smoke gas canisters failed attempt to disperse the crowd."


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Fallujah


    and you know the rest...


    Basically you're argument is that they had to employ tactical methods
    on an insurgent population even though the evidence says that the city
    was functional, the people had no opposition to the U.S. even though they
    had already been bombing the f'ing city.


    Then the U.S. came in, i.e. invaded, a functional city, took over the local
    school to house their soldiers intead of allowing the community to
    educate their kids & then when the people told the U.S. soldiers to
    get out of their school things got hectic.


    You're defending all of this, I hope you know that...


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    #35
    Poccington
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,497 ✭✭✭Poccington


    jackiebaron wrote: »
    Third Geneva Protocol bans the use of incendiaries in civilian areas.
    It also bans the use of fragmentation, cluster or .50 calibre weapons for use against civilians OR combatants.
    Again...doesn't stop the Americans.

    The US never signed up to the Third Protocol.


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    #36
    Witcher
    Registered Users Posts: 14,472 ✭✭✭✭Witcher


    jackiebaron wrote: »
    Third Geneva Protocol bans the use of incendiaries in civilian areas.
    It also bans the use of fragmentation, cluster or .50 calibre weapons for use against civilians OR combatants.
    Again...doesn't stop the Americans.

    The use of .50cal ammunition is not prohibited for use against combatants:rolleyes:

    Have a look at this thread.

    You're clearly bitter against the US, take a step back from the thread and take a breather, because you're making things up as you go along.


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    #37
    Poccington
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,497 ✭✭✭Poccington


    sponsoredwalk wrote: »
    On people...

    Thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't sure if you made a typo or something.
    sponsoredwalk wrote: »
    This sounds very apologetic I mean you're arguing that I'm blaming the U.S.
    for everything & challenging me to prove they didn't do it aggressively
    even though you know there is no proof so that you can continue
    your argument.

    I think you need to stop apologising for them & look at what happened

    "Following the collapse of the Ba'ath infrastructure in early 2003, local
    residents had elected a town council led by Taha Bidaywi Hamed, who
    kept the city from falling into the control of looters and common criminals.

    The town council and Hamed were both considered to be nominally
    pro-American, and their election originally meant that the United States
    had decided that the city was unlikely to become a hotbed of activity,
    and didn't require any immediate troop presence. This led to the United
    States committing few troops to Fallujah from the start.[12]
    Although Fallujah had seen sporadic air strikes by American forces, public
    opposition was not galvanized until 700 members of the 82nd Airborne
    Division first entered the city on April 23, 2003, and approximately 150
    members of Charlie Company occupied al-Qa'id primary school. On April 28,
    a crowd of approximately 200 people gathered outside the school past
    curfew, demanding that the Americans vacate the building and allow it to
    re-open as a school. The protesters became increasingly heated, and the
    deployment of smoke gas canisters failed attempt to disperse the crowd."


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Fallujah


    and you know the rest...


    Basically you're argument is that they had to employ tactical methods
    on an insurgent population even though the evidence says that the city
    was functional, the people had no opposition to the U.S. even though they
    had already been bombing the f'ing city.


    Then the U.S. came in, i.e. invaded, a functional city, took over the local
    school to house their soldiers intead of allowing the community to
    educate their kids & then when the people told the U.S. soldiers to
    get out of their school things got hectic.


    You're defending all of this, I hope you know that...

    I'm not apologising for anyone or anything. However, you'll have to forigve me if I don't just act like everything is America's fault or like one poster, rejoice at the thoughts of Blackwater personnel being burned and hung from a bridge.

    Of course they had to enter Fallujah, they were in the middle of occupying Iraq?

    They took over the school along with the Ba'ath party office and mayors office, using the latter as an FOB. Troops have to occupy buildings within a city they're occupying and have to pick strategic buildings which offer good fields of fire, good view of the surrounding area etc. and I can only imagine the school fitted the bill. The crowd ignored a curfew, wouldn't listen to a PSYOP team telling them to disperse, tear gas was fired and then as you say, things got hectic.

    I'm not defending anything, there's something wrong when a number of civilians die. However, I'm just trying to make the point that it wasn't just a case of US soldiers randomly opening fire on a crowd of civilians.


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    #38
    Poccington
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,497 ✭✭✭Poccington


    jackiebaron wrote: »
    It doesn't matter what US troops "said". The stupid cünts lie about everything anyway. It doesn't MATTER that people were gathered in the streets looking for trouble. It doesn't MATTER that a bunch of trigger-happy scumbags from Blackwater were pushed, screaming back into their burning SUV and then dismembered because they liked to roam the streets acting as if they were bulletproof and harassing people.

    Roam the streets acting as if they're bulletproof and harassing people?

    The 4 Blackwater personnel who were murdered that day were conducting a food delivery.

    You're full of **** and haven't got the slightest idea what you're talking about. Keep ranting though, it's highly amusing.


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    #39
    sponsoredwalk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Yeah I know, I don't want this to be another anti-U.S. diatribe but
    here we see clear evidence of horrible things.

    The people of Fallujah wanted the soldiers to gtfo of their school,
    they went their & justifiably got angry.

    If the people really fired shots first then that's messed up big time
    but to claim that they were occupying insurgents and tactically
    had to resort to what they did when they clearly invaded their
    community is not the truth.

    I can imagine this is a heavily contested subject & I'm gonna try read up on
    it more, if anyone has anything to add please do!

    As for the main topic in the thread, the cancer rates...

    This is so unbelievably messed up & it's still continuing, i.e. the use
    of white phosphorous. We don't know if there was anything else
    being used that was causing this, the report makes that clear.

    This horror story should be more than enough to convince people that
    tactics should be changed - the effects on innocent people is
    so drastically horrible that even if the whole war was not based on lies to
    begin with they shouldn't be messing up people's lives as bad as this has!!!


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    #40
    Jesus Juice
    Registered Users Posts: 2,111 ✭✭✭Jesus Juice


    I was about to post my opinion but I'm afraid Poccington will take me down too :pac:


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    #41
    Poccington
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,497 ✭✭✭Poccington


    sponsoredwalk wrote: »
    Yeah I know, I don't want this to be another anti-U.S. diatribe but
    here we see clear evidence of horrible things.

    The people of Fallujah wanted the soldiers to gtfo of their school,
    they went their & justifiably got angry.

    If the people really fired shots first then that's messed up big time
    but to claim that they were occupying insurgents and tactically
    had to resort to what they did when they clearly invaded their
    community is not the truth.

    I can imagine this is a heavily contested subject & I'm gonna try read up on
    it more, if anyone has anything to add please do!

    As for the main topic in the thread, the cancer rates...

    This is so unbelievably messed up & it's still continuing, i.e. the use
    of white phosphorous. We don't know if there was anything else
    being used that was causing this, the report makes that clear.

    This horror story should be more than enough to convince people that
    tactics should be changed - the effects on innocent people is
    so drastically horrible that even if the whole war was not based on lies to
    begin with they shouldn't be messing up people's lives as bad as this has!!!

    Unfortunately, occupying the likes of a school, Ba'ath party office, mayors office or anything else is a result of occupying a city. When you occupy an area, your troops have to go somewhere. In that location, they need to have good fields of fire, easily defendable avenues of approach, good observation of the surrounding area, easy to resupply etc.

    I can only assume the school was one of those buildings that was ideal for placing troops, otherwise they wouldn't have been there. Ideally they shouldn't have been in Fallujah in the first place but unfortunately, they were in the middle of occupying Iraq. If you're gonna occupy a country, you need to have a foothold in it's cities, towns etc.

    In an ideal world they wouldn't have been there in the first place but once they're there, they have to go somewhere. They happened to use the school and the events that unfolded were tragic.

    I fully agree that what happened to the civilians is horrible but it's the same consequence of war that can be seen throughout history.


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    #42
    pablo_escobar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 240 ✭✭pablo_escobar


    The US dropped tonnes of depleted uranium on Iraqi people to make them healthier.

    clearly, the US military have acheived those objectives successfully.

    Iraqis have never had it better, thanks to US truth, justice and the American way.

    God bless america.


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    #43
    Poccington
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,497 ✭✭✭Poccington


    pablo_escobar wrote: »
    The US dropped tonnes of depleted uranium on Iraqi people to make them healthier.

    clearly, the US military have acheived those objectives successfully.

    Iraqis have never had it better, thanks to US truth, justice and the American way.

    God bless america.

    Is that you Bill O Reilly? :pac:


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    #44
    pablo_escobar
    Closed Accounts Posts: 240 ✭✭pablo_escobar


    Poccington wrote:
    Is that you Bill O Reilly?

    All I can say is this report proves healthcare in Iraq has drastically improved since US invasion.

    Detection methods are more advanced now.

    Depleted Uranium, although radioactive and cancerous is actually quite good for the body.


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    #45
    ldxo15wus6fpgm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,359 ✭✭✭ldxo15wus6fpgm


    Nothing new here, it's widely known they use depleted uranium, I even remember seeing a program on BBC2 about it a few years back.


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    #46
    Sheeps
    Registered Users Posts: 2,762 ✭✭✭Sheeps


    i dont care about iraq anymore


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    #47
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 17,381 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Four Blackwater
    mercenaries were dragged from their vehicles, beaten, burned, and hung
    from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

    That made my morning. Blackwater or Xe Services as they're called now are a shower of ****. If it was 4,000, i'd be smiling till the weekend.. Fuking mercenaries.


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    #48
    nice1franko
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,300 ✭✭✭nice1franko


    They showered the city with depleted uranium shells as they were withdrawing too. I remember reading this in the Indo years ago.

    They're war criminals - no two ways about it.


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    #49
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,074 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    War is a nasty filthy immoral business. It always has been and always will be. Talk of smart bombs and surgical strikes and all that has led people who've never experienced it to think it's cleaned up. It hasn't. The US forces aren't any better or worse than anyone else you care to mention. The Russians would be as bad or worse, look at chechnya.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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    #50
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    AH -> CT

    I hope to "god" that one day Dick and George will stand trial for the war crimes the US committed in the ME.


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    #51
    Terry
    Registered Users Posts: 26,061 ✭✭✭✭Terry


    sponsoredwalk wrote: »
    It's the same stuff that Israel were using on Palestinian civilians in 2006,
    unbelievable stuff!!!
    They only pledged to stop using it a couple of weeks ago.
    They had still been using it recently in Gaza.
    Take your pick.
    Poccington wrote: »
    What has listening to civilians pleading with soldiers got to do with the incident? Yes they used tear gas to disperse the crowd, if you were in the middle of insurgent Iraq and a large protesting crowd is gathering you have to disperse it. It would be tactically stupid to allow a large crowd to gather in front of your troops. It should be noted that a US PSYOPS team first tried to persuade the civilians to disperse but the civilians wouldn't.

    US troops say they were fired on first, other sources disagree. Can you prove they weren't fired on? Unfortunately, civilians died in an incident where neither side can prove the other wrong.

    The first Battle of Fallujah occured after the Blackwater deaths and an increasing surge in Insurgent activity. The battle ended when US forces handed control of the city over to the Fallujah Brigade(Which were armed and equipped by the US) but by September the Brigade had dissolved and all arms and equipment handed over to the insurgency. With increasing control of the city by the insurgency, the second Battle followed.

    When did they lie about using WP? The article you posted about WP use in Iraq from Wikipedia has direct quotes from US military personnel(Including a Lt. Colonel) admitting to the use of WP in Fallujah.

    That term really pisses me off.
    You cannot call the victims of an invasion "Insurgents".
    If Ireland was invaded in the morning, and you fought against the invading force, would you refer to yourself as an insurgent? I think not.


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    #52
    nice1franko
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,300 ✭✭✭nice1franko


    Wibbs wrote: »
    War is a nasty filthy immoral business. It always has been and always will be. Talk of smart bombs and surgical strikes and all that has led people who've never experienced it to think it's cleaned up. It hasn't. The US forces aren't any better or worse than anyone else you care to mention. The Russians would be as bad or worse, look at chechnya.

    There are things, even in war, that are crimes. It is a nasty business but that doesn't that all behaviour during it can be put away neatly in a "nasty business" pigeon hole.

    Soldiers are responsible for their own actions. They know full well when they are committing crimes against humanity - it's not like murdering/poisoning civilians or rape is a grey area. "I was following orders" doesn't cut it - the Nuremberg trials have showed us that.

    Long after WWII German soldiers were brought to justice. Suddam hanged for killing 148 civilians after an uprising against him.

    Alas, only the losing side are brought to justice.


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    #53
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 17,381 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Moved to CT?

    Wat the fuk.


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    #54
    nice1franko
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,300 ✭✭✭nice1franko


    I guess we're moving everything that hasn't been proved in a court of law to CT now.


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    #55
    amacachi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Four Blackwater
    mercenaries were dragged from their vehicles, beaten, burned, and hung
    from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

    That made my morning.

    Delightful. Seriously.


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    #56
    --Kaiser--
    Registered Users Posts: 6,461 ✭✭✭--Kaiser--


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Moved to CT?

    Wat the fuk.

    Cue reasoned debate


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    #57
    My name is URL
    Registered Users Posts: 25,065 ✭✭✭✭My name is URL


    gizmo wrote: »
    Oh ****, did I stumble into CT again? :eek:

    Also, since when did Wikipedia become an acceptable source to quote? I know you CT nuts usually use the whole "I'M NOT TELLING YOU MY SOURCES, GO LOOK THEM UP FOR YOURSELF!!" but isn't this taking the piss a little?

    Wikipedia is sourced, would it kill you to look at the citations rather than regurgitate that insult every time a thread like this comes up?


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    #58
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 17,381 ✭ [Deleted User]


    amacachi wrote: »
    Delightful. Seriously.

    Ya should read up on them.. They're the scum of the Earth and there's thousands upon thousands of them running around Iraq and Afghanistan with no one to answer to.
    They even changed their name because of so much bad press.


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    #59
    RoboClam
    Registered Users Posts: 582 ✭✭✭RoboClam


    I don't remember the article being linked to before but here it is http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf

    I didn't read the entire paper, but from what I've read I can't really fault the results. My only problems would be the use of questionnaires rather than actual testing. Perhaps using the data from hospitals may have proved more accurate. Another problem with the study is that because anecdotal evidence of cancers seem to be prevalent in the area, false diagnoses may have been attributed. Also, the administration of the surveys may not have been totally unbiased. But even if some of the questionnaires were inaccurate, there does indeed seem to be an increase in cancers in the area.

    A points I would make is that the paper does not claim to investigate the reasons for these increases:
    Finally, the results reported here do not throw any light upon the identity of the agent(s) causing the increased levels of illness and although we have drawn attention to the use of depleted uranium as one potential relevant exposure, there may be other possibilities and we see the current study as investigating the anecdotal evidence of increases in cancer and infant mortality in Fallujah.

    Depleted uranium is listed as a possibility, but there may be other factors. Further study would be needed to establish a definite link. Using this paper as "proof" of depleted uranium being the cause is quite inaccurate and reactionary. This evidence is circumstantial at best.

    Quotes like this from an article in the OP:
    The US military’s decision to heavily deploy depleted uranium, all but
    proven by “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah,” was a
    wanton act of brutality, poisoning an entire generation of children not yet
    born in 2004.

    Misrepresent the content of the paper entirely.


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    #60
    Poccington
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,497 ✭✭✭Poccington


    Cade Acidic Zinc wrote: »
    Nothing new here, it's widely known they use depleted uranium, I even remember seeing a program on BBC2 about it a few years back.

    A lot of armies use DU in their ammunition. The US, UK, France and Russia to mind.
    Deleted User wrote: »
    Four Blackwater
    mercenaries were dragged from their vehicles, beaten, burned, and hung
    from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

    That made my morning. Blackwater or Xe Services as they're called now are a shower of ****. If it was 4,000, i'd be smiling till the weekend.. Fuking mercenaries.

    Once again, those lads were conducting a food delivery.

    If you feel that was enough justification for them to have a grenade thrown in their window and their vehicle hit with small arms fire before being dragged out of the vehicle, beaten and then set ablaze with two of them being hung from a bridge over the Euphrates, well then that's rather worrying.
    Deleted User wrote: »
    Moved to CT?

    Wat the fuk.

    I thought the very same thing.


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    #61
    biko
    Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    On second thoughts maybe CT wasn't the best place for it, I've asked the forum mods here to decide.


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