Mon 9 Aug, 2010
Shazam!
After throwing all of my wife’s shit into the back of a U-Haul, driving two hours in the 100 degree heat without air conditioner, and unpacking an entire factory worth of shoes, I’m back. And goddamn does it feel good. (Not the unpacking shoes part, because that sucked John Boehner’s orange dick. I mean seriously, how many shoes does a person need?)
I’ve been gone so long I have no idea what to write about. Should I write about how WikiLeaks proved to the world how retarded the Afghanistan war is? Or should I write about the whole Shirley Sherrod fiasco? Or should I write about the collapse of the American empire?
You know what? Those stories are too depressing. I need a feel good story. One that tugs at the ol’ ball strings and actually gives me hope for the future. Something like this happy-go-lucky story.
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.
Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.
[...]
In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. “During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city,” recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.
He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: “My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside.”
If that story doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart and make you want to stand on the nearest street corner and chant ‘USA! USA!’ then you aren’t human.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have a street corner to go stand on.
