US To Fund Four More Iron Dome Defense Systems For Israel
By Kevin Murphy – IMEMC and Agencies – May 26, 2011
US President Barrack Obama’s administration is to fund the purchase of four more anti rocket systems for the Israeli military. The US will help fund the short range anti rocket “Iron Dome” missile defence system as part of the $200 million Obama military aid initiative to Israel.
US Army Lieutenant Patrick O Reilly announced that the US is to fund the purchase of four more Iron Dome batteries in a statement to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Defence Subcommittee.
The mobile devices are used to intercept and destroy rockets before they hit their target. So far two such devices have been set up in Ashelkon and Beersheba, towns close to the Gaza strip.
Israel claims that the mobile system first successfully intercepted rockets on the 7th of April, fired from Gaza, and has since intercepted seven more.
The batteries cost $50 million per unit and are developed and produced by Israeli state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.
Barrack Obama in his speech to AIPAC promised that the US would go “beyond” its regular military aid to Israel in the future.
US holds up Smallpox stock eradication
Press TV – May 25, 2011
Despite opposition by many nations, the eradication of the world’s last smallpox stocks remaining in the US and Russian labs have been postponed for three more years.
After two long days of strong debate, UN members at the World Health Assembly in Geneva reached an agreement on the destruction of smallpox samples held in stockpile in the US Center for Disease Control labs in Atlanta, Georgia and a Russian-government sponsored lab in Siberia.
Washington and Moscow said that they want to keep their virus stocks for five more years to develop new vaccines for possible resurgence in future. The European Union, Canada, Israel, Monaco, Colombia and China are among countries that support the delay.
Many countries including the North African nations, Iran, Thailand, Zimbabwe and Malaysia, on the other hand, are in favor of the immediate destruction of the remaining samples of the virus.
The debate over the destruction of the stocks of the deadly smallpox virus, which was irradiated in 1979, has been recurring since 1986.
The supporters of the US and Russia’s program finally accepted to compromise with at most 3 years of delay in the destruction program.
Based on the final decision, there will be another meeting in 2014 in the World Health to decide on a more defined date of complete destruction of the stocks.
The supporters of the destruction program are satisfied with the decision. “The outcome shows destruction is imminent,” said Edward Hammond, a consultant for the Third World Network, a nongovernmental organization based in Malaysia that advocates for smallpox-virus destruction.
The US-led resolution for saving the stocks for five more years did not succeed despite the intense lobbying, Hammond said, adding that “I have never seen the US put more time and effort into trying to get a resolution passed.”
Why is the NY Times Censoring Afghan News?
By Conn Hallinan | Dispatches From the Edge | May 16, 2011
On May 12, the New York Times did a very curious thing.
In an article entitled “Indian and Afghan Leaders Forge Deeper Ties in Meeting” by Alissa J. Rubin and Sanger Rahimi, the newspaper failed to mention that during his visit to Afghanistan, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had endorsed peace talks between the Taliban and the government of Hamid Karzai.
The Times’ piece—buried on the back pages—led with an agreement by the two governments to “move ahead on a strategic partnership” and then prattled on about aid. The words “Taliban” and “talks” never appeared.
In contrast, a May 13 Reuters article led with “India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, backing Kabul’s peace plan to reconcile with the Taliban-led insurgents.” According to Reuters, the Prime Minister said, “Afghanistan is embarked upon a process of national reconciliation. We wish you well in this enterprise.”
A BBC broadcast also led with the “Taliban talk” news, and the print version put it in the third sentence. To date the New York Times has yet to report the fact that India abandoned its previous opposition to opening talks with the Taliban.
How could the Times miss a story like that? There are only two explanations. One, that the two reporters are the kind that would have asked Mary Todd Lincoln if she liked the play. Two, that the reporters put the breakthrough remarks into the story, and an editor in New York took them out.
As a whole, Times coverage of the Afghan War has not been very good, certainly not nearly as good as the reporting by the McClatchy newspapers, let alone the international press. But their reporters have rarely demonstrated incompetence, and there is nothing in the record to suggest that Rubin and Rahimi are not good reporters. They could have missed what is probably the most important development in the past year—if so, time for reassignment to the Metro Desk—but it is much more likely that higher ups in New York left it on the cutting room floor.
Bad news sense? Maybe, but than again, maybe not.
On May 14, the Times wrote an editorial entitled “Pakistan After Bin Laden” where the following paragraph appears:
“The Obama administration also needs to take a harder look at military aid to Pakistan, to determine what is vital for counterterrorism and what might be tied to specific benchmarks, like apprehending the Taliban chief, Mullah Omar, and members of the Haqqani network.”
In short, the Times is arguing that Pakistan should take out the very people whom the Karzai government will need to talk with in any negotiations with the Taliban. There is an old rule in the business of negotiations: don’t arrest or kill the people you want to talk with. That is, unless you don’t really want to have talks. … Full article
Afghan Civilians Intentionally Targeted by NATO/ISAF Forces
Veterans Today | May 14, 2011
Careful examination of numerous reports, and images/video footage, along with eye-witness and victim testimonies, clarify that Afghan civilians are the main targets of deadly attacks by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Although the Coalition forces claim that previous civilian massacres were accidental, Afghan-led peace movements believe that the killings are at best negligent to at worst intentional in nature.
Foreign military presence and intervention in the past ten years has worsened the Afghanistan situation while civilian casualties have increasingly created tension between the Coaliton forces, the Afghan government, and the people of Afghanistan.
These events have further brought into perspective the sheer human and material damages of the war. No one should become accustomed to or believe in this illogical method of bombing the country to peace.
This mentality is not justifiable and should not be the norm. Acts of violence must always be questioned. The people of Afghanistan want justice and accountability. Not surprisingly, they get the usual response from NATO – an initial denial of civilian casualties, a shift of blame on insurgency, occasional investigations with an admittance to a tweaked number of civilian deaths, and rarely a contrived apology. This has become a wanton pattern. Explaining away repeated deadly civilian attacks as “mistakes” is unacceptable. Furthermore, this proves that the military solution to Afghanistan is not a viable option.
NATO-led forces are equipped with the most advanced technology with the capability of zooming in on even the smallest of objects with precise vision. This begs the question as to why so many civilians are dying. To put it into perspective, below is a compiled short summary of recent NATO attacks:
It was reported that a total of three civilian atrocities were committed by the Coalition forces within the last two weeks. The correct estimate is actually four.
- Alahsay district of Kapisa province (5 civilians) Feb 17, 2011
- Khoygani District of Nangarhar province (6 civilians) Feb 20, 2011
- Ghazi Abad District of Kunar province (60+ civilians) Four Day Operation February 17/18/19 (different reports)
- Mountains of Nanglam in Kunar province (9 children/boys) March 1st, 2011
In Kapisa province on Thursday February 17th, Alahsay district Governor Mohammed Omari confirmed that five civilians were killed by an air strke from the NATO-led ISAF. The five civilians- three of them adult males and two children ages 12 and 13 – were reportedly without meat for the last few months and were desperate to hunt, hence why they were carrying bird hunting equipment.
In Nangarhar province on February 20th, an entire family of six was killed by a NATO air strike into their home in the Khoygani district. A photo captured by Reuters shows that the missile directly hit the roof of the family’s home. The parents and their four children were all inside when the reportedly stray missile landed in their residential community. The father was a soldier for the Afghan National Army who died of excessive bleeding after troops delayed his arrival to a hospital.
After a four day operation by ISAF and NATO in the Ghazi Abad District of Kunar over 65 civilians were killed, and this was confirmed by the governor of the province. More than half of the casualties were women and children. Contrary to the abundant evidence, NATO claimed no civilians were killed and later insisted that insurgents were among the deceased, although villagers rejected this assertion.
Two reports from the Afghan investigation team:
“As soon as the villagers heard the shooting and planes roaring overhead, they all struggled to take refuge in an old trench that was used by the mujahedeen during jihad [against the Russians].”
“Those who succeeded in reaching the trenches were killed when the trench collapsed after it was hit by rockets or bombs being fired from coalition helicopters,” he said. “Those who were on their way to the trench were killed by rockets or bullets. I visited the trench. I saw old, dried blood. I saw women and children’s garments. I saw blood-stained walls of the trench. I saw pieces of blankets and cotton from the quilts the villagers wrapped themselves in because of the cold weather.”
In an attempt to hide the news story ISAF detained two Al Jazeera journalists, Abdullah Nizami and Saeedullah Sahel during the investigation of the Kunar massacre. Samer Alawi, the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Kabul, strongly described the detentions of Nizami and Seedullah as repressive acts since it kept them from reporting. Another report released this past month by Columbia Journalism Review, has documented the difficulty of reporting honest accounts of the Afghanistan war.
On March 1st, NATO helicopters killed 9 Afghan boys, and injured one. This occurred without any warning signals as the children were targeted “one after another”. Aged seven to nine years old, the boys were from poor families, and were collecting firewood in the mountains. This is once again an attack on the young children of Kunar. How is it that NATO soldiers, again, confused children for insurgents, and this time by gunfire?
General David H. Petraeus apologized for this killing, yet regarding the previous attack in Kunar (that killed over 65 civilians), he erroneously accused the Afghan parents of intentionally burning their children due to cultural practices of discipline. Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omar described the US Generals comments as being “outrageous, insulting and racist.” Karzai, himself, has rejected the apology. Mohammed Bismil, the brother of two of the boys killed, did not care for Petraeus’ apology but said, “The only option I have is to pick up a Kalashnikov, RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] or a suicide vest to fight.”
The father of two of the boys killed cried, “They don’t value humanity and don’t care about our children.”
Waheed Mujda, an Afghan political analyst stated that, “[for international forces], Afghan people’s blood is of no value. For the Americans, apologising for a mistake is a very big deal but for Afghans it is not. ISAF troop actions that raise anger among Afghans are a major reason for people joining the insurgents or Taliban.”
These are the four war crimes committed by the Coalition forces in the past two weeks. Victimization and the feeling of betrayal continues to spread all across Afghanistan.
While this article initially started on the four recent attacks by NATO, it is important to look at the previous events as well. In doing so, we realize that these are not isolated incidents or simply negligence but an ongoing pattern of the failures of the “military solution to Afghanistan”.
Apologies from the Coalition, as rare as they are, mean little to nothing to Afghans. Months earlier in 2010, after initially choosing not to investigate, NATO forces offered an apology for killing a fourteen year old girl. Her father Mohammad Karim simply responded, “Now, what should I do with ‘sorry’?”
Earlier in Nangarhar, in May 2010, when NATO soldiers raided a home shooting at least nine civilians indiscriminately, a mourner said:
“If the Americans do this again, we are ready to shed our blood fighting them. We would rather die than sit by and do nothing. If there was anyone here trying to destroy our country, we would capture them and hand them over to the government. It is our land and our duty to defend it against both foreigners and insurgent infiltrators.”
He spoke further on this by saying, “If the military keeps doing this, the people will go into the mountains to fight them. When I saw my daughter injured, all I could think about was putting on a suicide jacket.”
Last month was the one year anniversary of the killing of two pregnant mothers, men and a teenage girl by a NATO night raid. In an attempt to cover it up, the US forces literally dug the bullets out of the victims bodies. In a Democracy Now interview Glenn Greenwald said, “Here you have an incident that we know about only because of sheer luck with the determination of a single reporter, and again the military lying about what took place.” A recent report on survivors of night raids gives a close look at how foreign troops justify killing civilians. One witness of night raids, Anwar Ul Haq, said, “Whenever they shoot or kill anybody, they call him al Qaeda whether he is or not.”
Without regard for civilians, the Tarok Kolache village in Afghanistan’s Arghandab River Valley was completely destroyed with 25 tons of bombs. Is the destruction of entire villages, which are the support system for the majority of Afghans, a logical tactic in counter-insurgency? Clearly, the Afghans who have suffered due to this disagree. A farmer of the Arghandab district asked “Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?”, while one angry villager accused the military of ruining his life after the demolition.
In addition to witness and victim testimonies, the Coalition forces themselves have made eye-opening revelations on the target killings of civilians. In September 2010, it was revealed that a dozen US soldiers faced charges in their involvement of not only killing innocent Afghan civilians at random for sport, but also collecting the victims finger bones, leg bones, teeth, and skulls as trophies. The military refuses to release photos that show US soldiers posing with naked, mutilated and charred corpses of their victims. Sound familiar? The father of one of the victims killed was quoted as saying, “The Americans really love to kill innocent people.” In fact, they had planned on killing more civilians had it not been for one soldier, Spc. Adam Winfield, and his father who tried relentlessly to blow the whistle. He had said his squad leader “gives high-fives to the guy who kills innocent people and plans more with him.- I have proof that they are planning another one in the form of an AK-47 (machine gun) they want to drop on another guy.” Instead of honoring Winfield for exposing the truth, he was instead charged with the same crimes. His father had reported Winfeld’s statements to Army officials, but they turned a blind eye. One can’t help but to wonder whether the killing of civilians for sport is more abhorrent or the apparent negligence and silence by the higher ups in the Armed forces.
Speaking of higher ups in the Armed forces, General Mattis, who replaced Petreaus as chief of US Central Command, said “Its fun to kill people…it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot [Afghans].” He continued: “Actually, it’s a lot of fun to fight. You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right upfront with you, I like brawling.” A bit later he spoke of the “emotional satisfaction you may get from really whacking somebody.”‘ He reportedly even told his troops to “have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
Afghans have been resisting this dehumanizing way of life where they are regarded as savages or merely objects to be killed for sport. A recent poll conducted in Afghanistan shows that more than half of the Afghans interviewed believed NATO-led forces should begin withdrawing from the country in mid-2011 or sooner. Afghans no longer want anything from NATO but to simply leave. Massive protests and demonstrations against the Coalition following recent attacks are now erupting throughout Afghanistan in cities like Kunar, Kabul city and Nanglam, where Afghan demonstrators have been marching in streets chanting, “death to the invaders” and “We don’t want the invading forces.” Another man explained, “We say to ISAF that revenge is part of our culture. We say to our leaders, our government, that this kind of violence should be investigated. Those responsible should be punished.” A woman held a placard that read, “Occupation = Killing + Destruction.” In one demonstration, angry protesters burned a pile of blankets, clothing, and other items donated by Coaltion troops. An independent member in the legislature, Ramazan Bashardost, said “These killings must be stopped or the people will rise against foreigners and we will stand by them.”
Civilians fear not only NATO and ISAF but also suicide bombings by Armed Opposition Groups. Simultaneously with the terror by Coalition forces, recent suicide blasts have taken the lives of around 100 Afghan civilians.
The almost decade long war and occupation has done more harm than good, escalating violence in Afghanistan to its peak, and continues to deteriorate chances of peace for the future. Afghanistan has already been subjected to previous decades of war and now each new generation is haunted with both the memory and reality of endless bloodshed, death, and misery. The fact remains that Afghans continue to live with hunger and worsening poverty, torture and humiliation, planted with weapons, escalating air strikes and night raids.
The responsibility lies on the Afghan government, Taliban, warlords, and especially NATO/ISAF forces, including top commanders like General Petreaus, who must be brought by the people of Afghanistan and the world through a judicial process to account for their crimes, failed military solutions, and indiscriminate killings. Instead, the corrupt system in power continues to leave Afghans helpless and without a voice, and has them convinced that they are incapable of self-determination. However, it must not be forgotten that Afghanistan has a long history of independence and are more than capable of running their affairs. It is vitally important to listen to Afghans. It is the right of the people to decide the fate of their country and there are no exceptions. With the recent revolts in Arab countries, it’s only a matter of time before Afghans follow their lead. This requires immediate change and an honest vision for a truly democratic Afghanistan. In doing so, we must be aware of the ground realities, namely the presence of NATO, Taliban, warlords as well as regional intervention.
Global Afghan-led peace groups such as Afghans for Peace (AFP), Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV), and the Afghan Canadian Student Association (ACSA) stand in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan in their struggle for justice and freedom. They fully acknowledge and strongly condemn these cruel, targeted massacres of innocent human life. AFP, AYPV and ACSA calls on the people of the world, especially Afghans, to rightfully demand an end to this illegal war and occupation. When children are being killed one by one, as was the case in Kunar last week, all of humanity suffers. When civilians have become the targets, it is time for everyone to stand up.
Signed by:
Afghans for Peace
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Afghan Canadian Student Association
Afghan Perspectives
US to set up permanent air base in Poland
Press TV – May 9, 2011
US President Barack Obama will reportedly announce the establishment of a US air detachment in Poland during his upcoming visit to the European state.
Poland’s leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily cited an unnamed Polish diplomatic source on Monday as saying that Washington would announce the transfer of an F-16 base from Aviano in Italy to the Lask air field in central Poland during his May 27-28 visit.
Poland’s Defense Minister Bogdan Klich also said on Monday that both sides would be ready for the agreement.
“At the moment we are holding talks with the Americans on the topic of a detailed agreement that will govern on what basis the Air Detachment — the detachment that will permanently service the F-16 and Hercules crews and land personnel periodically visiting Poland — will be stationed on our territory,” he was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency as saying.
Last year, Klich said he hoped the F-16 rotations would begin in 2013.
In 2010, the White House confirmed the “establishment of a US air detachment in Poland to support the periodic rotation of US military aircraft.”
Meanwhile, Russia warned Poland against hosting US fighter jets, saying it would counter the move.
Russia warns US, Romania over base
Press TV – May 5, 2011
Russia has issued a warning after Romania agreed to host the US missile system site at a Soviet-built base in the country’s southern town of Deveselu.
Moscow warned that the deployment of US interceptor missiles on Romanian territory comes without considering the talks between Moscow and Washington on the issue.
Earlier in the week, the US and Romania announced that elements of US missile system would be stationed at the former Romanian airbase of Deveselu.
Russia said that the planned missile system “may pose risks for Russian strategic nuclear deterrence forces in the future,” Russia Today reported on Wednesday.
“We regret to say that practical steps on building the European segment of the US global missile defense system are being made regardless of the Russian-US dialogue on missile-defense issues, which was launched under the initiative of President Dmitry Medvedev and President Barack Obama,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
It said Washington continues to implement “the phased adaptive approach” toward building a segment of the US global missile system in Europe.
Washington announced these plans back on September 17, 2009.
Russia had warned earlier that it would take “adequate measures” if the US and NATO choose to build the European missile system without Moscow’s participation.
US Undersecretary of State Ellen Tauscher, however, said on Wednesday that the missile system posed no threat to Russia.
“It is a system that will defend NATO and, if Russia chooses to work with us in a cooperative manner, the system will defend Russia, too,” she said.
“We have good relations with Russia. We have just ratified the New START treaty, we are working together on various other issues,” she told Romanian lawmakers.
Tauscher is scheduled to meet with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Thursday.
Russia was not the only one caught off-guard by the surprise announcement of the US-Romanian decision. Reports say that Romanian officials were also unaware of the decision and the Romanian media kept mum on the issue until President Traian Basescu announced it on Tuesday night.
The Future Children of Fukushima
Cancer, Deformities and Chronic Diseases
By JOE GIAMBRONE | CounterPunch | May 3, 2011
“[A] woman in her fourth month of pregnancy was contaminated with 137Cs [radioactive cesium]… The concentration of 137Cs in the mother (0.91 kBq/kg bw) was similar to that in her newborn child (0.97 kBq/kg bw).” 1
Children in Belarus, Ukraine and certain provinces of Russia tell us what to expect from a massive radiation contamination such as Japan is currently experiencing. Radiation attacks the young to a harsher degree than it does adults, and yet we do know that it kills adults. Radioactivity causes numerous illnesses including terminal cancers, and not just from a large initial dose but over time from absorbed emitting particles inside the body.
A senior nuclear adviser to the Japanese Prime Minister, professor Toshiso Kosako resigned in protest from his government. This as the Japanese government raised the level of permissible exposure to schoolchildren twenty fold, from 1mSv/year to 20mSv.
The atomic power industry, it can be proved, has been an unprecedented catastrophe for mankind.
One of the world’s leading experts on radionuclide contamination is Dr. Yury Bandashevsky based in Minsk, Belarus. Near Chernobyl’s “ground zero” Bandazhevsky has published hundreds of scientific papers and has studied the radioactive contamination absorbed by children there for decades.
The parents of northern Japan had best investigate Dr. Bandashevsky’s dietary recommendations. He’s found that apple pectin helps remove radioactive cesium-137 from the body.
However, food grown and animals grazed in contaminated regions will pass along radiation to human populations for centuries. The Japanese reliance on fish will soon produce another shock to their nation as larger fish absorb more radioactive particles up the food chain.
Dr. Bandashevsky has placed hard numbers on the dangers of internal contamination from radiation,
“Chronic Cs-137 levels over 30 Bq/kg body weight is often associated with serious cardiovascular diseases 2.”
For children with cesium 137 in excess of 50 Becquerels/kg body weight, “pathological disorders of the vital organs or systems will occur 3.” These levels can produce grotesque malformations in newborn babies and increase the risk of spontaneous abortions.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) says, “Both 134Cs and 137Cs emit beta particles and gamma rays, which may ionize molecules within cells penetrated by these emissions and result in tissue damage and disruption of cellular function 4.”
Expecting Japanese mothers should flee the north of Japan as quickly as possible. Abandon the region for the sake of their children’s safety. Fetuses are in imminent danger and are many times more vulnerable to radiation than are adults.
How much radiation is Japan bathed in right now?
Nature magazine online reported that soil 40km northwest of the plant contained, “Cesium-137 levels of 163,000 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) and iodine-131 levels of 1,170,000 Bq/kg, according to Japan’s science ministry 5.”
Tellingly, the new official “exclusion zone” is only a 30km radius from the plant. This means that those living atop the irradiated soil described above will not even be prompted to leave. Most will not. They will eventually return to life as usual. Only the colorless, tasteless, odorless radioactive isotopes will poison their families ceaselessly for the rest of their lives. Cesium, strontium, iodine and other radionuclides will continue to attack life forms in that contaminated environment despite any hollow assurances to the contrary.
Plutonium, the most toxic substance on earth, has been detected at eight different monitoring stations in Korea.
Radioactivity is a highly contested and controversial subject. Vast caches of medical evidence are routinely ignored in the mainstream media. At the nerve center of the controversy is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose entire purpose is to promote the atomic power industry worldwide. Many don’t know, but the IAEA has the authority on all health matters concerning radiation, both military and civil.
The World Health Organization can simply be blocked – by the IAEA – from publishing its findings concerning radioactive disasters like Chernobyl. This exact scenario occurred in 1995 under the tenure of WHO Director Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima 6.
A Swiss documentary team discovered that Dr. Nakajima’s 1995 international conference of “700 experts and physicians” was prevented from publishing its findings on Chernobyl by the IAEA. The 2004 Swiss film Nuclear Controversies documents this battle between doctors and scientists on the scene vs. the IAEA.
Regarding the IAEA, Dr. Nakajima said, “for atomic affairs, military use and civil use, peaceful or civil use they have the authority. They command 7.”
The elephant in the room is that word “military,” and the desire of Western militaries to pummel other lands with “depleted uranium” (sic) munitions. As NATO currently plasters Libya with uranium tipped bombs, it must deny that the uranium contamination will harm the civilian population there. That admission alone would constitute a confession of war crimes, and so the fiction continues.
Radiation attacks DNA and causes horrific malformations, sudden mortality, and diseases that persist for the rest of the person’s life.
Several films have documented the radiation effects on the children of Chernobyl including the Academy Award winning Chernobyl Heart (2003). This film shows harrowing images of deformed infants and numerous teenagers who suffer from thyroid cancers and other thyroid diseases. Fewer than 20% of children in the nation of Belarus can be classified as “healthy,” according to official government studies.
A Ukrainian study found that, “for each case of thyroid cancer there were 29 other thyroid pathologies 8.”
Dr. Bandashevsky found further health effects at even lower levels of cesium contamination. For “children having 5 Bq/kg more than 80% are healthy, while having 11 Bq/kg only 35% of children are healthy 9.”
Chernobyl Heart, The Battle of Chernobyl (2006) and Nuclear Controversies (2004) have been available streaming online for all to see. The evidence that radiation destroys the lives of entire populations is irrefutable.
Official United Nations studies have failed to reflect this reality on the ground. What the UN has fallen back on as a rationale for its behavior is found in the 2008 UNSCEAR report on Chernobyl:
“As discussed previously in the section on the attribution of effects to radiation exposure, because presently there are no biomarkers specific to radiation, it is not possible to state scientifically that radiation caused a particular cancer in an individual 10.”
By their own logic it is also not possible to scientifically rule out that radiation caused the epidemic of cancers found in the highly contaminated regions. But, that’s exactly what the UN has shamelessly done in a series of reports that deliberately under-count the deaths from the Chernobyl catastrophe.
While the IAEA refuses to accept medical consequences of the radioactivity it promotes, it does acknowledge that radiation has spread from the crippled Fukushima plant. Readings as high as 25 Megabecquerels per sq. meter iodine-131, and 3.7 Megabecquerels per sq. meter cesium-137 were reported “at distances of 25 to 58 km 11” from the still out of control plant. These numbers should prompt massive evacuations at much greater distances than the official exclusion zone (read: uninhabitable zone) of 30km.
Facing that reality would render a large chunk of Japan a wasteland with economic costs beyond calculation. The numbers of refugees would surpass anything that the government could possibly manage. The absolute insanity of atomic power would instantly become an unavoidable fact to the entire (sane) world.
All exposures to radiation increase the risks of cancer, and there is no such thing as a “safe dose.” This is the determination of the National Academy of Sciences 12, the EPA 13, NRC 14, CDC 15 etcetera. Thus, when a population is exposed to any increase in radioactive particles, some percentage of people and animals will be adversely affected. The exact number is difficult to determine, but estimates are made through extrapolation.
Dr. Chris Busby has predicted “400,000” cases of cancer for the population within 200 kilometers of Fukushima 16. That includes the suburbs of Tokyo. Studies from Europe after Chernobyl were used in his calculations. Cancers include thyroid, leukemia, pancreas, prostate, lung, skin, bone – every type of cancer that exists. This is what radiation does to living organisms.
The evidence is clear. Children living “in contaminated regions, in a radius of 250 – 300 km from Chernobyl show an increase in mutations 17.” From the years 1987 to 2004, “the incidence of brain tumors in children up to 3 years of age doubled and in infants it increased 7.5-fold 18.”
Thousands of studies from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the surrounding countries were compiled in 2009 by Dr. Alexey Yablokov and Drs. Vassily and Alexey Nesterenko. Chernobyl, Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment was published by the New York Academy of Sciences and cites 5,000 studies. Forty percent of Europe was dosed with significant radiation. Radioactivity spread across the northern hemisphere where it continues to affect human health to this day.
The most contaminated provinces show human devastation directly correlated to radiation levels. Gomel province in Belarus had 90% healthy children in 1985, the year before the meltdown. By 2000, “fewer than 10% of children were well 19.” Effects were directly related to the levels of contamination, eliminating other possible factors.
Rare deformities in infants increased radically. Severe Congenital Malformations (CMs) “such as polydactyly, deformed internal organs, absent or deformed limbs, and retarded growth increased significantly in the contaminated districts… officially registered CMs increased 5.7-fold during the first 12 years after the catastrophe 20.”
This is what the parents of Northern Japan should expect if they decide to stay. This is what the promotion of high risk atomic power has bequeathed to the next generations of those who live near the contaminated zone.
The IAEA’s methodology showed obvious holes in the counting of victims, post-Chernobyl. Stillbirths aren’t counted at all. The reality is that up to 2004, “the estimated total number of miscarriages and stillbirths in Ukraine as a result of Chernobyl was about 50,000 21.”
Those are fifty thousand human deaths in the single nation of Ukraine that did not even merit a mention in the UN’s so-called “official death toll.”
How many really died from Chernobyl’s meltdown?
The Yablokov/Nesterenko book places the death toll at about one million.
“Thus the overall mortality for the period from April 1986 to the end of 2004 from the Chernobyl catastrophe was estimated at 985,000 additional deaths. This estimate of the number of additional deaths is similar to those of Gofman (1994a) and Bertell (2006). 22”
Three independent studies arrived at similar findings.
The atomic energy industry today across many nations displays a reckless disregard for human life bordering on Crimes Against Humanity. The Rome Statute, employed by the International Criminal Court, added the following category to Crimes Against Humanity:
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.
As all nuclear plants regularly and routinely discharge harmful radioactive particles, which all governments admit are unsafe, the case is pretty clear. Nuclear power must be abolished while there is still enough uncontaminated arable farmland to sustain us.
In a strictly moral sense, these reckless plants endanger millions of other people’s children, perhaps 12,000 human generations yet to be born 23. Radioactive power generation places us in jeopardy at risk for catastrophic illnesses. This is a gross deliberate violation of millions of people’s human rights.
Plutonium remains a threat to future civilizations. This reckless, uncontrolled release of radioactive isotopes has fouled the earth.
The people of Japan should remember the people of Belarus. Birth defects in children “whose mothers live in contaminated zones is twice as high as compared to those, whose mothers live in clean regions 24.”
Notes
1. World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer IARC, Monographs on the Evaluatiion of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Vol. 78 Ionizing Radiation Part 2: Some Internally Depostited Radionuclides, 2001, IARCPress, Lyon France, p. 343.
2. Yuri Bandazhevsky, Chronic Cs-137 incorporation in children ‘s organs, 488 SWISS MED WKLY, 2003;133:488–490 · www.smw.ch (peer reviewed), Official journal of, the Swiss Society of Infectious disease
the Swiss Society of Internal Medicine, Swiss Respiratory Society
3., 17., 24. The Chernobyl Catastrophe and Health Care, By Dr. Michel Fernex, Professor emeritus, Medical Faculty of Basel, F-68480 Biederthal, France.
4: Center for Disease Control Publication p157-c2, CESIUM, 2. RELEVANCE TO PUBLIC HEALTH, CDC website.
5. Nature Journal Online, Radioactivity Spreads in Japan, March 29 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110329/full/471555a.html
6., 7. Nuclear Controversies, 2004, Swiss TV, Film by Wladimir Tchertkoff, Feldat Film Switzerland.
8. ,18., 19., 20., 21., 22. Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B. Nesterenko, Alexey V. Nesterenko, 2009, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol.1181.
9. V.B. Nesterenko’s report at the International conference “Medical Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: results of 15-year researches”, June 4-8, 2001, Kiev, Ukraine.
10. SOURCES AND EFFECTS OF IONIZING RADIATION, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR 2008 Report to the General Assembly with Scientific Annexes, VOLUME II Annex D Health effects due to radiation from the Chernobyl accident
11. IAEA website, Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log, March 30, 2011, http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/fukushima300311.html
12. National Academy of Sciences, 2006, Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation: BEIR VII Phase 2. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11340&page=1#
13. EPA website, Radiation Risks and Realities, “The more radiation dose a person receives, the greater the chance of developing cancer… Current evidence suggests that any exposure to radiation poses some risk, however, risks at very low exposure levels have not been definitively demonstrated.” [“very low” not defined –JG] www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/402-k-07-006.pdf
14. NRC website, Fact Sheet on Biological Effects of Radiation, “This dose-response hypothesis suggests that any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.”
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/bio-effects-radiation.html
15. Center for Disease Control website, Prenatal Radiation Exposure: A Fact Sheet for Physicians, “However, the human embryo and fetus are particularly sensitive to ionizing radiation, and the health consequences of exposure can be severe, even at radiation doses too low to immediately affect the mother. Such consequences can include growth retardation, malformations, impaired brain function, and cancer.”
16. Dr. Chris Busby, Reuters, http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=S0H-mtsdsgg.
23. Al Jazeera, April 4, 2011, No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan by Dahr Jamail, quoting Dr. Kathleen Sullivan.
~
Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire. He edits the Political Film Blog. He be reached at: polfilmblog at gmail.
Osama bin Laden’s Second Death
By Paul Craig Roberts | Lew Rockwell | May 2, 2011
If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error of restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogeyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House.
Copyright © 2011 Paul Craig Roberts
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From the Archives
A Lesser “Grade” of Human
By Michael Hoffman | Revelation of the Method | January 3, 2024
Will the more than 100 Iranians killed by terrorist bombs today be mourned in the West as victims of terrorism? Certainly not. Allied doctrine has it that the killing of Israeli or American civilians is a crime of cosmic proportions, while shedding the blood of “enemy” women and children is perfectly acceptable; indeed commendable.
The West does not memorialize the hundreds of thousands of civilians bombed by the U.S. in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan and every major German city 1943-1945. America’s fire-bombing of the city of Tokyo by General Curtis LeMay in March 1945 was followed by Harry Truman’s atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that year. Truman never had a moment of doubt or regret over the murder of more than a 100,000 Asian children, mothers and non-combatant boys and men. It was business as usual for the “noble” Allies during the “Good War.”
In the West human rights signifies passionate concern only for civilians designated as truly human: Israelis first, then Americans and British, followed by their satraps.
This inhumanity is the legacy of Talmudic ideology, beginning with tractate Sanhedrin 57a from 400 A.D., concerning liability for capital punishment: “If a Jew murders a gentile, he is exempt.”
This teaching of contempt was reiterated in the dogma of Chabad Lubavitch founder Rabbi Shneur Zalman in the 18th century. … continue
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Aletho News- Houthis Don’t Have to Conquer Saudi Arabia to Make It Pay
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- The Makkah Pact Enters Into Force: The End of American Dominance or Its New Form?
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- If Americans Knew
- Three Years of Genocide: How America’s Israel-First Media Filtered Out the Truth
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- New Report: Israel Killed nearly 21,000 Palestinian Students and Education Workers in Past Three Years
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- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
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