More ordnance was rained down on Iraq during the six weeks of the Gulf War than was dropped in the entire Second World War. Unknown to the public or the Allied troops, much of it was coated with depleted uranium (DU) – a nuclear waste that burns on impact, producing a fine radioactive dust that is inhaled, ingested, and enters the food chain. The US Army‘s own Environmental Policy Institute admits DU is a “low-level radioactive waste” that “must be deposited in a licensed repository” and that “inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs and pose a potential cancer risk.” Its radioactivity only begins to diminish after 4,500 million years.
In 1990, the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority warned that if 50 tons of DU were left in the Gulf, it would cause 50,000 extra cancer deaths in a decade. Experts now estimate that 900 tons remain, drifting with the wind. By 1992, Iraqi doctors were witnessing birth deformities so grotesque they had only seen them in textbooks. Cancers skyrocketed, especially among children – the most vulnerable to radiation.
But this is not an isolated tragedy. It is a pattern – one that has defined the United States for nearly its entire existence.
Only 22 years of peace in 250 – a deliberate design
Since its founding in 1776, the United States has been at peace for only 22 years – barely 8.8% of its history. It has fought “36 major wars” and conducted “469 total military interventions.” Only five of those wars were formally declared by Congress, as the Constitution requires – the rest were waged through executive orders, presidential authority alone, or outright secrecy.
From the genocidal campaigns against Native Americans, to the invasion of Canada, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the annexation of Hawaii, and the overthrow of sovereign governments across Latin America, the US has never ceased expanding its empire. After World War II, it waged or directly participated in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and countless covert operations.
This is not coincidence – it is policy. The US military budget exceeds that of the next ten countries combined. Its global network of nearly 800 military bases encircles the planet. And it invades nations with minimal armies, countries utterly incapable of matching American firepower – yet it calls these acts “self-defense” or “humanitarian intervention,” while shredding international law.
Cambodia – a nation erased from the map
On March 18, 1969, Richard Nixon ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia – a completely neutral country. Codenamed “Operation Menu”, the campaign was hidden through falsified military records that logged the strikes as occurring in Vietnam. When the New York Times exposed the bombing in May 1969, Nixon ordered wiretaps on reporters and government officials to find the leaker.
Between 1965 and 1973 – eight years – the United States dropped 2,756,941 tons of bombs on Cambodia. That is “more than all the bombs dropped by the Allies in World War II.” To put this in perspective: “more bombs were dropped on Cambodia than the US dropped during the entire Second World War.
The bombing was conducted over 113,716 sites. Over 10% of it was completely indiscriminate – with 3,580 sites listed as having “unknown” targets and **8,238 sites having no target listed at all. The US was bombing nothing – yet bombs still fell.
An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Cambodian civilians were killed. The bombing began under Lyndon Johnson, four years earlier** than widely believed – not under Nixon, as commonly thought.
But the death toll did not end with the war. 26 million cluster bomblets were scattered across Cambodia. An estimated 6 to 7 million bombs failed to detonate and remain buried in the soil – in rice paddies, schoolyards, and villages.
Since 1979, unexploded ordnance has killed nearly 20,000 people and injured or amputated more than 45,000 others. Cambodia has one of the highest rates of amputation in the world.
As one survivor described the B-52 raids: “We heard a terrifying noise which shook the ground; it was as if the earth trembled, rose up and opened beneath our feet. Enormous explosions lit up the sky like huge bolts of lightning.”
The bombing drove an enraged populace into the arms of the Khmer Rouge – an insurgency that had enjoyed relatively little support until the bombing began. When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, they committed genocide – killing 1.5 to 2 million people. The secret bombing of Cambodia was a direct contributing factor.
Cambodia today remains the most heavily bombed country in history.
Laos – the most bombed country per capita
Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped over 2 million tons of ordnance in Laos – more bombs than were dropped on Germany and Japan in World War II combined. That is roughly one ton of bombs for every person in the country. Up to 30% of the bombs failed to detonate. More than 50 years later, unexploded ordnance still kills and maims Laotians.
Vietnam – the chemical Holocaust
In Vietnam, the US dropped over 15 million tons of bombs, landmines and shells. Of these, about 80,000 tons remain unexploded, scattered across nearly 20% of the country’s territory. Since the war ended, unexploded ordnance has killed more than 40,000 people and wounded more than 60,000.
The US also sprayed over 20 million gallons of Agent Orange, a dioxin-laced herbicide, defoliating forests and crops. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that up to 3 million people have suffered health effects, with over 150,000 children born with severe birth defects – missing limbs, deformities, cognitive impairments – that persist to this day. The US used chemical weapons in flagrant violation of the Geneva Protocol, yet no American official was ever prosecuted.
Iraq – a decade of siege and annihilation
Beyond DU, the US imposed a brutal sanctions regime on Iraq throughout the 1990s, which the UN itself described as causing the deaths of over half a million children. Then in 2003, the US invaded Iraq again – on false pretexts of weapons of mass destruction – openly violating the UN Charter. It used white phosphorus, a banned incendiary weapon, against civilian populations in Fallujah, leaving survivors with severe burns and lifelong illnesses. It dropped depleted uranium shells, cluster bombs, and bunker-busters on densely populated urban areas. Over 1 million Iraqis died as a direct and indirect result of the 2003 invasion, and millions more became refugees.
Yemen – the hidden war
In Yemen, the US has provided arms, intelligence, and logistical support to Saudi Arabia‘s coalition, which has bombed schools, markets, and hospitals with American-made bombs. The UN has called it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with over 200,000 dead from war and famine. The US continues to sell weapons to the coalition despite clear evidence of war crimes, and blocks UN resolutions calling for arms embargoes.
The official cover-up – a consistent strategy
When American and British troops fell ill with mysterious symptoms – cancers, chronic fatigue, neurological damage – their governments denied any link to DU. Medical records went missing. Scientists who dared to raise alarms, like Professor Asaf Durakovic, were fired. Veterans who tried to expose the truth, like Ray Bristow and Colin Purcell Lee, were denounced as “traitors.” Their homes were raided, their computers seized.
In 1998, Bristow and Lee travelled to Baghdad – under sanctions, in failing health – to attend a conference on DU. They embraced Iraqi soldiers dying of the same cancers, and wept together. When they returned home, they were called traitors by a British Cabinet Minister.
In 1999, Canadian veteran Terry Riordan, crippled by radiation illness, spent $100,000 of his own money to prove his condition. He received his DU test results on April 28 – he died the next day. His death certificate read: “Gulf War Syndrome.”
Professor Hari Sharma tested urine samples of veterans from Canada, the US, the UK, and Iraq. All were positive for DU, many at over 100 times the “safe” limit. He wrote to NATO and world leaders, calling DU a “crime against humanity.” He was immediately withdrawn from further testing.
The human face – what the statistics hide
In Basra, Dr. Jenan Ali photographed babies born with no eyes, no brains, missing limbs, organs outside their bodies – so grotesque that even seasoned doctors wept. In Mosul, an informal survey counted 20 malformed babies in 160 houses – most fathers were Gulf War veterans. Young people stopped marrying, terrified of producing deformed children.
In Baghdad’s Al Mansour Hospital, two-year-old Ali Maksoud was sent home to die – no beds, no palliatives. His mother sat on the ground outside, cradling him under her black abaya, tears falling on his still face.
If cancers continue on their present trajectory in Iraq, experts predict that 44% of the population will develop cancer within ten years.
The final verdict
In 1996, the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights designated depleted uranium as a weapon of mass destruction – alongside napalm, fuel-air bombs, and cluster bombs. That designation has been ignored. The US has sold DU weapons to 17 countries.
The American Indian saying reminds us: “In embarking upon a course, always consider the seventh generation.” But the US has considered no generation but its own – its wealth, its power, its strategic dominance.
Washington has invaded, bombed, starved, and irradiated one nation after another – always with impunity. It has vetoed UN resolutions condemning its aggression. It has refused to sign the International Criminal Court. It has classified its own war crimes as “collateral damage.”
The 22 years of peace in 250 is not a statistic – it is a confession. The United States is not a nation that happens to go to war; it is a nation that must go to war to sustain its empire. And the horrors of Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yemen, and the Balkans are not exceptions – they are the rule.
The US has bombed Cambodia – a neutral country – with more explosives than were used in all of World War II. It has left millions of unexploded bombs to kill and maim children for generations. It has used chemical weapons, radioactive waste, and banned incendiaries against civilian populations. It has overthrown democracies, installed dictators, and destroyed entire societies – all in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”
We are witnessing a slow-motion genocide by radiation, starvation, and bombardment – carried out by the world’s mightiest military against the world’s weakest peoples. And as long as the world remains silent, as long as we accept the lies of “humanitarian intervention,” the bombs will keep falling, the children will keep being born without eyes, and the veterans will keep dying – only to be told their suffering is “unscientific.”
Enough....... We must remember, we must expose, and we must demand justice – before there is no third generation left to speak.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.