The Moral Equivalent of Nuremberg

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17582-the-moral-equivalent-of-nuremberg

The Moral Equivalent of Nuremberg
ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Thursday, 18 October 2012 16:58

The recent study focused on the cities of Basra and Fallujah, where serious fighting occurred during the war. Fallujah was the scene of two large, extremely destructive coalition assaults in 2004. Five years later, doctors at Fallujah General Hospital finally became so alarmed by the increase in birth defects they petitioned the United Nations to investigate, explaining in a letter: “In September 2009, (the hospital) had 170 newborn babies, 24 percent of whom were dead within the first seven days (and) a staggering 75 percent of the dead babies were classified as deformed.” In comparison, their letter stated, in August 2002, before the invasion, 530 babies were born; six of them died within the first week, with a single birth defect reported.

About eight months later, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published the results of an epidemiological study, which found that Fallujah was experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia and infant mortality than Hiroshima and Nagasaki did in 1945

The University of Michigan study, which was published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, monitored 56 families in Fallujah. Between 2007 and 2010, more than half the babies born in those families had some kind of birth defect. That figure was under two percent prior to the year 2000. The most common abnormalities included congenital heart defects, brain defects, malformed or missing limbs and cleft palate.

In addition, between 2004 and 2006, 45 percent of the pregnancies among those families resulted in miscarriage.



unhappycamper comment: **Caution! Contains disturbing images. Google images with: basra birth defects

[libinnyandia]

1. And Mitt Romney is such a strong supporter of that war. He would love to do the same thing to

Iranians.

[Victor_c3]

2. It's never the people at the top who start the wars that have to pay the price

It invariably comes down to the children on both sides who suffer the most.

My wife used to work as a special education aid in the DOD elementary school in Grafenwoehr, Germany. Some of the kids of the Soldiers who deployed to Iraq had some terrible issues as a result of having a parent in the war. They were messed up because of their emotional stress and as a direct result of their parent(s) PTSD issues. Some of the stories about some of the kids my wife worked with were extremely sad to me. These kids probably only have "light" issues compared to the Iraqi kids who grew up during the war. I couldn't imagine my kids having to grow up and facing the constant danger of going to school.

I was in Baqubah for a year in 2004. We used to see kids playing soccer in the fields around the city and its outlying communities all the time. One time in particular I remember a group of gunmen pulled up to a group of kids playing soccer and slaughtered them all when I was there. What the hell do the kids have to do with it? We we always scared that gunmen would do the same to the schools, but fortunately that never happened.

Fallujah and the poisoning is another topic altogether. Operation Phantom Fury kicked off almost 8 years ago to the day today. I was almost drawn into the fight, but my platoon was assigned to a different battalion during the assault on Fallujah. If you do any reading or if you have ever come across the book "house to house" by David Belavia (he was put in for a medal of honor as a result of his service in Fallujah), he was in my company. I was the platoon leader of second platoon that wasn't there. I don't regret not being there at all.

George Bush and his cronies need to be held accountable for what they did to Iraq. The war in Iraq needs to be the point of national shame and disgrace that it is/was.

Anyways, I'm done with my rant.

Victor G. Philippi
CPT, IN (former)
OIFII Veteran