You are a credit to the great Satan.

The October 2, 2003 issue of RollingStone includes the article “Is the Pentagon Giving our Soldiers Cancer?” by Hillary Johnson, and it’s worth reading (sadly, the article isn’t online, so do what I did and sit down in the bookstore and read it). The article explores the use of depleted uranium in U.S. munitions and the possible damage it’s causing among U.S. troops, as well as non-combatants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia.

Munitions are tipped with depleted uranium (DU) because of the armor piercing and pyrotechnic powers of the heavy metal. The burned out Iraqi tanks strewn across southern Iraq and their “crispy critter” inhabitants from the first Gulf War were victims of DU munitions. Upon impact the DU turns into a fine powder that can be distributed far and wide. The leftover material is still radioactive and will be for 4-5 billion years.

While the Pentagon denies that DU can cause any harm, it is the suspected cause of the rash of cancer-like symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome among veterans of the first Gulf War. In addition to the U.S. troops, Iraqis are experiencing higher rates of cancer and birth defects. As the article states, Iraqi mothers are no longer asking if their newborn is a boy or a girl but if the child is normal.

The international community classifies DU as a weapon of mass destruction, yet the U.S. continues to use it. I’ve heard arguments about DU before, but often in a more radical setting. If these allegations are true, it’s a sad country we live in. Not only would we be unleashing nuclear waste on a country we sought to liberate for having nuclear weapons in the first place, but we would be putting our own service men and women at risk, and lying to them about the potential dangers. It would be sad to compare the honorable and noble view of the Armed Forces on the home front, compared to disposable view of the top brass.

For the sake of our dignity (and the thousands of endangered lives), I hope DU is harmless. But the fact that evidence is mounting and the U.S. government seems unwilling to settle fears with unbiased research leads me to belief that DU is a threat. It’s the Agent Orange of the nineties, and if it’s true, it frightens me to think that my own government would sacrifice innocent lives and our soldiers for the sake of a more effective weapon. The unwilling kamikazes.

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