Toxic Legacy of US Assault on Fallujah 'Worse Than Hiroshima'

by Patrick Cockburn for The Independent

Saturday, July 24, 2010

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. Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened". US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions. 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."

The survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers in January and February this year who visited 711 houses in Fallujah. A questionnaire was filled in by householders giving details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality. Hitherto the Iraqi government has been loath to respond to complaints from civilians about damage to their health during military operations. Researchers were initially regarded with some suspicion by locals, particularly after a Baghdad television station broadcast a report saying a survey was being carried out by terrorists and anybody conducting it or answering questions would be arrested. Those organising the survey subsequently arranged to be accompanied by a person of standing in the community to allay suspicions. The study, entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout".

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people. Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.

The US cut back on its use of firepower in Iraq from 2007 because of the anger it provoked among civilians. But at the same time there has been a decline in healthcare and sanitary conditions in Iraq since 2003. The impact of war on civilians was more severe in Fallujah than anywhere else in Iraq because the city continued to be blockaded and cut off from the rest of the country long after 2004. War damage was only slowly repaired and people from the city were frightened to go to hospitals in Baghdad because of military checkpoints on the road into the capital.

[It appears that our legacy of the ‘war’ in Iraq will still be there long after we eventually leave. No doubt something similar will occur in Afghanistan too. If wars are fought this way through necessity maybe we should start thinking of not having any more of them. War is a terrible way to decide the fate of nations and the lives (or deaths) of their populations. Surely it is not beyond us to find a better way to run our affairs than this?]

Proof Positive (at last) that Dinosaurs and Humans co-existed..... Just not for long!

Just Finished Reading: In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove

In a world where Germany and her Allies have won both the Second and Third World Wars it’s difficult to be in a minority. It’s dangerous in the extreme, however, to be a hidden Jew - especially when you’re living in the heart of the Reich and working for the Wehrmacht. Such is the secret life of Heinrich Gimpel who, along with a few close friends, attempt to keep the Jewish faith alive for at least one more generation. But when the Fuhrer dies and is replaced by a much younger man, an existence based on fear becomes one based on hope which is possibly the most dangerous thing of all – especially when a single slip can condemn everyone you love to instant death.

It’s good to be back reading SF again – even SF by Harry Turtledove. Sometimes I do wonder why I read him. He has several very annoying habits, all of which are exhibited in this chunky stand-alone volume. I’m not exactly sure why, maybe he thinks that his audience are slow witted or simply have poor memory skills, but he repeats information endlessly. OK, it’s often important information but he really doesn’t need to keep mentioning it as often as he does – like 10 or 15 times (at least). For example, he mentions repeatedly (sometimes several times on a single page) that the Jewish characters in the book need to hide their real identities from the authorities and that a single mistake could kill whole families. Yup, important bit of information. Gotcha. You may, at some point or even at several points want to drive that point home. But to then mention it around every Jewish character…. 10 or 15 times (at least)? That is just plain annoying. Turtledove also has a habit of padding his stories with trivia. If I had to read through 5 pages of one bridge game I had to read through four or five of them (which I ended up skimming through). Dull, dull, dull.

So about the first two-thirds of this book was slow reading indeed. It only got really interesting when the new Fuhrer started changing things. The author very clearly modelled this process on the concepts of Glasnost and Perestroika in the ex-Soviet Union. So much so that some of the characters where actually clearly avatars of Mikail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. The resulting revolution in German politics and the attempted counter revolution by reactionary forces was actually well written and honestly gripping. Yet this final third of the book couldn’t save it from being a basically dull read. It Turtledove could curb his repetitions and cut out a lot of the padding he’d be a much better author. As it is I struggle to justify to myself why I read him at all. I doubt if I’ll be buying any more of his. Life is too short to sift through 500 page books looking for the good bits.

Cartoon Time.

In the Beginning:

“Close to noon, the Father Sun baked pungencies out of turf and turned the forest that walled the northern horizon into a wind-whispery surf of leaves and shadow. Closer by, a field of hsakh stood golden. Kdatlyno slaves were hand-cultivating it in the ancient way, growing fibre that would be handwoven into cloaks for the mighty to wear at Midwinter Bloodfest and then burn. Scattered elsewhere were the dwellings of Heroes attendant upon his household. Though stately enough, they were dwalfed by the manor looming ahead of Ghrul-Captain.”

From: Pele by Poul Anderson in Man-Kzin Wars IX created by Larry Niven

My Favourite Movies: High Fidelity

In this smart comedy about romance – rather then a romantic comedy - Rob Gordon (played by the brilliant John Cusack) is unceremoniously dumped by his long term girlfriend (played by newcomer Iben Hjejle) causing his world to fall apart. He begins to examine where everything went wrong in the only obsessive way he knows how – by making Top 10 lists. Rob is a music geek who runs a specialist record store off the beaten track. Along with two other music snobs – played by Jack Black and Todd Louiso he intends to drift through his life apparently untouched by the real world around him. The wake-up call of Laura’s departure changes all that. Rather than go on a drinking binge, Rob decides to go on a relationship binge by calling up ex-girlfriends to find out what’s wrong with him. Meanwhile, Laura slowly moves out of their shared apartment…….

Not only was this a very funny film – often despite Jack Black’s over-the-top antics – it was also a very clever one. Not only did the fact that Cusack talked directly to the camera continually crack me up, he also managed to get across thoughts that I couldn’t help but nod along with. When done well, as in this movie, such a device is a delight to watch and Cusack is obviously at ease with it. The whole relationship angle was very well directed though, despite reading the book by Nick Hornby some years after seeing the film, I can’t remember if it’s because of the movie director or the original author. Either way it’s obviously material from someone who’s been there and been dumped by that.

Despite being well able to carry a scene on his own Cusack was ably assisted by Lisa Bonet, Tim Robbins (as Rob’s love rival), Catherine Zeta-Jones (as an ex-girlfriend) and his sister Joan (who plays Laura’s best friend). Although the movie clearly revolves around him as the central character and focus of the movie it is his interactions, funny, bitter sweet, or angry, with the other players that brings everything else alive. This is a thoughtful, mature, messy film that reflects and comments upon the lives and people we all know because we’ve all been there. I guess I identified with Cusack’s character to a significant extent. At times his dialogue could just as easily have been directly lifted from episodes in my own life – and no doubt millions of others. A high fidelity film in more ways than one.

Cartoon Time.

In The Beginning:

“Some years ago, after writing a book, The Celtic World, I received a letter from an American. He was, he said, an alcoholic and it had worried him but having read of the Celtic love of wine – a story told by the Classical writer Athenaeus of the Gauls – he was much reassured. His grandparents had been Celts from Scotland and his behaviour was thus explained: it was part of his Celticness and he would henceforth be proud of it. Many reading this might find it an innocuous story, and might indeed gain some reassurance for their own occasional overindulgences, but others might become apoplectic seeing in it yet further evidence of the insidious Celtic myth perpetuated by popular books. One academic member of this camp has even gone so far as to suggest that some authors deliberately use the word ‘Celtic’ in book titles to boost sales."

From: The Celts – A Very Short Introduction by Barry Cunliffe

Stephen Hawking Warns Over Making Contact with Aliens

by Jonathan Leake for The Sunday Times

Sunday, April 25, 2010

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist - but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact. The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world's leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe's greatest mysteries. Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the center of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.

Hawking's logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational," he said. "The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals - the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history. One scene in his documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where they are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity. He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach." He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is "a little too risky". He said: "If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."

The completion of the documentary marks a triumph for Hawking, now 68, who is paralyzed by motor neurone disease and has very limited powers of communication. The project took him and his producers three years, during which he insisted on rewriting large chunks of the script and checking the filming. John Smithson, executive producer for Discovery, said: "He wanted to make a program that was entertaining for a general audience as well as scientific and that's a tough job, given the complexity of the ideas involved." Hawking has suggested the possibility of alien life before but his views have been clarified by a series of scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery, since 1995, of more than 450 planets orbiting distant stars, showing that planets are a common phenomenon. So far, all the new planets found have been far larger than Earth, but only because the telescopes used to detect them are not sensitive enough to detect Earth-sized bodies at such distances. Another breakthrough is the discovery that life on Earth has proven able to colonize its most extreme environments. If life can survive and evolve there, scientists reason, then perhaps nowhere is out of bounds. Hawking's belief in aliens places him in good scientific company. In his recent Wonders of the Solar System BBC series, Professor Brian Cox backed the idea, too, suggesting Mars, Europa and Titan, a moon of Saturn, as likely places to look. Similarly, Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, warned in a lecture earlier this year that aliens might prove to be beyond human understanding. "I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can't conceive," he said. "Just as a chimpanzee can't understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains."

[I think that the odds against the non-existence of alien life anywhere else in this Galaxy – never mind the entire Universe – is mind-staggeringly huge. With so much time and so many potential places to evolve it’s pretty certain that we are not alone in the Universe. Whether or not intelligence is rare is a whole other question. Although intelligence seems to be a winning evolutionary strategy it’s also a very dangerous bargain – as we clearly see with the only intelligent species we are aware of – us. However, maybe not all intelligence is the same. It’s difficult, to say the least, to extrapolate from a single example but I think that the odds in favour of intelligent life ‘out there’ are good. Not every species will end up killing itself off (even if we do). Some at least will grow, prosper and leave their home worlds making them much more difficult to kill off. Numbers wise its impossible to guess how many intelligent species we share this Galaxy with. The odds of actually meeting one – given the light-speed restrictions are pretty slim though. The possibility of them arriving in orbit in order to asset strip the planet is a little far fetched I think. But if they did at least we’d have our proof that we’re not alone!]

Just Finished Reading: Indian Philosophy – A Very Short Introduction by Sue Hamilton

Despite having a general (and genuine) interest in this area as well as reading several books on Buddhism over the past year or so, I honestly struggled with this small volume. Part of the issue was that it attempted to cover a very wide area of study in a mere 139 pages. Another issue was probably that I found the writing quite dry and overly academic. I also found myself becoming confused by the number of unfamiliar terms and unknown authors presented throughout the book. Despite all of this I did come away from reading it with a somewhat better understanding of the history of Indian Philosophy and an appreciation of how it all hangs together. I expect, or at least hope, that this will help me to put further future planned readings – again largely in the area of Buddhism – into some kind of coherent context. I think that this book was on reflection aimed too high for the general reader coming to this subject (as I did) with little background knowledge or preparation. There was a lot to take in and little space to cover all the necessary bases. Not my favourite VSI book to date.

Cartoon Time.

Thinking About: Food

It is often said, with a great deal of evidence, that we in the West have a problematic relationship with the food we eat. This is clearly seen both in the obesity ‘epidemic’ and in stark contrast the numbers of women (and increasingly men) who are virtually starving themselves to death seemingly in the hope of looking good or dying trying. Whilst I am in neither of these opposing groups I am not completely immune from having food ‘issues’.

I am, for one thing, in the rather odd position of being a vegetarian who is not a fan of either fruit or vegetables. You can see from the outset that this is going to cause me problems. Needless to say, the idea of a ‘balanced diet’ is somewhat alien to me. Actually I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t take the variety (and amount) of vitamins I do that I’d probably be suffering from various probably nasty deficiencies. I am also, on top of this, a rather faddish eater. Once I find something I like, be it food or drink, I will then eat or drink it repeatedly for months or even years at a time. Equally strangely I can stop eating or drinking this particular item if something ‘disturbs’ me about it – like getting a bad example of it (maybe it’d gone off before its use-by date or something). Two elements of my personality are at war where my eating habits are concerned. One side wants to try out new things whilst the other knows exactly what it likes and is quite happy, thank you very much, eating or drinking the same kind of thing since childhood. One way I do get introduced to new edible things is eating at friends houses. Inevitably they will have something on the menu that I haven’t had before. To be polite I’ll give it a go – not meat products of course – and sometimes I’ll adopt things into my own diet in future.

I’m definitely eating too much at the moment. In the summer months I usually eat less than normal because of the heat. Heat puts me off eating lots of things. However, I’m making an exception these days because I’m clearly comfort eating. Not that it’s bringing me a great deal of comfort. But such is the way of things. Despite being more active than I have been for a while – my job means I’m often away from my desk for a good part of the day – I’m still slowly gaining weight. I’m not happy with it but it seems that I’m less than fully motivated to do anything about it. I tried the gym for a while many years ago but found it incredibly boring. Physical activity has never really been my thing. It’s one of those things that I never really understood (like Religion, Jazz and Women). So, inevitably the pounds creep on and stay on. I am, I’m afraid to say, developing a noticeable middle-age spread. What I need to do is simply cut back on my snacks. Most of what I eat/drink tends to be diet this or low-fat that. Not my snacks however. Sometimes I like just to have them in the house so that I know I can have one whenever I really want one. Then, of course, I get peckish and before you know it the whole packet has gone. I need to develop the will-power to simply stop eating like that. It is, I think becoming more of a habit. I’ll be eating all three courses of a meal next. That’ll be it – the point of no return. For most of my adult life I’ve been a thinny and I really don’t want to be a fatty as I get older. But it’s a slippery slope. Maybe I can find something else to replace my comfort eating….. I’m going to have to give that some thought and put the biscuits back in the fridge.

In The Beginning:

“My good sir, I wonder if I might venture to offer you some help? Otherwise, I’m afraid you may not be able to make yourself understood by the worthy gorilla who presides over the comings and goings of this establishment: he only speaks Dutch. Unless you allow me to plead your case, he won’t guess that you want some gin. There: I dare to hope that he has got the message. That nod of the head should mean that my argument has won his ear. He’s off, look: making haste slowly, the clever chap. You’re lucky: he didn’t complain. When he refuses to serve you, he just grunts. No one argues with that. It’s the privilege of these big beasts to be moody when they like. I’m off, Monsieur, and glad to have been of service. Thank you; I’d accept if I were sure that I should not be imposing on you. You’re too kind. I’ll put my glass here, then, at your table.”

From: The Fall by Albert Camus.