the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 28, 2003
After making a slight pretense of opposing American Airlines’ demands for enormous concessions from its workforce, the leaders of all three unions involved fell in line, one after the other, signing away the workers’ future on American’s dotted line. In fact, they had always intended to sign, having pushed for the concessions in the first place–with APFA even going so far as to reschedule a vote for fight attendants, who had voted "NO" the first time around.
But the union bureaucrats were embarrassed by American itself. Just before the contracts were to be signed, American let it be known it was putting aside 41 million dollars in a special pension "trust" that couldn’t be touched in the event of a bankruptcy, unlike what could happen to the workers’ pensions. It also said it would give millions in executive bonuses.
Faced with an outraged membership, union leaders did a song-and-dance routine for a few days, only to rush back into the companies’ arms before workers might begin to act on their own against the concessions.
American–the largest airline in the country–dares to pretend it has no money, that it might go bankrupt. This is nothing but outright blackmail. And top union leaders went along with this outrage from the beginning, telling workers that the bankruptcy courts might impose even worse concessions.
Labor "experts"compared this situation to what the auto workers and the steel workers unions went through in earlier years, when they, too, gave up big concessions in order to–as they put it–"save jobs." Most of the experts forgot to mention that the auto workers union today is less than half the size it was when the concessions began–in other words, the concessions didn’t prevent job loss. The loss of steelworkers’ jobs was even more massive.
Not only did the concessions not save jobs. The unions’ cowardice in the face of outrageous demands encouraged the companies to come back for more, closing plant after plant, suppressing job after job, etc. Auto workers never got back what they gave up in concessions–and they lost most of the jobs.
We have no reason to trust what a boss tells us. Look at the airlines today. Most of them pretend they have no money. Only a couple of years ago, they were bragging about having billions of dollars. Only a few years ago, they were buying up other companies or setting up subsidiaries. At that time, they said they had plenty of money. Where did it all go?
It went right where it’s always been–in the pockets of the airlines or their bankers. Otherwise, how could American have proposed to give its execs bonuses and a pension trust plan?
This arrogant move showed the real situation: these companies have access to money. They are just looking for an excuse to get even more by reducing the workers’ standard of living. We cannot protect ourselves if we worry about the situation the company claims it’s in.
Today the workers know nothing about the companies’ real situation. We don’t ever see their real financial accounting, including all of the books of each company’s subsidiaries, and all of their bank accounts, including in off-shore banks. We are not in the position to look at all the deals the companies have cut with each other, shifting money around, as well as equipment. We don’t monitor all their daily financial activity–although we could. We should assume they are lying to us–and act accordingly.
These big companies–some of the biggest in the world–think we are fools. They ought to think again. Many airline workers realize they are being had right now. Those workers can start a fight to protect their jobs and to resist these takeaways. And what they start, other workers can pick up. In every industry, every city, most workers find themselves under attack. A real fight–one that is militant and determined from the beginning–could quickly enlist the active participation of other workers.
Apr 28, 2003
A recent New York study found that more than 25% of the children in a 24-block area of Harlem have asthma. This is more than two and a half times what was expected.
This upsurge of asthma is not limited to Harlem or New York. Since 1980, the number of asthma cases has doubled in the U.S.
This dramatic rise of asthma reflects the continuous deterioration of living conditions for the working class in this country. Asthma is an inflammation of the airways that makes it difficult to breathe. Environmental factors such as air pollution, dust, animal dander, mold and mildew increase the occurrence of asthma. These are conditions which can be controlled through widespread sanitation.
But that’s exactly what’s lacking in inner-city neighborhoods where many working class families are forced to live. Such areas are not only plagued by heavy vehicle traffic and air pollution; the buildings there are old, loaded with mold and mildew, infested with insects and rodents, and literally falling apart. In addition, many families have no health insurance and can’t afford frequent doctor visits and medication–which, of course, aggravates the disease.
In this, the wealthiest country in the world, an ever larger part of the working class lives in conditions not different than those in many third world countries–and getting worse by the day. For the American bosses, times have hardly ever been better.
Apr 28, 2003
The large construction firm, Bechtel Group, won a 680-million-dollar contract funded by U.S. tax dollars for the "reconstruction" of Iraq.
Bechtel, extremely well-positioned with long-term ties to the government, is no newcomer to profiteering from U.S.-led wars in the Middle East. In the early 1990s, at the end of Papa Bush’s Gulf War, Bechtel won a lucrative contract to restore Kuwait’s oil fields.
The essential aim of this latest "reconstruction" is NOT to put up housing, schools, hospitals, water purification facilities and every other useful thing the population needs but which has been destroyed by the war.
No, the aim of this reconstruction is to repair the oil ports, the pipelines and the rest of the infrastructure needed so the companies in the imperialist countries can put their hands on Iraqi oil.
When interviewed on TV about the contract, George Shultz, former Secretary of State and currently on Bechtel’s board of directors, said that Bechtel was "honored to be selected" and that Bechtel would "use their technology to do good things" in re-building Iraq. The "good things" Bechtel intends are juicy profits.
Apr 28, 2003
On April 24, the Bush Administration announced new rules for millions of the working poor who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit. If the rules go through, four million families will have to provide incredible amounts of impossible to find documentation before they can claim the credit.
The government claims that it loses from 6.5 billion dollars to 10 billion dollars a year from false claims on the Earned Income Tax Credit. By way of contrast, the IRS itself admits it loses 132 billion dollars a year to individuals–most of whom are wealthy; 70 billion dollars from offshore bank accounts, 46 billion dollars from corporations and 30 billion dollars from business partnerships. Even by the government’s own admission, over 20 times as much money is lost to big business and wealthy cheats as to the poor. Yet the government doesn’t demand documents in advance from the wealthy or big business–and it audits less than one% of them.
Tax experts estimate that most of those who will lose the Earned Income Credit are entitled to it, but won’t be able to put together the required dossier.
This isn’t about catching tax "fraud." It’s about stealing money from the poorest workers while giving more to the wealthy.
Apr 28, 2003
Shortly after taking office, Michigan’s new Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, announced that she had inherited a budget deficit from her Republican predecessor. Therefore, so she said, she had no choice but to demand concessions from state workers. She threatened to cut out 2000 jobs if she didn’t get $4100 a year in wage and benefit concessions from each worker.
Workers were not pleased to hear this–to say the least. And so they began to express their displeasure in various ways.
In mid-April, they organized a noon-time demonstration outside the main Detroit state office building. At its fullest, the demonstration counted about 450 workers. All told, probably 700 workers took part, since there was a constant flow of people coming for awhile, then leaving when their lunch break was over, only to be replaced by others doing the same thing. Although the protest was organized by members of the UAW at the state offices, workers from other unions attended–as did some "exempt" workers and retirees.
Judging by the chants and the noise that workers made, it was a militant protest. A few workers were overheard saying that maybe they could give up some concessions–but they hadn’t heard of any yet that they could live with. But for most of the demonstrators, "No Concessions, No Way!" seemed to catch their mood just fine. With other demonstrators chiming agreement, one worker said, "This is what union is all about. The grass roots."
Of course, this demonstration by itself isn’t enough to stop the concessions drive. But it certainly is a start–and an important one. The governor, herself, acknowledged this when she was asked by a reporter about the protest and said that she certainly would begin to look for other places from which to make up the budget deficit.
No one should put any confidence in the promises of a politician. But it’s interesting to note that Granholm said what she did only after the demonstration. She obviously will be trying to gauge just how determined the workers are. Many state workers understand, as one worker wrote, "If we give now it will never end." And state workers have the means to show her that they are sticking by their position: "No Concessions, No Way!"
Apr 28, 2003
After the bombing stopped, thousands of ancient artifacts were looted from Baghdad’s National Museum of Antiquities–clearly a professional job. The thieves knew what to take, they knew which paper work to destroy to cover their tracks–and they had contacts on the world art market to fence the "hot" goods that legitimate museums wouldn’t buy.
Other thieves with "connections" stole hospital supplies equipment. For an ordinary Iraqi, the only benefit from such stolen equipment and supplies would have been to keep them in Iraqi hospitals where they were desperately needed.
One of these looters worked for Fox Network–the number one propaganda center for Bush’s war.
Then four other suspected looters were identified as members of the Iraqi National Congress militias, the troops of Ahmad Chalabi. Thesame day another four from the INC were stopped from looting one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.
Such actions are hardly surprising, given who Chalabi is. He not only comes from a wealthy Iraqi family living the last 45 years in exile; he added to the family fortunes by embezzling millions from a bank in Jordan. In 1989, Chalabi was accused of bank fraud and embezzlement. The Jordanian courts sentenced Chalabi to 22 years in prison. He left town and so did hundreds of millions of dollars.
But the biggest looters in Iraq are only getting started with their looting: the U.S. contractors with ties to the current Bush administration–Halliburton’s Kellogg Brown & Root and Bechtel, with its long ties to the previous Bush administration. The U.S. oil companies–eyeing big Iraqi oil reserves–have probably torn up the contracts that France, Germany and Russia used to have for buying Iraq’s oil.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told the press that liberation wasn’t "tidy." For some, it sure turns a tidy profit.
Apr 28, 2003
Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspectors, has now declared that no matter what his mission would have discovered, "the war was planned in advance" by U.S. leaders and their accomplices.
Everyone in the U.N. knew that the war had been decided upon a long time before, no matter what happened with the inspections. Bush himself said it over and over again. But Blix pretends he just discovered it.
While the farce of inspections went on, Bush and Blair prepared their armada for the invasion. The U.N. inspectors found no prohibited arms, but they did put pressure on the weak Iraqi army to destroy some of its defensive missiles. The inspection teams also served as a cover for U.S. or British intelligence agents who were lining up targets under the guise of inspections.
Before the war, when it might have made a difference, Hans Blix did not denounce the fact that the inspections were only a farce serving to mask a planned war. Today, neither U.N. officers nor Blix proposes to bring charges against Bush and Blair–and all their lieutenants–as war criminals, although there’s more than enough grounds to do so.
Bush and Blair are cynical butchers; everyone at the U.N. who pretended to be "neutral" is a hypocritical accomplice.
Apr 28, 2003
Unable to get any profitable reconstruction contracts for British business from his accomplice Bush, Tony Blair is trying to turn the British occupation zone, in the southeast of Iraq, into a paradise for exploiters.
At Umm Qasr, the British military authorities set the wage for workers employed to reconstruct the port at $22 per month for a foreman, $15 for a skilled worker and $10 for a laborer–this last amount is equivalent to a package of cigarettes a day in Iraq!
Apparently, workers have not been forming long lines to get these jobs–neither in Umm Qasr, nor in the U.S. zone. The technological and arms supremacy of the U.S. and British forces were enough to make the dictatorship fall, but to annihilate the dignity of a people is something else. The Iraqi people as a whole haven’t welcomed the invaders with open arms, nor, apparently are Iraqi workers more enthusiastic about being treated as slaves. And we understand them!
Apr 28, 2003
On April 26, in the Zafaraniya neighborhood in Baghdad a series of explosions ripped apart a rocket and weapons dump being used by U.S. forces. There were huge blasts, rockets went off and rounds exploded from the heat. At least 12 people were killed, with many more injured or missing. An Iraqi medic on the scene said that as many as 40 people could be killed. Eight buildings were flattened.
U.S. Central Command in Qatar explained away the incident with this excuse, "An unknown number of individuals attacked..... During the attack, the assailant fired an unknown incendiary device into the cache, causing it to catch fire and explode." This may fly in the U.S., but the Iraqis who were there say differently. Residents said that before the explosion the U.S. forces had brought more munitions to the site from elsewhere in Iraq. One man told a reporter, "This is the responsibility of the U.S. Army because we told them this is a civilian area." A banner said in English, "No Bombs Between Houses."
The press reported that local residents chanted angrily and shook their fists at U.S. troops. Others shot at U.S. soldiers, driving them from the area. U.S. Command Sgt. Maj. Gary Coker said, "It’s too dangerous for my soldiers to be there right now." The press reported that hundreds of men drove from the Zafaraniya suburb in trucks and buses chanting anti-U.S. slogans. Slogans included, "The Americans are killing Iraqis with Saddam Hussein’s weapons."
People from the neighborhood demonstrated against the U.S. military presence throughout the day and into the night.
Is this what Bush meant when he claimed Iraqis are "greeting" U.S. troops–or that the war is over?
Apr 28, 2003
At the end of April in meetings between North Korean officials and the Bush administration, the North Koreans said they possessed nuclear weapons. President Bush responded, "This will give us an opportunity to say to the North Koreans and the world, we’re not going to be threatened."
Threatened? Who is threatening whom? Is North Korea using its supposed nuclear bomb to target innocent citizens in the United States? Or is the U.S. using its untold might to threaten the whole world?
The country that just used "shock and awe" and weapons of untold levels of destruction all over Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan, is pretending to be threatened by another tinpot dictator?
Apr 28, 2003
Annoyed by Iraqi criticism of the American military control over their country, the U.S.‘s new "civilian" administrator, retired General Jay Garner, proclaimed: "I think we will begin to see the governmental process start by the end of the next week and it will have Iraqi faces on it."
He said a mouthful. Because that’s exactly what the U.S. intends–to cover over its colonial administration of Iraq by pasting a few Iraqi faces on it!
Apr 28, 2003
The following was translated and excerpted from an article appearing in the April 25, 2003 issue of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle).
A month to the day after the U.S. war on Iraq began, former general Jay Garner entered Baghdad as its "civilian administrator." He had himself filmed visiting a hospital, a power plant and a water treatment facility. Not surprisingly, Garner, who is linked to the U.S. arms industry and to the Israeli lobby, tried to hide his true task–which is to preside over the absolute U.S. control of the country. But media stunts like this don’t make the population of Baghdad forget what it suffers, deprived of electricity and drinkable water, with a curfew imposed on it "from the last evening prayer to the first morning prayer," according to the quasi-colonial terms used by the U.S. authorities.
Despite all the speeches about humanitarian aid, the military occupiers scorn the suffering of the population, for whom they had only bombs and missiles. It’s not an "oversight" that U.S. troops were deployed to protect the Ministry of Oil against possible looters, but left hospitals which had already been hit by bombs unguarded from looting.
The same thing can be seen in the so-called "reconstruction." The director of the Durah power plant which used to serve a third of Baghdad told a British newspaper that his plant couldn’t get the gas it needs from Kirkuk in the north because it can’t communicate with the supplier. The occupation forces control all communications. The same newspaper said that Baghdad doesn’t have drinkable water because the treatment plant is missing needed parts. Yet 22 million dollars worth of these parts are still blocked by the U.S. under the pretext that they could have a military use. Too bad for the population which is exposed to the risk of a vast epidemic!
As for the official Washington claim that all governmental power will be turned over to an Iraqi administration in three months–Garner himself told the press, "I can’t fix a strict deadline of 90 days. We’ll remain here as long as necessary. We’ll turn over control of sectors of the government, not according to a calendar, but when they are ready to accept it." "Ready to accept it" means that the old Iraqi police and army have to be re-established so they can maintain the order imperialism needs in the country.
The New York Times reported that the U.S. intends to maintain four military bases in Iraq. When asked, the White House said it only asks for "access rights" to four bases. Typical diplomatic-double talk. And it doesn’t hide the fact that U.S. imperialism intends to make Iraq an advanced base of its military-political apparatus in the Middle East and at the same time a protected zone for U.S. corporations.
These plans seems to anger at least a portion of the Iraqi population. There were demonstrations against Iraqi politicians who had seized power in various cities, claiming to cooperate with the occupiers. There was a demonstration against a political conference organized by the U.S. in Nasiriya at the beginning of April, a conference boycotted by most Shiite leaders. And when over a million Shiites made a pilgrimage to Karbala, there were loud anti-American slogans. There it was the religious hierarchy which seems to have taken the lead.
At this point it seems that the most prominent political forces come from the Muslim hierarchy, particularly the Shiites, who are taking advantage of their presence throughout Iraq to rush into the vacuum apparatus created by the fall of Saddam Hussein. In some cities near the border with Iran, for example in Kut, these forces even seized power, using the armed Iraqi opposition militias formed in Iran during the dictatorship.
If these reactionary forces prove to be capable of containing the energy of the population, they could be ready to become partners of imperialism, if it decides to accept them. But now, these reactionary forces are divided into rival factions, competing to see who can make the strongest anti-American statements, in order to gain influence. This is causing Bush problems, since the men he trusts and pushes toward power, grouped in the Iraqi National Congress led by the corrupt banker Ahmad Chalabi, seem to be opposed by everyone. This shows that Garner is far from consolidating a regime devoted to the interests of U.S. imperialism and capable of imposing its interests on the Iraqi population.
Just because these reactionary religious factions right now dominate the opposition movement to the U.S. and British occupation, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the only political forces out there. On April 20, the Reuters news agency announced the appearance of the first opposition newspaper in Baghdad. It wasn’t a fundamentalist paper, it was the newspaper of the Iraqi Communist Party.
The Iraqi Communist Party has a checkered past. Most importantly it abandoned the interests of the Iraqi workers in the name of nationalism and contributed to disarm the workers just when Saddam Hussein began to build up his dictatorship in the 1960s. This party couldn’t offer a perspective to the Iraqi masses if its persists in its past policy. But its reappearance indicates that certain political traditions of the Iraqi proletariat are still alive, despite the terrible repression of the Baath regime and decades of dictatorship. The fundamentalists can only take the workers backward. But the poor population of Iraq can defend itself both from the local exploiters and from imperialism by fighting for the class interests of the poor working population. And they can find allies for such a fight among all the exploited throughout the Middle East on the basis of their common class interests.
Apr 28, 2003
On Monday front page headlines nationwide screamed things like, "Men with dynamite arrested at bridge to Canada." Two men from Yemen were arrested in Detroit while videotaping the bridge that carries traffic between Detroit and Canada. Police said that in the men’s car they found quarter sticks of dynamite, shot shells, illegal weapons, immigration papers, a camcorder and tape recorder. There was a lot of talk about "terrorism."
Two days later, some papers carried a small print report of what had actually happened: the two arrested men were U.S. citizens, the so-called dynamite was a few firecrackers, the baton was legally sold for self-defense, and the immigration papers were a legitimate application for one man’s uncle to come from Yemen.
The men were released from jail with a ticket for driving with tinted windows.
Do we ever see giant "Cops invent a crime for the 1001st time" headlines? No. And why not? Isn’t it news when cops can’t tell dynamite from firecrackers? But that kind of news does not scare people.
We are supposed to accept every attack made on us under the pretense of a "war on terrorism." And terrorists will be thrown in our faces–even if the cops and the press have to make them up out of fireworks and thin air.
Apr 28, 2003
The first trial of so-called "terrorists" is taking shape in federal court in Detroit, Michigan. It is marked by government prosecutors using tactics most suited to getting a guilty verdict regardless of the evidence. For there is no credible evidence against the four Arab immigrants on trial. The evidence consists of a childlike drawing of airplanes by a man known to be mentally ill, who in fact committed suicide at age 21, six months before 9/11, a man who the defendant didn’t know. He lived in the defendants’ apartment before they ever moved in.
To connect the defendants to terrorism, the feds are relying on the testimony of a scam artist–that is, a man who lied to make a living. And while the four men on trial are legal immigrants, the fed’s witness, Youseff Hmimssa, is illegal.
The feds have promised Hmimssa a deal for his testimony–less than four years in jail to settle felony charges in Michigan, Illinois and Iowa, as well as leniency on his illegal status. What a set-up! This was the sort of prosecution conduct that led Illinois to stop enforcing the death penalty.
The trial judge has already twice spoken out against government misconduct in the case. The nation’s top justice official, Attorney General Ashcroft, violated the judge’s gag order and made a public comment praising Hmimssa. And the government lawyers sprang a photograph in court without first telling the judge and without disclosing it to the defense as required. Photographs can be easily doctored, as every Internet user knows, having seen, for example, the widely circulated picture of Saddam Hussein and George Bush roughhousing together. If the trial photo had been genuine, the government would not have a problem letting the defense examine it, as they have a right to do.
With all the FBI’s resources investigating terrorism day and night–this doctored evidence is all they have to show.
When Attorney General Ashcroft praised Hmimssa, he said, "Such cooperation is a critical tool in our war against terrorism." Exactly–the co-operation of a con-man!
Apr 28, 2003
This spring, United Auto Workers (UAW) members in some HMO or PPO medical plans were shocked to see co-pays go up for prescriptions and office visits.
The International UAW got an earful from its members demanding to know why they were giving up concessions in the middle of a contract. The union officials’ excuses were revealing. They said that the original contract allowed for increases if costs of particular PPO or HMO programs rose above a set level!
This was NEVER revealed to workers when they voted on the contract.
These aren’t the first little surprises. For years, workers have been getting prescriptions or having certain kinds of medical treatments and only afterwards finding out that their out-of-pocket costs went up, or a procedure was no longer even covered!
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has recently made it a point to assure workers that the UAW will not retreat on health care in the coming contract.
Given what just happened, workers cannot afford to accept such weasel-type assurances. BEFORE any vote is taken, every worker needs enough time to go over a proposed contract, discuss it with co-workers and be satisfied with it down to the finest of the fine print.
Unless workers have those opportunities, the only safe vote would be "NO."
Apr 28, 2003
Six popular drugs–Celebrex, Glucophage, Lipitor, Novasc, Paxil and Tamoxifen–were priced by the AARP. The cost for a regular supply of all six drugs by mail order in the U.S. was $991; the cost in Canada would have been $533.
Small wonder then that millions of people order prescription drugs from Canada when they don’t have prescription coverage in their health plan or their insurer won’t pay or they have no health coverage at all.
GlaxoSmithKline, a major pharmaceutical company, jumped right in by refusing to supply its products to Canadian mail-order pharmacies that sell to U.S. citizens–who otherwise would have to pay the higher prices.
And what does the U.S. government do? The FDA declares buying drugs in Canada is illegal and may be unsafe, even though there’s not a single documented case of Canadian drugs being fakes.
Unsafe? Only for the enormous profits made by GlaxoSmithKline and the other pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. It’s not that these corporations don’t make profits in Canada and elsewhere. They don’t give away their products. The difference is that the Canadian government regulates both drug prices and its entire national health system.
It’s hardly a system that puts people’s medical care in the center of all its concerns, but by contrast to the U.S.–with its open worship of "private enterprise" and profit–Canada seems like a very reasonable place.
Apr 28, 2003
The ongoing U.S. military occupation of Iraq has made Three Kings, a movie made by David O. Russell in 1999 and available in video stores, interesting to watch again.
The movie starts out like another Hollywood action romp. In the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, four American soldiers, played by George Clooney, Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze, sneak behind Iraqi lines to steal gold from the Iraqi military. Their plan is to grab the gold and split.
But that’s where Three Kings starts to follow a different, and much more interesting, story line than the typical Hollywood action film. The soldiers find themselves in an unexpected situation. There is an uprising going on in that part of Iraq, which the Iraqi army is busy crushing. The soldiers can’t escape a confrontation with the Iraqi army, which they survive only thanks to the help of the rebels.
Thus we get a glimpse at the events immediately following the U.S. campaign against Iraq in 1991. After the quick U.S. victory against the Iraqi forces, two uprisings broke out against Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Three Kings shows how U.S. forces stood by and allowed Saddam Hussein to crush these rebellions with much bloodshed. We see the local people, who are first caught up in a very destructive war and then betrayed by the U.S., under a sympathetic, humane light–which is not so common in Hollywood war movies.
The four soldiers themselves represent a realistic cross-section of the U.S. troops that are sent to fight these wars. Three of them are reservists. Two are trapped in low-paying jobs; the third is unemployed. These three young, working-class men certainly don’t see any prospects for their future back in the U.S. There is also an interesting scene in the movie where the soldiers raid an Iraqi bunker in search of the gold, only to be confronted by the torture of Iraqi rebels and images of the Rodney King beating on CNN at the same time.
The movie doesn’t attempt to explain what’s behind these images it shows us. And its ending reminds us that what we watched is still a Hollywood movie after all. Nonetheless, Three Kings not only manages to be entertaining; it also brings us an image of war-torn Iraq that is far more balanced and honest than the one-sided, false portrayal of "liberated" Iraq we are bombarded with daily by the U.S. media.
Apr 28, 2003
When the U.S. soldiers come home from Iraq, they will undoubtedly be greeted by big parades, marching bands and long-winded speeches by generals and politicians.
Then they will return to reality: unemployment for a lot of them and–for many more–the effects of the war that follow them home.
Many will come down with a whole series of health ailments directly related to depleted uranium (DU)–which the U.S. military uses to coat much of its ammunition. One of the densest substances known, DU is highly effective at penetrating any armor. Military experts brag that uranium tipped projectiles pass through tank armor like a hot knife through butter.
DU also happens to be radioactive. It is called "depleted" only because it is no longer useful for making fuel for nuclear bombs or nuclear reactors. But it continues to release harmful radiation, and will continue to do so for billions of years. When DU munitions explode, they vaporize or turn into a fine dust that can be inhaled into the lungs or absorbed by the skin. Scientists have found that tiny amounts then settle in the bones and many vital organs, where it emits radiation causing extensive damage, including birth defects in soldiers’ children.
The U.S. military first massively employed DU during the first Gulf War in 1991. The Pentagon issued no warnings or precautions, leaving the soldiers in complete ignorance of what they were dealing with. For weeks and months, hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers camped in areas that were littered with DU shells. The Iraqi population continues to live in these areas.
Not long after that war ended, many veterans began to report all kinds of health problems. Jerry Wheat, a veteran interviewed on Canadian television, said that for no apparent reason his weight dropped steeply from 220 to 160 pounds. He also suffered from crippling joint pain and abdominal problems. A few years later, he got a tumor on his shoulder.
During the war, Wheat, who was awarded a Purple Heart, had been seriously wounded when a vehicle that he was in had been hit twice by friendly fire. The shells that struck were made from DU. Only when Wheat’s father, who is a technician at the famous Los Alamos Nuclear Research Center, tested the shrapnel that came from his son’s body and gear, did anyone discover that the shrapnel was radioactive.
Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs has classified nearly one out of three of the 504,000 eligible veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War as disabled. That’s the highest rate of disability for any modern war. More than 10,000 of these veterans have already died. (Many more Iraqis have succumbed, but the U.S. keeps no count of this.)
The Pentagon still denies that DU is toxic or dangerous. It continues to refuse to do any studies. For many years, it even denied veterans treatment or benefits. And it continued to use DU in its weapons–first in Bosnia, now in this current war.
Almost ten times as much DU was used in the current Iraq war as in the first war. Most of that was fired on Baghdad–the biggest Iraqi population center. This is where most U.S. soldiers are also currently stationed.
Countless U.S. vets and Iraqis alike have been exposed to radioactive dust from DU. Today, the damage may still be invisible. But they have been wounded just as seriously as if they had been directly struck by a bullet or bomb. Both those directly exposed to DU dust as well as those who are yet to be born are the victims of the real weapons of mass destruction, held not by Saddam Hussein, but by U.S. imperialism.
Giving the soldiers a parade when they come home doesn’t change that.