The Hidden Massacres

 

 

 

Haditha Massacre US Marines Face Iraq Trial Thursday, 21 December 2006   Eight US marines have been charged over the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha last year.    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6198947.stm

 

 

 

What about the Hidden Massacre of Fallujah???

 

 

The Hidden Massacre of Fallujah

 

Sigfrido Ranucci for RAI

(Italian Public TV)

27 minutes

 

 

Click to Watch and Listen

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1134673789364675735&pr=goog-sl

This is the terrible testimony given by Jeff Englehart, veteran of the war in Iraq. "I have seen women and children burnt bodies - the former U.S. soldier added - phosphorus explodes and it creates a cloud. Whoever is within 150 mt is dead." Some witnesses have seen a rainfall of burning substances of different colors that were burning people when hit and even those who were not hit had problems breathing", told us Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, director of the center for human rights studies in Fallujah.

 

 

---

 

What about the Genotoxic Massacre of Gaza Strip???

 

 

US and Israel Targeting DNA in Gaza?

 

The Dime Bomb

 

Yet another genotoxic weapon

by James Brooks

Monday December 04 2006

"This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like Dime an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims?"

 

:: Part 1 of 3 ::

It's been almost five months since the first report that Israeli drone aircraft have been dropping a "mystery weapon" on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media around the world have run stories depicting the strange and "horrific" wounds inflicted by the new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian doctors and medics who say Israel's new device is a kind of chemical weapon that has significantly increased the fatality rate among the victims of Israeli attacks. [1][2]

In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence that suggests the new weapon may also represent the near future of US "counterinsurgency warfare". Combined with photographs of the victims and testimony from attending doctors, this evidence points to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). [3]

DIME is an LCD ("low collateral damage") weapon developed at the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated "micro-shrapnel" of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA). Scientific studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic).[4-11]

It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the story of Israel's new weapon, not least because our own military may soon be using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story might also have told us something about the grossly disproportionate brutality of Israel's war on the Palestinian people—reason enough for the media to suppress it. [12]

Thanks to the intrepid Italians, the story could even have introduced Americans to their government's DIME weapons program. This three-part article will ask whether Israel is 'testing' US DIME bombs in the Gaza Strip, and explore the workings, dangers, and projected use of DIME weapons and their roots in depleted uranium (DU) research. These parallels will lead us to consider DIME in its historical context, as the latest innovation in the US military's long-running development of genotoxic weapons.

"They cannot return to life again"

The first reports about 'Israel's new weapon' came from Dr Joma Al-Saqqa, chief of the emergency unit at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was using "a new 'chemical' weapon" and its siege was "a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200." He observed that, "despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body."[13]

"There were usually entry and exit wounds," Dr. Al-Saqqa reported. "When the wounds were explored no foreign material was found. There was tissue death, the extent of which was difficult to determine….A higher deep infection rate resulted with subsequent amputation. In spite of amputation there was a higher mortality." The effects of the weapon seemed "radioactive". [14][15]

According to Palestine News Network, Dr. Al-Saqqa "confirmed that there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again."[16]

"When the shrapnel hit[s] the body, it causes very strong burns that destroy the tissues around the bones…it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was like this weapon."[17]

However, Dr. Al-Saqqa could not analyze the chemistry of the bizarre wounds. On the first day of the siege, June 27, Israel had conveniently destroyed Gaza's only criminal laboratory. [18]

Despite his pleas to the "international community" to investigate and lend assistance in treating the victims, "no one has lifted a finger", the doctor was quoted in mid-July. "What we found were journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical community, nothing." [19]

On August 3, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd had visited Dr. Al-Saqqa's hospital, "where the staff is struggling to deal with wounds resulting in an unusually high number of amputations." Commissioner AbuZayd commented that "what we saw in Al-Shifa...was rather horrific." [20]

According to Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), "75 per cent of war-wounded patients admitted at one hospital needed amputations" following an Israeli attack on Gaza City. [21]

The World Health Organization was reportedly considering an investigation into the injuries. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel "agreed to take away fragments of tissue from the bodies of Palestinians killed during the recent military operations in Gaza for possible analysis in Israel but urged the medics to seek an international investigation." [22]

Tungsten in Tissue Samples: A DIME Weapon?

On October 19, Italy's Rai24news televised an investigative report that supplied crucial new information. The Italian investigators had tissue samples from the victims in Gaza analyzed by Dr. Carmela Vaccaio at University Parma. Dr. Vaccaio reportedly found "a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials, such as copper, aluminum and tungsten." The doctor concluded that her "findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME."

Rai24news reporters also talked to Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Israel, former chief of the IDF's weapons development program. General Ben-Israel appeared to be familiar with DIME weapons. He explained that, "one of the ideas is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons." [23]

The US Air Force refers to this emerging realm of weaponry as FLM (Focused Lethality Munitions). FLM is expected to provide the 'weapons of choice' for targeting "terrorists hiding among civilians", as a cheerleading Wall Street Journal article put it. [24]

With "focused lethality [and] higher energy materials...nano particles, intelligent fuzing, [and] mass focus lethality", the Air Force "will be able to strike effectively, wherever and whenever necessary, with minimal collateral damage." Ominously, the military thinks these weapons will allow it to target sites "previously off limits to the warfighter." [25][26]

This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims? These disturbing questions will be explored in the next installment of this article.

 

:: Part 2 of 3 ::

"Horrific" wounds in Gaza may be warfare of the future

In early July, shortly after the beginning of Israel's bloody military siege of the Gaza Strip, reports began to appear that Israeli forces were using a new weapon that inflicted strange and untreatable wounds, and significantly increased the death tolls of Israel's attacks. [27][28]

Italian investigators have reported evidence that the unidentified Israeli weapon is probably Dense Inert Metal Explosives, or DIME, a so-called LCD ("low collateral damage") weapon developed by the United States Air Force. [29]

DIME bombs blast a superheated "micro-shrapnel" of powdered heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA). Studies indicate that HMTA embedded in the body disrupts biochemistry and rapidly causes cancer. Like depleted uranium (DU), HMTA is genotoxic—it is capable of inflicting genetic mutations. [30-36]  

 

Read the rest of Part 2 at: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/38380

:: Part 3 of 3 ::

The human genome: target or innocent bystander?

Since early July, Israeli forces have been using a new weapon in the Gaza Strip that inflicts strange and deadly wounds. Doctors and medics say the unidentified device has significantly increased fatalities from Israel's attacks. [49][50]

In the first two parts of this article we reviewed evidence that Israel's new weapon may be Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), a "low collateral damage" weapon developed by the US Air Force. The DIME bomb's "micro-shrapnel" is reportedly made of HMTA, a tungsten alloy that disrupts body biochemistry, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic). [51-56]

 

Read the rest of Part 3 at: http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/38380 

Courtesy & © 2006 James Brooks

James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont, is an independent researcher, writer, and former business owner. Currently Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel and publishes News Links, a free, once-daily (Mon-Sat) e-mail digest of in-depth Middle East news and commentary. He contributed this article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).

.

__,_._,___