The joys of liberation

[Glaucus]

Disturbing story of Fallujah's birth defects

Six years after the intense fighting began in the Iraqi town of Fallujah between US forces and Sunni insurgents, there is a disturbingly large number of cases of birth defects in the town.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Disturbing story of Fallujah's birth defects

Six years after the intense fighting began in the Iraqi town of Fallujah between US forces and Sunni insurgents, there is a disturbingly large number of cases of birth defects in the town.

Afghanistan has the same problem. DU is a war crime.

 

[Glaucus]

I wasn't sure if they were using DU as much in Afghanistan. In Iraq they had a lot of heavy mechanized units which make use of DU, but not so much the light infantry that's deployed in Afghanistan. The question is, what is the air force using in their air strikes. From what I know they're using high explosives not penetrating rounds like DU, but that's just a guess on my part.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I wasn't sure if they were using DU as much in Afghanistan.

The military loves this stuff. It's a great penetrator and has incendiary properties too. It also kills long after use demoralizing populations but can be justified as a kinetic battlefield weapon rather than a radioactive or chemical munition. All subsequent poisonings are therefore "accidental" and "regrettable".

Though NATO has denied using it in Afghanistan there is evidence that this is not entirely true.

Also this.

While DU use may be curtailed now it appears that it was used earlier in the conflict. This is only marginally reassuring since the contamination will still last for millions of years.