Mickey Z.

"People from poorer places and poorer countries have to call upon their compassion not to be angry with ordinary people in America." - Arundhati Roy

More than half (53.3%) of US tax dollars go to a criminal enterprise known as the US Department of Defense (sic), a.k.a. the worst polluter on the planet . We hear about tax cuts this and budget that and all kinds of other bullshit from the US government and the corporations that own it…but the reality remains: Roughly one million tax dollars per minute are spent to fund the largest military machine (read: global terrorist operation) the world has ever known.

get for all that money? To follow, is but one tiny example that mostly slipped through the cracks earlier this year.

On July 23, 2010, Tom Eley at Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ELE20100723&articleId=20241, wrote:

"According to the authors of a new study, 'Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,' the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima http ://www.counterpunch.org/mickey08042004.html and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by US atomic bomb strikes in 1945."

For those unfamiliar with the US attacks on Fallujah, first of all: You should be fuckin' ashamed of yourselves. Secondly, here's Patrick Cockburn's basic description http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick07272010.html:

"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."

Of crucial importance is this: A high proportion of the weaponry used by the US in the assault contained depleted uranium http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/green-glossary-depleted-uranium.html (DU).

And you and I paid for it all.

The aforementioned study found that the cancer rate "had increased fourfold since before the US attack" and that the forms of cancer in Fallujah are "similar to those found among the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors, who were exposed to intense fallout radiation."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Yeah, Americans paid for those bombs, too.

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 newborn babies:

• 24 percent were dead within the first seven days
• 75 percent of the dead babies were classified as deformed

Cockburn writes of a "12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighboring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait."
Dig this: After 2005, thanks to this "major mutagenic event" (DU), the proportion of girls born in Fallujah has increased sharply likely because "girls have a redundant X-chromosome and can therefore absorb the loss of one chromosome through genetic damage," explains Eley.

And you and I paid for it all.

"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," adds Cockburn.

While I could go on with the gory details, I'd much rather you ask a few questions:

• Now that you know these facts (and they are just the tiniest proverbial tip of a massive proverbial iceberg), how do you feel and what are you going to do about it?
• Is it time you stop buying military video games, hanging yellow ribbons, and allowing our hard-earned money to finance mass murder?
• Can enjoy "the holidays" while women in Fallujah are petrified to have children?
• Are you still able to insulate yourself with all those cute puppy videos on YouTube?
• Are you ready to stop believing there's a difference between the two wings of the same corporate/military party and start accepting that they're all accessories to heinous crimes?
• Will you still "support" the volunteer mercenaries as "heroes" or will you recognize them as willing—and paid—accomplices to war crimes?
• Are you okay with 85.1% of US wealth being owned by the top 20% while 53.3% of your tax dollars subsidize atrocities, torture, oppression, occupation, and the literal destruction of the planet's eco-system?
• What is your threshold? Which taxpayer-funded horror story is the one that will finally make you scream "enough"?
• When you've screamed "enough," what can/will you do and how soon will you start doing it?

You don't have to tell me your answers. I'm a co-conspirator just like you.

Save your answers for the children of Fallujah. I'm sure they're wondering why the fuck we all choose to remain silent and inactive.

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Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, Mickey Z. can be found on the Web here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000612588462