VETERANS TODAY– The Department of Veterans Affairs, May 2007, Gulf War Veterans Information System reports the following: Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths: 73,846

• *Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847

• *Deaths amongst Non-Deployed: 55,999  

• *Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906

• *Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911

• *Disability Claims amongst Non-Deployed: 1,212,995

• *Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims 36%

Soldiers, by nature, typically don’t complain.  In other words, the real impact of those who are disabled from all US invasions is not fully reflected in the official Veterans Affairs numbers.  When soldiers are sent to murder women and children, they tend to not be able to live normal lives thereafter.
     
How come the government numbers of 3,777 as of 9/7/7 are so low?  The answer is simple: the government does not want the 73,000 dead to be compared to the 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.  What the government is doing is only counting the soldiers that die in action before they can get them into a helicopter or ambulance.  Any soldier who is shot but they get into a helicopter before he dies is not counted.

73,000 dead amongst the U.S. soldiers for this scale operation using weapons of mass destruction is not high – we expect the great majority of U.S. soldiers who took part in the invasion of Iraq to die of uranium poisoning, which can take decades to kill.

From a victors perspective, above any major war in history, The Gulf War has taken the most severe toll on soldiers. More than 1,820 tons of radio active nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the world’s worst man made ecological disaster. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust represents far more than fourteen thousand Hiroshimas.

The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and can wipe out more than a third of life on earth. Gulf War Veterans who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off as well. So far more than one million people have been slaughtered in the illegal invasion of Iraq, and just as the birth defects are up 600% for Iraqis – the same will apply to U.S. Veterans.

Statistics and evidence published by the government and mainstream media in no way reflect the grave reality of the situation. Those working for the government and media must wake up and take responsibility by immediately reversing this U.S. Holocaust.

Read the full story about Department of Veterans Affairs Reports 73 Thousand U.S. Gulf War Deaths.

Source: http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf

© 2011 Veterans Today

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GUARDIAN– Britain is training Saudi Arabia‘s national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom’s human rights record is “a major concern”.

In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in “weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training”. The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.

The MoD response, obtained yesterday by the Observer, reveals that Britain sends up to 20 training teams to the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for “all BMM personnel, as well as support costs such as accommodation and transport”.

Bahrain’s royal family used 1,200 Saudi troops to help put down demonstrations in March. At the time the British government said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of human rights abuses being perpetrated by the troops.

Read full article about UK Training Saudi Forces Used to Crush Arab Spring.

© 2011 Guardian

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RAW STORY– Yemeni tribesmen said they wrested a military compound from elite troops loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh outside the capital Sanaa on Friday as fighting spread, threatening to tip the country into civil war.

Yemeni fighter jets broke the sound barrier as they swooped over Sanaa, where battles between Saleh loyalists and the Hashed tribal alliance led by Sadeq al-Ahmar erupted this week after failure of a deal to ease the president out.

Clashes spread northeast of Sanaa on Friday, where tribes said in addition to seizing a military post in the Nahm region, they were also fighting government troops at two other positions south of the capital.

In Sanaa, tens of thousands of people gathered after Friday prayers for what they branded a “Friday of Peaceful Revolution” against Saleh, releasing white doves and carrying the coffins of about 30 people killed in clashes this week.

Tens of thousands turned out for the rally, inspired by the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, though their numbers had dwindled compared to previous weeks after thousands fled Sanaa and the government closed roads around the city to keep out tribes trying to reinforce the Ahmars.

Read full article on Yemen on Brink of Civil War as Fighting Worsens.

© 2011 Raw Story

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TIME– Iraqi Shi’ite militia fighters led a massive rally of followers of a hard-liner anti-American cleric on Thursday, marching in Baghdad in a show of defiance as Iraqi leaders weigh whether to keep U.S. troops in the country beyond the end of the year.

An estimated 70,000 supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr waved Iraqi flags and shouted “No, no, America!” as the tight columns of the unarmed but ominous Mahdi Army marched though one of Baghdad’s poorest neighborhoods.

U.S., Israeli and British flags were painted on the pavement to be stomped on by the marching protesters, and Iraqi military helicopters buzzed overhead while soldiers stood guard to keep peace if needed.

The rally was a message to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about the staunch opposition by Iraq’s most devout Shi’ites — and the ones who grudgingly helped him clinch a second term in office last year — to a continued U.S. military presence in 2012.

Read full article about Iraq: Thousands Rally Against US Troops.

© 2011 TIME

Photo by Flickr user Absentee Redstate

DAILY MAIL– Colonel Gaddafi’s forces today blasted an oil terminal to smithereens as Libya’s bloody civil war entered its blackest day.

Rebels retaliated by firing back with rockets as a fireball exploded from one of the oil tanks and the sky above the Es Sider terminal, in the east of the country, filled with hideous smoke.

A witness said one of the smoke plumes was the biggest he had seen in the conflict so far.

The fresh onslaught came as Gaddafi deployed tanks and snipers to ‘shoot anything that moves’.

Forces loyal to the Libyan dictator poured into the city of Zawiyah in a desperate bid to oust the hardcore band of protesters and army defectors who have taken control.

Witnesses said dead bodies were lying in the ruins of many buildings destroyed in air raids earlier in the week and there was no one in the streets of the centre of the city of 290,000.

‘We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,’ one rebel fighter said by telephone.

Eye witnesses said that the city had been almost flattened after a 13-and-a-half hour barrage from rockets, tanks and war planes

The hellish scenes unfolded as senior officials in the U.S. spoke of their fears that the country had reached a painful stalemate.

Senior officials believe that Gaddafi has solidified his control over some cities but ant-government protesters have a strong enough hold on other regions to remain locked in the stand off.

Read more about Gaddafi Scorching the Earth.

© Copyright DAILY MAIL 2011

Photo by AFP