Who is killing Iraq's children?

Who is killing Iraq's children?

"Wars are wars but the invasion of a country under the banner of democracy and bringing disease and calamity instead to the women and children, looting a nation's natural resources and exercising greater control over the region for egoistic or military pursuits is a telltale charade orchestrated by the diseased minds of the imperialists who seek to achieve their fiendish goals by any means." Ismail Salami, author of 'Iran: Cradle of Civilization' salami@salamionline.com.


Recent reports indicate that more than 275 children in southern Iraq have been infected with leishmaniasis, a disfiguring skin disease, which is yet another appalling consequence of US invasion of Iraq.

Health officials believe that the war-ravaged public health system is responsible for certain viruses to flourish.

Leishmaniasis is generally caused by a parasite transmitted by the sandfly. The disease may appear in different forms including skin ulcers on the face, arms and legs, leprous-like disseminated skin lesions which can destroy the mucous membranes of the nose, mouth and throat cavities partly or completely, and high fever, substantial weight loss, swelling of the spleen and liver and anemia.

"This is a killer disease and we are trying to stop its spread," said Dr. Omer Mekki, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization's Iraq office.

Children aged 1-4 years who have weaker immune systems than adults are particularly at risk of infection. A single sand fly bite can transmit the disease.

"It is a dangerous disease which hits mostly children and could lead to death or leave skin deformities if no appropriate treatment is available," said Fatih Abdul-Salam, a dermatologist at Qadissiyah General Hospital.

Wars are wars but the invasion of a country under the banner of democracy and bringing disease and calamity instead to the women and children, looting a nation's natural resources and exercising greater control over the region for egoistic or military pursuits is a telltale charade orchestrated by the diseased minds of the imperialists who seek to achieve their fiendish goals by any means.

This is indeed a mockery of democracy and an obstruction of justice.

Yet there is no limit to disease and terror brought about by the US government.

The US and Britain used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, thus putting the Iraqis and the whole world into serious danger. A crime of monumental dimensions, the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) will cause extremely destructive effects which can remain for hundreds of years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects.

They actually used 1500 tons of DU in Iraq. In other words, the cities in Iraq are now blanketed in lethal particles, any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. There are reports of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on and on.

Disease is not the only consequence of war. Psychological torture is yet another gruesome consequence of war. Lashing out at the US policy, Layla Anwar, an anguished Iraqi female blogger gives us a touching meaning of terror and angst dictated to the Iraqis by the US government. She writes:

Stress is when you have no job because some f*** backward retard came and occupied your country, pillaged it and stripped you of your livelihood; when you see your family and loved ones dying in front of your eyes and you can't afford to buy them the basic medication to ease their pain; when your baby girl or baby boy is born looking like f*** Frankenstein, because some American motherf*** who is stressed out bombed your country with DU; when they walk into the middle of the night and you sleep with your clothes on, because you don't want them to see you half naked just in case, when they smash your door down, pull you from your hair or shirt out into the cold and place a sand bang over your *** head; when you are a prisoner in your own country by some smelly shit faced, pimpled stinking American who has not even finished high school, and stress is when that same motherf*** rapes you and sodomizes you, tortures you and calls you a dirty Iraqi in your own *** country.

By practical standards, the US is the leading state sponsor of terror in the world and threatens the security of nations. Tyrants and terrorists were all created by the US. It was the US which created Saddam. It was the US which created the Taliban. It was the US that turned Iraq and Afghanistan into graveyards, ripped them of their values, killed their families, destroyed their infrastructures, sowed the seeds of sectarian dissension among the Muslim brothers, and stripped the people of their identities.

The history of US foreign policy is replete with crimes against humanity, crimes in Iraq, crimes in Afghanistan, crimes in Vietnam, and crimes in the Philippines.

History itself is a true witness to the crimes perpetrated in the name of democracy.