Political Depletion

US-UK go nuclear in Iraq and Ukraine, US media sells it like it isn't, Iraq and Turkey connect Silk Road, US meddles in Thailand elections

Mar 23, 2023

UPDATE: US forces fired nearly 10,000 depleted uranium (DU) weapons at civilian areas and troops in Iraq in breach of official advice meant to prevent unnecessary suffering in conflicts.

On Monday, British Minister of State for Defense, Annabel Goldie, said that the U.K. would provide Ukraine with some depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds for donated Challenger 2 main battle tanks.

Crucial decision makers started with an assumption that regime change in Iraq would be cheap, easy, and lightly contested. They then isolated themselves from all contrary information—until it was too late.

Türkiye and Iraq will build a land and railroad transportation corridor stretching from the Iraqi province of Basra to the Turkish border, Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

Thailand plans elections for May 2023. Because Thailand's close & growing relations with China, the US seeks to interfere and install an anti-China client regime into power. The US has targeted all of Southeast Asia in a bid to press nations into service for its conflict with China.

US fired depleted uranium at civilian areas in 2003 Iraq war, report finds

US forces fired depleted uranium (DU) weapons at civilian areas and troops in Iraq in breach of official advice meant to prevent unnecessary suffering in conflicts, a report has found. Coordinates revealing where US jets and tanks fired nearly 10,000 DU rounds in Iraq during the war in 2003 have been obtained by the Dutch peace group Pax. This is the first time that any US DU firing coordinates have been released, despite previous requests by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Iraqi government.

According to PAX's report, which is due to be published this week, the data shows that many of the DU rounds were fired in or near populated areas of Iraq, including As Samawah, Nasiriyah and Basrah. At least 1,500 rounds were also aimed at troops, the group says.

This conflicts with legal advice from the US Air Force in 1975 suggesting that DU weapons should only be used against hard targets like tanks and armoured vehicles, the report says. This advice, designed to comply with international law by minimising deaths and injuries to urban populations and troops, was largely ignored by US forces, it argues.

"Use of this munition solely against personnel is prohibited if alternative weapons are available," the memo stated. This was for legal reasons "related to the prohibitions against unnecessary suffering and poison".

PAX estimates that there are more than 300 sites in Iraq contaminated by DU, which will cost at least $30m to clean up. DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal attractive to weapons designers because it is extremely hard and can pierce armour.

More than 300,000 DU rounds are estimated to have been fired during the 2003 Iraq war, the vast majority by US forces. A small fraction were from UK tanks, the coordinates for which were provided to the UN Environment Programme. A further 782,414 DU rounds are believed to have been fired during the earlier conflict in 1991, mostly by US forces.

How Depleted Uranium Shells Will be Used by Ukraine Against Russia

On Monday, British Minister of State for Defense, Annabel Goldie, said that the U.K. would provide Ukraine with some depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds for donated Challenger 2 main battle tanks. The U.K. pledged 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine back in January.

The depleted uranium rounds are "highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles," Goldie said.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin hit back at the promised munitions delivery, saying there was a "nuclear" element to which Russia was obliged to respond. Moscow has repeatedly threatened and alluded to the use of nuclear weapons over the course of the full-scale war in Ukraine.

"If all this happens, Russia will have to respond accordingly, given that the West collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component," he said, during a summit with Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

According to experts, when a weapon made with a depleted uranium tip or core strikes a solid object, like the side of a tank, it goes straight through it and then erupts in a burning cloud of vapour. The vapour that emerges on impact settles as dust, which is poisonous and also weakly radioactive. It is a particular health risk around impact sites, where dust can get into people’s lungs and vital organs.

“The chemical toxicity of depleted uranium is considered a more significant issue than the possible impacts of its radioactivity,” it added.

According to some studies, cancer rates and birth defect rates went up exponentially after the US used depleted uranium shells in Iraq. A team of scientists in a study 10 years ago found “high levels of uranium contamination in soil samples at three sites in the province of Nineveh” and those high levels were being directly blamed for “dramatically increasing rates of childhood cancers and birth defects at local hospitals”.

Setting the record straight on the teeming media swamp that supported Iraq

In his doubling down of support for the war in Iraq, David “Axis of Evil” Frum all but exonerates the architects and promoters of the war (which would include himself, being a speechwriter for President Bush until 2002, then a media cheerleader) as such:

Crucial decision makers started with an assumption that regime change in Iraq would be cheap, easy, and lightly contested. They then isolated themselves from all contrary information—until it was too late.

We know from highly documented accounts that, contra Frum’s simplistic summation, the Bush administration was influenced by a vanguard of well-placed neoconservatives who had set regime change into motion back in the Clinton administration. This was no 9/11 hangover. As Jim Lobe pointed out in these pages in 2021, the 2001 attacks enabled leaders and operators like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Scooter Libby, Robert Kagan, and Bill Kristol to have the war they wanted long before those planes flew into the Twin Towers.

An entire ecosystem of information management ensured that the major networks, newspapers and radio, owned by only a handful of conglomerates, were singing the same tune, all of the time.

We must talk about this because these men and their compradores in the Washington swamp want to dismiss any comparison to how we view Ukraine and how the media is covering U.S. policy in that war. They have not learned any lessons about meddling and the limits of American power writ large, just in failed wars of the past.

Iraq, Türkiye to build transportation corridor linking Basra to Turkish border

"We have tasked our minister friends, who will carry out the works for materializing the Development Road Project, extending from Basra to Türkiye," Erdogan said at a joint press conference with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani.

"I believe that we will transform the Development Road Project into the new Silk Road of our region," the Turkish president said.
Moreover, Türkiye will increase the amount of water released from the Tigris River to help Iraq tackle its water shortage, he said.

Baghdad has been urging Ankara to secure Iraqi water share from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which originate from Türkiye, as Iraq often suffers from drought.

In their talks, the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to fighting against all forms of terrorism, Erdogan revealed.

"Our expectation from our Iraqi brothers is that they shall designate the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization and clear their lands of this bloodshedder terrorist organization," Erdogan said.

Al-Sudani, for his part, underlined that his government will not allow Iraqi lands to become a "point to launch attacks" against its neighbor.

"Security of Türkiye and security of Iraq are inseparable," he said.

Read more here.

Thailand plans elections for May 2023. Because Thailand's close & growing relations with China, the US seeks to interfere and install an anti-China client regime into power. Just as the US destroyed peace & prosperity in Europe through similar interference, it has targeted all of Southeast Asia in a bid to press nations into service for its conflict with China. References: New Atlas - Thailand Playlist:

• Anti-China Protes... LD - The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests" (2020): https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/20... Atlas of Economic Complexity - Thailand Trade 2020: https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore... Army Recognition - Army of Thailand takes delivery of the first local-made DTI-1 rocket launcher system: https://www.armyrecognition.com/febru... China Military - Cobra Gold 2023: http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/WORLD_2091... Thanathorn’s 2019 FARA disclosures (pages 25-26 of the PDF): https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6582-Supp... Future Forward - Thanathorn’s 2019 Hyperloop Presentation:

• บันทึกการแถลงข่าว... Bloomberg - Thailand Needs Hyperloop, Not China-Built High-Speed Rail, Junta Critic Says: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl... Thai PBS - Thanathorn vows to bring people onto streets after rally in downtown Bangkok: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thanatho... BBC - Oslo Freedom Forum: The 'school for revolutionaries': https://www.bbc.com/news/av/education... OFF - Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit: https://oslofreedomforum.com/speakers... Facebook - Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit at OFF 2022: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=... SCMP - Joshua Wong spurs Chinese embassies in Thailand and Singapore into PR action: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplo... OFF - 2022 Sponsors (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/202203151... Freedom Fund - Investors and Supporters: https://freedomfund.org/about/investors/ NED - Thailand 2021: https://www.ned.org/region/asia/thail... Prachatai - About: https://prachataienglish.com/about/pr... Benar News - About: https://www.benarnews.org/english/abo... NED - Thailand 2019 (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/202008171... NED - Thailand 2014 (archived): https://web.archive.org/web/201607021... Frontline Defenders - Arnon Nampa: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en... US State Department - 2018 International Women of Courage Award: https://2017-2021.state.gov/2018-inte... iLaw - About: https://ilaw.or.th/about Nation - iLaw launches petition for charter rewrite: https://www.nationthailand.com/in-foc... Nation - Foreign Ministry tells off diplomatic corps for ‘supporting Thanathorn’: https://www.nationthailand.com/in-foc... The Guardian - US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (2004): https://www.theguardian.com/world/200... NYT - In Thailand, Power Comes With Help From Skype: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/wo... Bangkok Post - Pheu Thai, Move Forward up against bill policing NGO activities https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/...

The Long Mekong