It Matters What Kind of Bullets You Use

"The Iraqi city of Fallujah has seen a dramatic rise in birth defects and childhood cancer since 2004, when U.S. forces used depleted-uranium shells and white phosphorous against militants. Doctors say the city's birth-defect rate is 14.7 percent--much higher than in Hiroshima after World War II." --The Week, January 20, 2012

After reading this in The Week a couple of months ago, I couldn't help but think this is an "I told you so" moment (and what took the mainstream media so long to notice this story?!!!). This seems like a good time to post another "Best of Beyond the Batholith--Essays from the Eastern Sierra" that I wrote around 2007:


Bullets are deadly--but toxic bullets are even more deadly. They sicken and kill non-target people and animals. They should be banned.

Ban Lead Bullets to Save Condors and Hunters

Hunters are now the top predator in the California Condor's ecosystem. Condors depend on carcasses left by hunters, but the lead bullets in the carcasses are poisoning them (and potentially the hunters' families). Hunting must continue (or else we reintroduce Grizzlies).
Lead bullets must be banned in order to stop killing our condors.
More Information

Ban Depleted Uranium (DU) to Save Mesopotamians and Us All

Among other U.S. atrocities in Iraq, we fired 944,000 toxic depleted uranium (DU) bullets in the first Gulf War. Since we spread these radioactive bullets and their shattered remains and dust across Iraq, cancer has increased:

lymphoma = 4x	breast cancer = 6x	skin cancer = 11x
lung cancer = 5x	uterine cancer = 10x	liver cancer = 11x
		ovarian cancer = 16x

Depleted Uranium bullets must be banned by the U.S and U.N. in order to protect human health from widespread radiation. More Information

Source for cancer statistics: David James Duncan, "God Laughs and Plays," Triad Books, 2006, p. 74.