Reason Writers Around Town

David Weigel | August 25, 2006

In the Wall Street Journal, Katherine Mangu-Ward shows how it's not the size of your international student body that counts; it's how you use it.

Comments

aspendougy|8.25.06 @ 2:16PM|#

Katherine Mangu-Ward does not distinguish between "who we are" and "what our President's actions have done to Afghanistan". It is possible to like and respect the former, while hating and despising the latter.

The Uranium Medical Research Center, founded by former Army Colonel Asaf Duracovic (Previously head of Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University Meidical Center) based in Canada sent field teams to Afghanistan. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed uranium concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before.

Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous. How many of these people will suffer a painful and early death from cancer? Even the study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms lasted for days or months.

In August of 2002, UMRC completed its preliminary analysis of the results from Nangarhar. Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium contamination. The specific results indicated an astoundingly high level of contamination; concentrations were 100 to 400 times greater than those of the Gulf War Veterans tested in 1999.

A researcher reported.

�We took both soil and biological samples, and found considerable presence in urine samples of radioactivity; the heavy concentration astonished us. They were beyond our wildest imagination.�

In the fall of 2002, the UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill.

How widespread and extensive is the exposure? A quote from the UMRC field report reads:

"The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal contamination by uranium."

It is no wonder that Dr. Durakovic, an expert in nuclear medicine uses the word "war crimes."

In the American military base Bagram, north of Kabul, 15 translators were gang raped by US forces while working for them.

One eye witness in Afghanistan reported:

"Around 25 to 30 American soldiers enter the area where we were sleeping and started raping us. I was conscious until to the third soldier started raping me and then lost consciousness." (Hamid-translator for the US forces, June 2005)

Unfortunatley, poisoning an entire nation and gang raping a few translators is also a part of "who we are."

|8.25.06 @ 2:31PM|#

Links, dougy, links.

|8.25.06 @ 2:33PM|#

Links, dougy, links.

|8.25.06 @ 3:36PM|#

It is poor form to cut and paste large tracts from other places without attribution even if you wrote it yourself. This is particularly true when you do so without making it clear which part is the previously written cut and past job and which part is the contemporaneous comment. It isn't trivial to mislead people about the origins or date of a piece of writing (even your own). What is written over your name with today's date should be from today and exclusive to this comment unless otherwise noted (e.g. "cross-posted to..."). A link to the original piece with some current commentary would be appropriate, but it should be clear to everyone reading which part was written today for this comment. Without that acknowledgment wholesale cut and paste jobs are spam even if on-topic and written by the purported author.

|8.25.06 @ 3:41PM|#

What? I was going to test the Reason server by posting the entire Kalevala. In Finnish. All the while claiming it as original to me.

Darn.

|8.25.06 @ 3:52PM|#

Screw the part where foreign students must pledge to return to their countries when they graduate.

We should staple green cards to their diplomas and have them stay here and create jobs and increase our standard of living instead of doing the same in their country of origin.

Of course that is selfish and contrary to the spirit of KM-W's article. :o

Larry A|8.25.06 @ 6:56PM|#

How does spending four years in college give a more accurate representation of the U.S. than sitcoms?

thoreau|8.26.06 @ 9:35AM|#

I want every nuclear physicist and microbiologist on earth to spend at least a couple years in the US, experiencing our culture and making friends.

Especially the ones from Muslim countries.

han meng|8.26.06 @ 11:29AM|#

Link doesn't work for me; apparently she urges American universities to do a better job in exposing their foreign students to American life and culture; notes that the 600,000 foreign students in the US are potential ambassadors.