Guess what kids, there's a war on! Depleted Uranium anyone?

[thebullet]

Here's an interesting story about American and British use of weapons of mass distruction. Now, take it with a grain of salt. It was written by one of those Commies in Canada.

Horror of USA's Depleted Uranium in Iraq Threatens
World

By James Denver
Vive le Canada
Friday 29 April 2005
American use of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." "I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."
The speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.
For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.
These weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate - including Britain. Yet, officially, no crime has been committed. For this story is a dirty story in which the facts have been concealed from those who needed them most. It is also a story we need to know if the people of Iraq are to get the medical care they desperately need, and if our troops, returning from Iraq, are not to suffer as terribly as the veterans of other conflicts in which depleted uranium was used.

A Dirty Tyson
'Depleted' uranium is in many ways a misnomer. 'Depleted' sounds weak. The only weak thing about depleted uranium is its price. It is dirt cheap, toxic, waste from nuclear power plants and bomb production. However, uranium is one of earth's heaviest elements and DU packs a Tyson's punch, smashing through tanks, buildings and bunkers with equal ease, spontaneously catching fire as it does so, and burning people alive. 'Crispy critters' is what US servicemen call those unfortunate enough to be close. And, when John Pilger encountered children killed at a greater distance he wrote: "The children's skin had folded back, like parchment, revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact, stared straight ahead. I vomited." (Daily Mirror)
The millions of radioactive uranium oxide particles released when it burns can kill just as surely, but far more terribly. They can even be so tiny they pass through a gas mask, making protection against them impossible. Yet, small is not beautiful. For these invisible killers indiscriminately attack men, women, children and even babies in the womb-and do the gravest harm of all to children and unborn babies.

A Terrible Legacy
Doctors in Iraq have estimated that birth defects have increased by 2-6 times, and 3-12 times as many children have developed cancer and leukemia since
1991. Moreover, a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the
death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more
than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an alarming rate.' In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase.
In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[1]
On hearing that DU had been used in the Gulf in 1991, the UK Atomic Energy Authority sent the Ministry of Defense a special report on the potential damage to
health and the environment. It said that it could cause half a million additional cancer deaths in Iraq over 10 years. In that war the authorities only admitted to using 320 tons of DU-although the Dutch charity LAKA estimates the true figure is closer to 800 tons. Many times that may have been spread across Iraq by this year's war. The devastating damage all this DU will do to the health and fertility of the people of Iraq now, and for generations to come, is beyond imagining.
The radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years killing millions of every age for centuries to come. This is a crime against humanity which may rank with the worst atrocities of all time.
We must also count the numberless thousands of miscarried babies. Nobody knows how many Iraqis have died in the womb since DU contaminated their world.
But it is suggested that troops who were only exposed to DU for the brief period of the war were still excreting uranium in their semen 8 years later and some had 100 times the so-called 'safe limit' of uranium in their urine. The lack of government
interest in the plight of veterans of the 1991 war is reflected in a lack of academic research on the impact of DU but informal research has found a high incidence of birth defects in their children and that the wives of men who served in Iraq have three times more miscarriages than the wives of servicemen who did not go there.
Since DU darkened the land Iraq has seen birth defects which would break a heart of stone: babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.

Doctors report that many women no longer say 'Is it a girl or a boy?' but simply, 'Is it normal, doctor?' Moreover this terrible legacy will not end. The genes of their parents may have been damaged for ever, and the damaging DU dust is ever-present.

Blue on Blue
What the governments of America and Britain have done to the people of Iraq they have also done to their own soldiers, in both wars. And they have done
it knowingly. For the battlefields have been thick with DU and soldiers have had to enter areas heavily contaminated by bombing. Moreover, their bodies have not only been assaulted by DU but also by a vaccination regime which violated normal protocols, experimental vaccines, nerve agent pills, and organophosphate pesticides in their tents. And yet, though the hazards of DU were known, British and American troops were not warned of its dangers. Nor were they given thorough medical checks on their return-even though identifying it quickly might have made it possible to remove some of it from their body. Then, when a growing number became seriously ill, and should have been sent to top experts in radiation damage and neurotoxins, many were sent to a psychiatrist.
Over 200,000 US troops who returned from the 1991 war are now invalided out with ailments officially attributed to service in Iraq-that's 1 in 3. In contrast, the British government's failure to fully assess the health of returning troops, or to monitor their health, means no one even knows how many have died or become gravely ill since their return. However, Gulf veterans' associations say that, of
40,000 or so fighting fit men and women who saw active service, at least 572 have died prematurely since coming home and 5000 may be ill. An alarming number are thought to have taken their own lives, unable to bear the torment of the innumerable ailments which have combined to take away their career, their
sexuality, their ability to have normal children, and even their ability to breathe or walk normally. As one veteran puts it, they are 'on DU death row, waiting to die.'
Whatever other factors there may be, some of their illnesses are strikingly similar to those of Iraqis exposed to DU dust. For example, soldiers have also fathered children without eyes. And, in a group of eight servicemen whose babies lack eyes seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust.
They too have fathered children with stunted arms, and rare abnormalities classically associated with radiation damage. They too seem prone to cancer and
leukemia. Tellingly, so are EU soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans, where DU was also used. Indeed their leukemia rate has been so high that several EU governments have protested at the use of DU.

The Vital Evidence
Despite all that evidence of the harm done by DU, governments on both sides of the Atlantic have repeatedly claimed that as it emits only 'low level' radiation DU is harmless. Award-winning scientist, Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has led UN medical commissions, has studied 'low-level' radiation for 30 years. 2 She has found that uranium oxide particles have more than enough power to harm cells, and describes their pulses of radiation as hitting surrounding cells 'like flashes of lightning' again and again in a single second.[2] Like many scientists worldwide who have studied this type of radiation, she has found that such 'lightning strikes' can damage DNA and cause cell mutations which lead to cancer.
Moreover, these particles can be taken up by body fluids and travel through the body, damaging more than one organ. To compound all that, Dr. Bertell has found
that this particular type of radiation can cause the body's communication systems to break down, leading to malfunctions in many vital organs of the body and to many medical problems. A striking fact, since many veterans of the first Gulf war suffer from innumerable, seemingly unrelated, ailments.
In addition, recent research by Eric Wright, Professor of Experimental Haematology at Dundee University, and others, have shown two ways in which
such radiation can do far more damage than has been thought. The first is that a cell which seems unharmed by radiation can produce cells with diverse mutations
several cell generations later. (And mutations are at the root of cancer and birth defects.) This 'radiation-induced genomic instability' is compounded by 'the bystander effect' by which cells mutate in unison with others which have been damaged by radiation-rather as birds swoop and turn in unison. Put together, these two mechanisms can greatly increase the damage done by a single source of radiation, such as a DU particle. Moreover, it is now clear that there are marked genetic differences in the way individuals respond to radiation-with some being
far more likely to develop cancer than others. So the fact that some veterans of the first Gulf war seem relatively unharmed by their exposure to DU in no way
proves that DU did not damage others.

The Price of Truth
That the evidence from Iraq and from our troops, and the research findings of such experts, have been ignored may be no accident. A US report, leaked in late 1995, allegedly says, 'The potential for health effects from DU exposure is real; however it must be viewed in perspective... the financial implications of long-term disability payments and healthcare costs would be excessive.'[3]
Clearly, with hundreds of thousands gravely ill in Iraq and at least a quarter of a million UK and US troops seriously ill, huge disability claims might be made not only against the governments of Britain and America if the harm done by DU were acknowledged. There might also be huge claims against companies making DU weapons and some of their directors are said to be extremely close to the White House. How close they are to Downing Street is a matter for speculation, but arms sales makes a considerable contribution to British trade. So the massive
whitewashing of DU over the past 12 years, and the way that governments have failed to test returning troops, seemed to disbelieve them, and washed their hands of them, may be purely to save money.
The possibility that financial considerations have led the governments of Britain and America to cynically avoid taking responsibility for the harm they have done not only to the people of Iraq but to their own troops may seem outlandish. Yet DU weapons weren't used by the other side and no other explanation fits the evidence. For, in the days before Britain and America first used DU in war its hazards were no secret.[4] One American study in 1990 said DU was 'linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and to] chemical toxicity-causing kidney damage'. While another openly warned that exposure to these particles under battlefield conditions could lead to cancers of the lung and bone, kidney damage,
non-malignant lung disease, neuro-cognitive disorders, chromosomal damage and birth defects.[5]

A Culture of Denial
In 1996 and 1997 UN Human Rights Tribunals condemned DU weapons for illegally breaking the Geneva Convention and classed them as 'weapons of mass destruction' 'incompatible with international humanitarian and human rights law.' Since then, following leukemia in European peacekeeping troops in the Balkans and Afghanistan (where DU was also used), the EU has twice called for DU weapons to be banned.
Yet, far from banning DU, America and Britain stepped up their denials of the harm from this radioactive dust as more and more troops from the first Gulf war and from action and peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan have become seriously ill. This is no coincidence. In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying, 'The [US
government's] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.' He concluded, 'uranium does cause cancer, uranium does cause mutation, and uranium does kill. If we continue with the irresponsible contamination of the biosphere, and denial of the fact
that human life is endangered by the deadly isotope uranium, then we are doing disservice to ourselves, disservice to the truth, disservice to God and to all generations who follow.' Not what the authorities wanted to hear and his research was suddenly blocked.
During 12 years of ever-growing British whitewash the authorities have abolished military hospitals, where there could have been specialized research on
the effects of DU and where expertise in treating DU victims could have built up. And, not content with the insult of suggesting the gravely disabling symptoms of
Gulf veterans are imaginary they have refused full pensions to many. For, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the current House of Commons briefing paper on DU hazards says 'it is judged that any radiation effects from possible exposures are extremely unlikely to be a contributory factor to the illnesses currently being experienced by some Gulf war veterans.' Note how over a quarter of a million sick and dying US and UK vets are called 'some.'

The Way Ahead
Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds.
The Royal Society has suggested the solution is massive decontamination in Iraq. That could only scratch the surface. For decontamination is hugely
expensive and, though it may reduce the risks in some of the worst areas, it cannot fully remove them. For DU is too widespread on land and water. How do you clean up every nook and cranny of a city the size of Baghdad? How can they decontaminate a whole country in which microscopic particles, which cannot be detected with a normal geiger counter, are spread from border to border? And how can they clean up all the countries downwind of Iraq-and, indeed, the world?
So there are only two things we can do to mitigate this crime against humanity. The first is to provide the best possible medical care for the people of Iraq,
for our returning troops and for those who served in the last Gulf war and, through that, minimize their suffering. The second is to relegate war, and the
production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.

References
[1] The Lancet volume 351, issue 9103, 28 February
1998.
[2] Rosalie Bertell's book Planet Earth the Latest
Weapon of War was reviewed in Caduceus issue 51, page
28.
[3] TAB L_Research Report Summaries
[4] The secret official memorandum to Brigadier
General L.R. Groves from Drs Conant, Compton and Urey
of War Department Manhattan district dated October
1943 is available at the website.
[5] TAB L_Research Report Summaries
Further Information
The Low Level Radiation Campaign hopes to be able
to arrange a limited number of private urine tests for
those returning from the latest Gulf war. It can be
contacted at: The Knoll, Montpelier Park, Llandrindod
Wells, LD1 5LW. 01597 824771. Web: LLRC.org.

James Denver writes and broadcasts internationally
on science and technology.

 

[sun_lover_61]

yep, its ALL bad

I can tell you for certain...depleted Uranium is fucking evil stuff.

I have written before in Literotica about opposing the Iraqi war, without mentioning depleted Uraniun - the decision to fight a war, and the means by which it is fought, being two separate issues.

As a very short summary, DU is used for shell casings because it is incredibly dense (more so than lead) and has tremendous penetrative properties - thus, increasing the efficicy of the warhead that is constructed from it. So, if you are into missiles that really "get in" and totally fuck the inhabitants of the "target" then DU is for you.

That is fair enough, I suppose. Missiles are supposed to be damaging, and with DU you get more bang for your buck. If you support war, then DU is good from that standing.

The trouble with DU is that they are pain that "keeps on giving". Being both radioactive and incredibly toxic, it has been found that these two effects couple to enhance each other's effect. DU causes more radiation illness than other for forms of contamination of comparable radioactivity, and more toxicity related illness than other heavy metals of comparable expected toxicity. The contamination of the target from DU is an ongoing health issue for an essentially indefinite period) Part of its harm is genetic, so epect multi-generational health problems, even if the target site is cleaned up.

And yes it is we, of the civilised West, that uses this material in our weapons. DU is a by-product of nuclear fuel enrichment - and as we know, only "friendly" nations are allowed to have a nuclear industry.

I think this stuff should be banned by international convention, although this, of course, would still not apply to the USA as it is above all international conventions on war.

SL61

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Du is a weapon of war. For the role it was designed for, no other weapon even comes close. Specifically, the slugs used in the A-10 tank buster's 30mm vulcan cannon are made from depleted uranium.

The slugs, quite literally, pass through soveit era tank armor like a hot knife through butter. Not even discarding SABOT rounds have the same kind of penetrating power.

In practical military terms, a single A-10 on station can render enemy tanks harmless long before a single Marine or Soldier is within range of their main armament.

As long as the tank remains queen of the battlefield, DU will be with us. You cannot substitute some other substance as you don't get the same level of leathality.

While the dust created by Du shells being used may carry some health hazards, it is significantly less deadly in the short term than a 125mm gun.

Until you can change that reality, it's going to continue being used.

 

[TheEarl]

Du is a weapon of war. For the role it was designed for, no other weapon even comes close. Specifically, the slugs used in the A-10 tank buster's 30mm vulcan cannon are made from depleted uranium.

The slugs, quite literally, pass through soveit era tank armor like a hot knife through butter. Not even discarding SABOT rounds have the same kind of penetrating power.

In practical military terms, a single A-10 on station can render enemy tanks harmless long before a single Marine or Soldier is within range of their main armament.

As long as the tank remains queen of the battlefield, DU will be with us. You cannot substitute some other substance as you don't get the same level of leathality.

While the dust created by Du shells being used may carry some health hazards, it is significantly less deadly in the short term than a 125mm gun.

Until you can change that reality, it's going to continue being used.

Yeah, but Colleen, that's the same kind of logic that says there'd have been a lot fewer British and American casualties if we'd dropped a thermo-nuclear bomb on Baghdad. Would've performed a far quicker Saddam-ectomy, but would've fucked up the surrounding environment for years.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Yeah, but Colleen, that's the same kind of logic that says there'd have been a lot fewer British and American casualties if we'd dropped a thermo-nuclear bomb on Baghdad. Would've performed a far quicker Saddam-ectomy, but would've fucked up the surrounding environment for years.

The Earl

Well,

I understand military calculus. It's pretty straight forward and brutal. If you remove DU from the inventory, you increse the surviveability of enemy tanks by several degrees. In increasing their suviveability, you automatically decrese the survivability of your combat troops. That's not to say DU is a wonder weapon, it's merely to note that it does account for a significant downgrade in the capability of enemy tanks to get into firing position.

With that reality in mind, it's going to take a significant amount of pressure for military commanders to remove it from the arsenal. The findings of one man or a group of men, no matter how respected, is not going to do it. The findings of anyone who can be demonstrated to have an axe to grind will be discounted out of hand. You will need a consensus of the scientific community and at least some coboboration from the military's own experts. Even then, given the leathality of DU, you may not get it completely removed, but possibly restricted.

I'm not extolling the use of it, merely pointing out that it's such an effective weapon of war that anyone working to have it banned is going to be fighting an uphill battle all the way.

 

[TheEarl]

Well,

I understand military calculus. It's pretty straight forward and brutal. If you remove DU from the inventory, you increse the surviveability of enemy tanks by several degrees. In increasing their suviveability, you automatically decrese the survivability of your combat troops. That's not to say DU is a wonder weapon, it's merely to note that it does account for a significant downgrade in the capability of enemy tanks to get into firing position.

With that reality in mind, it's going to take a significant amount of pressure for military commanders to remove it from the arsenal. The findings of one man or a group of men, no matter how respected, is not going to do it. The findings of anyone who can be demonstrated to have an axe to grind will be discounted out of hand. You will need a consensus of the scientific community and at least some coboboration from the military's own experts. Even then, given the leathality of DU, you may not get it completely removed, but possibly restricted.

I'm not extolling the use of it, merely pointing out that it's such an effective weapon of war that anyone working to have it banned is going to be fighting an uphill battle all the way.

True, but they're off and away to a flyer in that it fairly clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention statute on chemical weapons. It's not a weapon of mass destruction in the traditional sense, but the long and lingering radiation is in clear contravention of international law.

Be comforted by the fact that, although military calculus is brutal, that same military calculus would allow for a lot of extremely nasty weapons to be used, which they're not at the moment due to international pressure.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

True, but they're off and away to a flyer in that it fairly clearly contravenes the Geneva Convention statute on chemical weapons. It's not a weapon of mass destruction in the traditional sense, but the long and lingering radiation is in clear contravention of international law.

Be comforted by the fact that, although military calculus is brutal, that same military calculus would allow for a lot of extremely nasty weapons to be used, which they're not at the moment due to international pressure.

The Earl

Is there a credible source, that provides documented proof that DU is dangerous? We are of course talking about the dust from use, since handling it in the form of munitions is shown to be relatively safe.

In the above article, starting off with accusations of crimes against humanity raises red flags. When you quote the daily mirror, my bullshit-o-meter goes off the scales. And then the Lancet? Ok, my credulity has just been streched past the breaking point.

This dosen't read like science, it reads like sensationalist journalism and far left attack, without substanitive proof of claims or doumentary support.

The use of Du is not banned by any international treaty I know of. Claiming it violates international laws on the use of Chemical weapons is, IMHO, spurious. It isn't a chemical weapon in the context of international treaty. If you want to make that jump Napalm is a chemical weapon, bombs, whose explosive compnents are chemicals, are chemical weapons, as are bullets, since the propellant comes from a chemical reaction. If you want to carry it out that far, we need to go back to fighting with sword and lance.

Again, I am not trying to justify it's use. I will say, that people outside the US. attempting to villify and or have banned weapons that give the US military an advantage is predictable. Given the GW shows no restraint in use of our military, it might even be reguarded as inevitable.

DU constitutes a major advantage on the battlefield. Anyone who wishes to see its use curtailed will have to provide exceedingly strong evidence of the dangers and there will have to be a significant amount of public pressure before the military will simply toss aside the most effective and cost effective aeriel tank killing weapon in the arsenal.

Articles in the Mirror are unlikely to convince anyone who isn't already convinced. An article in a respectable scientific publication, one that requires verifiable proofs of assertion would be much more likely to impress.

 

[minsue]

From the summary of the WHO report on depleted uranium and its aftereffects in Kosovo, less than helpful to either side

• No convincing evidence is available to indicate any health impacts to the Kosovo population associated with the use of depleted uranium.
  
• The health and population information systems presently available in Kosovo do not permit the reliable identification of any changes in disease frequency in the population.
  
• The present health information system, in spite of the best efforts of many people, is fragmented and inadequate. In particular, for non-communicable diseases the health information system does not exist. The comprehensive collection and continuing statistical analysis of all forms of recorded illnesses must be re-established swiftly and implemented in all health institutions in the same way. Without a functioning health information system it will not be possible to discern with certainty any health trends in the future, mediated by whatever cause.
  
• There are a variety of responses to the claims of health impacts from depleted uranium in Kosovo, and no communication strategy that involves all relevant players is in place. Decisions on health screening, environmental monitoring, the type of analyses and treatment to be given to the data collected, which results to distribute and to whom, and how to issue that information, are being taken separately by different agencies and military groups. These different initiatives and pieces of information provided separately by each of these groups add confusion to the present situation.

 

[TheEarl]

I am not sufficiently informaed to argue the point, but I base my opinion what I do know which is that: 1) Depleted uranium is extremely dangerous in terms of radioactivity when it is not shielded and 2) Sticking it in the head of a missile would give a similar effect to strapping nails to a bomb.

Thus I foresee radioactive material scattered all over the blast area. As I said, it's not a subject on which I have a huge amount of knowledge, but I can't find the flaw in my logic.

The Earl

 

[R. Richard]

There is a United Nations report that discusses depleted uranium in some depth. If you wish to self educate, this is a starting point.

http://disarm.igc.org/T261099du.htm

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I am not sufficiently informaed to argue the point, but I base my opinion what I do know which is that: 1) Depleted uranium is extremely dangerous in terms of radioactivity when it is not shielded and 2) Sticking it in the head of a missile would give a similar effect to strapping nails to a bomb.

Thus I foresee radioactive material scattered all over the blast area. As I said, it's not a subject on which I have a huge amount of knowledge, but I can't find the flaw in my logic.

The Earl

The Du isn't used in missile warheads, those warheads are explosive, thus DU would be redundant. Du is molded into the slugs for shells, in the same way Stone, and later iron, then steel became the bullets of choice. In the form of munitions, the radioactivity is not significant. A-10 tecnicians handle loading and reloading without any haz mat gear and pilots fly multiple missions carrying around thousands of rounds in an unshielded gunpod.

The claim, is that when the shells are fired, and the slugs make contact, a fine dust is created. Also, some claims say the shells are prone to self ignition and thus particles are created in the fire. This dust, it is claimed, is what is so hazardous. In all honesty, it does make some sense, just like asbestos tiles are not a danger to you, unless they are damaged and allow tiny particles of the material to be inhaled or ingested.

A lot of things that make sense aren't factually corect. Just as some things that are factually correct don't make sense (bumble bee's flying, for example).

The bottom line to me, is that people are making wildly inflamatory claims without even a scrap of hard evidence that would stand up to scientific scruitiny. Like UFO's at Roswell or JFK conspiracy theiries, they present naked assertions and use rhetorical devices to support their claims.

I don't know if DU is a danger or what degree of danger it represents. I do know it's going to take a lot more than people screaming the sky is falling to convince me it is. If you cannot convince me, a simple skeptic with no stake in the matter, how can you hope to convince military commanders who rely on DU to minimize casualties in this age where body count is so important to public perception of winning and loosing?

Edited to Add: I stand corrected. According to the U.N. Report, DU was used as ballast in the nose cones of some cruise missiles.

 

[Op_Cit]

Is there a credible source, that provides documented proof that DU is dangerous? We are of course talking about the dust from use, since handling it in the form of munitions is shown to be relatively safe.

How about the army officer who was appointed by the US army to clean the stuff up?

You know, the same guy that wrote the protocols that say you have to wear breathing filters before you get withing a couple hundred feet of a tank/vehicle/building that's been hit with DU rounds?

Last I heard, nearly all of his first field team of GW1 was dead from various cancers, and it is the likely primary cause of GW syndrome... But don't ask me to post a link: I feel one should take personal responsibility for knowing the truth, generally it is lies that are spoonfed.

 

[TheEarl]

How about the army officer who was appointed by the US army to clean the stuff up?

You know, the same guy that wrote the protocols that say you have to wear breathing filters before you get withing a couple hundred feet of a tank/vehicle/building that's been hit with DU rounds?

Last I heard, nearly all of his first field team of GW1 was dead from various cancers, and it is the likely primary cause of GW syndrome... But don't ask me to post a link: I feel one should take personal responsibility for knowing the truth, generally it is lies that are spoonfed.

Op-Cit: I'm on your side as my limited knowledge is telling me that using a radioactive substance in weaponry is a bad idea. However, your post reads like a fancy excuse for not actually having any evidence. Colleen will take stuff like that apart.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Op-Cit: I'm on your side as my limited knowledge is telling me that using a radioactive substance in weaponry is a bad idea. However, your post reads like a fancy excuse for not actually having any evidence. Colleen will take stuff like that apart.

The Earl

Thanks Earl, for the vote of confidence

As to Op Crit, he's pretty famous for dropping bombs on conversations then refusing to support them. As if it's my job to verify his assertions.

I'll assume the report he is alluding to isn't the one By Col. Daughton. Since it finds no danger beyond the danger to those in or cleaning up target vehicles. I'll also assume it isn't the U.N. report, the WHO Report or the NATO report. Since all of these are at best inconclusive and at worst, find the dangers minimal.

Of course I could spend my day googling for the report he postulates exists, but really, I have better things to do with my time.

 

[Op_Cit]

Op-Cit: I'm on your side as my limited knowledge is telling me that using a radioactive substance in weaponry is a bad idea. However, your post reads like a fancy excuse for not actually having any evidence. Colleen will take stuff like that apart.

You bring me some encouragement Earl:

Truth is simple.

One does not need somebody with various letters after their names to tell them what is truth... if you reason. On this issue, you have actually expended a fraction of a neuron's effort to think and reason and found you've gone far enough to know it (DU) is bad.

A little more thinking would get you to the place that you understood that the very method of the weapon is what makes it dangerous. You could sleep with a DU round in a lead painted bed for thirty years and not have a problem with either DU or lead. But the DU round disintegrates on impact, making dust of varying degrees of fineness.

I guess I had to rely on an ever so slight amount of physics knowledge to know that-- because I've never fired a DU round: I can't imagine anything so small piercing so many inches of armor and not being at least partially gaseous when it got through. A little more extrapolation would tell me: If a Pb round were fired at enough velocity to equal the kinetic energy of the DU round it too would become a fine mist, and many people would get varying degrees of lead poisoning. But wait a minute... how can I be certain lead's poisonous...? I'd better eat some paint chips to be sure...

The problem with academia is the elitism that turns it into a religion. It is the same as a born again arguing, "The bible says this", because you can always find a different PhDBSDFA who says it's not. Posting a link does no one any good, and will help no one to actually think. (And as a matter of fact, rant/rambling like this is not much better... This is why in those zen koan stories the master simply smacks the student with a stick when they get it wrong.)

It is up to the individual to decide to reason for his self, or not. Not reasoning is a perfectly legitimate place to be, as long as you don't claim to know. And choosing to discard reason for the comfort of myth is religion.

 

[BlackShanglan]

In the above article, starting off with accusations of crimes against humanity raises red flags. When you quote the daily mirror, my bullshit-o-meter goes off the scales. And then the Lancet? Ok, my credulity has just been streched past the breaking point.

Can you tell me more about your qualms with the Lancet? I've actually used work from them on a completely different issue (homeopathy) with the impression that they were a peer-reviewed medical journal with a good reputation. Am I missing something I should know about?

On the whole I found the original article posted intriguing and fairly persuasive. The only thing that really raised flags for me was the last paragraph:

The second is to relegate war, and the
production and sale of weapons, to the scrap heap of history-along with slavery and genocide. Then, and only then, will this crime against humanity be expunged, and the tragic deaths from this war truly bring freedom to the people of Iraq, and of the world.

Yes, the author there appear to have an axe to grind. But there does seem to be a fair amount of reference to independent studies that can at least be verified. I'll say this, as well. I think that most of us would agree that in attempting to prove a case, evidence must be in accordance with the size of the claim. That is, the more unusual the claim, the stronger the evidence needs to be. In the case of homeopathy, for instance, where in some cases one is applying a solution in which it is highly unlikely that even a single molecule of the active agent is present, one needs quite strong evidence - because the claim is highly unusual, to wit, that a non-existant substance can produce a significant medical effect. I would argue that in the case of DU rounds and their effects, however, that we are not arguing nearly so unusual a premise. That a known radioactive agent might cause serious health problems when inhaled as a particulate does not strike me as a claim that needs to have the Holy Grail of research behind it before we're willing to give it some credence. What it proposes is inherently reasonable and likely in a way in which other claims might not be.

I do take Colleen's point on pragmatic military effect. She's right; the rounds end a combat quickly, and if you're attempting to penetrate heavy armor, there would appear to be no effective substitute. However, I think what others are suggesting is that the needs of military in short-term "winning the battle" ability - which, to be fair, is really what they are supposed to be paying attention to - at some point need to be balanced against non-military goals of humanity, limitation of effects to civilians, and avoiding long-term destruction of the environment and human life while achieving short-term goals of military conquest.

I don't think, actually, that this sort of thing is properly best left ot the military. They are not trained as environmental scientists, or as experts in ethics, or as medical doctors. They are taught to win wars as quickly as possible and with as little short-term loss of life as possible. I don't fault them for attempting to achieve that goal with any tools we allow them; I simply think that as a civilized society, we must think about the tools that we allow them. We've managed to agree, for example, that the horrors of chlorine and mustard gas are a form of Hell we're not willing to inflict on other humans - and a good choice it was. Anyone who has seen the recent BBC report on the lingering affect of Agent Orange (and other mass defoliants) in Vietnam and Cambodia might come to similar conclusions about their use, and of course the Princess of Wales, prior to her untimely demise, was working to increase public resistance to the deployment of land mines.

The chief difference I see between the concerns that led to the outlawing of mustard and chlorine gas and those active in land mines, defoliants, and now DU are a bit depressing, however, because the moral argument for not using them is precisely the practical argument for using them. That is, the damage of all of these is long-term and often falls heavily on non-combatants. I believe that the greater portion of the effect of a weapon felt by non-combatants - and often generations of unborn non-combatants - the more morally dangerous the weapon is and the less excuse there is for using it. Unfortunately, in a political and military sense, negative affects that happen to other people in other countries long after your troops have left the battlefield are, in the practical sense, not that great of a consideration. Indeed, if I were a captain of men and had the choice between sacrificing the lives of several people who were looking me in the eye at the moment and instead creating a potential health hazard to people I'd never met in a country I hated being in anyway, I don't think I would hesitate for long.

That is why I don't feel that this should be a military choice. It's very difficult to ask people whose lives are at risk to make long-term moral and ethical decisions. We must make those decisions on a broader social level. We must decide to what degree we are willing to sacrifice the innocent and the unborn generations of people with whom we will not be at war to our need to achieve those short-term objectives. And, should we recognize that a weapon is morally unjustifiable, we must remove it from our use. We must then ask ourselves, very soberly, whether we are still willing to accept the loss of lives of our own soldiers to achieve our objectives. I think this preferable not because I wish our soldiers any risk, but because mathematical military strategies has one key element in common: they count the worth of our men very high, and they count the worth of generations of birth defects in the current enemy very low. I can't blame the soldiers for that when they are in the heat of battle, but I think we can all blame ourselves as civilized society if we coolly accept that the price of our victory is horror and death for generations of innocent children. I'm not asking us not to value our soldiers; I am asking us to value those others who will also suffer in very real ways.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You bring me some encouragement Earl:

Truth is simple.

One does not need somebody with various letters after their names to tell them what is truth... if you reason. On this issue, you have actually expended a fraction of a neuron's effort to think and reason and found you've gone far enough to know it (DU) is bad.

A little more thinking would get you to the place that you understood that the very method of the weapon is what makes it dangerous. You could sleep with a DU round in a lead painted bed for thirty years and not have a problem with either DU or lead. But the DU round disintegrates on impact, making dust of varying degrees of fineness.

I guess I had to rely on an ever so slight amount of physics knowledge to know that-- because I've never fired a DU round: I can't imagine anything so small piercing so many inches of armor and not being at least partially gaseous when it got through. A little more extrapolation would tell me: If a Pb round were fired at enough velocity to equal the kinetic energy of the DU round it too would become a fine mist, and many people would get varying degrees of lead poisoning. But wait a minute... how can I be certain lead's poisonous...? I'd better eat some paint chips to be sure...

The problem with academia is the elitism that turns it into a religion. It is the same as a born again arguing, "The bible says this", because you can always find a different PhDBSDFA who says it's not. Posting a link does no one any good, and will help no one to actually think. (And as a matter of fact, rant/rambling like this is not much better... This is why in those zen koan stories the master simply smacks the student with a stick when they get it wrong.)

It is up to the individual to decide to reason for his self, or not. Not reasoning is a perfectly legitimate place to be, as long as you don't claim to know. And choosing to discard reason for the comfort of myth is religion.

Oh wow. That and a buck will get you a coke.

And of the two, the coke is the only thing of any substance.

I believe, if I am not mistaken I pointed out in an earlier post it was the dust and not the round that was supposed to be dangerous.

The difference here is that I have not made up my mind, based on scant facts, unspported accusations, claim and counter claim and hysteria. You have the answer already, but have no more proof of your assertions than I have found, if you have done that much reading and research.

 

[sun_lover_61]

Colleen Thomas is a curious entity.

There is hard evidence for the serious health effects of DU. I don't have them with me now, but be assured, they are well researched, and I will post them in this thread within 48 hours. I can't believe that any humane, decent person could be an aoplogist for the use of that material, in any context.

Colleen's reference to the relative safety to DU handlers is a totally spurious point that she well understands. I don't understand why she is maintaining a pro position, and arguing it, in light of her own knowledge and understanding of the facts. Just to re-iterate what she herself said - the stuff partially ignites and partially vapourises on impact. One gasp of the air and you have a lung-ful of residual toxin and radioactivity. This is not even comparable to the handling of pre-fabricated components in munitions assembly. It is literally thousands of times worse.

Likewise, with the post-explosion dust issue. Colleen, perhaps you could show your confidence in the safety of DU by letting a child of yours, or a relative's, crawl around in a DU dust contaminated area - licking fingers and thumbs, picking up objects and tasting them.

You clearly have a lot of knowledge that you are selectively filtering to arrive at your usual pro-military, pro-war stance.

I wish I could DU tip this post so that it would pierce your cold heart.

SL61

 

[Guest]

I am not sufficiently informaed to argue the point, but I base my opinion what I do know which is that: 1) Depleted uranium is extremely dangerous in terms of radioactivity when it is not shielded and 2) Sticking it in the head of a missile would give a similar effect to strapping nails to a bomb.

Thus I foresee radioactive material scattered all over the blast area. As I said, it's not a subject on which I have a huge amount of knowledge, but I can't find the flaw in my logic.

The Earl

The flaw is that you are seeing DU as the same as regular Uranium. Depleted uranium does not have nearly the radioactivity as its parent. That's why it is called "Depleted".

If there was the danger you claim, the ammo handlers, who are in physical contact with it for 6-8 hours a day, would be dead in a year or less. And trust me, our military will not accept it's soldiers dying under those circumstances for ANY reason.

 

[neonlyte]

I wish I could DU tip this post so that it would pierce your cold heart.

SL61

Don't much care what your opinion is on this subject but this line of your post is offensive. I ask you to delete it, please.

 

[TheEarl]

Colleen Thomas is a curious entity.

There is hard evidence for the serious health effects of DU. I don't have them with me now, but be assured, they are well researched, and I will post them in this thread within 48 hours. I can't believe that any humane, decent person could be an aoplogist for the use of that material, in any context.

Colleen's reference to the relative safety to DU handlers is a totally spurious point that she well understands. I don't understand why she is maintaining a pro position, and arguing it, in light of her own knowledge and understanding of the facts. Just to re-iterate what she herself said - the stuff partially ignites and partially vapourises on impact. One gasp of the air and you have a lung-ful of residual toxin and radioactivity. This is not even comparable to the handling of pre-fabricated components in munitions assembly. It is literally thousands of times worse.

Likewise, with the post-explosion dust issue. Colleen, perhaps you could show your confidence in the safety of DU by letting a child of yours, or a relative's, crawl around in a DU dust contaminated area - licking fingers and thumbs, picking up objects and tasting them.

You clearly have a lot of knowledge that you are selectively filtering to arrive at your usual pro-military, pro-war stance.

I wish I could DU tip this post so that it would pierce your cold heart.

SL61

SL61: Apart from being broadly offensive, your post misses the point completely. She's not cheering on the use of DU weaponry. She's not saying it's a wonderful thing and the more used, the better. She is saying that it is something which saves lives of our soldiers and before it is decommissioned, we should be sure that it is actually a health risk. Actual scientific and experimental evidence is very thin on the ground in this area and she is a natural sceptic, so I can understand her POV. Something which it's clear you do not and therefore you have no right to even try and debate.

Dranoel: The danger, as I understand it is not in the shells themselves, but in the dust that is created on impact. That dust would be radioactive and if it gets inside someone will cause serious damage. A mist of DU which would be fine enough to penetrate skin could cause incredible health problems to anyone unlucky to be near it and that kind of mist can be spread anywhere by the wind. I don't know much about the subject, but I remain unconvinced that when you're firing high velocity DU tipped shells, you will not be vaporising some of that shell when it hits its target. Double negative in that sentence, I know.

Even low radiation inside the body is highly toxic.

The Earl

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Can you tell me more about your qualms with the Lancet? I've actually used work from them on a completely different issue (homeopathy) with the impression that they were a peer-reviewed medical journal with a good reputation. Am I missing something I should know about?

On the whole I found the original article posted intriguing and fairly persuasive. The only thing that really raised flags for me was the last paragraph:



Yes, the author there appear to have an axe to grind. But there does seem to be a fair amount of reference to independent studies that can at least be verified. I'll say this, as well. I think that most of us would agree that in attempting to prove a case, evidence must be in accordance with the size of the claim. That is, the more unusual the claim, the stronger the evidence needs to be. In the case of homeopathy, for instance, where in some cases one is applying a solution in which it is highly unlikely that even a single molecule of the active agent is present, one needs quite strong evidence - because the claim is highly unusual, to wit, that a non-existant substance can produce a significant medical effect. I would argue that in the case of DU rounds and their effects, however, that we are not arguing nearly so unusual a premise. That a known radioactive agent might cause serious health problems when inhaled as a particulate does not strike me as a claim that needs to have the Holy Grail of research behind it before we're willing to give it some credence. What it proposes is inherently reasonable and likely in a way in which other claims might not be.

I do take Colleen's point on pragmatic military effect. She's right; the rounds end a combat quickly, and if you're attempting to penetrate heavy armor, there would appear to be no effective substitute. However, I think what others are suggesting is that the needs of military in short-term "winning the battle" ability - which, to be fair, is really what they are supposed to be paying attention to - at some point need to be balanced against non-military goals of humanity, limitation of effects to civilians, and avoiding long-term destruction of the environment and human life while achieving short-term goals of military conquest.

I don't think, actually, that this sort of thing is properly best left ot the military. They are not trained as environmental scientists, or as experts in ethics, or as medical doctors. They are taught to win wars as quickly as possible and with as little short-term loss of life as possible. I don't fault them for attempting to achieve that goal with any tools we allow them; I simply think that as a civilized society, we must think about the tools that we allow them. We've managed to agree, for example, that the horrors of chlorine and mustard gas are a form of Hell we're not willing to inflict on other humans - and a good choice it was. Anyone who has seen the recent BBC report on the lingering affect of Agent Orange (and other mass defoliants) in Vietnam and Cambodia might come to similar conclusions about their use, and of course the Princess of Wales, prior to her untimely demise, was working to increase public resistance to the deployment of land mines.

The chief difference I see between the concerns that led to the outlawing of mustard and chlorine gas and those active in land mines, defoliants, and now DU are a bit depressing, however, because the moral argument for not using them is precisely the practical argument for using them. That is, the damage of all of these is long-term and often falls heavily on non-combatants. I believe that the greater portion of the effect of a weapon felt by non-combatants - and often generations of unborn non-combatants - the more morally dangerous the weapon is and the less excuse there is for using it. Unfortunately, in a political and military sense, negative affects that happen to other people in other countries long after your troops have left the battlefield are, in the practical sense, not that great of a consideration. Indeed, if I were a captain of men and had the choice between sacrificing the lives of several people who were looking me in the eye at the moment and instead creating a potential health hazard to people I'd never met in a country I hated being in anyway, I don't think I would hesitate for long.

That is why I don't feel that this should be a military choice. It's very difficult to ask people whose lives are at risk to make long-term moral and ethical decisions. We must make those decisions on a broader social level. We must decide to what degree we are willing to sacrifice the innocent and the unborn generations of people with whom we will not be at war to our need to achieve those short-term objectives. And, should we recognize that a weapon is morally unjustifiable, we must remove it from our use. We must then ask ourselves, very soberly, whether we are still willing to accept the loss of lives of our own soldiers to achieve our objectives. I think this preferable not because I wish our soldiers any risk, but because mathematical military strategies has one key element in common: they count the worth of our men very high, and they count the worth of generations of birth defects in the current enemy very low. I can't blame the soldiers for that when they are in the heat of battle, but I think we can all blame ourselves as civilized society if we coolly accept that the price of our victory is horror and death for generations of innocent children. I'm not asking us not to value our soldiers; I am asking us to value those others who will also suffer in very real ways.

Shanglan

Hey Shang. Perhaps we are discussing different magazines? I though the Lancet was a media guide put out by Reporter's Without Borders?


My mistake

That dosen't excuse the mirror though

It may or may not be a decision best left to the military. I tend to believe as long as there is a tactical option that saves men's lives, you will have a hard time discarding it. And in this case, it's a proven life saver.

We did decide not to use posion gas. It's effects were horrid and documented beyond dispute. There isn't any documentation I have seen that shows Du produces the effects that would warrant it's banning it. If someone has evidence that is that strong, I would like to see it.

What I don't believe in, is taking a weapon away from our troops that is so efficient without compelling evidence we are doing a greater good. that evidence is lacking. While I see the possible dangers and I agree we should not be a party to damaging the enviornment any more than we already do, I don't see the proofs that that is the case.

The power of the atom has been a mixed blessing. Some people simply can't accept any use of it. Some people also have political axes to grind. This is especially true of those who opposed the war in Iraq. If there are realistic dangers, it would seem that the use of DU in Kosovo would have produced something quanitifable. Yet even WHO, who seem to take a very prevenative approach, similar to the CDC, couldn't find enough evidence to even issue an advisory.

It may be just as bad as some fear. It may be as harmless as the U.S. Military claims. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. In any case, without solid data to support the claim, I just cannot see removing a weapon from the aresenal that is so incontrovertably effective in saving the lives of service men.

 

[thebullet]

a report published in The Lancet in 1998 said that as many as 500 children a day are dying from these sequels to war and sanctions and that the death rate for Iraqi children under 5 years of age increased from 23 per 1000 in 1989 to 166 per thousand in 1993. Overall, cases of lymphoblastic leukemia more than quadrupled with other cancers also increasing 'at an alarming rate.' In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers showed the highest increase.
In women, the highest increases were in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.[

The Lancet is the British Medical Journal. To me these numbers are convincing. I agree that we should be giving our soldiers every advantage that is humane. But it looks like DU Shells are not humane. It appears that our own soldiers are suffering from the effects of the DU shell residue. Is there a number of DU induced cancers and deaths that we can balance against the number of soldiers saved because an enemy tank was exploded without injury to our men? At that balance point do we then say, 'beyond this we shouldn't be using these shells'?

Have we reached that point? It looks like respectable journalists and doctors think so.

 

[sun_lover_61]

SL61: Apart from being broadly offensive...

Well Earl, I find the "war solution" broadly offensive.

When we talk about issues like this we are not fooling around. I am not fooling around when I express my loathing for CT's enthusiastic advocacy of the use of DU, and no, I did not misunderstand her post.

Also, when you talk about DU saving "our" soldiers, I hope you mean "your" soldiers. They do not fight for me. Murdering 100,000+ Iraqis was never my cause.

SL61

 

[BlackShanglan]

SL61: Apart from being broadly offensive, your post misses the point completely. She's not cheering on the use of DU weaponry. She's not saying it's a wonderful thing and the more used, the better. She is saying that it is something which saves lives of our soldiers and before it is decommissioned, we should be sure that it is actually a health risk. Actual scientific and experimental evidence is very thin on the ground in this area and she is a natural sceptic, so I can understand her POV. Something which it's clear you do not and therefore you have no right to even try and debate.

Dranoel: The danger, as I understand it is not in the shells themselves, but in the dust that is created on impact. That dust would be radioactive and if it gets inside someone will cause serious damage. A mist of DU which would be fine enough to penetrate skin could cause incredible health problems to anyone unlucky to be near it and that kind of mist can be spread anywhere by the wind. I don't know much about the subject, but I remain unconvinced that when you're firing high velocity DU tipped shells, you will not be vaporising some of that shell when it hits its target. Double negative in that sentence, I know.

Even low radiation inside the body is highly toxic.

The Earl

The Earl, may blessings light on you for your dedication to civil discourse and the spirit of inquiry, your acknowledgement of the limits of your knowledge and your understanding of the perspectives of others as well as your own.

I think we might all realize by now that the nature of debate is often of more interest to certain equine minds than the topics of some of the debates themselves. On this issue particularly, I am very keen to learn more and want to know the best from both sides. Colleen is doing just that - presenting the best arguments from her side in a cogent and thoughtful way - and kudos to both her and The Earl for making this discussion intelligent and informative. Pray don't let the petty sniping of fools (who, naturally, shall remain nameless) distract you, and warm thanks to The Earl for reminding us what good debate is about.

Shanglan