US Military, President - Out of Control

[Jester_11218]

US Military, President - Out of Control

-- What Does "Mildly Radioactive" Mean, Anyway?
Complete editorial here: http://tvnewslies.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2427#2427


Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
[e-mail]

February 18, 2005 -- (Oklahoma, Red State, “Land of the Free”) The Russians just recently stopped a weightlifter coming across the border with about 100 pounds of "highly radioactive depleted uranium." The guy said he was using it for dumbbells in weightlifting.

The American Department of Defense and other government departments all are unanimous in calling so-called depleted uranium "mildly radioactive depleted uranium." They like to use it for bombs, shells and heavy caliber bullets.

Highly radioactive, mildly radioactive, moderately radioactive. What does it mean? Whom to believe? The godless former Commies or the brave Iraq-smashing Americans? Decide for yourself. Radioactivity is a standard property of the metal uranium, used by Americans for bombs, shells and bullets, and one gram will always give off 12,000 "atomic disintegrations" per second.

Complete editorial here: http://tvnewslies.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2427#2427

[Pooka Fey]

1. OMFG. The U.S. is the Earth's Death Star.

[whistle]

2. Depleted uranium is highly radioactive and must be shielded

...when used in weapons to protect the users. How that is done I have no idea, but once fired or exploded the radio activity is relaesed and it becomes very toxic.

<snip>

Here are the Radioactive Byproducts
of Depleted Uranium (Uranium-238)
< pour la version française >

The chart given below lists all of the decay products of uranium-238 in their order of appearance. Uranium-238 is also referred to as ''depleted uranium''.
Each radioactive element on the list gives off either alpha radiation or beta radiation -- and sometimes gamma radiation too -- thereby transforming itself into the next element on the list. When uranium ore is extracted from the earth, most of the uranium is removed from the crushed rock during the milling process, but the radioactive decay products are left in the tailings. Thus 85 percent of the radioactivity of the original ore is discarded in the mill tailings.

Depleted uranium remains radioactive for literally billions of years, and over these long periods of time it will continue to produce all of its radioactive decay products; thus depleted uranium actually becomes more radioactive as the centuries and millennia go by because these decay products accumulate.

<more>
<link> http://www.ccnr.org/decay_U238.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The users are protected by wearing gloves

The important thing with depleted uranium is not to swallow it, or breathe it in, if it is in aerosol form. This is because its alpha radiation is unlikely to penetrate the layer of dead cells on the outside of your skin, but could, if it came into contact with live tissue, cause harm. The thickness of gloves would definitely stop the aplha radiation. It is also a toxic heavy metal, and like others such as lead, should not be ingested.

Information on DU: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/DU/du_qaa.shtml

The radioactivity is 'released' when a DU weapon hits in the sense that some of it forms a dust. This is what can then be ingested.

[whistle]

9. Thanks for that warning label, now how about as a suppository

...to shove up the military high command's asses? Any danger there do you suppose?

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. An excellent article.

There are those who might claim that they had no idea that depleted uranium -- the very name makes it sound harmless -- was more than just a heavy metal that could punch through armor. But now that we most assuredly do know, there's no excuse for using it. If we need to knock out an enemy tank (and we are facing so many of them in Iraq now) a heavy, precision guided bomb will do just as well. Not even the most heavily armored vehicle can survive a direct hit by 500lbs of HE.

There is no military justification for using DU.

[Jester_11218]

4. Our rules

The US makes up the rules these days. Anythng can be justified if we say it is!

[DulceDecorum]

18. What goes around, comes around.

The US is the largest single user of depleted uranium (DU) in weaponry. It is also the largest seller and exporter of depleted uranium weapon technology.
DU is used in smart bombs, bunker busters, anti-tank weapons, and the tow missiles. All very highly effective. As we saw in Gulf War I, the US bunker buster bombs tipped with DU were penetrating concrete shielding up to 10 feet thick.
<snip>
Deplete Uranium is actually a misnomer. It is uranium, incredibly hard and a very dense metal, yes. But it is still very much radioactive. The US is quick to defend the use of DUs and scorns all scientific finds that indicate there might be serious lingering problems. Weapons using DU can be rightfully called a "dirty bomb". The US classifies a "dirty bomb" as an explosive device that permeates the surrounding area with radioactive/biological/chemical material. Such is the fears of the US homeland Security. The bomb itself is not the object of fear; it is the spread of the radioactive/biological/chemical material that encases the bomb that brings Homeland Security the night sweats.
In the mechanics of DU tipped weapons when the device explodes, the force of the blast breaks the DU tip into a cloud of dust that coats everything within the target, and as with all explosions, there is the dust and debris that is jettisoned outward - this includes the dust from the DU. As the dust settles, the contaminated material also settles to earth or becomes airborne and drifts to other parts of that country. Now we have radioactive material spreading over a large area.
The US has moved away from the term DU, and has come up with a more polite term of "dense metal" - but it is still DU and still a dirty bomb.
http://www.truthseekersnetwork.com/article.php?story=20040921162302576


During the Gulf war, Britain and the United States pounded the city and its surroundings with 96,000 depleted-uranium shells. The wretched creatures in the photographs--for they were scarcely human--are the result, Dr Amer said.
He guided me past pictures of children born without eyes, without brains. Another had arrived in the world with only half a head, nothing above the eyes. Then there was a head with legs, babies without genitalia, a little girl born with her brain outside her skull and the whatever-it-was whose eyes were below the level of its nose.
Then the chair-grabbing moment--a photograph of what I can only describe (inadequately) as a pair of buttocks with a face and two amphibian arms. Mercifully, none of these babies survived for long.
Depleted uranium has an incubation period in humans of five years. In the four years from 1991 (the end of the Gulf war) until 1994, the Basrah Maternity Hospital saw 11 congenital anomalies. Last year there were 221.
Then there is the alarming increase in cases of leukaemia among Basrah babies lucky enough to have been born with the full complement of limbs and features in the right place. The hospital treated 15 children with leukemia in 1993. In 2000 it was 60. By the end of this year that figure again will be topped. And so it will go on. Forever.
http://www.counterpunch.org/kershaw1.html


When our soldiers risked their lives in the Gulf, they never imagined that their children might suffer the consequences--or that their country would turn its back on them.

Kennedi was born without a thyroid. If not for daily hormone treatments, she would die. What disfigures her features, however, is another congenital condition: hemangiomas, benign tumors made of tangled blood vessels. Since she was a few weeks old, they have been popping up all over--on her eyelids and lips; in her throat and spinal canal. Laser surgery shrinks them, but they return again and again. They distort her speech, threaten her life. And, inevitably, they draw the stares of strangers. "When people see her," says Shana, "they say, 'Ooh, what happened to your baby?'"
Neither Shana nor her husband can answer that question conclusively, but they suspect that Kennedi's troubles have their origins in the Gulf, where Darrell served as an Army paratrooper. During operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he faced a mind- boggling array of environmental hazards. Like an estimated 45,000 of his comrades, he has developed symptoms--in his case, asthma and recurring pneumonia--linked to an elusive affliction known as Gulf War syndrome. And like a growing number of Gulf War veterans, some of whom remain apparently healthy, he has fathered a child with devastating birth defects.
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html

Yeah,
you just keep believeing that DU is safe
and have yourself another sip of the grape Koolaid.

[SouthernDem2004]

5. Ah but it is needed for ground forces....

DU is used by our tanks as well as shoulder fired anti-armor weapons. You can not always count on aircraft to be around or available.

[Jester_11218]

6. It is still poison

It is very dangeous for the troops.

[SouthernDem2004]

8. As one of those troops that has been around it alot...

There are no document cases of harmful effects to those that use it. I have fired them out of a tank before and I assure you I was no where near the impact zone.

[whistle]

10. Which theater were you using depleted uranium munitions at?

[SouthernDem2004]

11. I have only fired them in training.

[whistle]

12. And where was that?

[SouthernDem2004]

13. NTC in Ca. and in KY

[Disturbed]

14. Sorry about this dumb question.

Why is it used at all?

[immoderate]

15. It's harder and heavier than lead.

It has more penetration.

--IMM

[SouthernDem2004]

19. Denser is what he means. :)

[immoderate]

22. What else?

--IMM

[SouthernDem2004]

29. I am not sure what you mean. The munition is able to penetrate hardened

targets that would usually require multiple strikes using numerous bombs and increase the risk of collateral damage.

[immoderate]

30. Sorry.

It was directed at your correction of my misuse of "heavy" as in:

He meant density.

What else (could I have meant)?

It was rhetorical to acknowledge your correction in a bit of a wise ass way. You know, like, "I knew that."

--IMM

[DulceDecorum]

16. Wait till your child is born

with a head like a wineglass and the brain fully exposed.

DU is HORRIBLE
and everyone who comes into contact with it suffers.
Your turn will come,
never you mind what Rand
and the Pentadoctor-Mengeles of Abu Ghraib tell you.

[SouthernDem2004]

20. I have 2 children. Both born since I used the stuff. DU has

the potential to cause health issues. It is some rather nasty stuff. With that being said, it has not been a problem yet. It would take a very long, large and compact battle field for there to be any concern. There is no credible proof that DU has caused any problems anywhere. Note I say credible. Yes, you will find some anti-DU sites that make claims. Like I said, credible. There is only one place on this earth that has been contaminated by DU ordinance and that is here in the U.S.

[DulceDecorum]

23. My my, Betty Bowers is correct.

There are none so blind as will nazi.

[SouthernDem2004]

27. Do you have anything intelligent to add or are you one of those people

that feel the need to insult people when people talk about something they no nothing about?

So, What exactly does your comment have to do about anything being mentioned here?

Are people "nazis" because they are in the military?

Are people nazis because they know something about DU?

Are people nazis because they are Americans?

Are people nazis because they use the best weapon available to keep themselves and their fellow soldiers alive? Should we use rubber bands?

Are you one of those around here that calls everyone a Nazi or Hitler if they say something you do not totally agree with?

Let me leave you with a little quote from President Abraham Lincoln, "'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

[DulceDecorum]

31. Well well well

SouthernDem2004 says:
Are people nazis because they use the best weapon available to keep themselves and their fellow soldiers alive? Should we use rubber bands?

How many soldiers did you keep alive
by deliberately targetting the Amriyah bomb shelter
filled with women and children
with a Depleted Uranium warhead?

Amal, an educated middle-class woman, lives near a bridge over the Tigris River. Her house was hit by a bomb in 1991. I asked if she had a bomb shelter. "No, bomb shelters are no good--we will just sit together in a room so if something happens we will all go together." Her daughter reminds me of the Aamayria air-raid shelter in Baghdad, which was hit by a US missile in the Gulf War, killing 415 mothers and young children. Now there is the general suspicion that the United States will deliberately target bomb shelters, so few people plan to use them.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030203&s=roberts

Explain the heroism or the military necessity for THAT.
Or for destroying Red Cross warehouses.

The US is using DU in Afghanistan.
The US is Using DU in Iraq.
What have the people of either nation EVER done to deserve this?

Incinerated body of an Iraqi soldier on the "Highway of Death," a name the press has given to the road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq. U.S. planes immobilized the convoy by disabling vehicles at its front and rear, then bombing and straffing the resulting traffic jam for hours. More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration of the human being suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incindiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols. This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawl from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat."
http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrime.htm

I want to give testimony on what are called the "highways of death." These are the two Kuwaiti roadways, littered with remains of 2,000 mangled Iraqi military vehicles, and the charred and dismembered bodies of tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, who were withdrawing from Kuwait on February 26th and 27th 1991 in compliance with UN resolutions.
U.S. planes trapped the long convoys by disabling vehicles in the front, and at the rear, and then pounded the resulting traffic jams for hours. "It was like shooting fish in a barrel," said one U.S. pilot. The horror is still there to see.

On the inland highway to Basra is mile after mile of burned, smashed, shattered vehicles of every description - tanks, armored cars, trucks, autos, fire trucks, according to the March 18, 1991, Time magazine. On the sixty miles of coastal highway, Iraqi military units sit in gruesome repose, scorched skeletons of vehicles and men alike, black and awful under the sun, says the Los Angeles Times of March 11, 1991. While 450 people survived the inland road bombing to surrender, this was not the case with the 60 miles of the coastal road. There for 60 miles every vehicle was strafed or bombed, every windshield is shattered, every tank is burned, every truck is riddled with shell fragments. No survivors are known or likely. The cabs of trucks were bombed so much that they were pushed into the ground, and it's impossible to see if they contain drivers or not. Windshields were melted away, and huge tanks were reduced to shrapnel.

"Even in Vietnam I didn't see anything like this. It's pathetic," said Major Bob Nugent, an Army intelligence officer. This one-sided carnage, this racist mass murder of Arab people, occurred while White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater promised that the U.S. and its coalition partners would not attack Iraqi forces leaving Kuwait. This is surely one of the most heinous war crimes in contemporary history.
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-death.htm

Every morning I go to work at an orphanage run by the Missionary Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa. There are about twenty little boys and girls with severe cerebral palsy. Only two can speak a little and some cannot even raise their head. But they all have shining eyes and beautiful smiles. I spend three hours holding them, massaging them, singing and playing. Their gaze never leaves my face. They squirm across the floor to put their head in my lap. This is the only time I am not ambivalent. I belong here. I feed them and clean them. They stay focused on my face. This smile is all they want. Toys come and go but the face of a smiling adult is their heaven.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030203&s=roberts

KILL THEM.
KILL THEM ALL.
IN THE NAME OF BUSH.

Pile on the brown man's burden;
And, if ye rouse his hate,
Meet his old-fashioned reasons
With Maxims up to date.
With shells and dumdum bullets
A hundred times made plain
The brown man's loss must ever
Imply the white man's gain.

Pile on the brown man's burden,
compel him to be free;
Let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don't hesitate to shoot.

Pile on the brown man's burden,
And if his cry be sore,
That surely need not irk you--
Ye've driven slaves before.
Seize on his ports and pastures,
The fields his people tread;
Go make from them your living,
And mark them with his dead.
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/xxx074.html

Semper Fidelis
Canis familaris GOPIMPUS

[peacebird]

24. Afghanistan and Iraq are both contaminated by DU ordinance

Both have had massive airstrikes using DU ordinance (bunker buster bombs)

Why on earth would the US military practice with DU shells in the US? Too expensive among the more obvious health and safety concerns.

[SouthernDem2004]

25. Reply:

Where are these contaminated areas? No one has been able to find them.

We do not fire them often. It is done to give soldiers a feel of what they can do. A confidence builder if you will.

There are not any real health concerns to those using the ordinance. The concern with DU is with the dust particles that result from the destruction of the ordinance once it hits a target. We are a long way from the target so it is not an issue.

[peacebird]

26. BINGO. Dust particles when ord. hits target....

"The concern with DU is with the dust particles that result from the destruction of the ordinance once it hits a target. We are a long way from the target so it is not an issue."

BINGO. Not an issue for you, how nice.
and while YOU may be a long way away from the target the average Iraqi citizen is NOT. We used bunker busters in our attempt to get Saddam (remember the neighborhood eatery we incinerated then? key phrase "NEIGHBORHOOD")

Somehow I get the feeling we are not on the same page here. It isn't only american lives that concern me, what about you?

[SouthernDem2004]

28. Hmmm

I never said it was not an issue. Try re-reading my posts before you put words into my mouth.

We did not drop 10s of thousands of bunker buster bombs. Most ordinance used was of the normal variety. DU munitions are used on hardened targets such as bunkers and tanks. As for a bunker buster the round penetrates into the ground before detonation. You are not getting a lot of airborne particles.

There are no know areas of contamination outside of the US. The Army has a team that checks sites for contamination after a conflict. After that the Pentagon has their own team that goes and checks. After that the U.N. has their own team that goes in and checks and after them some of the anti-DU types go in and check. No one has yet to find a cedible problem anywhere. You act like the people using and involved in DU are evil or something. Please... We are well aware of the potential problems and are monitoring DUs use.

I will not respond again if you continue to be insulting. If you wish to have an intelligent discussion that is great. If you want to go juvenile then you will be talking to yourself. I will not waste my time.

[Wind Dancer]

17. Interesting.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

[Jim__]

21. Thanks for posting that! Now, my question is:

How do we stop this?