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Thread: Wmd

  1. #1
    Rat Faced's Avatar Broken
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    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0330-02.htm

    Reproduced Below......

    Published on Sunday, March 30, 2003 by The Sunday Herald (Scotland)
    US Forces' Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons is 'Illegal'
    by Neil Mackay

    BRITISH and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a United Nations resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction.

    Background on Depleted Uranium Ammunition
    For much more check out:
    Discounted Casualties - The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium provided by the Hiroshima, Japan newspaper - The Chugoku Shimbun.

    Also the Federation of American Scientists has a Depleted Uranium Ammunition page. And the Military Toxics Project has a campaign against depleted uranium weapons.

    (left) US Armor Piercing Incendiary [Depleted Uranium] 30mm Ammunition

    Also See:
    US Wins Defeat of Depleted Uranium Study
    Reuters 11/30/2001

    Iraqi Cancers, Birth Defects Blamed on U.S. Depleted Uranium
    Seattle Post-Intelligencer 11/12/2002

    Iraq Links Cancers to Uranium Weapons; U.S. Likely to Use Arms Again in War
    San Francisco Chronicle 1/13/2003

    DU contaminates land, causes ill-health and cancers among the soldiers using the weapons, the armies they target and civilians, leading to birth defects in children.

    Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project -- a former professor of environmental science at Jacksonville University and onetime US army colonel who was tasked by the US department of defense with the post-first Gulf war depleted uranium desert clean-up -- said use of DU was a 'war crime'.

    Rokke said: 'There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction -- yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves.' He added: 'Such double-standards are repellent.'

    The latest use of DU in the current conflict came on Friday when an American A10 tankbuster plane fired a DU shell, killing one British soldier and injuring three others in a 'friendly fire' incident.

    According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'. All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts.

    DU has been blamed for the effects of Gulf war syndrome -- typified by chronic muscle and joint pain, fatigue and memory loss -- among 200,000 US soldiers after the 1991 conflict.

    It is also cited as the most likely cause of the 'increased number of birth deformities and cancer in Iraq' following the first Gulf war.

    'Cancer appears to have increased between seven and 10 times and deformities between four and six times,' according to the UN subcommission.

    The Pentagon has admitted that 320 metric tons of DU were left on the battlefield after the first Gulf war, although Russian military experts say 1000 metric tons is a more accurate figure.

    In 1991, the Allies fired 944,000 DU rounds or some 2700 tons of DU tipped bombs. A UK Atomic Energy Authority report said that some 500,000 people would die before the end of this century, due to radioactive debris left in the desert.

    The use of DU has also led to birth defects in the children of Allied veterans and is believed to be the cause of the 'worrying number of anophthalmos cases -- babies born without eyes' in Iraq. Only one in 50 million births should be anophthalmic, yet one Baghdad hospital had eight cases in just two years. Seven of the fathers had been exposed to American DU anti-tank rounds in 1991. There have also been cases of Iraqi babies born without the crowns of their skulls, a deformity also linked to DU shelling.

    A study of Gulf war veterans showed that 67% had children with severe illnesses, missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems and fused fingers.

    Rokke told the Sunday Herald: 'A nation's military personnel cannot wilfully contaminate any other nation, cause harm to persons and the environment and then ignore the consequences of their actions.

    'To do so is a crime against humanity.

    'We must do what is right for the citizens of the world -- ban DU.'

    He called on the US and UK to 'recognize the immoral consequences of their actions and assume responsibility for medical care and thorough environmental remediation'.

    He added: 'We can't just use munitions which leave a toxic wasteland behind them and kill indiscriminately.

    'It is equivalent to a war crime.'

    Rokke said that coalition troops were currently fighting in the Gulf without adequate respiratory protection against DU contamination.

    The Sunday Herald has previously revealed how the Ministry of Defense had test-fired some 6350 DU rounds into the Solway Firth over more than a decade, from 1989 to 1999.




    Reproduced for discussion, not in Judgement........

    An It Harm None, Do What You Will

  2. The Drawing Room   -   #2
    I don't know what to say.

    I'm sorry
    Peace of mind Findnot

    No time to work out? Try Folding instead.

  3. The Drawing Room   -   #3
    This is the first I've heard of the DU shells, and their effects, (due to my ignorance), but I HAVE been asking people here, in the U.S., whether our troops were going to be quarantined before sending them home, now that over 10 years have gone by for chemical and biological testing.
    The DU information makes clear many things. Please understand, with the truth not available on basic t.v., and more people willing to watch Fox than CNN, the only side being told is the "We are mighty, therefore we are right!" side.
    If I asked everyone at work tomorrow what they thought about the DU, or even spelled it out for them, the reaction would be, (because this is what we're focused on here),
    "It serves those bastards right. They're torturing our people over there! They should all be killed."
    When I try to explain that not ALL Iraqis are bad people, the response is fierce.
    (To quote: "Dude! Do you know what their DOING over there? They're torturing our people!" I told him that yes, I did know that. He said, "No. All the f#cking Iraqis are evil. We should just go in and kill them all."
    This is a VERY widespread and rapidly growing sentiment, unfortunately.
    Come on. Do you REALLY think the U.S. will offer what is REALLY going on to its people? Anyone who thinks so...well, I don't know. I'm not there either!
    The war propaganda has succeeded admirably here, and anyone who wants to question the facts is immediately hailed as unpatriotic.
    This goes ESPECIALLY for anyone remotely connected to anything militant OR even slightly connected with the victims of 9/11. By this I mean veterans: especially those from the Vietnam era, since they know firsthand how it felt to be unsure of their purpose. Also, most police and many firefighters. Of course any reserve or national guard units are frothing at the bit.
    Many, many people here are willing to sacrifice their freedom to ensure another attack like 9/11 doesn't occur, and the rest of the world can go to hell in a handbasket if they think otherwise.
    The fact that they've been systematically led to this junction matters not one whit.
    It IS what is going on.
    I, personally, know there is no need for war, and I'm not speaking from a "hippie" peace-loving, the world is just great type of mental fog.
    I don't drink or use drugs, and spend most of my time reading and observing.
    Right now we are on the edge.
    We are at the brink, not of World War 3, but the brink of systematic mental enslavemant of an entire culture.
    Watch the fuck out when that happens.
    People here have the amazing capacity to swallow not just hook, line and sinker, but the rod, and the boat it stems from just as well!
    When, on occasion, I've tried to simply ask people simple questions, their response has been amazing!
    I've asked one veteran for anything whatsoever in writing that would bear out what he said. (Not that being in pront makes it legitimate.) I asked him for sources. He merely shook his head and said, "No, that's just the way it is, and you're ignorant if you think otherwise."
    No room for growth.
    No room for learning.
    Americans have learned all they need to know about the world, and we're not going to let facts stand in our way!
    (I'm being both sarcastic and somewhat honest, although I seek truth. But who to trust? And how to trust? Just like 1984, eh?)
    I'm trying to save the world.
    But it's just me.
    And I'm just a broke fucking musician.
    Wish me luck!

  4. The Drawing Room   -   #4
    Quarter hits the hat,

    Great song.

    I think you spoke for many Americans and every other Country in the world.

    Do we know what our Superiors are doing. Corporate Sysytems, Take now pay later. Been going on for Centuries.

    There are no winers of wars, just battles.

  5. The Drawing Room   -   #5
    to the best of my knowledge, in all of the studies done on the effects of DU there have only been weak correlations found to adverse health effects, and none of the studies has been able to link the radioactive properties of DU to health effects.

    DU is a heavy metal and its dust causes health effects that we normally associate with heavy metal dust.

    the only alternative to DU is tungsten, another heavy metal.

    so considering that there is no evidence that concludes DU is significantly more toxic than tungsten, and considering that DU exhibits better armour penetration than tungsten along with a pyrophoric effect that tungsten lacks, i think that coalition troops are better served to remain equipped with DU projectiles.

  6. The Drawing Room   -   #6
    Where do you think gulf war syndrome came from?

    What is the half life of Depleted URANIUM?

    I have nothing else to say......

  7. The Drawing Room   -   #7
    i don't know. where did "gulf war syndrome" come from? there are about as many theories as the world has assholes. asshole.

    http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/kap30...Nuclear/nuc.htm says U 238 has a half life of 4.468 Gy, thats giga years i think. of corse longer half lives mean that things are less radioactive. this does not directly relate to how dangerous something is. it depends on whether alpha, beta particles or gamma rays are most likely to be emitted and also how the radioactive material enters the body and how the body disposes of or fails to dispose of the material.

    of course u probably knew that, so i'll shut up now.

  8. The Drawing Room   -   #8
    Rat Faced's Avatar Broken
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    Originally posted by sAdam@1 April 2003 - 02:57
    i don't know. where did "gulf war syndrome" come from? there are about as many theories as the world has assholes. asshole.

    http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/kap30...Nuclear/nuc.htm says U 238 has a half life of 4.468 Gy, thats giga years i think.  of corse longer half lives mean that things are less radioactive.  this does not directly relate to how dangerous something is.  it depends on whether alpha, beta particles or gamma rays are most likely to be emitted and also how the radioactive material enters the body and how the body disposes of or fails to dispose of the material.

    of course u probably knew that, so i'll shut up now.
    No, I dont know better than you.

    I have no first hand knowledge of the subject, and little second hand knowledge.


    However, the Professor that was in charge of the Depleted Uranium Project at the Pentagon (and these are the guys that should know, if anyone does) probably knows more than either of us.....so i'll bow to his superiority.


    Or didnt you actually read the whole article?


    Edit: Context of reply, as i misread the post i was replying to....d'oh

    An It Harm None, Do What You Will

  9. The Drawing Room   -   #9
    sorry rat faced, that teeny bit of facetiousness in my last reply was not directed towards you. u sound like a thoughtful guy. i was referring to marcus' dumbass statements.

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