Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...

Subject: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: GUEST,Mo
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:15 PM

The use of depleted uranium shells is one of the more toxic scandals in the catastrophe called Iraq.
DU shells and bullets have been used on a huge scale in both desert battlefield locations and in residential areas.
The radioactive dust from the shells is widely beieved by many Iraqis and US military vets to cause a variety of cancers.
There is also deepening concern that this dust is being blown by the winds across the Middle East and beyond. How can their manufacture and use be outlawed
Mo

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: MarkS
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:39 PM

What would you use in their place?

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: GUEST,Mo
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 04:48 PM

Try a little tenderness

Give peace a chance

Impeach the president

I dreamed i saw the bomber riding shotgun in the sky
Turning into butterflies above our nation

Turn them into ploughshares

a TIME OF WAR A TIME OF HATE
A TIME FOR PEACE I SWEAR ITS NOT TOO LATE

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 05:04 PM

Yeah, DoD is sweepin' hard to keep this dust under the carpet... Thet have fired doctors at Veterans Hpospitals for diggun' too deep... Yeah they want you to think that the stuff ain't bad for folks... Ask the Iraqi mothers who gave birth to so many deformed babies after Gulf I or the vets who fought in Gulf I who have had a a disporportionate amount of cancers and other ailments...

DU is some bad stuff...

Hey, if it was so good fir ya' they'd be bottlin' it up and sellin' in the health food stores...

But best yet, Mo is right... Stop starting stupid ass wars...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 06:02 PM

How can their manufacture and use be outlawed
Not at all easily. You REALLY want to stop their use, then study your physics, and design a more potent munition for the DOD, or a totally new weapons system, like an energy weapon. If Depleted Uranium isn't the best available, then they won't use it. Simple really....

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: NH Dave
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 07:09 PM

Sounds as if there are some scream and wail, Chicken Little, scare tactics going on here.

Depleted uranium, dU, [my abreviation] is dangerous like any Heavy Metal, think uranium, lead, tungsten, etc., but is isn't very radioactive - that's what the depleted means, they've taken out the radioactive uranium leaving the non radioactive isotopes. I would guess that the granite native to the northeast of the US is more radioactive - it outgasses Radon - than dU, and we build with granite all the time.

Its main use in munitions is to give them sufficient mass, to punch through armor and protective cover, like the skin of a building, by its kenetic energy from the propellant charge. As long as one doesn't breathe the dU dust, or get fragments under the skin, it is relatively safe to handle or fire; especially as the unfired munitions contain the dU within a thin metallic case.

During previous conflicts, lead was commonly used for rifle and musket balls, and posed the same dangers to the population of that time as dU does today. The main reasons why we stopped using lead as a bullet are the bans on all ammunition that expands when it hits a body, as opposed to punching through and through holes. These bans are contained in the Geneva Conventions of Land Warfare, which prohibit using such expanding or Dum Dum bullets against troops. Since the use of dU is mostly against hardened targets like armor and buildings, it isn't banned for its soft or expansive properties, and is perfectly legal to use in this manner. If several troops happen to get between one tank and its target, then that is tragic for the people involved, but would yield the same result as if the one tank was firing steel sabot ammo - a fairly neat hole through and through.

Using solder to mend metali items or solder circuit boards poses more hazard, by exposing the body to lead fumes, than being around dU, a danger that has only recently been addressed, by providing forced ventilation and eye protection while using solder to join items. In the past electronic assemblers and repair people used solder on a daily basis with no thought of possible danger, because we hadn't recognised that there was one. By and large the worst injuries we suffered were caused by touching a soldering iron or joint before it had completely cooled.

Dave

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 07:34 PM

The radioactive dust from the shells is widely beieved by many Iraqis and US military vets to cause a variety of cancers. There have been a number of studies, scientific and otherwise (anecdotal), without agreement on the degree of hazard. The DOD report essentially says that the problem is more closely linked to heavy metal poisoning than to radioactivity.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 07:59 PM

GUEST,Mo - 09 Jun 06 - 04:15 PM

"The use of depleted uranium shells is one of the more toxic scandals in the catastrophe called Iraq."

No it is not.

"DU shells and bullets have been used on a huge scale in both desert battlefield locations and in residential areas."

Yes mostly by Saddam Hussein down around Basra circa 1991

"The radioactive dust from the shells is widely beieved by many Iraqis and US military vets to cause a variety of cancers."

While it might be widely believed by the peace at any price brigade, the statement above has no basis in fact, according to WHO, studies carried out in Kosovo and environmental studies carried out at weapons firingranges in the USA.

"There is also deepening concern that this dust is being blown by the winds across the Middle East and beyond."

The deep concern only exists in the minds of those who think that the sky is falling.

"How can their manufacture and use be outlawed
Mo"

Get yourself elected and pass a law, then watch as your guys and their equipment gets ripped to bits because you have failed to adequately protect them next time you actually need them

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: dianavan
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:09 PM

NH Dave said, "As long as one doesn't breathe the dU dust, or get fragments under the skin..."

If you were a civilian, how would you go about protecting yourself from this possibility?

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:27 PM

Then why was a certain doctor fired by the Veterans Adminsitartion at a certain Delaware Veterans Hospital when he he found a large number of cancers in Gulf I populations with DU traces in their blood???

Like I said, DoD has been busy sweeping this story under the carpet since Gulf I...

But it will find the light of day... Oh, not tomorrow... But it will find find the light of day...

And as fir the "peace at any price brigade" commnet, T??? Bite me!!!

You never4 met a war not worth fighting... You are a war monger... You repeatedly proved that with all yer beating of the war drum in the mad-dash-to-Iraq... Lots of us tried to tell you how it was going to tunr out but you, like yer hero, wanted yer war... You even delighted in the "Shock and Awe"... I'm sure you taped and played opver and over the picture of bombs blowing up... Oh, how exciting a time it must have been in yer life... But then the things that many of us predicted started to happen and you disappeared???

One thing for sure is that your hero's plans for Iraq have, as many of us tried to tell you, have turned to sh*t...

Now to wit: Here you are back here defnding the use of DU's as if for some reason that you can win this argument, which you probaly wion't, that it will be like some kind of psycological "rubber match" and will make you whole again... Yeah, it will wipe out yer history here in Mudville as a war-monger who backed a man who chose a war to get re-elected... Tell ya what, pal, you can wrap yerself in a million flags but it won't hide the blood stains that cover yer body and yer soul...

Next time try a little diplomacy and patience before the shock and awe so you won't end up trying to justify yer own wrong thinking and yer own terribly un-human values by arguing over the merits or lack thereof of munitions...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:36 PM

BS: depleted uranium started 10 Mar 06 - 08:07 PM, dwindled into oblivion with last post 17 Mar 06 - 12:29 AM, after 72 posts presenting a rather thorough recitiation of all the arguments likely to be presented here.

(Link is to first 50 posts)

John

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:41 PM

If the stuff's so good for ya, they'd make jewellery from it. They don't. That say somethin'?

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don'
From: artbrooks
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 08:48 PM

Actually, Dr. Durkovitch (I think his name was) was a part-time Nuclear Medicine doc at VAMC Wilmington who was laid off when they closed the nuclear medicine department there (that was shortly after my job at the VAMC Erie, PA was eliminated). If he found cancer in Gulf War I veterans, he omitted that from his letter to Bill Clinton. And, by the way, the Veterans Administration hasn't existed since 1997.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:00 PM

Problem is that after this doctor was fired because the VA said they didn't need anyone in his position, the VA hired not one, but two, doctors to take his place...

He did speak of his research on Pacifica radio about 3 yeras ago...

There is another thread that I started back then that has alot more info in it about DU's and his research... I have since lost my notes on the research but if anyone can find the htread there's a lot of stuff there...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:23 PM

Peace:

I'm not saying the stuff's good for ya, but they DO make jewelry from moose nuggets, and I'm not lookin' to inhale none of that, neither!

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:30 PM

Well, that solves the problem. Drop mosse nuggets on people instead of bombs. Hey, this could be the start of something lucrative. And who all's got lots of moose and lotsa moose nuggets? Yep. Us'ns, north of the 49th. Gonna start stockin' up real soon.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:35 PM

Moose Nuggets.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:38 PM

Looks just like my driveway, 'cept for that there grass...

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 09:49 PM

Peaceful use for spent MN.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: NH Dave
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 12:16 AM

Diana, most tank battles are carried out in open areas well away from the average non-combatant. Tankers don't like to have their mobility taken away from them by streets and buildings. Since depleted Uranium is mostly used in tank shells, or shells fired from tanks, the average civilian can avoid primary ingestion by staying away from areas where tanks are maarshalling to fight, or where fighting has taken place.

After the fact there is bound to be some depleted Uranium dust blowing around over the landscape, but its percentage as compared with normal sand, is so low as not to be a problem for civilians in the cities. Bedouin, being natural desert dwellers will have more of a risk of exposure, so the prevention would be one of education of these people to avoid areas where heavy armored fire fights have occured. How effective this could be is anybody's guess, but being proud people keeping to their own guidance, they probably wouldn't heed the warning from a city dweller, of a hazard that they can not see, smell, or taste.

Dave

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:00 AM

Of course, I do believe that Saddam had many of his tanks dug in to 'defensive positions' to try and shelter them from the 'shock and awe' - I am no longer going to grace that term with Capitals!!! - and that at least some of them - from the 'live action war' TV I saw, were dug in near residential areas - outside of cities... so that they fulfilled the role of 'fixed artillery' or even in a desperate defensive move, 'anti-tank' munitions...

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Grab
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 07:03 AM

If the standard wisdom is that generals are always preparing to refight the last battle, how much more true is it of Mudcat posters...? ;-)

Peace, what it says to me is that DU doesn't look pretty. Plenty of other metals (even safe, non-toxic ones) aren't used for jewellery either.

Mo, when you start a new thread, you're presented with some text that says, "Before starting a new thread, please use the search box below to see if we already have the information in our Digital Tradition database or the Mudcat Forum. If a thread already exists on your topic, it's usually best to add to the existing discussion, instead of starting a new thread on the same topic." You didn't. Nuff said.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 08:05 AM

Well, the argument that there is less DU in a dust storm than sand is flawed... If I were to say that there is less anthrax in a dust storm than sand it wouldn't make anyone feel any safer becuase while the sand might be an irritant it is rather benign as compared to either antrax or DU...

And thanks, artbroooks, for finding the letter from the VA physican who was fired for digging too deep in the effects of DU's on our vets... Fir those of you who didn't bother to read it and yet still feel the motivation to continue arguing the safety of DU's, I'd suggest a quick read of the letter...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: GUEST,alberta
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:52 AM

for an interesting an informative account of the DU poisoning of a US Gulf War vet James Marshall go to the Indymedia UK website and scroll down.
Alberta

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: DougR
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 02:51 PM

Guest MO: I suspect that Osama bin Laden is searching for a safe place to stay about now. Particularly since his buddy in Iraq got blowed away. You looking for a roommate? Got an extra bedroom for rent? You both seem to share a philosophy of Peace on Earth and should get along famously.

By the way, I was not aware that neuclear arms are being used in Iraq. Regular arms leave depleated uranium?

DougR

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:25 PM

"Peace, what it says to me is that DU doesn't look pretty. Plenty of other metals (even safe, non-toxic ones) aren't used for jewellery either."

OK, then, how's about make frying pans with it, huh?

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: GUEST,Mo
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 03:35 PM

Surely it was the Bush family that had links with the Osama family?

And wasn't it his daddy and his boss Ronnie Reagan that armed those Mujahadeen who evolved into Osama pals.

Oh and I do believe it was one of Bush's top pals who went to the Afghan border to encourage Jihad.

A messy case of Blowback!

Roberta

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 06:45 PM

... which is what happens when you stick your dick into places you shouldn't go...

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:44 PM

then watch as your guys and their equipment gets ripped to bits because you have failed to adequately protect them next time you actually need them

Our guys and equipment have been getting ripped to bits. But it's not because we haven't been using depleted uranium. It's because our government wasn't willing to provide our men and women in uniform with protective armor for their vehicles.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:47 PM

The only protection is not to be there when the shell strikes, bomb drops, bullet hits.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:50 PM

Protective armor would have saved a lot of lives and limbs, Peace. There is no doubt about that. Of course, not putting them in harms way would have saved even more.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: Peace
Date: 10 Jun 06 - 11:52 PM

We agree completely.

Subject: RE: Depleted Uranium ..if the expolsive don't...
From: GUEST,Rufus
Date: 11 Jun 06 - 09:30 PM

Author: Bobert (---.dialsprint.net)
Date:   06-05-03 20:10

Don't worry nuthin 'bout dem cats, Dog. Most of 'em ain't worth a good chase. They get their noses up in the air 'bout folks funnin'. Yeah you want to talks about the origins os Scotish folk music fir hours upon end, then that's the joint fir ya. When I first started going over there I'd mess with em' and they'd get all upset and jump up an' down but these days they they ignore me like I'm Casper, 'er something. But I still drop by and mess with 'em jus' fir fun.

Now, don't gey me wrong. Some is purdy cool, ahhh,, like Amos, Little Hawk, Bee-Dubya, Kendall, Jerry Rassmussen, Nicole, CarolC and JtS, but most of collectively add up to a big ol, ahhhh, snore! Except the big jerks like Teribus, troll and DougR, who think that George Junior is God....

Enough, let me go on over there, light a stink bomb and skeee-adddle.