Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and now Fallujah .....

[another saigon]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26112.htm

By Robert Koehler

August 09, 2010 "Huffington Post" -- Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah . . .

And so it turns out that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, though not until we arrived and started using them.

Along with whatever else we did to Fallujah -- exacted collective punishment on a defiant city (a war crime) in November 2004, killed thousands of civilians, shattered the infrastructure (nearly six years later, the sewage system hasn't been repaired and waste flows in the streets) -- we also, apparently, nuked the city, leaving a legacy of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality and genetic abnormality.

Freedom isn't free. Remember when that was the go-to phrase of the citizen war zealots among us, their all-purpose rebuttal when those of us appalled by this insane war cited civilian casualty stats? Discussion over. Thought stops here.

This is the power of language. Call it "war" and along come glory, duty, courage, sacrifice: the best of humanity writ large. The word is impenetrable; it sets the heart in motion; God makes an appearance, blesses the troops, blesses the weapons. Operation Iraqi Freedom: They'll greet us with open arms.

At what point do we learn our lesson, that "war" is a moral cesspool of horrific consequences, especially, and most troublingly, unintended ones?

Thus last November, a group of British and Iraqi doctors petitioned the U.N. to investigate the alarming rise in birth defects at Fallujah's hospitals. "Young women in Fallujah," they wrote, ". . . are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukemias."

The official U.S. response was that the doctors' letter was anecdotal: There have been no studies to verify that anything is truly amiss in Fallujah, beyond the devastation caused by U.S. troops and bombs. Now that has changed.

[aquart]

1. Nuked it how?

[FBaggins]

2. Just another BS "depleted uranium is a WMD" thread.

File it along with chemtrails and similar cr@p.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

5. Just another fucked up war that shouldn't have started.

[FBaggins]

7. Well YEAH... but that has nothing to do with depleted uranium.

n/t

[Donnachaidh]

40. yeah, that DU is just so much bullshit, right?

:sarcasm:


http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Silent-Genocide25mar04.htm

[Rage for Order]

21. It's a veritable holocaust, don't you know?

Not to minimize the suffering of the people of Fallujah, but this type of hyperbole is counterproductive. To include Fallujah in the same sentence as Nagasaki and Hiroshima, implying they are equal in some way, is ridiculous in the extreme.

[Donnachaidh]

41. so tell me, is there a scale of misery we can refer to somewhere?

You know, the one that tells us that it's OKAY to inflict *thismuch* misery and future suffering on generations before it gets classified as heinous as the *biggies* like Nagasaki?

Seriously, it would help those of us who give a shit to know what the scale is. :sarcasm:

[kestrel91316]

3. Was I asleep when we dropped a thermonuclear device on Fallujah??

[Junkdrawer]

4. K&R

[JohnyCanuck]

6. Latest documents advocating the ban of depleted uranium

To all those and their associates who remain in denial about the ill-effects of DU in order to keep it as a deadly nuclear tool in the DOD arsenal, let me submit for their and everyone else’s edification some recent documents gathered from reliable government and non-government sources. I have relied on these impeccable sources partially to provide totally independent information for study.

snip

Why is it a problem?

The DU oxide dust produced when DU munitions burn has no natural or historical analogue. This toxic and radioactive dust is composed of two oxides: one insoluble, “the other sparingly soluble. The distribution of particle sizes includes sub-micron particles that are readily inhaled into and retained by the lungs. From the lungs uranium compounds are deposited in the lymph nodes, bones, brain and testes. Hard targets hit by DU penetrators are surrounded by this dust and surveys suggest that it can travel many kilometres when re-suspended, as is likely in arid climates. The dust can then be inhaled or ingested by civilians and the military alike.

snip

Hazards of uranium weapons: Radioactivity

The chief radiological hazard from uranium 238 is alpha radiation. When inhaled or ingested, alpha radiation is the most damaging form of ionising radiation. However, as U238 decays into its daughter products thorium and protactinium, both beta and gamma radiation are released, increasing the radiation burden further. Therefore DU particles must be considered as a dynamic mixture of radioactive isotopes.

Inside the body alpha radiation is incredibly disruptive. The heavy, highly charged particles leave a trail of ionised free radicals in their wake, disrupting finely tuned cellular processes. In one day, one microgram, (one millionth of a gram), of pure DU can release 1000 alpha particles. Each particle is charged with more than four million electron volts of energy; this goes directly into whichever organ or tissue it is lodged in. It only requires 6 to 10 electron volts to break a DNA strand in a cell and these emissions cover a sphere with a radius of 6 cells.

snip

US Armed Forces Radiobiology Institute

Between 2000 and 2003, Dr Alexandra Miller of AFFRI was at the forefront of US Government sponsored research into DU’s chemical toxicity and radioactivity. Through a series of peer-reviewed papers, Dr Miller and her colleagues demonstrated for the first time that internalised DU oxides could result in “a significant enhancement of urinary mutagenicity,” that they can transform human cells into cells capable of producing cancerous tumours in mice with suppressed immune systems and that DU was capable of inducing DNA damage in the absence of significant radioactive decay, i.e. through its chemical toxicity alone. In one study, 76% of mice implanted with DU pellets developed leukaemia.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6144.shtml
(embedded links in original)

[Junkdrawer]

9. But the military really, REALLY wants it....

And they sure as hell don't want to be responsible for the provable harm it causes.

Therefore, any study that finds damages is discredited. Q.E.D.

[another saigon]

12. thank you

It is sickening to disregard the evidence and defend the MIC like so many here do. Does one have to be a chemist to realize all of the chemical shit they pour on us and everyone else around the globe can kill us?

Sheesh.

:eyes:

[apocalypsehow]

8. We dropped an atomic bomb on Fallujah?

:shrug:

UnRec for highly misleading OP title. :thumbsdown:

[Bobbieo]

10. Will we believe in DU (Depleted Uraniun) if our troops bring birth defects home?

[apocalypsehow]

11. Non sequitur. Please try again. n/t.

[Bobbieo]

13. Have you ever heard or read what uranium mining has done to the Navajos?

[Desertrose]

14. Yeah, good ol John McCain knows about that....

....considering he helped relocate them to where all the waste & tailings were.

Bastard.


If there are so many birth defects and cancers & leukemia in Fallujah, I'd say that's pretty good proof that "someone" was using something along the lines of DU. Very sad.

[apocalypsehow]

15. Irrelevant to the issue of the misleading OP title - another non sequitur. Please try again. Thanks.

:thumbsup:

[Bobbieo]

20. I agree the title of the post is misleading but I'm not a debater

which apparently you are and apparently love every moment of it.

It is an excellent topic and maybe our poster will try again under a different title.

Uranium in any form is a bad thing when it is mishandled and when is it not mishandled by sloppy, careless, irresponsible, greedy people. Kinda like oil and BP.

[apocalypsehow]

22. Thank you for conceding my irrefutable point.

:thumbsup:

[FBaggins]

16. Do you know what "depleted" means?

...

[apocalypsehow]

17. Irrelevant to the issue of the misleading OP title - another non sequitur. Please try again. Thanks

:thumbsup:

[FBaggins]

18. Did you read what you replied to?

[apocalypsehow]

19. Another irrelevant diversion from the issue under discussion. Please try again. Thanks. n/t.

[FBaggins]

23. How would you know if you didn't read it?

The poster tried to draw a connection between health issues among people who lived and worked near tens of thousand of tons of raw uranium and people in iraq who are exposed to tiny amounts of depleted uranium.

Pointing out his error is in no way a "diversion". If trying to point out that his post was irrelevant is a "diversion"... then all of your posts on the thread are as well.

Do try to keep up.

[apocalypsehow]

24. And yet another attempt to turn the discussion away from the matter at hand, paired with a personal

attack. Please try again.

[FBaggins]

26. Do try to pay attention to which posts reply to you.

And apply a little reading comprehension to what you see.

Once again... it wasn't a reply to you... it was correcting the poster's incorrect information. That is very much "on topic". YOU attempted to correct him (without adding to the facts) and get snippy when anyone else fails to play by your rules?

Laughable.

[apocalypsehow]

27. Physician, heal thyself: it was a reply to moi, and it was irrelevant to the reply I made to the OP.

"a little reading comprehension," indeed.... Please try again.

By-the-bye, you're doubling the number of personal attacks in this reply from the last one just makes me laugh harder: it tells me I've got the better end of the discussion. But by all means, carry on.

[FBaggins]

29. Post #16 replies to post #13.

Can I make it any simpler for you? Do you think that DU let's people change the posting order later just to make you look bad?

You're making yourself look like a fool... but by all means stick your fingers in your ears and yell "nah nah nah I'm not listening... I win and you lose!!!!"

Free entertainment.

[apocalypsehow]

30. That is what you're not grasping: this was not a reply about "depleted uranium," it was a reply

to the person you replied to regarding the misleading OP title. Yet you continue to persist in this belief that somehow that has anything to do with "depleted uranium," and the person who replied to me. Please try again.

By-the-bye, tripling the number of personal attacks in a subsequent reply assures me that a goat has been got - and it's not mine.

Like you said, free entertainment...

[FBaggins]

31. You have an amazing knack for self-deception

Don't expect anyone else to fall for it.

So what you're saying is that as soon as you reply to someone... anyone else who replies to you becomes your territory and anyone who replies to THEM must also fit your standards for what can and can't be discussed? Does that rule apply to the post that you replied to? I'm sure that he disagrees with you. Do you follow your own rule?

Yet you continue to persist in this belief that somehow that has anything to do with "depleted uranium,"

The OP is very much about depleted uranium. Just about everyone else could tell that from the very beginning (see post #2), but even you should have been able to grasp it if you read the article that the OP is excerpted from, The fact that you don't "get it" by no means restricts the rest of the conversation.

[apocalypsehow]

32. Again, take a gander in that mirror. My reply was about the misleading OP title. You waded in with

this argument about depleted uranium. I corrected you on what my reply was about, and you got pissy about it. Which is uniquely a problem of your own making. All the rest of that noise is just more pretty little Strawmen you're having fun batting down.

But by all means, proceed.

[FBaggins]

33. Sorry to burst your bubble... but it isn't all about you.

My reply was about the misleading OP title.

So? I didn't reply to you. When does your misunderstanding become the new standard for the thread topic? I corrected the misleading part of the OP in the second post on the thread. That you came along an hour or more later and take a hyper-literal approach to something that was clarified in multiple posts that you either didn't read or didn't understand - doesn't become my problem.

You waded in with this argument about depleted uranium

Because that's what the thread is about. Sorry if you couldn't see past the hyperbole and assumed that anyone would try to sell that there was an actual atomic bomb used... but pretty much everyone else gets it.

[apocalypsehow]

34. I'm well aware of all of that: why, if you don't mind me asking, are you so upset about the fact

that I informed you of what my reply to the OP was about, and why your reply to the poster above was irrelevant to it? :shrug: I don't get your anger at me over the topic I initiated in this subthread.

That is truly a case of arguing for the sake of arguing. Either that, or we are talking past/misunderstanding each other in some fundamental way.

But, whatever floats your boat.

FWIW, I agree with you about the depleted uranium part, but it's not what I arguing with the poster about.

[FBaggins]

35. Lol

I'm well aware of all of that

If you post that it's daytime in NY and I correct you that it's nightime... how much traction do you expect to get from "I'm well aware of that" ??? You said that my post was a diversion... when it was directly related to what the person I replied to was trying to get at (as you can see from his/her later reply). You said that I replied to you when I didn't. You said that the thread wasn't about DU when it clearly is.

if you don't mind me asking, are you so upset about the fact that I informed you of what my reply to the OP was about

I'm not upset at all. I'm lmao watching you spin. You didn't "inform me of what your reply was about"... you told me that my posts were off topic and an intentional diversion... when they neither replied to you nor were off topic. The content of your post wasn't relevant to my correction of the poster (who was, btw very much in tune with the OP's point. The OP was wrong... as was the poster I replied to... but it was your attempt to shift the subject from claimed uranium exposure issues to insisting that nobody could talk about anything until they admitted that no nuclear bomb had actually been dropped (when nobody claimed that one had).

I don't get your anger at me over the topic I initiated in this subthread.

You replied to the OP with one point of view (that the OP was actually talking about nuclear bombs rather than other claimed WMD) and Bobbieo replied maintaining the perspective of the OP that uranium exposure was causing mass casualties as a de-facto WMD (IOW, (s)he was more on topic than you were and it was your post that was the diversion). I corrected Bobbie (as I had the OP)... in context with the claims of the OP.

but it's not what I arguing with the poster about.

That's fine... and I'm allowed to argue with the poster on errors that (s)he makes. I'm not constrained to follow what you (mistakenly) insist the conversation is really about. You really aren't in a position to dictate what anyone else can say to that poster any more than the person who began the thread can decide whether or not you're allowed to make your own point.

[apocalypsehow]

37. "Lol," indeed...

"If you post that it's daytime in NY and I correct you that it's nightime... how much traction do you expect to get from "I'm well aware of that" ???"

Another non sequitur: no one did any such thing.

"You said that my post was a diversion"

It was, having nothing to do with my (correct) assertion that the OP title was misleading - which, again, since you apparently didn't catch it, was what my reply to the OP was about.

"You said that I replied to you when I didn't"

I said no such thing.

"You said that the thread wasn't about DU when it clearly is"

I said no such thing.

"I'm not upset at all. I'm lmao watching you spin"

Oh yes you are: that's why you've invested so much time, invective, and base distortions of what I posted this fine evening.

"The content of your post wasn't relevant to my correction of the poster (who was, btw very much in tune with the OP's point. The OP was wrong... as was the poster I replied to... but it was your attempt to shift the subject from claimed uranium exposure issues to insisting that nobody could talk about anything until they admitted that no nuclear bomb had actually been dropped (when nobody claimed that one had)"

Obfuscation: I merely informed you that my reply to the OP and subsequent replies in the sub-thread had nothing to do with the topic you were attempting to interject into it. You got pissy, and remain so.

"You didn't "inform me of what your reply was about"... you told me that my posts were off topic and an intentional diversion."

They were: the discussion at hand had nothing to do with your irrelevant babbling about "DU," it had to do with the misleading OP title.

"You replied to the OP with one point of view (that the OP was actually talking about nuclear bombs rather than other claimed WMD) and Bobbieo replied maintaining the perspective of the OP that uranium exposure was causing mass casualties as a de-facto WMD (IOW, (s)he was more on topic than you were and it was your post that was the diversion). I corrected Bobbie (as I had the OP)... in context with the claims of the OP."

Nonsense: the OP implied that we dropped an atomic bomb on Fallujah, just like we did at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. I stated that was misleading, and it is. We begin to see now why you waded in with all this irrelevant piffle: you were itching for a fight on grounds that you couldn't really contest.

"That's fine... and I'm allowed to argue with the poster on errors that (s)he makes. I'm not constrained to follow what you (mistakenly) insist the conversation is really about. You really aren't in a position to dictate what anyone else can say to that poster any more than the person who began the thread can decide whether or not you're allowed to make your own point"

Does all that flying straw from all those Strawmen you ever invest so much time in erecting and then beat down ever get itchy? :shrug: I'd think so.

Please try again.

[apocalypsehow]

39. "Lol," indeed II...

Heh, self-contradiction in the same reply seems to be a recurring problem with you:

"I'm not upset at all"

Very next issue addressed is your inchoate rage over the matter of what my original reply was about: I don't get your anger at me over the topic I initiated in this sub-thread.

You reel off "You replied to the OP with one point of view (that the OP was actually talking about nuclear bombs rather than other claimed WMD) and....(blah, blah, blah, blah, further irrelevancies blah)"

which directly contradicts the previous sentence.

What it comes down to, of course, is that you were simply spoiling for a fight. Which is fine: DU is about debate. But it helps if you're right in assertions when you initiate such a flame war brawl. You haven't here, as shown.

As you said, it's been fun.

[FBaggins]

36. Been fun.

Have a good evening. :)

[apocalypsehow]

38. Your concession is duly noted.

:thumbsup:

[Bobbieo]

25. Yeah, but I don't believe it when it comes to uranium.

[FBaggins]

28. That's your problem, sorry.

There's hard scientific reality involved. The fact that the word scares you doesn't change reality.

You can't rationally compare exposure to massive amounts of far more active material to tiny amounts of material that has had the most active components removed.

So what is it that you don't believe? You think that with all the massive stores of depleted uranium laying around they decided to use something that's more active (but less usable as a penetrator)? Or that they would spend all the time and money to enrich uranium for reactors and nuclear weapons and then decide to put the stuff in bullets when DU is almost free?

[ensho]

42. yes we are guilty

nt