Iraqis Blame US Depleted Uranium for Surge in Cancer
CAIRO — Iraq’s environment minister blamed Monday the use of depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces during the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe for the current surge in cancer cases across the country.
As a result of “at least 350 sites in Iraq being contaminated during bombing” with depleted uranium (DU) weapons, Nermin Othman said, the nation is facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7,000 to 8,000 new ones registered each year.
Speaking at a ministerial meeting of the Arab League, she also complained that many chemical plants and oil facilities had been destroyed during the two military campaigns since the 1990s, but the ecological consequences remain unclear.
“Our ministry is fledgling, and we need international support; notably, we need laboratories to better monitor air and water contamination,” she said.
The first major UN research on the consequences of the use of DU on the battlefield was conducted in 2003 in the wake of NATO operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro. The UN Environment Program (UNEP) said in its report after the research that DU poses little threat if spent munitions are cleared from the ground.
“Health risks primarily depend on the awareness of people coming into contact with DU,” UNEP writes in its 2004 brochure “Depleted Uranium Awareness.”
No major clean-up or public awareness campaigns have been reported in Iraq.
© 2007 RIA Novosti
Oxidized DU = Weapon of Mass Distruction.
The wind has moved this stuff all over, how can it be cleaned up now?
but the ecological consequences remain unclear-finally somebody worries about the environment, but what about the health risk? - Screw the health risk, they are worried about DU’s effect on the environment.
Does Murdock own NOVOSTI also?
Everything is justifiable once war begins.
Sure people will get cancer, but we need depleted uranium to win.
Sure kids will die, but we need cluster bombs to win.
Sure civilians will die, but people must die in order for us to win.
Sure we torture people, but we need intelligence in order to win.
Sure we lock up the wrong people, but we need to lock lots of people up in order to win.
Sure we are lying to citizens, but we need to destroy democracy in order to win.
This is why we need to avoid war in the first place.
Oh come on people depleted uranium is plenty safe! It has been proven that radiation happens to be good for you like smoking or eating small lead chips! Here is a link to a video that shows that depleted uranium is both good for you and cures cancer!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yGUIUQp3LsQ&mode=related&search=
DU will cause large scale genetic mutations.
The human race is about to evolve!
DU is recycled nuclear waste, its the Nuclear Energies way to use the waste. THis is such a crime. The biggest of our nations history. ITs so Nazi like. And dont forget about Grandpa Prescott Bush, he brought those Nazis to America through his financial banking network. Those ties can’t be forgotten. What if we are under Nazi infiltration? What then?
evelyn smith, where are you?
DU = Dirty Nuke. It is why the U.S. is so quick to be worried about “dirty nukes”.
Barn Owl, right-o. all that nonsense we accuse other nations of doing (terrorism, wmd’s, human rights’ violations, etc., etc. ad nauseam) is a massive case of projection. i mean, some of that stuff we accused saddam of doing (putting bio agents in unmanned aerial drones, e.g.) was clearly stuff that only the good ole UassofA could think of, cuz we are doing it ourselves.
The crimes we’ve committed in Iraq are generational in thier devastation. This has been a one-sided nuclear war since the 1990s.
Barn Owl July 24th, 2007 2:54 pm
They aren’t worried about anything. Who do you think did 9-11? They intend to kill as many people as possible and they at some point will use a nuke someplace and blame that on Iran. Remember how Saddam was responsible for 9-11? Are you grasping the idea that the USA created Hitler, the Nazi party, communism and has been killing people since the we arrived in the US and before that too. The wealthy are killing off redundant useless eaters and it is GLOBAL.
Jaded Prole July 24th, 2007 3:06 pm
Have a look at the following site.
http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/index.html
Have a read and you will see that the poisoning is thorough, global and beyond repair!
This film clip is the ultimate proof that DU is harmless!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GMvlV6H-FQ
Just wait till all those soldiers and “contractors” come bee-bopping back home and bring DU with them in their lungs, semen, and saliva–it’ll make aids look like the common cold.
Hi Jed, I was at the gun shop having our twelve gage pumps fitted with eight round loaading tubes and checking out a Browning 243 semi-auto hunting rifle. I’m looking for some more WW2 garands, preferably match rifles that have never been fired. Until just recently, I never__ ever__ thought I’d have any desire to even think this way.
DEPLETED URANIUM!! DU is not very dangerous at all in a solid form, if it is burned, well,___ then it becomes very deadly.
My my, have the Iraqi’s finally awakended to the fact, that there is a little problem? They are worried about a few million cancer cases? That shouldn’t be their biggest worry. The big disaster for them__ and for ANY person who has been to Iraq during the past few years, is they are all contaminated with DU and will die from radiation poisoning. They may live another twenty to thirty years, they may live a lot less than five, but they are all dead men walking. The wemon and children also of course.
The kids will die off sooner, DU attacks the body’s immune systems and children’s immune systems are not as well developed as an adult.
As some here have mentioned, DU also alters the body’s DNA, a single microscopic speck of DU in a lung will “insure” cancer of the lung. The radiation will also never stop destroying near-by cells, for it will be deadly for at least four million years.
The radiation contamination will also invade the liver, kidneys, glands and it does get into male sperm; the result is deformed babies. Not little deformities, horrible degormities. Babies are born with missing eyes or mouths, damaged brains and missing arms and legs, fused fingers and missing sex organs. It’s not pretty, it’s horror brought on by the evil of man.
It isn’t just Iraq, at least thirty countries are now using the stuff, it’s everyplace on the planet. The shells for tanks are ten pounds of solid DU, the 30MM shells used in Gatling guns have 3.5 pounds of DU, that is impressive when we consider those guns can fire a few thousand rounds a minute. When a shell with DU is fired and hits a target, the DU burns and the result is a smoke and dust of deadly uranium isotopes that can kill any living thing.
If inhaled, one single speck will eventually kill you and we have used thousands of tons of DU weaponry in the Mid-East. We have used thousands of tons at gunnery ranges in the united States, the dust is picked up by winds and it is blown up into the upper atmosphere. it comes back to roost when it rains, it’s polluting our oceans, our lands and our city streets and homes. The deadly dust is there, waiting for any life to inhale one microscoic speck.
There is a lot more.___ None of of the more is good.
It is a war crime, just like Saddam using gas on the Kurds. The US leadership should all be hanged too.
Happy Days July 24th, 2007 4:09 pm
You sir need to stop your lies and propaganda! Only the terrorists commit war crimes! The USA loves all people and NEVER would hurt a fly! DU is better for you than tofu !
If that UN report is correct, I guess the massive spike in cancer rates is just some fluke.
Funny. That fluke runs back to the early 90s, when the cancer rate went through the roof. It also corresponds with the dates of Desert Storm. Probably just a big coincidence, and the almost perfect correlation between US military action with depleted uranium and a 2,000% increase in the cancer rate for Iraqi babies is just an extraordinary statistical fluke.
BTW, Robert Fisk has a huge carousel of photos he took of cancer babies in the Baghdad hospital. It certainly appears that grotesque cancer in babies is unnatural in the pictures, but maybe that’s just journalistic propoganda.
Nuclear power plants can only hold so much waste - then they must take a Bomb Movement.
It’s a gift from Republican President DDE called Atoms for Peace. Or is it for other peoples deformed babies? It’s the worst sort of War Crime…
whatfools July 24th, 2007 4:22 pm
What sort of FUD is that? Nuke plants are harmless and so is the waste. The waste is simply not able to be used! This video is more proof that nuclear plants are safe, good for the community, good for the environment and improve our health!!
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tmi/images/TMIStreamingWeb.mov
It loads a little slowly and is quicktime
Irony is bliss “Happy Days”, DU is the last word for weapons of mass destruction. Isn’t that why we started the war?___ Maybe not.
Shadow,__ thank you for sharing the photos, they pretty much tell the results of DU in male sperm. Over two thirds of our first Gulf War vets, are permenantly disabled from radiation poisoning. Our government calls it the Gulf War Syndrome. They are scared to death to admit the truth__ or to even tell a truth.
DEPLETED??? That is a word to have one believe DU is safe. It is depleted where it is not suitable for fuel in a nuclear reactor. It is pure uranium 238 and in powdered form, DU is deadly for all life.
Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has any appreciable ammount of water. Water is the essence of life. We must protect our waters, our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans from pollution. Time is running out and unless all of humanity bands together and stops the madness, there will be no home for our future generations. It could end much sooner than most would wish to believe.
Man made pollution from industrial waste, chemicals, oil, burning fossil fuel, waste from atomic power plants, and of course the totally insane use of DU is the primary reason our oceans are in danger. For one thing, because of those ever on going pollutions, our breathing oxygen is in jeapordy.
FLOATING near the surface of our oceans, is a tiny plant life, named phytoplankton. Trillions upon trillions of the plants produce 60% of the oxygen for Earth. Not many years ago, they produced 70%. They are dying off___ and no one know exactly why. There may be many reasons, but there is no question, that man made pollution is a prime suspect for the dramatic and ongoing reduction of tiny plants__ which are the foundation for all life.
DU isotopes are microscopic, they are so tiny that there is not a gas mask filter made that will stop them from entering a lung. Depleted uranium isotopes, will kill any living thing.
Dust FLOATS on water.
This is the subject matter of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s new show, Making a Killing. If you get a chance, catch the show, through Sept 30th.
I tried to load that film Shadow, but after thirty minutes my computer went off line. I called our carrier and got a man in India. He could tell by my real name and the sound of my voice that I’m a male also.
He told me to just play with my mouse every thirty minutes.__ What!!__ Every thirty minutes? __ I’m 70 years old. No wonder those people have a problem with over population.
Notice how the UN report blames the Iraqis for not cleaning it up properly. That’s really quite amazing if you think about it. This would be the equivalent of the anthrax-mailing terrorist saying the proper mail handling procedures were not used and the victims are at fault. Or, Cheney’s shooting of Harry Whittington in the face was Whittington’s fault as he did not “declare himself.”
Absolute macaca.
Evelyn Smith July 24th, 2007 4:49 pm
Evelyn,
I would agree with you and most people here if everything going on was a result of idiocy, mistakes, over site, accident or other non planned reasons. The bottom line is that the governments are all simply engaging in a massive population reduction! While we object to all of this for moral, health and religious reasons it does not recognize the fact that most of us are in total denial of the honest truth.
Shrub is not an idiot by the way and there is no doubt that he knows the score and he is implementing the plan that Prescott started with Hitler. In the USA we get injected with mercury and this material is also found in contact lens solution and many other things. All over they erect cell phone towers and I’ll bet they can use them to boil or pull the mercury through the brain!
They told us all the stories like “How to Cook Man” or “Omega Man” or “Soylent Green” or “1984″ or “Revelations” or “The Matrix” and now we have reached the point of End Game and they do it for real! The DU is for population control! This is why I doubt most of us are going to move on. Others here want to be so optimistic but there is no way to clean up all of these problems!
Evelyn Smith July 24th, 2007 5:01 pm
Go back to the link and RIGHT click it and choose SAVE TARGET AS and download it to your PC (watch you have a mac LOL).
Why clean it up if it’s perfectly safe?
It would be impossible to clean it up. We can clean up burned out tanks and other vehicles. We can pick up any that has not totally burned up. How would one clean up trillions of specks of microscopic dust scattered over an entire country? Impossible.
The radiation readings in Baghdad alone, are 2,000 times above the normal background readings. DU was heavily used in Afganistan also. We don’t get the real news, the truths, the numbers of disabled vets who are slowly dying. The atomc power plants give DU away to weapons manufactures so they don’t have to pay to store it for four billion year. It is billions by the way, that is the half life. So DU can kill for the next eight billion years. ___ we may not have to worry about it by that time.
I have been complaining about DU ever since we began the first Gulf War. Nobody in Congress or anywhere else seemed to care about the problems with it. Only reluctantly did the US VA finally admit to a “Gulf War Syndrome”. Nothing but DU poisoning. We have destroyed the cradle of civilization with our dirty armaments, the US Army, the US Marines, the Iraqi people and probably everyone who lives wherever the wind blows out of the region. All of our leaders must now be tried for crimes against humanity at the Hague.
I’m glad that I am almost 70 years old, but my grandchildren will have to pay for this with increased cancers and other problems.
Yep Shadow, I understand either Hunt or Gordon Liddy were in that photo also. One of those men were questioned by police near the book depository after the shooting, the man was dressed like a drifter. That photo and the negative is what the Watergate burglers were looking for. After JFK was murdered, (Kennedy was going to pull out of S.E. Asia) Johnson was the prez, he put Bush Sr. in charge of the CIA and The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident was on the table. Conspiracy theory? Well,__ pictures seldom lie.
I fear we are slowly drifting off of the primary subject here, even though the comments are related.
There are many in power who are denying DU is a health hazard, It is profitable to use DU for weapons. We must all speak and write to our congress people on the subject and argue our concerns with the obvious facts. We must do all possible to end the use of DU for anything.
DU is an atomic waste of nuclear power plants and humanity was assured, that ALL atomic wastes would be safely stored__forever if necessary. It will be necessary to store them forever and every year thousands of tons of DU and even deadlier poisons are manufactured by using atomic power for our energy needs, instead of developing clean energy. It is insanity,___ fostered by greed and stupidity.
Aren’t we proud? Poisoning seems to be a National characteristic. We should MAKE it better, people.
Evelyn Smith July 24th, 2007 6:16 pm
So you don’t believe that these people are simply intent on culling population and sterilizing undesirable races?
Another war crime for the USA who WILLFULLY leave atomic waste in counrties they invade. The USA one of the only country to refuse to sign the Ottawa land mine ban. The USA who bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki . Who maintain 60 000 atomic warheads as the biggest blackmail in History. The USA who destroyed the Vietnamese countryside with bombs and Agent Orange.
The USA who tried genocide on Acadians, Cherokees and all other ” Indians”.Who kept in servitude Cubans, Philippinos, and most South Americans.
As long as the USA continues its policies of greed and domination ,the world wil starve ,torture will continue and there will be war without end with Newspeak reporting it (george Orwell).
That prophecy (”1984″) has been realised.!!!
How many of the offspring of these “Leaders” are serving the barbaric terroristic Israeli’s in the DU enviornmemt in Iraq??????
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yGUIUQp3LsQ&mode=related&search=
They are not going to stop shooting DU! You can forget that!! It is going to get worse not better. People they sacrificed nearly 4000 Americans on 9-11 and this is going to end badly!
Shadow, I don’t know, if that is their plan they sure screwed up, because they are killing everything on the planet,___ including their families and themselves.
Examples: We used to have on average, 80 specie of birds in our back yard during the course of a year. this year, we have counted 11 and most were only one or two birds, not flocks. We have seen only five humming birds this year, instead of thirty or more at a time. NO bees of ANY specie, we used to have five different specie of bees here. There are very few butterflies and few of any type of insect.
Our weather has been normal here, but many of the trees and plants are sick. Our vegatable garden is a bummer, where we would expect to have a dozen squash on a plant, we get one or none and the tomatoes plants are like always, except very few tomatoes. NO BEES and very few other pollinating bugs or birds.
The clues of a serious problem are clearly obvious. I personally blame it on the insane use of DU; we have spread thousands of TONS of microscopc specks of it around the globe and the accumulation of that deadly poison over the past few years has finally caught up with Mother Nature.
Is there now a much larger ammount of DU in the atmosphere?__ Absolutely.__ I don’t know how much more, or if DU is killing the birds and the bees. Nothing else has changed that I’m aware of, not to make such drastic and alarming drops in the wild life populations in just a few months. If the big boys are planning massive genocide, they better buy a lot of oxygen bottles, or build a great big bio-sphere. They should build one large enough so they can start a war and kill each other.
Maybe they will.
Listen people here is the “PROOF” and when you read this you will want to sit down! All of our fears are realized! All of those stories you listened to are true.
“The Whitehouse Coup 1933″
“The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document.shtml
The man (Prescott) who funded Hitler attempted to take down FDR and create a US Dictatorship….
Bush 41 looks like the man in the middle of the JFK assassination who stated he was in Washington DC the day JFK was assassinated! Bush 41 was responsible for the Bay of Pigs. JFK would not authorize Operation Northwoods and Bush 41 was a partner to that too.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Prescott Bush was part of an attempted coup of FDRs Whithouse, our President’s grandfather who did not die that long ago!
Evelyn Smith July 24th, 2007 7:45 pm
I thought about that but it boils down to the reality that these people are doing it and they are not stupid they have a plan and we do not see it. They are doing it and ramping it all up. Perhaps Bush thinks that this is Armageddon and knows that he must get to Iraq to sit on the right hand of God? Whatever their reason it is happening and that is all that matters. We can assume that they have a cure or that they will go below ground or that they are all aliens from some other world but no matter what they are DOING IT!
Thank you ’sh@dow’.
Yeah Shadow, that is exactly what I have been posting for the past two months. They are DOING IT.
I have posted more than five hundred blogs about DU here on Common Dreams strings. More than five hundres__ and I do believe I have probably wasted a lot of time, because except for today, few others ever respond.
I wonder if most even believe it, I’ve had more comments that I’m a flake or a worry wart than positive remarks. I don’t care if anyone replys to me personally, but sometimes there are no comments, except someone will write IMPEACH, or Gore is a traitor, or I voted for Nader, or nuclear energy is the answer.
I duuno, but we WILL ALL know, when we start burying our grandkids, that is__ if we are still breathing.
sh@dow July 24th, 2007 7:46 pm
Are you all reading this post???? Please CD check this out at sh@dow July 24th, 2007 7:46 pm. It checks out and has lightning striking the same family 100s of times. The same family has been involved with this ongoing mess that started in WW1
Prescott Bush created Hitler and attempted to take out FDR then his son becomes head of the CIA then President and then his grandson becomes President then DICTATOR…
There are only 2 choices for us…
1) Revolt
2) Die
Evelyn Smith (aka Kelmer)–You are on a roll today but one small factual correction. You wrote:
After JFK was murdered, (Kennedy was going to pull out of S.E. Asia) Johnson was the prez, he put Bush Sr. in charge of the CIA and The Gulf Of Tonkin Incident was on the table. Conspiracy theory? Well,__ pictures seldom lie.
Poppy Bush (GHWB)has been tangled in teh CIA since post WWII. But he was no put in charge of “the company” until Gerald Ford appointed him to do that job.
Hi Poet, It’s aka Kem Patrick, my real name.
Thank you for the correction. That is correct, I know he was in Dallas the day JFK was murdered and so was either Liddy or Hunt and al three were in tight with the CIA.
Sorry about being on a roll, guess I’d better shut it off. DU use is a pet peeve of mine, because it is so deadly serious and it seems as if few care. Nite, Think I’ll just take a month or so off and write a book, or take my wife to the MGM in Vegas and do something good to my brains.
DU contamination is not just happening in Iraq. It is happening right here in Hawaii. In 2005 DU spotting rounds where discovered through the Freedom of Information Act at Schofield Barracks. That triggered legislation to test for DU, which passed all committees but at the last minute did not get the funding for the testing. Private citizens in Kona have purchased radiation monitors and got a reading of 75 counts per minute (CPM)on May 29, 2007 at Mauna Kea State Park a few miles from the Pohakuloa anti-armor live-fire training range on Big Island. Normal background radiation is 5 to 20 cpm. Radiation is blowing in the wind in Hawaii!! And it is probably DU!We need radiation testing verified by independent experts downwind of all active live-fire bases in Hawaii.SEE
www.protecthawaii.ws
www.noduhawaii.com
www.dmzhawaii.org
Come visit paradise, we can have a glow green in the dark luau for you.
This is why we should not bend on the nuclear issue; it’s too tempting to use with devasting consequences.
I hope this criminal regime is defeated and destroyed like its Fascist counterpart, and the criminals in the Black House are given a good dose of radiation until their stinking bodies rot. God’s justice will see to it that these criminal terrorists not die a natural death.
DU contamination is not just happening in Iraq. It is happening right here in Hawaii. In 2005 DU spotting rounds where discovered through the Freedom of Information Act at Schofield Barracks, Oahu. That triggered legislation to test for DU in 2007, which passed all committees but at the last minute did not get the funding for the testing.
Private citizens in Kona have purchased radiation monitors and got an alpha radiation reading of 75 counts per minute (CPM) on May 29, 2007 at Mauna Kea State Park a few miles from the Pohakuloa anti-armor live-fire training range on Big Island. Normal background radiation is 5 to 20 cpm.
Radiation is blowing in the wind in Hawaii!! And it is probably DU! We need a public outcry and radiation testing verified by independent experts downwind of all active live-fire bases in Hawaii.SEE
www.protecthawaii.ws
www.noduhawaii.com
www.dmzhawaii.org
Please help us Protect Hawaii or Come visit paradise, we can have a glow green in the dark luau for you.
Guess where most of the uranium used in DU weapons come from? Manitoba, Canada. We, Canada, are the major US suppliers of this evil poisonous metal. We are just as beholden to the legacy of pain and suffering of the soon to be genocided Iraqi populace as Dubya.
Ask yourselves: How many Iraquis are going to die from DU weapons? The answer is… all of them.
I’ve read that the du from Iraq has spread all the way to England, sorry can’t remember where I read this, but I remember it clearly.
but just consider that the US military is expending 250,000 bullets per dead Iraqi. Very impressive, this ought to make it to the Guiness book.
Evelyn,
I very much enjoyed your comments about Depleted Uranium and it’s consequences for our soldiers, the Middle East, and the entire world. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, which is also the age of our Earth and for that matter our Solar System, I doubt we as a species will have to contend with the remaining 50 percent of the stuff still decaying then.We almost certainly will have laid waste to the planet long before then in wars between superpowers over conquest of energy resources (such as the Iraq invasion and the coming showdown about who controls the remaining fossil fuels in the Middle East).
I found this on a blog, can’t remember where, rather amusing in stark contrast to the reality of spent nuclear waste now carpeting vast regions of the planet.It was submitted by one “sfcretired”. It follows:
NEW ELEMENT “Du” DISCOVERED
A major research institution (probably funded by a government subsidy) has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named “Bushcronium”. Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311.
These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. The symbol for Bushcronium is “Du”, as the symbol “W” was already taken by Tungsten.
Bushcronium’ s mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “Critical Morass”.
When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.
The “nucular” reaction alluded to below where Du combines with Foxnewsium (Fx) when bombarded by a moron beam yields: Du + m (morons) + Fx = DumFx which is sometimes phonetically pronounced to describe the nature of the isodope produced.
Although Faux Noise is the only “news” element mentioned in the formula, any other “news” element, i.e., CNN, ABC, CBS, WoPo, WSJ, etc., could be used just as well and get the same isodope.
If this doesn’t give us proof positive that the psychopaths have positioned themselves for world control, I don’t know what does.
Vanishing Earth
That is a ten or a AAA plus. your check is in the mail.
It is everyplace!!!! Is it killing off the phytoplankton? I’m not a scientist, I don’t know.___ Something is.
Stay ot of Hawaii, which once could have been the garden of Eden.
agree vanishing earth gets a 1+..
the way north nevada graded when i was a kid
a 5 said i saw no movies for 6 weeks..
as i already glow from growing up in nevada
my special hope is this depleted stuff
don’t fuck with my blues cd’s
ken
VanishingEarth,
Thanks a million (1,000,000) for your extremely innovative post on the new particle called Bushcronium. Been long time since I had a hearty laugh.
Evelyn,
I don’t mean to chase people away from Hawaii. Visitors are here for a very short time; though there are risks they are small with short visits of two weeks.
The problem with military toxins in our environment is that many are persistent and bioaccumulating; and are the most dangerous and hazardous to those of us that live here.
To say the least, we need some help to get the Bushcromium’s and isodopes (Mahalo VanishingEarth for the adjectives.) to test Hawaii for these toxic elements,including DU. You can help see the web site I posted earlier or pass it on.
It took a global public outcry to stop the U.S. Navy’s bombing of Vieques, Puerto Rico.(another place they used DU munitions) Protect Hawaii is one of many grassroots movements in Hawaii to educate the public about military toxins.
Millions and millions of people around the world love Hawaii. It is my hope to find some of them, who will lend their voice and Aloha to help us Protect Hawaii.
Sometimes I think I had been living in a time warp and have come back to this times reality.
The background radiation not just in England where it was first noticed has grown 4x times the rate of pre Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
In Afghanistan a new form of rioactive isotope is showing up and no it is not depleted.
mindfully.org/nucUraniaum-Levels-Afghanistan Google it and then Google “Iraq Babies born deformed’ by depleated uranium.”
This is not news it was written about in the English Arab and Euro Press before this last invasion.
One question to ask is just how depleted is the uranium and how tight are the variances held in its production methods.
The isotopes showing up in Afghansitan are not of the same molecular makeup as of DU warheads normal composiion.
If anything it would be more like those left behind by a smaller pure radiation neutron explosive.
Just cut a galnce and see if it is still on web as amny sites and articles of Brit Study Groups no longer are.
US deliberately modified the Afghanistan study groupsd findings but they leaked out anyways.
My concern is why should the American popualce have to possibly take care of over an estimated 3 million deformed Du children bred from returning military personell in future or pay for the ex military cancers.
Ha ha. Yeah, it’s probably so funny cause it’s so close to the reality we all see in the current administration. Nice to take a breather every so often considering the gravity of the situation we face with a government not accountable to it’s own people and the accelerating destruction of the environment.
HIDE BEHIND: You have asked some interesting questions. Depleted Uranium is uranium 238 which is not horribly dangerous in solid form. The radiation it emmits will not penetrate human skin. When used in weaponry DU burns when it hits a target and the smoke and dust that results is deadly if it enters the body, either by eating, drinking or inhaling it.
How tight are the variences held in DU’s production methods? Tight,___ tight???___ Hell, __the nuclear plants will give it away to get rid of it. There are millions of tons of DU stored in the United States alone. I understand the French and Russians have dumped it into the oceans. [Out of sight__ out of mind.] Like insanity, out of mind!!!
Inhaling DU dust is the most serious problem, DU dust is invisible to a human’s naked eye. The microscopic particles are absorbed into the blood stream just as oxygen is. From there it will transfer to any part of the body and the radiaton creates havoc with the immune system and causes cancers and alters DNA. The altered DNA can be transfered to a fetus.
In land areas where DU has been used, the chances of inhaling only one speck of the dust is not likely, inhaling many is. One inhaled speck will over time kill you, a lot of specks will kill you much faster.
If there are other types of radioactive isotopes present, I would only have to guess that they may have come from the Cherry-nobel disaster, or from a possible radiation leak fron a nuclear plant that was not reported. That type of not reporting an accidental release of radioactivity has occured more than once. We usually find it out when someone spills the beans. Of course it may happen off and on at any number of nuclear plants in the world and how would we ever know if they are not reported?
The United States has used thousands of tons of DU in Afganistan. Anyone who lives there will very likey be contaminated with it.
Check this website for an excellent report on depeted uranium. http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/KYagasakiOnDU.pdf
Evelyn Smith:
The guy from India must have asked you to open a window as well. I hope you did not get up and open all the all the windows in the room. That can prove to be outright dangerous. The Indians should be more mindful when dealing with valuable customers.
He did ask me to do that but I didn’t do it. I didn’t play with my mouse every thirty minutes either, that guy was nuts. He could have killed me. It’s not like I was 65. Geeze.
evelyn smith
you are not wasting your time posting here. i read your comments daily and it was you who educated me about du and now i’m an expert on it after reading all the articles i can get my hands on. thankyou for that. but people are like ostrichs: they just put their head in the du infected sand. i have told many people and friends about this threat, but i suppose it’s a case of well, what can we do. it’s there, there’s no taking it back or getting rid of it. i live in the gulf of arabia and wonder if we are exposed to it in the air, in the sea, in the water………keep posting, i love your comments.
Hi Coco, you certainly do sound like a beautiful and caring person.
We are all subject to inhaling the poison now, everyone on the planet is in danger. If you live near Iraq, you are much more suseptable to the danger.
Talking about danger is a turn-off for most humans, we don’t wish to hear depressing news, especially when it may effect us. You know, it is never us, it is them, it won’t happen to me or my family. So we tend to walk off and not listen. We are all like that to some degree.
Print a good article about DU and some of the pictures given here tonight. Let your friends read them. They will likely believe the written words, and the pictures tell it all.
After they have read it, then discuss ways to stop the use of DU. One big problem is, there have been so many reports that DU is not dangerous and it is fixed in many peoples minds that it isn’t a danger.
Take care of yourself Coco, I sense that you are very special.
evelyn smith
i have printed the report you suggested. trouble is, it’s too long and like you say, people can’t be bothered and don’t believe. the youtube clips were very good and the sad photos of the poor children. maybe they will have more impact than words……….it’s funny, but three friends here have cancer………….and yes, we aren’t that far from the war zone.
maybe a good time to leave……………
you take care too.
About time we see an article about this topic of epic consequences. I thank you evelyn smith for making the readers here more educated.
that’s just another lie from the liberal media. If the Iraqis’ are dying from DU then our brave troops are also dying from DU but the Pentagon and the Bush Administration have told us that DU has no affects on the human anatomy. It’s the same with Agent Orange or the lies on Global Warming. It’s the liberal media that spews these types of lies because the true journalist has been bought by Bush and Co. along with the Intelligence departments within the administration. The author of this article evidently must be from the liberal media or has been bought by the Iraqi government through their Propaganda Department.
There is nothing about DU that wasn’t known long before it’s use in Iraq. It has been condemned as a weapon by the international community. It’s use is a calculated pre-meditated crime against life and all involved it the decision to use it deserve the strongest sentance possible for this crime. If the US won’t try the DC based terrorists than they must be delivered to the Hague by any means necessary.
I’m under the impression that we have the cart before the horse on this subject and others. Don’t worry about DU since it isn’t going any place. The main goal is found in writing in the Declaration of Independence and that is…
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
It looks like the problem is the government. Writing letters, faxes and e-Mails is not what the founding fathers had in mind. If the government authorizes the use of radiological substances on nations that it claims to be “spreading democracy” at gunpoint the only acceptable solution is abolishment. Should they be abolished or fired or impeached (all of them) then the DU use will stop since the military would have been recalled!
In my opinion we have become weak, docile, whiny blobs who wouldn’t F to save our own race. Sorry if that is a harsh incitement but the idea is that we at least have to take to the streets in mass. The whole thing is completely crazy and this is what you get when a fascist family dominates the political landscape from the 1920’s till now. Sure we should stop using DU but people none of us are USING DU. The GOVERNMENT that no longer listens to us uses DU.
We cry, “Stop the bla bla bla” and they BS us some more and increase whatever the “bla bla bla” is.
Evelyn,
Yes the Depleted Uranium is everywhere, but particularly concentrated in the Middle East right now. As you have said it is mainly a problem for those that have breathed in the fine particles released during the blast, or for those who breathe the fine particles in later when it becomes airborne.
Kind of reminds me in a sense of the fungus that lives in the soil in the Southwestern United States that causes Coccidiomycosis aka Valley Fever. People breathe it in during duststorms, as a result of construction work, anything that causes the fungal spores to be released from the soil and spread through the air and then breathed into the lungs. I understand that a majority of residents in the deserts of the Southwest test postive for the fungus, although it is mainly a problem for those with weakened immune systems, for whom it can be fatal.
Although our bodies can fight a fungus or we can take anti-fungal medications to inhibit it, a radioactive isotope such as Depleted Uranium is a wholly different monster. It wreaks havoc in the cells throughout the body causing cancer and countless other maladies. It can damage the DNA, affecting sperm and egg cells, causing birth deformations.
And this does not even address our companion animals species, those that share the planet with us, which would be affected by mechanisms not unlike which DU affects the human population.
As far as the decreasing numbers of phytoplankton, a cursory search on that seems to indicate global warming is causing a decrease in their numbers. One theory supports the notion that the increasing concentration of C02 as a result of the warming of the oceans allows the oceans to store more CO2, which is a weak acid, causing the upper layers to become more acidic, interfering with the marine life-forms there.
Another theory posits that the increase in the temperature of the oceans seems to prevent the nutrients necessary for the growth of the phytoplankton by causing further stratification of the ocean’s waters and preventing the upwelling of the nutrients that the phytoplankton need.
Interestingly, phytoplankton contribute as much as 90 percent of our atmosphere’s oxygen, and account for nearly half of all photosynthesis in the world. These numbers were quite surprising, even to myself.
Basically, the essential thing that you can glean from all of this information is the absolute interconnectivity of all living things on this planet, and that every action, however small, by definition creates a reaction. Call it cause and effect, karma, whatever. “Don’t you hear the shrieking in the trees? Everywhere you touch the earth she’s sore. Every time you skin her all things weep.” And the world has reached a tipping point. And we are witnessing the collapse of entire ecosystems, and our own Nation’s governmental system for that matter, in our own lifetimes.
Been waiting for this story to be publically discussed. It’s just a matter of time now. It’s never going to go away. Particles small enough to pass though gas masks, all gas masks. I’ve lost track of how many tons of DU have been used, just in Iraq, to date.
I want to be wrong in believing what some of the scientists have said. But, here anymore, Chicken Little stories have a habit of not being as scary as what really happens later.
Global warming. I WANT that to be the worse thing humanity faces. I really do.
Editing to say, it sounds totally nuts, doesn’t it? What we’re saying this stuff is going to do? Worldwide? And by the time they realize it, it will be too late. And here, we’ll be remembered as that place they used to call America. Sold out by traitors that played on patriotism, makes you want to shake them till they fizz.
VanishingEarth July 25th, 2007 10:59 am
With all due respect DU use will not cease till the war stops. The war will expand to Iran and DU use will rise. The government supports the war and so then supports the DU. We all know the score. What would be revolutionary is to stop the war and the maker of the war and then all of the crimes would end since they would be gone. There is the place to start.
Hi Vanishing Earth. I have never read where the ammonut of oxygen supplied by the phytoplankton to be any higher than 70% and the latest figure I learn is 60%. In any case, they do supply most of our oxygen and they are dying off. There’s a company in California who are planning to dump thousands of tons of powdered iron into the Southern Pacific ocean to feed the Phytoplankton.
As you have read there are varying opinions from scientists of what is killing the plants in the oceans, they really don’t know and I certainly don’t. I hope it isn’t nuclear waste, for if it is, that’s grim because nuclear waste lives forever. DU is killing animal life and we are the animals.
sh@dow
The use of Depleted Uranium to irradiate the oceans and the land is unconscionable and a Government that would resort to such a thing, well that tells you what kind of Government we have. And yes, I agree, Iran is the next target, just follow the money (oil). The propaganda served up as news by the MSM has already begun the war drum beat in preparation for that. Just look at the countries with the largest reserves of oil 1) Saudi Arabia, our “friends”, 2) Iraq, a nation is was incumbent on us to “liberate”, and 3) Iran, “they possess the means to strike us with a nuclear weapon” uh huh ….
Evelyn
The “as high as 90%” number for oxygen generation of phytoplankton was garnered from Wikipedia, it seemed rather high to me as well, but regardless they generate a lot of our oxygen. The dumping of iron in the Pacific will doubtless cause other unforeseen problems with our ecosystems, I can’t even begin to imagine what those will be… Yes, indeed we are all animals I agree, some argue we have the ability for higher reasoning (and thus capacity for mendacity) … I would point to the Holy Warrior In Charge waging War on the Planet as definitely undermining said assertion.
“We are rapidly approaching a karmic bitch slap, kiddies”
Steven Weber
People I want to restate something here:
Prescott Bush as a matter of fact was part of a COUP to take out FDR in 1933. This has been reported now by BBC news. Here is the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document.shtml
Now as a matter of fact Prescott Bush and his banker relations in NY gave Hitler the money and infrastructure support to raise an army. They persisted in this till late in the war along with IBM, GM and FORD. Prescott was in fact fined for doing business with the enemy.
So out of 300,000,000 people we wind up with the grandson of the biggest war criminal of all times. Bigger than Hitler! Prescott was a bigger criminal than Hitler since he and his minions created Hitler!! Look at what is happening now and realize that Bush is in fact todays Hitler. There is only one thing that can be done and if it isn’t freedom will be lost forever! DU is part of the bigger problem that we are being systematically destroyed.
For all we know Bush is the Antichrist or is like Darth Vader but regardless it is he and the government that are now the enemies of the people.
The President’s GRANDFATHER (who recently died)attempted to OVERTHROW the US GOVERNMENT and was INSTRUMENTAL in HITLER’S RISE TO POWER!!!
Here is the audio (you need real media or real alternative to listen) from BBC about this……..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/rams/document.ram
By the way I’m not attempting to derail the thread. We know that DU is all over the place and even agree that it must be stopped. Here is the proof that this is the ROOT of all of our nightmares.
“The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (Owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell House & Prescott Bush) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.”
There is only one possible solution to this!
Hi Shadow, you write you are not attempting to derail this thread? Why write that unless you suspect that you are?
There are several other threads on today’s CD that would be very appropriate for your good blogs about Bush and company. We got your important message about the long lasting power of the Bush family yesterday on this string___ concerning DU.
“Evelyn Smith July 25th, 2007 1:05 pm
Hi Shadow, you write you are not attempting to derail this thread? Why write that unless you suspect that you are?”
Well the strict topic is DU so it could be said that bringing Prescott up is OFF-TOPIC. I don’t see the point of your post questioning the veracity of my statement. Do you want the war and the dictatorship to gain momentum? The government is a bigger problem than the DU since the government intends to use more DU. So what is your malfunction?
hello everyone,
a bit late i know, but i’ve just watched the film “an inconvenient truth”. nothing said there was really anything i didn’t know already, but seeing it all put together like that, really was profound. and the way i see things is like this: if the climate crisis doesn’t get us, depleted uranium will. because we have overstepped the margin on both these issues and there’s no turning back on depleted uranium for a very very long time, and it would take personal lifestyle change of six billion people instantaneously, to save the earth from co2 gases. and i somehow think that isn’t about to happen. radical change of the kind needed for that, is beyond most people. it appears there is no solution and i agree with the sentiment “we are rapidly approaching a karmic bitch slap, kiddies”. it’s just maddening that the innocents have to be punished along with the culprits.
I asked you why you wrote the comment you wrote and asked you why you wrote it. It is evident that you wrote it because you must have realized you are derailing this thread, and I don’t have any malfunction.
You do have one. You did the same thing with Hopeforthefuture Monday on another string.
The final comment made on that once good and informative string, before you displayed your obnoxious personality and after you had written some very nasty blogs__ was the man wanted to know why the editors of Common Dreams allowed you to post any comments.
I wonder also. You began on this string with some appropriate and helpful comments about DU then you got off on another subject and began to fill the string with repeats of the same. Over an over. We understood your message the first time. If you had written a hundred blogs about the dangers of DU that would be appropriate.
I will not continue this converstion with you and contine a pissing contest like you and another had Monday. Write whatever you please, that is your perogitive. I have a mouse here and can scroll right on by anythig you may post.
It is a shame that you and a few others who show up on occasion are boring, desruptive and obnoxious individuals, who have a penchant for starting a row. I will not write anthing nasty for your pleasure, ___like F#### you shadow, but I would urge you to seek professional help from an appropriate doctor.
Bye, Kem Patrick
Shadow wrote to Vanishing Earth
“DU use will not cease till the war stops.”
I wish that were true. However the military is not going to give up easily the most powerful killing weapon they have ever had. That is why they continue to adamantly lie about its harmful effects. Yes, the highest concentrations of this lethal poison dust is in combat zones.
But the poison dust is also most probably present at all active military firing ranges. We discovered its presence in Hawaii at Scofield Barracks, Oahu. Private citizens with their own radiation monitors discovered high radiation readings a few miles from the Pohakuloa live-fire training range, Big Island. Despite these discoveries, the military still denies they use of this most lethal stuff in Hawaii. As if to say low level radiation is good for you. Other military bases were they used DU is in Vieques, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and Japan to name a few.
Common sense dicates that all live-fire practice ranges across the US and abroad are probably contaminated with DU. So it is not just in combat zones. If you live by a live-fire military base, like I do, it is probably in your backyard and you’ll never know what plume of air is carrying DU dust.
Good work to everyone posting on this blog. Keep educating people. That is our true power. The one thing more powerful than this horrific weapon… is an educated, informed public that is pissed off. It is time to take back and restore America.
Hi coco, I believe you should read the excellent advice given by Linda Kroll here at 2:09pm July 25th. Her comments make more sense than mine, and she is not just writing comments, she is actively doing somethng about the use of DU.
I would love to meet both of you someday and be able to take a deep breath of the wonderful air of Hawaii and say we finally managed to get it stopped.
If you have never been to Hawaii, as soon as you step off of the ship or aircraft, a wonderful feeling swoops over you and you will hate to leave. It’s a damn shame they have used any DU there. It’s a shame and a crime DU has ever been used anyplace.
Evelyn Smith July 25th, 2007 1:53 pm
So you speak for everyone? Glad you won the election dude! Your purpose here is becoming clear as well. Your halitosis and need to operate under a female persona when your a male makes your intent questionable does it not? Having given you the benefit of the doubt I now know that your purpose is to placate here and in other places I assume and calm down possible revolts. My bet is that you are “one of them” and the tenor of my blogs is none of your concern. You and the others that don’t like what I say can just as easily skip over them!
Mahalo, Evelyn Thank-you
Hawaii is still one of the most beautiful places on our planet.
I woke up in July of 2005 when I attended an International Military Toxics Conference in San Antonio, Texas. I met people from all over the United States and Pacific Rim. We had one thing in common at this conference. We lived near an active military base and our commuities have serious life threatening illness.
Heart disease and cancer are the first and third leading cause of death among Hawaii residents(National Center of Health Statistics) Diabetes and asthma are on the rise. One in 17 births in Hawaii has a “recognizable abnormality”, according the the Hawaii Birth Defects program. Autism among our children is at epidemic proportions states the Hawaii Autism Society. As of 2004 article in the Star Bulletin Newspaper over 23,000 of our children are in Special Education.
The residents of Hawaii are ill. We have 798 contaminated sites in Hawaii seven which are superfund sites. Hawaii is a pro-Military State. Our senior US Senator Dan Inouye (we call the King of Pork) has brought all of this contamination down on us and State Officials jump to his tune. Hawaii has never looked at Military Toxins as a contributor to our poor health. The Military is the biggest unregulated pollutor of Hawaii. Needless to say our battle is uphill and we can use all the help we can get. Please visit my website.
www.protecthawaii.ws
An old saying from the sixty’s “think globally act locally. Where ever you live there is a toxic element present, whether you live near a big dirty industry, a nuclear power plant or active military base. We must start by taking back our communities.
RE: Evelyn Smith July 24th, 2007 5:01 pm
“He told me to just play with my mouse every thirty minutes.__ What!!__ Every thirty minutes? __ I’m 70 years old. No wonder those people have a problem with over population.”
Thanks for adding a bit of levity to a serious subject my friend. It made me laugh out loud.
Thanks for the link, Jaded Prole. It’s so good I’m posting it here again for those who didn’t take the time to look at it:
http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/index.html
RE: kalia July 24th, 2007 11:30 pm
“…but just consider that the US military is expending 250,000 bullets per dead Iraqi. Very impressive, this ought to make it to the Guiness book.”
Actually, Kalia, I’ve seen something that stated a million rounds were expended in WWII for every dead enemy soldier…sorry, no record here. I would imagine its because the weaponry has improved substantially. Gee, aren’t we proud of ourselves?
We forgot the fact of war and destruction, killing etc. stress therefor is also significant in the developement of cancer and may be at least in part responsible for the increase in CA in Irak at this time and of course will continue for many years.
Whew, it sure takes awhile to read everyone’s posts, but now I’m ready to add my two cents worth.
Evelyn Smith (AKA Kem Patrick) and I met on this site a couple months ago while I was pointing out the dangers of DU, and he the dangers of plutonium. Since that time he has become well informed about DU, and we have expanded our altruistic campaign now to include our objections to ALL forms of nuclear materials, including the building of more nuclear power plants (after all it’s a chicken & egg situation…without a supply of spent nuclear plant fuel there are no DU munitions to carelessly shoot all over the place, right?)
BTW as a point of info for whomever posed the question, DU, although called ‘depleted’ still retains one third of the radioactive potency of the original material, so ‘depleted’ is similar to the difference between whole milk or 2% milk, but they are both still milk.
Also, as another point of info regarding the history of DU, it was originally a product of the Manhattan Project during WWII, which brought us such other nice items as the atomic bomb, and Agent Orange.
As for you Evelyn, and you sh@dow, my comment to both of you is one of the most profound of the past century, “Why can’t we all just get along?”. After seeing some of the things both of you said on the topic, and seeing some of the links ya’ll posted it is very evident we are allies in our communal opposition to the DU menace. Make peace, guys, please, ok?
sh@dow…while it might seem that you strayed a bit off the DU topic a bit I fully appreciate the lineage of how we got to the point where it is a long & ongoing struggle of humanity vs. ‘them’, and I also recognize the dynastic aspects of the fascist families that currently control much of the world. They are a small klatch of meglomaniacal tyrants with only one goal in mind…world domination by any means. If it wasn’t for their shared lack of conscience regarding humanity & ecology we wouldn’t be facing worldwide eradication by the DU peril, right Evelyn?
I would offer to you, sh@dow, that this conspiracy against mankind/womankind/childkind goes farther back than the 1920’s. Do a google search on Zionism & Mossad to gain an historical perspective on how we have all been manipulated, and the nasty characters involved. Now just because I am against radical people, some of whom might happen to be Jewish, doesn’t give anyone liberty to disregard what I say by impugning me with the slur of anti-Semitic. That’s an outrageous lie, and a devious attempt by those who would obfuscate the truth by slandering their opponent, or someone who would attempt to shed light on their nefarious criminal activities. If I uncover evidence I would say the same about any radical element who would seek to dominate me, my family & friends, or nation, be they Jewish, Christian, Islamist, or even atheist. Religion is a ‘foil’ in all these anti-social machinations; greed, power, and control are the enemies of humankind.
Enough there. One thing we all must do in our discussions pointing out the dangers of DU to others is make damned sure our facts & figures are correct. Evelyn, I don’t dispute your claim of ‘millions of tons’ of radioactive materials that must be disposed of, but I would appreciate a reference if you can send it my way. As for how much DU has been shot in the Gulf region, I haven’t yet seen any concrete figures, or any that are reliable anyway. I do know the Pentagon claimed only 300 tons were used in the first Gulf War, but independent sources put the figure at over 800 tons. That was a very short conflict, and since we are in this war around five years now I’m sure the figure for this one is up in the thousands of tons. Has anyone seen a figure from a reliable source?
I don’t recall that there were massive increases of cancers, or autism, or horrible birth drfects, or diabetes and heart diseases anyplace in any country during world World Wars one and two, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, or any war until the first Gulf War. Perhaps those other little wars were not as stressful as the Gulf Wars.
Stress?? __I was in Vietnam during that war and I was stressed every day and night and so was everyone I flew with.
The troops getting sick and dying with Atomic radiation are ground troops, not the navel or air force troops, or the police who go out every day here in America and are stressed to the max.___ It is DU hbramanti, the facts are clearly obvious.
Hi Paul, long time since I’ve heard from you, Wish you had mentioned I used this female name as a code name accidently, as I got confused when I first signed onto CD and thought it would be the password name.
Anyway I don’t wish to be frieds with that person, nor will I respond to him again, so making up is not a necessity. If you check the archives, it is his way of doing and according to his writing, he has been kicked off of several other blogs. He has done it to me on other strings and I did not respond to it until today. I only asked him a question and away we go. Nope, that is not why I choose to spend my time here on one of the most critical issues of the entire recorded history of humanity. I’ll scroll on by and hope others may understand my opnion in that respect.
I don’t mind if anyone strays off of the primary subject at all, that is their business, I do mind when it is repeated over and over and the person writes comments like, don’t yuo guys get it, didn’t you read my comments, etc, etc. He brought up the subject of screwing up the string and I responded to that. What Happens? The same thing he has done with many others, a shit fight. Not with me.
The website I put in here is where I got many of my references as to the ammount of stored DU and I also got them from other websites, the same ones you use. I choose to agree with those rather than the figures put out by the Pentagon relating to DU. I believe the posts of Linda Kroll, She is about as far from Iraq as any could be and read the problems they are experiencing with DU in Hawaii.
Really good to hear from you again Paul, hope you don’t believe I’m a closet Bushie.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/KYagasakiOnDU.pdf
In addition, over 400,000 of the first Gulf war vets are on disability pay. those are still young people. And two thirds of children born to them, were born with deformities. or brain damage, or both. It’s DU.
Evelyn, we do listen! I just don’t often comment ’cause i fear the government spy program. My stepson spent a year in Iraq, fortunately as a medic near Falluja, but he tried to tell me DU was ok because it was depleted! And he’s an officer in the Navy so God only knows what the military tells these kids and he’s 35 years old!!!
The Bush Crime Family is hell bent on destroying the planet as we know it- so much for global warming - they will POISON US TO DEATH!!! Oh and He and his new wife are trying to have their first baby. I cringe but say nothing ,cause I’m the stepmom. He has 3 healthy kids by wife #1 prior to Iraq deployment but God knows i’m scared to death for them!!!
Does anyone have a peer reviewed statistically valid reference that demonstrates that an increase in cancer, birth defects or other medical difficulties are caused by exposure to DU instead of other environmental insults?
Iraq has a whole host of environmental difficulties; biological and chemical contaminants in the untreated drinking water, asbestos from damaged buildings and so forth. Skyrocketing medical difficulties under these conditions should be expected.
Evelyn, you have cited frequently a high level of DU induced disability among Gulf War-1 veterans. I am not aware of any medical study which links “Gulf war syndrome” with uranium exposure. Do you have a good reference for this claim?
Evelyn Smith July 25th, 2007 6:30 pm
When I read blogs I skip over many posts but you feel it necessary to comment on trivial points about a posters “reason” to post. The main idea here and on the other sites is to realize we are in a race against time. You didn’t ask just a question, you asked a “loaded” question. This gives you an air of duplicity or paranoia or both. Now, I happen to be honest and shared that other progressive blogs have banned me since I made the call to revolution. I’m disgusted with the lack of will to protest, strike and otherwise rise to the occasion. Since Shrub stole the WH back in 2000 I have attended numerous protests. The problem is that even though 70% or more want him impeached not enough are willing to take a stand.
Here you all go on and on about in this case DU or what have you the basic problem is that the government is immoral and criminal. When you want information on nuclear plumes you don’t go to a blog you go to sites that address nuclear plumes like
http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/index.html
what about information like this…
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/SecretFallout/SFchp1.html
Why not mention Trinity or everything before trinity? What about the 1000s of nuclear tests? What about the fact that the USA is the only nation to drop the bomb on an enemy? Can we get along? Well that will be academic when the jackboots come.
Sandyk77, I understand the US Navy has stopped using DU. They do not want that poison on their ships. And yes the Pentagon does supply our troops with information about DU that is wrong. The 40,000 plus vets who are suffering with radiation poisoning, where the symptoms may not appear for five or more years are learning the sad truth.
How can “anyone” possibly ignore what has happened to the troops who served on the ground in Iraq and then deny it is not directly related to the use of DU is beyond my comprehension.
Hello Billy, are you still working for that atomic energy company? I do believe you have asked me that same question on three different strings. My reply is the same, just go to Google and ask for depleted uranium and there are hundreds of valued opinions given by doctors and scientists on the issue of DU. Both sides of the issue, you must choose whom to trust. But then do not ignore the evidence. The dramatic rise in cancer rates and birth defects in Iraq began
after DU was spread all over thier land. Hawaii is another good example. Read the nurses blogs and websites offered.
I write nothing on the subject that is my valued opinion, except to state that in my opinion, I tend to believe the experts who state DU is deadly, and it is a war crime to use it. Those last few words are not opinions of anyone, it it a fact that it is a war crime to use DU, as written by the Geneva Conventions.
The many websites offered in this string should be of value to you billy, to determine if you wish to continue to ask that question of me, in a manner that sort of reads, as if my comments are suspect. Of course I only write that because you continue to ask the same question.
You likely already know the answers Bill, but your love of atomic power, and fear that the subject of DU may in some way detract from that source of power being approved, may cloud the true goodness in your heart and shade the intellect of your mind. By your writings, I beleve is a very good mind. You are just insane and that is not your fault, it’s a curable disease.
Uh,__ Bill and I joke a little with one another folks, but he is not seeing the obvious when it comes to the subject of DU. We all have our opinions and I disagree with his and visa versa. ___ Stay sober and hurry back Bill.
Hi Evelyn,
No, I had not asked that specific question. I have looked at many of the links and have found nothing scientifically valid. As I first stated, I am agnostic on DU munitions. I have seen nothing to change my mind.
War is a shitty venture. Women, children and other innocents are injured and killed. It is inevitably an environmental disaster and a terrrible waste of resources.
I have a passion for objective truth. Particularly in issues of nuclear power and global warming, but for accuracy in general. Although I may be moved, I am not much persuaded by empassioned pleas.
It is true the navy has removed some DU munitions from ships. (I am not sure but I doubt it is a total ban-they probably still have it on the aircraft carriers for the attack aircraft.) If I remember correctly, the main reason was a fear of the pyrophoricity in the event of a torpedo attack, not the radioactivity. It may have to do also with the inability to practice with the munitions, as pointed out elsewhere in this string, the sites in Hawaii and Puerto Rico are no available for target practice with these munitions.
I change the subject on a string’s issue on occasion, but seldom do so more than twice, and never ten to twelve times.
But in response to Sandyk77, it is truely unbelieveable to me, that we Americans fear our government for using our right of free speech. I never advocat any violence, nor should we. If we end up with a king in fact, that will be another matter. We must work peacefully, to prevent that from ever occuring.
We should write about the possibilities of a dictatorship arising in our country, and help one another with ideas and information. To promote a violent overthrow of our working government, no matter how poorly it may work at times, is wrong and I will not support such talk and will at times protest it.
For us to fear our government for doing nothing illegal, is not The America I grew up in.
I’m not sure either Bill, a retired army medical doctor, who was ordered to take a large team of men into Iraq and clean up the depleted uranium, which was totally impossible, gives lectures on the subject of DU. He says the navy does not allow DU on their ships. He did not elaborate that statement in the lengthy article of his, which I read twice.
BTW, he and his entire team have all contacted cancers, andother diseases and they WILL all die from them. He and the men who are still alive, also suffer every minute from radiation poisoning. He also states that so will everone else who has been in Iraq. I suppose he is among the 40,000 plus. It’s in a website which I did not copy, but it isn’t difficult to find. Keep lookin Bill.
You can all tell that Billy really is a swell guy.__ I like him and we have never met.
I just re-read your blog Billy. No, your questions were not the exact same wording,___ same question.
You also write thay you can find no “scientific” evidence. How scientific does it have to get before one will believe DU is a deadly weapon that keeps on killing for billions of years and so many are now dying from inhaling DU? When renouned doctors with firm, educated, conviction, STATE__ that a single speck of DU in a lung will insure cancer, that is scientific enough for me. Onthe other side of the coin, the governments experts state, that DU is not a health hazard. A babbling idiot would know that is a damn lie.
Tell you what, if any don’t believe that DU is deadly, get a tiny, tiny bit of powdered DU and sniff it up your nose, and then tell me___ it won’t kill you.___ Any takers?
Aloha Everyone,
We have a DU problem and a military build up problem in Hawaii called The Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The US Army just released a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)
See http://www.sbct-seis.org/
There is a 45 day comment period and a schedule of public hearings. The following are quotes from that document and some questions the document triggers in me.
In chapter 3 page 7 addresses Depleted Uranium and in the fourth paragraph of this SEIS states: “In October 2006, a third survey of the area (Schofield Barracks)was conducted in areas made more accessible by a successful prescribed burn of the impact area.”
How many public health alerts were announced when the military decided to do this “prescribed burn”? What toxins were present in the smoke that drifted over downwind communities? To me, the SEIS statement below confirms that radiation and DU particles were in the smoke…
“Forty-five separate locations showed Gamma levels higher than background…In total nine samples were collected (six soil samples and three fragments)…Laboratory analysis indicated that three soil samples exhibited uranium-238 above background levels. Additionally, spectroscopy analyses confirmed that the three fragments collected are comprised of DU.”
One closing question and comment: How can there be background levels of uranium-238, as stated above? Uranium-238 is man-made radioactive waste. There shouldn’t be any background levels. It is here in Hawaii and there can be only one explanation how it got here. All DU testing needs to be verified by independent experts; we have a right to know the truth about how contaminated Hawaii is with depleted uranium.
Stay tuned this story is just beginning.
I just found an error I made in my last two blogs Bill,__ I wrote 40,000. I was wrong with that figure.
It is 400,000 troops who served in the first Gulf war who are suffering from radiation poisoning.
Linda, sounds interesting___ in a sad way. Read one of today’s lead articles about how our government is lying about chemical waste poisoning a small town. That is what they do best,___ LIE.
Linda,
You are correct, if depleted uranium is found in the environment, it is manmade. Uranium much below a U-235 concentration of 0.71% does not significantly occur in nature.
Since there has been no uranium enrichment activity in Hawaii, the only logical source would be residue from DU munitions. These munitions will fragment and burn on impact dispersing depleted uranium in the smoke.
How serious a health risk this residue poses is controversial as you will easily glean from the 100 or so postings on this string. At the least, the uranium is a heavy metal poison and inhalation should be avoided from that standpoint.
Controversial Billy, about the only one who has any serious doubts on this string about the dangers of DU is you. As you stated, you are agnostic on the subject of DU.
Well educate yourself Bill, check out the undeniable facts and professional statements from qualified doctors who are not agnostic, not doubters about the subject. Perhaps you will be enlightened. I can bet that Linda can help you learn a bit about it. She is fighting it in the front lines and has more good info than I do on the subject of DU.
If you are agnostic about the subjct of DU Billy, why do you attempt to write with such authority on the issue?
Evelyn,
Science is not based on testimonials regardless of the pedigree of the author. It is based on data, adequately controlled and measured. It is subjected to peer review before publication.
When, in another string, I mentioned the study of troops contaminated with uranium by friendly fire, the degree of contamination was documented. The health of the more highly contaminated troops was compared with the lesser contaminated troops and to a control group. The precision of the study was given with confidence intervals. The probability of an erroneous conclusion was included. The study was published in a recognized peer reviewed journal.
I am not competent to peer review a medical study like this one but I am more prone to trust its conclusions than an Iraqi minister of the environment who is trolling for funding.
He may be trolling for funding, but with 8,000 new cancer cases a year since 2003 and doctors from many other nations seeing the evidence, I would assert that is ample scientific eveidence.
The same situation is happening in Afganastan and Kosovo, where DU was heavily used. It is not just what anyone has written on the subject, there are hundreds of thousands of vets who are sick that should not be sick to anywhere near the numbers they are. It’s an epidemic like the Agent Orange epidemic was and is, an eidemic that the government is attempting to deny and hide from the public and they so far have been quite sucessful with people writing the type of spin like you do on the subject.
You often quote data about nuclear power plants, you give websites to read. That isn’t always scientific data, nor are your or my comments. Nor is Linda’s comments. Would you say she is wrong about what she has written here? If so, tell her that.
When the swine flu hit in 1956-7, it didn’t require any scientific data to know that there was a serious problem and people were sick and many died.
For a month the Strategic Air Command was out of business and we didn’t need any stupid studies to understand it.
When the government is attempting to deny a truth or hide a disasterious mistake, scientific proof is the name of the game.
Billy, I forgot something. That study our military conducted with a small nunber of the troops you mentioned. Do you believe that? Or do you believe the undeniable fact, that over two thirds of those troops are now permanently disabled.
Compare that figure with a like ammount of troops who never went to Iraq, during the same time frame. The figure is less than 4% who are now permanently disabled. It’s 68% versus 4%. You don’t need a controled study to see the difference. It is DU radiation poisoning Bill, from inhaling DU dust and it is gonna get a hell of a lot worse. We’ll see.
Linda, Billy did offer some good comments and advice to you. He writes Deadly DU isotopes is in the smoke and dust, you should avoid inhaling.
I guess that would be Okay if the wind never blows any of the dust around, or the invisible, microscopic specs of the poison that can kil a person stay where they are.
Oops, Billy didn’t say the unranium smoke and dust was deadly. Well, someone else whom he likely disagrees with did. You see, he’s agnostic on the subject. You need the government experts to tell you it’s Okay.
Uhhh, Linda, ___didn’t the government experts already tell you it is safe there?
Evelyn:
i followed radiation levels at hanford for many yrs.(early 80’s)..the spin was “how do we know what the level of backgnd radiation really is”..30 yrs later it is still going on..ya got upwinders from hanford, ya got upwinders from yucca..ya know like i am not an upwinder (northern nevada), and my sis kind of like your age is sayin, well it don’t seem right that out of a very small class size all these friends are dead from the big C..i don’t know how one proves this stuff..kind of like majic ya know..
ken
Hi Ken, I have read your blogs and I do enjoy them because of the good common sense you exhibit.
You live in an area where many above and below ground nuclear tets were coducted. I’m sure the cancer rates there and in areas of Utah are way above normal. Did you know there are a dozen or more earthquake faults right in the area of Yucca mountain.? There is a great place to “safely” store atomic waste for a few million years. I do believe they are planning to store the most deadly types of waste there too.
On background readings? I’m not very informed on the subject, but I understand there should be none, or almost none for plutonium and uranium 238. Radon is normal and some others, but I can’t really give an opinion except to state, that if plutonium or DU reaings are showing, there is a problem. How much of those poisons are safe?___ None.
I googled depleted uranium and got over 1.3 million references. Unfortunately many of the ones that came up were related to the WHO, and were very suspicious according to some of the numerous articles I’ve previously read on the subject. Finally, I came across this article, a long read, but it not only gave explanations of the DU problem from many experts, much of it from worldwide sources without US inspired ’spin’, but also dealt with PR ploys such as the three “D’s”…Deny, Delay, Deceive, and how our MSM & government conspire to keep us in the dark. Here’s the link:
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/background.htm
I forgot to mention one of the primary things I was looking for in my google search, and if anyone runs across some reliable info please post it, ok?
In an article I read several years ago on DU it was stated the DoD claimed only 320 tons of DU were used in the first Gulf War. Other independent sources placed it at 800+ tons, though. From later research & reading I now know DU is currently being used in projectiles as small as 20 mm, and even as large as several tons in ‘Bunker Buster’ bombs. The first Gulf War was only a matter of weeks, and we are approaching five years for this war, so the amount of the DU WMD fired in this one must be more by a considerable factor. Find the fact and get a big ‘well done’ from all of us, ok?
I read that Paul and not just twenty mm, DU is even used in rifle bullets now. I’ll find it. The C-130 Spectre gun ships use it and they have a 30mm gatling, two 40mm Bofers and a 106 cannon. When they are firing, it looks like a continual ball of lightening zapping down from the sky. The A-10 Wartogs have that 30mm gatling that fires a thousand rounds plus a minute of DU ammo. Each bullet is 3.5 pounds of solid DU, coated with a thin sheet of copper.
We have very likely scattered more of that poison here in the US on firing ranges than we have in Iraq. And againm once it is used it is all smoke and dust. One single speck and__ too bad.__ Sorry, __war is hell ya know.
Aloha from Hilo,
I’m not an expert on the ins and outs of DU. I’ve read a lot on both sides of this issue. I am still in the very beginning of my research. What I have learned so far has angered me to the core of my being. How could a sane government do this to people? When I saw the birth defects coming out of the middle east, I cried. I didn’t spend 30 years in nursing to see human beings do this to other human beings. And then lie about it.
I had to do something. I just started to talk to people and share what I’ve learned so far, that was four years ago. I always encourage people to do their own research. I am Pro-testing Hawaii for DU. They already found it here. The military is still in denial that they use it or that it causes any negative health or environmental impacts. Why would I trust their test results? Which are due to start next month. That would be like putting a drunk in charge of the bar. The military is still doing live-fire training here despite the comfirmation of DU found.
This is what I believe to be true about DU dust. I rely on my nursing experience in knowing how the body functions and a lot of common sense.
I specify dust because DU in its solid form is only a little bit dangerous and needs special handling. When it burns it is a whole different animal. As I understand it, a DU particle emits about 4 million electron volts; a living human cell operates at about 10 electron volts. DU is a heavy metal (over one million sites to goggle on health hazards and heavy metals.) and mainly emits alpha radiation. Alpha radiation doesn’t penetrate too far. Outside the body our outer layer of skin which is basically dead; DU cannot penetrate. But once inside the body lets say the lungs, this is where the real problem begins and why I agree with many medical experts that say DU dust causes gulf war syndrome.
Any DU particle that comes in contact with a living cell will kill it. (Remember the power ratio?) Now, we humans have a wonderful self healing mechanism called our immune system. This DU heavy metal radioactive particle is recognized as an invader and our body sends out our first line of defense from our lymphatic system called macrophages. These are our body warriors. They clump around the invader and prepare to move him out of the body. Of course the first ones die but others will come until enough come to clump around and move the invader out o