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Squeezing Iran on Nuclear Developments
As of this moment no one knows for sure if the Iranian leadership really intends to build a nuclear weapon. What we do know is that Israel and the US are leading a well-orchestrated fight against Iran’s nuclear development program. They have roped in some of their friends in Western Europe—mainly Britain and France--to support their own machinations in that regard by collectively imposing sanctions of all types against the leaders and citizens of Iran. It must be noted outright that all of the members of this “coalition of the willing” are themselves armed to the hilt with nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that can deliver those weapons of mass destruction anywhere on earth. Do they have any moral right to squeeze Iran to prevent it from developing and deploying similar weapons that they themselves keep developing and deploying with impunity, and with complete disregard for majority world-opinion that these weapons should be eliminated all together?
There are no permanent friends when it comes to international relations, only convenient bed-fellows, as a wise sage once said. The one you consider as a friend during the night can easily turn into a deadly enemy in the morning. So, let us look at Iran’s genuine fears and security concerns vis-à-vis the so-called “civilized” and “peaceful” nations of Israel, the US and some other counties in Asia and Europe.
Iran shares a long and highly porous border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are remotely-controlled American “drones” in those countries killing the alleged Taliban leaders and fighters, and many more civilians besides. Who knows if the Americans have not stationed some drones, nukes and missiles in their many military bases in those countries to take care of Iran if and when the need arises? One thing we know for sure is that there are American ships and submarines floating everywhere around the world with nuclear weapons and missiles: cruise missiles being just a lesser category of the weapons of mass destruction that have already been used in Sudan and Afghanistan, among other places.
Pakistan is rapidly becoming a failed state with an arsenal of nuclear weapons. What happens if there is a regime change in the country? Will the new Pakistani rulers and their intelligence operators in the ISI and other spy agencies love Iran or nuke it when they feel like it?
Beyond Pakistan is India, another “peaceful” country with nuclear weapons as well as missiles that can deliver them over long distances: Iran is just next door really. Then there is China with its own atom and hydrogen bombs that can rein down on Iran any day if the Chinese communist leaders so decide. Let us also not forget North Korea with its arsenal of nukes and missiles. And, who is to say if there are not American nuclear weapons and missiles stationed in South Korea? The same goes for Japan even though the Americans and the Japanese political leaders and militaries deny this vehemently. For that matter, does Taiwan also host some nuclear weapons just in case China decided to take over the island some day as its leaders have repeatedly stated?
There is Russia also with its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, with no love lost for its own Muslim population. And, it is still developing new nuclear weapons to match the stock-piles the US and her friends currently have and are still developing.
Finally, there is Israel. We all know, or should know by now, about its growing stock-pile of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that can strike Iran at any time. Israelis are also alleged to be killing Iranian nuclear scientist over the last few years in Teheran and elsewhere against all norms of human rights and diplomacy. Israel is also a country that has been repeatedly imprisoning and allegedly torturing, at least psychologically, one of its own citizens, Mordechai Vannunu, since 1986 when he first revealed some details about Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the international community. Are we really supposed to believe that the Israelis leaders are any saner or less ominous than the leaders of Iran. Can we be sure?
So let us seriously ponder if the leaders of Iran are crazy to be paranoid about the potential dangers they face from all the nuclear-crazies that surround them and can annihilate them from near or far at short notice? They must also be looking at how no established nuclear power in the world today has ever been really punished for developing and deploying these ominous weapons of mass destruction: India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan are just the latest examples of this crazy state of affairs. If the leaders of the US, Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia can be trusted with managing their nuclear weapons in any kind of an enlightened way, there is no reason whatsoever not to extend the same courtesy to the much-maligned Iranian leaders.
Nothing short of an immediate global movement for Destroying All Nuclear Weapons Now (DAWN) can save us. That is the only sane choice we have in this nuclear-crazy world of ours. Iran is just the latest example of our collective madness.
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30 Comments so far
Show AllIf the Ayatollah has rescinded his fatwa against Iranian nuclear weapons, our media would surely have let us know.
He renewed it on 2/22/2012
The beating of the drums to war has little to do with Iran's alleged desire to build nuclear weapons; it has everything to do with Iran changing the currency for payment of its oil from US dollars. The US government once again wants to wage war for the oil companies. Just the mention of the word 'war', raises oil prices but that's only for starters. Next we'll have skirmishes in the straits of Hormuz which will used as a pretext to an invasion. No matter what, it will fill the coffers of the MIC and once again result in lives being lost for the sake of the 1%. What's the 99% going to do about it?
We never seem to acknowledge that the US is the only country to have dropped the bomb. That may not be significant but it may affect our mind set.
Good analysis by Arun Elhance highlighting the hypocrisy in the new anti-Iran threats & sanctions coalition. The leading members--US, UK, France, and Israel--are all nuclear-armed imperialist powers with bloody colonial histories. (And in case of Israel, it is an ongoing colonial war.)
>> <<
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By the way, how is banning Iranian oil working out for them? Do they seriously think they are going to attack Iran with oil prices >$100/bbl?
Odd isn't it that the oil companies are the only ones who con't object to high prices for oil...oh I do look forward to seeing what their profits are for THIS quarter...!
Once again until we can restore democracy to America by tossing out this corporate junta, US policy will never reflect the will of the 99%. Also immediate reform of the financing of elections combined with either a national boycott or strict regulations (with enforcement to match) against the irresponsible delivery of misinformation by the MSM must be implemented for there to be any hope of eliminating our corrupt system. The silence by the MSM and our politicians about the nuclear hypocrisies is deafening, yet too many unsuspecting Americans are buying into this assault on our sensibilities. I don't know if OWS or an armed insurrection is required, but I do know that the US has morphed into an ugly empire with no signs of abating anytime in the near future.
England and France (and other nations) have engaged in imperial crimes against humanity and wars of aggression for centuries. The U.S. assumed that role internationally (following the elimination of most Native Americans) during the 19th century and has initiated more major wars of aggression following WWII than any other nation on earth. Our corporate imperial military just murdered about 500,000 people in Iraq in addition to Iraqis killed by the pre-invasion sanctions. This is a continuation of the prior policy of using the U.S. military to further the interests private oil corporations seeking hegemony over international markets.>
Iran is considered a "threat" for having nationalized their energy resources and also are in competition with Big Oil for Asian markets and the exploitation of Central Asian natural gas and oil via trans-Afghan pipelines. Iran has already built most of their portion of the IP (Iran-Pakistan) gas pipeline which will compete with the proposed TAPI pipeline which is part of Big Oil's global agenda since the 1990's. The plan might be to bomb the competition.>
A world without nuclear weapons would be ideal but unrealistic considering the policies of the major powers. With the U.S. military surrounding Iran and threatening to initiate yet another war of aggression, Iran would be wise to acquire a nuclear deterrent which would decrease the possibility of an American and or Israeli attack or potentially WWIII as nuclear Russia and China and Pakistan have sided with Iran.>
And although the topic of depleted uranium contamination in Iraq and Afghanistan has faded from discussion, there is ample evidence that the U.S. has in fact used DU a weapon of mass destruction that could continue to kill almost forever. After exploding and burning, radioactive ceramic oxides from DU have a half-life of 4 Billion years. When ingested by humans, the results are insidious, permanent and deadly.
The U.N. and many others have voted that DU be banned from weaponry. And under various treaties, the use of DU should be considered a war crime. DU activist Leuren Moret is of the opinion that the use of DU weaponry is nothing short of genocide as it can permanently alter the genome of those exposed. This could be seen as a way of depopulating or weakening a large population that imperial war criminals which to conquer or occupy in order to enhance corporate profits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
"Since 2001, medical personnel at the Basra hospital in southern Iraq have reported a sharp increase in the incidence of child leukemia and genetic malformation among babies born in the decade following the Gulf War. Iraqi doctors attributed these malformations to possible long-term effects of DU, an opinion which was echoed by several newspapers.[78][107][108][109] In 2004, Iraq had the highest mortality rate due to leukemia of any country.[110]
"The Canadian Uranium Medical Research Centre obtained urine samples from bombed civilian areas in Jalalabad that showed concentrations of 80-400 ng/L of undepleted uranium, far higher than the typical concentration in the British population of ~5 ng/L."
America has become the global epicenter of evil.
Thank you, Gonzo, for sharing this important information. It's my understanding that DU is a byproduct of nuclear-power plant spent fuel rods. That some of this radioactive material is being smelt down and used in today's weaponry. I also have heard that due to heat and compression, some of it yeilds Plutonium particles in its wake. It's been a while since the DU subject hit this forum, and evidence continues to build around genetic deformities and other birth defects occurring in Iraq. Radioactive materials surely are to human beings what the open box was to Pandora. Too late to get the genii back into the bottle; so much of humanity will be paying for this trespass should we, as a species, survive the climate changes (exacerbated by massive methane plumes) to come.
Keep in mind the State department "leak" that happened regarding Syria just the past few days.
In that Cable the United States Government suggests Syria has WMDs and may have not ended its Nuclear Weapons programs and the US Government is offering its aid to neighboring nations to ensure Syria can not threaten them with said weapons.
It beyong belief that we still have people, even on these boards.,that STILL fail to see that the United States Government is NOT what it claims to be. It does not stand for liberty and hustice and human rights. It is one of the most Corrupts and murderous Countriees in the History of this earth and is the owrlds greatest purveyor of violence.
They are NOT the Good guys.
Also in this forum, on a REGULAR basis:
1. Apologists for nuclear power
2. Apologists for GM technology and/or Monsanto
3. Those who blame "illegal" aliens for Amerika's job woes (rather than NAFTA or big business interests happy to get the low-waged, undocumented workers)
4. Those who wait in ambush to attack Hedges, Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Michael Moore and others. The ONLY others that have visible platforms given the Captured State of the U.S media-complex. This suggests, for all their beefs about The Left, their real motive is to knee-cap it wherever it DOES have a voice!
5. Those who deny climate change!
6. Those who hold Israel ONLY accountable for U.S. foreign policy (as opposed to recognizing that it is ONE of the interests that shapes that ends)
7. Those who do the Right's work for it in attacking public education. Feminist values, anything spiritually inclusive or representing Earth as a living Being, i.e. Gaia
8. Those who still shill for Obama or the Dems
9. Those who insist on FIGHTING back against a corrupt system, as if that strategy is representative of the moral high ground (likely they are acting as agent provocateurs in the process)
10. Those who deny that this forum HAS paid dissemblers and obfuscators, or worse
11. Those that hide behind a series of screen names to dominate the boards with repeititon of the messages THEY want heard (sometimes as the LIES told often enough, to be presumed by some, as true)
12. Those who, in spite of the 99%-1% revelation, still speak in terms of a ubiquitous WE when describing U.S. policies, foreign or domestic. As if these horrific policies are engendered on the basis of the CONSENT of the governed!
13. Those who insist that human nature is to blame, that it is human NATURE that makes for so much violence. As if the shaping devices that have led to this outcome are not the causative factor. (Follow the logic: If human, itself, is the cause, and thus damned, there is no other possibility for humanity. Bah humbug!)
14. Those who blame the American people, even though it's evident that the media, the current corporate infiltration of public education, and the sell-out of leadership all makes it virtually impossible for the relevant truths of our time to be known by the masses.
15. Those who think Clinton did a good job, those who think Hillary would have done a better job (as prez), along with those who STILL blame Nader (as if the U.S. Supreme Court, added to all sorts of vote count shenanigans didn't call the election AGAINST the public mandate)
16. Those who pretend that racism and sexism are settled "issues" of the past and that the only relevant discussion focus on economic classism
What did I leave out?
With all of these topics being inverted to serve a variety of insidious interests, speaking on behalf of TRUTH is a full time job (here, and no doubt on other comment threads). Sunstein, along with a well-financed Homeland Security State, definitely got his wish answered. Discerning the wheat (truth) from the chaff (crappola) is serious work!
And GW, I count you as one who ALWAYS speaks on behalf of Truth and the Greater Good!
Thank you Sioux Rose I do try. I just remind people that when i state "The United States of America" I am not speaking about all of the people that happen to live inside of that country.
I do not consider the "United States of America" a democracy and while there are persons that reside inside those borders that act as enablers for that corrupt regime, there are many that recognize it for the cancer that it is.
The same can be said of any country to varying degrees the great difference being that the USA is at the forefront of this Militarism and violence and Consumption of the Earth for the sake of profits.
There are also a good deal of others and indeed the majority of the population that can not break free of the conditioning they have been subjected to. THAT is an age old human problem that goes back into the dawn of time to which all people are subject to.
That is interesting, SR. Thanks for that. As an aside, I have been giving your posts a lot of thought lately. I saw some video interviews with soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan was appalled and very disturbed by them. That got me to re-thinking many of the things you have been saying.
The list is great, and I think that 12-16 are especially powerful.
I may fail on one of the sixteen - number 9 - because I do think we need to fight back.
Thank you, Two A. It's refreshing to see certain premises validated. As to "#9," it depends on how we define FIGHTING BACK. How much is my biological lack of testosterone, how much my beliefs about non-violence, and how much the legacy of seeing war firsthand in EARLIER incarnations, I cannot say. I just think any violence used now will bring incredible retaliation back on the OWS movement. There is NO question that violence of all sorts is the unspoken weapon of the 1%, and we know it takes shape through the dreadful ends of financial systems, as well as in the form of enormously lethal "theaters" of actual combat.
I am of the mind that when the rot sets in from within, the entity dies of its own disease. That's not to say that all the movements worldwide are not part of the process of taking it down, removing its last shreds of viability, piece by piece.
GW NORTH: It's true that many of these behaviors go back centuries. What becomes the equivalent of mankind shooting itself in the foot is evidenced when the female side of sentience, that which seeks agreement rather than dominance--through martial forms of exploitation--is disabled so that ONLY the aggressive approach is championed, and in most instances allowed. This is part of my case for Mars rules. I liken it to the image of a vehicle navigated with only one side's oars in use... thus causing said vehicle to endlessly circle and make NO progress. In my view, that explains the sexist controls down the centuries and why a lop-sided humanity now arrives at the final phase of a 2200-year age, where War is still the main event, regardless of how it traumatizes human beings, ecosystems, and all forms of sentient life. In fact, according to Yogananda (and I've frequently quoted portions of the speech he delivered to the U.N. in l949), these violent events disrupt the ethers and cause the elemental systems to come apart leading to an uptick in such things as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.
I believe in all sincerity, that humanity is now at a crossroads. We can speak of it through many prisms:
The end of oil
The folly of war and where the next major one may lead (Einstein clued us in, that any modern World War would reduce us to the equivalent of a Stone Age, and thus any future conflict would likely be fought with sticks and bones)
The tipping points suggesting that global warming will fast become climate chaos
The implosion of world economic systems due to the influx of the faux currency streams (as tied to Derivatives/swaps and other false bases for determining worth or value).
It's cold and rainy here in Florida today... the atmosphere almost eerie. The entire winter has felt like Weather's version of a Cha-cha-cha. It's hot (78-84), no, it's cold (28-44), and the fluxes have been unbelievable. If it's dizzying for a thinking human, one must wonder what the birds and bees make of it.
How do we define "fighting back?" Good question.
I see fighting back as analogous to standing up to a bully. The more firmly and courageously, and the sooner, that you stand up to a bully, the less violence there will be. The more that you fail to stand up to a bully, the more violence the bully will deliver and the more likely it becomes that the victims of the bully will ultimately respond with violence.
And part of the plan for a potential attack on Iran is to use the new 30,000 lb. bunker buster bomb and probably smaller DU weaponry and or DU tipped missiles. DU is part of the monster bunker busters for penetration. Oddly enough recent articles on the new 30,000 lb. bomb fail to mention depleted uranium.>
Underground facilities would be the primary targets but also perhaps infrastructure around the country as well. The result would be many explosions releasing huge amounts of radioactive particles that could drift far and wide, even beyond the borders of Iran. There is also the possibility of using nuclear bunker busters.>
Nuclear Bunker Buster Bombs Against Iran: This Way Lies Madness
by Stephen M. Osborn
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=2093
"The latest information I have had from the followers of Bush is that he has demanded and received permission to use nuclear “bunker busters” in Iran in a preemptive strike. As a nuclear veteran (Operation Redwing, Bikini, 1956) I can affirm that this is absolute madness. The “bunker buster” is a cute sounding name for a nuclear horror. Air bursts are horrible enough, doing incredible destruction through heat, shock and high initial radiation. The fallout from an air burst is registered around the world. A surface or subsurface burst is even deadlier and more long lasting.">
and:
"Now we are facing the specter of Depleted Uranium, which is turning up in atmospheric filters around the world. Depleted Uranium is a nuclear byproduct of the nuclear industry. It is a low level radioactive material of extreme density. The half life of DU is 4.5 billion years. Workers in DU have to wear full protective equipment and respirators. DU ammunition is extremely hard and dense. It penetrates armor like tissue paper, vaporizing and burning, leaving dust and particles as shrapnel to be ingested or breathed. DU is not what the public thinks of as a radioactive material. It only emits alpha and beta radiation. A piece of paper will stop it. However, when it is in the lungs or elsewhere in the body, it is in contact with living tissue, bombarding that tissue with low level radiation for the rest of your life and beyond. That radiation can lead to cancers, genetic damage and eventual death."
Thank you for the info, Gonzo. It's as if the world has been turned into a huge Easter Island experiment. IF global warming doesn't manage to make the atmosphere unfit to breathe, the seas bereft of life, the harvest cycles too short and intermittent to support major crops... then those who manage to survive will likely bear the stigmata of this generation's dark legacy in the form of owning visible genetic mutations.
Creation gave us a garden... and because the warrior ethos came to dominate, everything has been turned into a war zone with wounds bleeding everywhere. More than the deficit that reaches into the stratosphere through faulty derivatives dealings on Wall Street is the deficit of LOVE.
Had persons not been taught to so vehemently turn against the Great Mother, along with being forcibly alienated from the beauty of their own flesh, the marvel of sexual relations, the poetic coitus that mates the bee with the flower, the snowflake with the earth... the glorious knowing that everything around us DANCES with the ecstasy of being, woud not have been silenced to centuries of conditioning whereby persons have been turned against themselves, against the wonders abounding, and against all things NATURAL.
How else to impart to mammon, ownership of all sentient beings? How else to ignore the essence of the thing, itself, for the price tag affixed to it? To me, this is Carpicon, the final insult to all things real and natural as imposed by a make war/industrially-driven counterfeit State masquerading itself as The Supreme Power.
My belief in the cosmic clockworks gives me faith. NOTHING endures. Every thing has its season, its hour upon the stage before it fades out... as is now seen in this dying age where Capitalism has colonized not only capital systems, but the living world and all that is vital and living inside most of us.
Rage! Rage! Against the dying of Nature's Light. BE LOVE.
Siouxrose:
That is an interesting point as some DU critics claim that residues including radioactive elements not part of conventional DU material have been detected at locations where DU weapons were used. The implication is that other radioactive elements, possibly from spent rods, are making their way into DU weapons material creating an even more toxic mix.>
Another theory on that, is that both DU and small "tactical nukes" have been used in the same locations or possibly a mini-nuke with a DU tip for penetration.>
Did the US used tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan?
by Alex Kirby
BBC, 23 May 2003.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KIR305A.html
"Other researchers suggest new types of radioactive weapons may have been used in Afghanistan.
The scientist is Dr Asaf Durakovic, of the Uranium Medical Research Center (UMRC) based in Washington DC.
Dr Durakovic, a former US army colonel who is now a professor of medicine, said in 2000 he had found "significant" DU levels in two-thirds of the 17 Gulf veterans he had tested.
In May 2002 he sent a team to Afghanistan to interview and examine civilians there.
The UMRC says: "Independent monitoring of the weapon types and delivery systems indicate that radioactive, toxic uranium alloys and hard-target uranium warheads were being used by the coalition forces.">
But is my understanding that most of the "conventional" DU comes from the uranium fuel processing where U-235 is concentrated to be used in the nuclear reactor process. Thus there is a lot of DU in storage and it is given away for free to arms manufacturers.>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
"Most depleted uranium arises as a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors and in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Enrichment processes generate uranium with a higher-than-natural concentration of lower-mass uranium isotopes (in particular U-235, which is the uranium isotope supporting the fission chain reaction) with the bulk of the feed ending up as depleted uranium"
Good info... the "enrichment" process is the key. And just as GM food processors are not legally required to tell consumers what's ACTUALLY in their breakfast cereal, as Saturday Night Live once mocked: "I can't believe it's not butter..." There are lingering questions as to what a thing is; and no where is that mystery less explained (and thus more covert) than when it comes to what's in today's weaponry. Plausible deniability is the coward's shield... those who produce these deadly weapons are taught to hide behind misconceptions, deceptions, and cooked up "intelligence," as if the Truth dies with the victim. Or so they believe!
I remember a nurse (can't recall her name) from Texas blowing the whistle on "Gulf War Syndrome" when all the MIC authorities were denying any possible link with, or exposure to DU. (It's Deja vu, Agent Orange and Vietnam troops all over again.)
I don't remember where I heard/read about the plutonium particles, but when these radioactive substances explode, and thus reach high heating, it's plausible that they split into other particles. We have a few physics experts who post on CD. Perhaps they'll respond to this issue with more clarity.
Any form of radiation is a threat to genetic integrity. None of this crap should EVER have been used; and certainly after seeing people MELT into the sidewalks of Nagasaki & Hiroshima, normal psyches (and healthy consciences) would have put this monster back in the box once and for all. Instead, imagine the $/figures of all the money spent on WMD since l945? How many billions? Even trillions? While how many million go to bed starving each night? While Green Energy & infrastructure are made to wait due to alleged budgetary constraints.
I am SURE that souls will have to answer for the priorities they lived by. Shades of the St. Thomas Admonition, "That to the one much is given, much will be expected." Therefore those who made the decisions to build bombs rather than invest in school lunch programs will have MUCH to answer for.
Typically when I make this sort of statement, the obfuscation squad shows up to suggest that it was the American PEOPLE who elected this, or the American PEOPLE, as a whole, who are to blame. I do not agree. Certainly any imbeciles who brag about dropping bombs on brown people fit the designation, but MILLIONS have tried to work for a more peaceful, humane, and just world. It is disingenuous to tie the tag of warrior onto those who have placed that primitive response aside. We are not all resonating to the same frequency or level of spiritual realization.
Karma is like radiation... it keeps on emitting.
I am pretty familiar with the "enrichment process of U235" because I once worked briefly on the Dutch centrifuge program. The "DU" left behind by this kind of enrichment process does not contain plutonium if natural uranium ore was used to make UF6-gas. It also does not contain "reactor products from plutonium fission". It is unlikely to contain U236. The famous Oklo "natural reactor" happened some 2 billion years ago when the concentration of U235 was sufficiently large for a spontaneous reaction. However, all radioactivities of this and other Oklo event have long ago decayed. Its use in military hardware is no different from the use of chlorine gas in WW1. It should be forbidden.
The truly dangerous DU (depleted in U235 by its forced fission) is from spent nuclear and reprocessed fuel rods for the extraction of plutonium. There is simply no debate that it must not be allowed into any military hardware.
And an old Common Dreams article:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0709-07.htm
US Dirty Bombs:
Radioactive Shells Spiked with Plutonium
by John LaForge
"Plutonium contamination raises stakes
In Europe, a wildfire of publicity was lit anew by the United States. official admission that its DU contains plutonium and other reactor-borne fission products far more radioactive and carcinogenic than uranium-238.
The discovery of uranium-236 contamination in spent munitions used against Kosovo revealed that the DU was not obtained before the nuclear reaction process. The Pentagon, NATO and the British Ministry of Defense have always downplayed the danger of DU saying it was "less radioactive than uranium ore." But at least half of the DU (250,000 metric tons) is now known to have been left over from the reprocessing of irradiated reactor fuel (done to extract weapons-grade plutonium), leaving it salted with fission products.(18)
"If it has been through a reactor, it does change our idea on depleted uranium," says Dr. Michael Repacholi of the World Health Organization, which has demanded to know how much plutonium is in DU ammunition. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is still working on an answer to that question.
As early as January 2000, the DOE admitted that its DU munitions are spiked with plutonium, neptunium and americium "transuranic" (heavier than uranium) fission wastes from inside nuclear reactors.(19) The health consequences here are fearsome: americium -- with a half-life of 7,300 years -- decays to plutonium-239, which is more radioactive than the original americium."
No need to wait for the physicists... I knew my memory could be trusted. Thanks for the data, especially this, awful as it is:
"DU contains plutonium and other reactor-borne fission products far more radioactive and carcinogenic than uranium-238."
For evidence as thus, I once again suggest that the very premise of DEFENSE be deconstructed. There is NOTHING in the way of National defense attendant upon dispersing the atoms of death around the world. Rising cancer rates suggest a direct connection. So all the billions thrown at militarism succeed in what, shortening all our life-spans and insuring that future generations will suffer horrific birth defects?
Karmic blowback on a biological level. Heavy stuff.
I have been railing against these God awful weapons since they started using them on the peoples of Yugoslavia. The science has ALWAYS existed that demonstrated these weapons were destructive to the environment and would lead to radiation polluting entire swathes of land.
The birth defects in Iraq were being noted years ago shortly after the US started bombing those peoples with the same.
Yet outside of these boards and a few others it next to impossible for any of this information to gain traction amongst a readership. Most outright dismiss it as "quackery" or not scientifically proven when one links to these doctors and researchers who are concerned about the use of these weapons.
Much of the reluctance to consider that eviidence comes from that conditioning mentioned in that short film that common dreams carries a link to today. People just refuse to abandon the myth that they are somehow morally superior to other nations as "americans" and therefore would never commit such wrongs.
When you still have people that claim dropping Nuclear weapons on cities was not a war crime and was done to save lives and was a moral act when Hiroshima and nagasaki mentioned, it apparent that breaking down that myth of the "moral high ground" is not something easily done.
And it can be so very discouraging as millions are being affected by these DU munitions this very day and there seems to be no attempts to end their use in sight.
Thanks for your comments Siouxrose and GwNorth.
I weep at the cruelty and absurdity of the pathological consciousness and actions of the .01% who create suffering for the 99.09%. And for what...they will die like everyone else with their criminal "wealth" left behind ?
Peace and Love,
Gonzo
I have long ago come to the conclusion that Mr. Obama's hullabaloo about Iran's civil nuclear program is a smokescreen to hide the true root of his aggressiveness which is religious in nature. He knows very well that Iran is no military, political, or economic threat to the U.S. or Israel but he hates the Muslim theocracy that rules Iran. He believes that its model is a danger that may spread to Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi-Arabia, Bahrain, and possibly Egypt. It must be replaced by a "modern" Muslim theocracy like the one of the former Shah. For purely Christian God-based impulses he has been and apparently still is willing to gamble with the lives of millions of Mid-Easterners and Westerners. Mr. Obama is walking a tightrope on Iran and Israel is threatening to pull the balancing rod from his hands at any moment. In the spring of 2008 I warned potential Obama voters what was coming. I repeat that warning today: he is not only a modern-day imperialist but a potential starter of "non-stupid" wars without a Congressional declaration of war. He will always describe them as "police actions" to remove a dangerous ruler from the "street of the world" as he did with Libya. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are lost because the people of these nations kicked us out or are in the process of kicking us out. So which are the promising targets left to be "victorious" for this American Caesar? First of all the small Muslim semi-theocracies of Libya and Syria but Iran remains the big prize. The Obama administration by the frothing mouth of Ms. Clinton is furious that Russia and China are not closing their eyes this time and let him have his cheap "Syrian victory". Nevertheless, the Obama administration has committed itself already too deeply in Syria to relent. The flow of arms to the anti-Assads will not only continue but grow. Vote for this man in November at your own risk.
It is so sad that Mr. Paul's social and economic ideas prevent me to vote for him too.
It's about oil and the petrodollar.
Obomber is just another American sociopath and political whore occupying the insane White House. The ultimate oreo who conned millions. He is another Nixon beginning with nothing and becoming wealthy as an errand boy for the elite. After he retires from a career of war crimes and political treachery against Americans and mankind, he will publish a profitable book full of the accepted delusions and lies that are the essence of Amerika.
Right on, Gonzo! And thank you for the heartfelt post above. Anyone who makes these wars about ideology is believing the propaganda over substance. Sure, what Kivals terms "the useful idiots" will be more inclined to go along with the exploits of Empire if they're convinced there's some holy war attribution attached to the "necessary killing fields." But few in this forum, given the wealth of info that comes our way, should still be seduced by styling over substance (a/k/a media dis-information campaigns).
GW North: Many people DO know about these things and do care, the problem can be compared to a woman with good intentions who remains with an abusive spouse because it seems impossible to safely leave him with her own life (added to the safety of the children) intact. I used to joke about a nuclear shit shuttle... taking all the detritus left over from armaments and leaving them on an inert "planet" like the moon. I don't know if that's a better solution then allowing them to slowly degrade into their half lives, centuries from now, as Cancer rates exponentially rise; or as someone in ths forum suggested, find a way to bury them in deep ocean crevices. Good luck to those dolphin and sea mammals who made it through BP's disaster... and Fukushima's radioactive ocean-crossing cargo barge. Should they have to face this, too?
I hear Jim Morrison singing, "What have they done to the Earth?"
To the posters who have sought to undermine my point about plutonium, the idea is that it's a particle that results from the high temperatures of DU being blasted. Like many things in science, its origin is somewhat unexpected.
Good article in the way it exposes the hypocrisy of the nuclear powers, but the conclusion sounds like a pipe dream. What state is going to agree to be the first to give up its nuclear weapons? Answer: no one. The trend is in the opposite direction. More and more developing countries will find nuclear programs, including nuclear weapons programs, within their reach as they develop economically.
No state on the world that has Nuclear weapons is safe as long as the United States of America has Nuclear weapons.
THAT nation and only that nation has shown the willngness to drop them on cities.