Depleted Uranium

Sunday, August 20, 2006

One of the United States' most tragic policies during the Vietnam conflict was our use of Agent Orange, a powerful and prolific defoliant. The dirty little secret of the first gulf war was (is) the denial of Gulf War syndrome. The dirty little secret of THIS present conflict is depleted uranium and, as in the past, our military and DOD go out of their way to disavow any intelligent discourse involving this dangerous substance.

According to Deborah Hastings, an AP reporter, our government is sitting on 1.5 billion pounds of this stuff and it's cheap. She goes on to say that it is 60% as radioactive as natural uranium. We use this stuff regularly to coat bullets and projectiles and to coat tanks, etc. defensively. The therory is that it not only protects our armaments but that it helps the projectiles to pierce their targets.

What we neglect to mention is that radioactivity levels in Iraq have now gone through the roof...both in Iraqi citizens and in the environment. And, if that isn't bad enough, our soldiers are coming home showing the effects of radioactiviy poisoning and the VA's testing is so inept that very few correct diagnoses are being made. This stands to outdo Gulf War syndrome by a magnitude of 1000's considering how many troops have particpated in this conflict. We have no understanding of what the long term effects will be but suffice it to say that this could be a tragedy of epic proportions.

The long term effects upon the Iraqi citizenry and the Iraqi environment pale in comparison to what we are seeing and will continue to see amongst our troops. It is conceivable that an entire generation of Iraqi children may manifest a myriad of birth defects and it is impossible to determine how long this stuff will exist in the environment before breaking down.

There is no doubt as to whether this should be considered an atrocity of war and that we, the United States, are guilty of war crimes against a nation. Yet, this has been hushed up and covered up and, until this mornings AP article, I have seen a dearth of investigative reports that alluded to or cited outright our military's use of depleted uranium ammo.

Yes...there are some of us that have known that we were using this substance, but this knowledge remains a well kept secret regarding most of the American public. I extend my gratitude to Ms. Hastings for her comprehensive and scathing expose and can only hope that we will begin to read and hear much more about our regular use of depleted uranium.

One may also wonder if and how this should be reflected in nuclear non proliferation language. It is beyond doubt that we are using nuclear waste as a wartime weapon and it boggles the imagination that this would NOT be a violation of treaties we have signed. At the very least, it makes our argument against N. Korea, Iran and any other rogue state which aspires to possess nuclear weapons a farce at best and blatantly hypocritical in any event.

As citizens of this country, it is incumbent upon us to write our legislators and media representatives, to speak to our neighbors, and to support those troops returning home with allegedly indeterminate and undiagnosable illnesses. We cannot allow this practice to continue!!

trickster108