In what sense do wars support democracy? They merely ensure that many of the persons who made up the populace at the outset of the conflict no longer exist. Despite having never, in most cases, supported the war in which they were destroyed, they will never vote again.
In its cursory treatment of the planned shipment of depleted uranium-tipped missiles to Ukraine, which was opposed by many organizations and countries, NPR host Leila Fadel interviewed one “expert,” Toghzan Kassenova, who cheerfully explained that “it’s important to remember that depleted uranium is considerably less radioactive than natural uranium.”
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/depleted-citizenry-democracy/
The Joe Biden administration recently managed to persuade politicians and a number of outspoken pundits to applaud the provision of cluster bombs to the Ukrainian government for use on Ukrainian soil. One war crime leads to another, so perhaps no one should be surprised that the U.S. government has now opted to ship depleted uranium-tipped missiles to Ukraine as well. The notion that the use of such weapons will help to defend democracy should jar the cognitive faculties of any person with a functioning cortex.
Democracy is “rule by the people,” while unexploded ordnance, such as the bomblets left behind by cluster munitions, kills future persons in no way supportive of a war which took place before they were born. Similarly, the babies of women exposed to the dust generated by depleted uranium-tipped missiles, found to be carcinogenic and teratogenic in both Kosovo and Iraq, have their prospects radically diminished as a result of the decisions of military and government officials to deploy such weapons. The flawed arguments used to rationalize the shipment of cluster bombs to Ukraine have evidently quelled any analogous concerns among those who support the provision of depleted uranium-tipped missiles to that land.
The primary reason for the near silence in the mainstream media on the issue of DU-tipped missiles is that the Pentagon itself steadfastly denies that the munitions pose any real danger to the inhabitants of the lands where they are used. This is accomplished by setting the epistemological bar unachievably high: demanding something akin to mathematical certainty before admitting that weapons waste harms human beings. The usual “Correlation is not causation!” slogan is recycled every time the government undertakes to defend itself from allegations that it is poisoning people. It happened in Vietnam, after the use of Agent Orange; in Iraq, after the bombing of chemical factories in 1991; in Iraq, again, after the use of open-air burn pits from 2003 on…
In cases where U.S. troops themselves have suffered through exposure to toxic weapons waste, an acknowledgement of causation may finally emerge, decades after a conflict, as in the case of Agent Orange in Vietnam, long after the policymakers have receded from public life. (In an interview with Errol Morris in the 2003 film The Fog of War, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara infamously claimed, to his eternal shame, that he did not recall having authorized the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.) Contemporaneously, the public relations apparatus of the Pentagon reflexively denies any and every allegation of malfeasance, effectively enabling evil by protecting those who perpetrate pernicious policies. When eventually, as in the case of Agent Orange, it becomes undeniable that correlation was in fact causation, the denial of moral responsibility for the harms done is systematically defended through appeal to the good intentions of the government administrators who implemented what proved to be disastrous policies. They meant to do well!
Unfortunately, the press, including once-reputable outlets such as NPR (National Public Radio), now serve primarily to parrot the official proclamations of what has transmogrified into a military state. In its cursory treatment of the planned shipment of depleted uranium-tipped missiles to Ukraine, which was opposed by many organizations and countries, NPR host Leila Fadel interviewed one “expert,” Toghzan Kassenova, who cheerfully explained that “it’s important to remember that depleted uranium is considerably less radioactive than natural uranium.” Kassenova concluded his segment with a rousing endorsement of the plan to send the controversial weapons to Ukraine.
Despite the existence of studies demonstrating anomalous “correlations” between proximity to spent DU-missiles and the incidence of cancer and birth defects, which are most plausibly explained as instances of causation, the U.S. government and its propagandists remain steadfast in their insistence that no proof exists that the use of such weapons in Kosovo and Iraq, among other places, ever harmed anyone. No cancer, no birth defects. The cranks just pulled together all the birth defects and cancer cases they could find and blamed them on the entirely innocent military!
Fortunately, we have a few good critics,
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