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Posts Tagged ‘depleted uranium’

Uranium Particles From Ukraine Detected in Europe Raising Health Issues

Posted by M. C. on November 20, 2023

Sonja van den Ende

The western elites in all their stupidity preach the danger of climate change and ignore the danger of depleted uranium.

In conclusion, we can say that the elites of Europe and the West currently in power in all their stupidity preach the danger of climate change and ignore the danger of depleted uranium, dismissing it as not dangerous to public health, while scientists prove that it can be.

Uranium Particles From Ukraine Detected in Europe Raising Health Issues

In March 2023 the UK and in September 2023, the US, delivered shells filled with depleted uranium to Ukraine, or maybe they delivered it before already, we don’t know, usually when they announce something it already happened!

Depleted uranium can be used to reinforce armour-plating on tanks but is favoured for weapons because of its extreme density and ability to pierce conventional tank armour. These types of shells sharpen on impact, which further increases their ability to bore through armour, and they ignite after contact.

In September 2023 after the delivery of these shells filled with depleted uranium, the Russian Ministry of Defence stated that it carried out strikes on warehouses where Ukrainian troops stored these depleted uranium shells and UK-made long-range Storm-shadow missiles.

“Last night, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike with high-precision long-range air-based weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles at the storage sites of Storm-shadow cruise missiles and depleted uranium ammunition,” the ministry said in a statement back in September 2023.

Although the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi, said that there is no danger to public health in using depleted uranium, the Washington Post and other so-called quality newspapers however, said that there is a real danger to public health. The UK was the first to start deliveries of depleted uranium shells and long-range Storm-shadow missiles to Ukraine in March 2023, also ammunition with depleted uranium for the British tank Challenger 2. The US announced on 6 September 2023, that it would send depleted uranium ammunition and cluster bombs to Ukraine.

In May 2023, information emerged about a powerful explosion in one of the warehouses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the city of Khmelnitsky in western Ukraine. Most likely due to a rocket attack by the Russian forces, a warehouse for British uranium-filled grenades was hit. According to some reports, another warehouse containing depleted uranium ammunition was also hit by Russia in the Ternopil region.

This caused panic among the residents of Western Ukraine, but also in the borderlands of Ukraine like Poland. In the Ukrainian media information emerged about an increase in the level of gamma radiation after the destruction of both storage sites. Scientists said a fairly small dose of gamma radiation came from the depleted uranium in the ammunition; a large increase indicates the destruction of a very large number of munitions with depleted uranium, thereby increasing the level of radioactive material in the air.

In recent days, British scientist Dr. Christopher Busby, scientific secretary of the European Radiation Risk Committee, came up with more revelations, studies and reported an increase in the concentration of uranium particles in the air in the south-east of the UK. But he previously published an abstract/paper called: “Uraniumweapons being employed in Ukraine have significantly increased Uranium levels in the air in the UK”.

He begins his research paper with the following text:

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Depleted Citizenry Democracy

Posted by M. C. on November 1, 2023

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/

by Laurie Calhoun

radioactive sign.

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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NPR Report on Depleted Uranium Shells for Ukraine Was a One-Source Dud 

Posted by M. C. on September 28, 2023

Pentagon apologists for DU weapons typically note that alpha particles are so low-energy they “fail to penetrate the dead layers of cells covering the skin, and can be easily stopped by a sheet of paper.” True enough, but when introduced into the body, where the tiny alpha-particle-emitting particles can become lodged in lung or kidney tissue, they prove to be quite good at killing or damaging adjacent cells.

NPR Report on Depleted Uranium Shells for Ukraine Was a One-Source Dud 

Dave Lindorff

In its fundraising promotions, NPR touts shows like Morning Edition as providing listeners a “deeper look” at complicated stories.

Sometimes that is the case, but not this month, in its coverage of an announced decision by the Biden administration to further escalate the violence in Ukraine by supplying that country’s military with controversial depleted uranium (DU) anti-tank shells. Morning Edition (9/8/23) glossed over the reason many nations consider their use an atrocity. In fact, many commercial news organizations did a much better job in reporting in depth on this story.

‘Not nuclear or radioactive’

Morning Edition co-host Leila Fadel had one source for the three-and-half-minute report: Togzhan Kassenova, a senior research fellow at SUNY Albany’s Center for Policy Research, whom she introduced as “an expert on nuclear politics.” (The Center describes itself as having “a long and notable history of managing and implementing grants and sponsored programs for the government of the United States, including projects for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Naval Research.”)

Kassenova, responding to questions from Fadel, misrepresented what DU is and what its risks are when used in battle. “Anti-tank rounds with depleted uranium are not nuclear or radioactive,” she claimed, adding without any further detail that “there are some safety implications that need to be kept in mind.”

In fact, as the US Environmental Protection Agency’s website explains, “Like the natural uranium ore, DU is radioactive.” DU is a mix of U-238 and some other, rarer uranium isotopes that are left after the fissionable U-235 used in nuclear bombs and as reactor fuel has been refined out. All uranium isotopes are significant releasers of alpha particles as they decay; in other words, they’re radioactive. These low-energy but relatively large particles, not even mentioned by Kassenova, are essentially helium nuclei, composed of two protons and two neutrons. They can do serious cellular and genetic damage when uranium dust is ingested or inhaled.

Fadel didn’t question her guest’s effort to minimize the risk posed by uranium projectiles, though even the most cursory attempt to research the issue would have disclosed these problems.

‘A serious health risk’

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Criminally Insane… America’s Top Diplomat Calls Depleted Uranium Munitions to Ukraine a ‘Housewarming Gift’

Posted by M. C. on September 11, 2023

Busby’s scientific investigations in Iraq found atrocious levels of cancer and birth defects among communities where American and British forces heavily used uranium shells. Similar pathologies and environmental contamination have been recorded in former Yugoslavia and among NATO troops that were deployed there.

Criminally Insane… America’s Top Diplomat Calls Depleted Uranium Munitions to Ukraine a ‘Housewarming Gift’

By his own words, one can diagnose Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, as criminally insane. This week, America’s top diplomat was in Kiev for a two-day visit where he announced a new $ 1 billion aid package to the Ukrainian regime, including for the first time the American supply of depleted uranium shells.

This was Blinken’s fourth trip to Kiev since Washington’s proxy war against Russia escalated in February last year. The latest U.S. military aid package to the Neo-Nazi regime is the 46th such arms installment delivered by the Biden administration – courtesy of American taxpayers. A total of $43 billion has been disbursed over a period of 18 months.

Blinken sought to charm his Nazi hosts by calling the latest inventory a “housewarming gift”. He said it was a sign of commitment from the United States to support the Ukrainian regime for as long as it takes.

Polls show that a clear majority of U.S. citizens are opposed to the continued military aiding of Ukraine. So much for democracy!

Included in the latest aid package is the supply of depleted uranium shells. It is beyond grotesque that a high-ranking American official can find words of endearment for such munitions and the dangers being stoked with Russia.

Nauseating too was Blinken’s visit to cemeteries for Ukrainian troops killed during the conflict and his deluded nonsense that the Kiev regime was “making progress” in its counteroffensive against Russian forces. The three-month counteroffensive has been an unmitigated disaster for the NATO-backed Ukrainians. In the last three months, it is estimated that 66,000 Armed Forces of Ukraine have been killed – adding to a total military death toll on the Ukrainian side of 400,000 since Russia launched its intervention in that country on February 24, 2022. Russia’s intervention was prompted by years of NATO-sponsored aggression from the Kiev regime.

Blinken’s relishing of more arms to Ukraine while touring thousands of graves speaks of the odious, callous nature of NATO governments. The elitist Western regimes are totally unaccountable to their citizens in their pursuit of a proxy war against Russia to the “last Ukrainian”. The United States and its European accomplices are in cahoots with a corrupt Nazi-infested regime (headed by a token Jewish puppet president) in order to maintain a lucrative war racket for the Western military-industrial complex that lies at the diseased heart of Western capitalist economies.

The U.S. announcement of depleted uranium (DU) artillery missiles follows the British move to supply DU shells earlier this year. The Anglo-American rogue states, as usual, are working as a criminal double act.

Moscow condemned it as another reckless escalation in a conflict that threatens to spiral out of control into an all-out world war between nuclear powers. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has stated that Moscow considers the deployment of uranium-based munitions to be a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

The White House, Britain and Western media are claiming that DU shells are “harmless”. This is cynical and a heinous denial.

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No More Double Standards and Impunity. West Provokes Russia. Result: Nukes in Belarus on NATO’s Borders — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

The United States and Britain fired tonnes of depleted uranium shells during their decade-long illegal war in Iraq. NATO forces also used DU weapons in their war of aggression against former Yugoslavia. In both cases, the resultant radioactive contamination was correlated with high rates of cancer and birth defects in the civilian populations.

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/03/31/no-more-double-standards-and-impunity-west-provokes-russia-result-nukes-in-belarus-on-natos-borders/

The Anglo-American-led NATO alliance has no longer the presumption of impunity. The decades of unchecked aggression from NATO expansionism and criminal Anglo-American subterfuges in foreign countries are over.

The historic – and unacceptable – deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in several European NATO states as well as the recent announcement by Britain of supplying depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine is the prologue to Russia’s decision to place tactical nukes in Belarus. The Western outcry following Russia’s decision is absurd and hypocritical.

The pattern is familiar and speaks of incorrigible arrogance. The United States and its NATO allies make reckless escalatory moves that are unprecedented in their aggression toward Russia; then Moscow makes a reciprocal move, and yet the Western governments and their dutiful news media become apoplectic with rage over Russia’s “threatening conduct” and nuclear blackmail.

Maybe one day, Western leaders will eventually choke on their own illogical apoplexy.

This week there was frothing and fuming in the West about Moscow’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, despite the move being fully in accord with the Minsk government, a longtime ally of Russia and fellow member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The CSTO is organically comparable with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), having a shared defense commitment between allied states that were formerly members of the Soviet Union.

In ratifying the deployment, Russian President Vladimir Putin was accused by Western powers of jeopardizing international security, threatening European neighbors and violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Belarus borders three NATO members: Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

But the decision by Russia to install tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus (which Moscow would reportedly retain control over) was in response to the NATO move to supply its anti-Russian Kiev proxy with depleted uranium (DU) weapons. Britain announced last week that Challenger 2 battlefield tanks sent to Ukraine would be equipped with DU shells. It is understood that the United States is also ready to supply depleted uranium armor-piercing munitions to Ukraine with its Abrams tanks. Video footage from London’s Ministry of Defence shows Ukrainian troops being trained by British and American officers in handling DU shells.

Depleted uranium is a high-density metal – much denser than lead – which can penetrate modern armor. It ignites after penetration and turns into vapor at extreme temperature. While DU shells are not explosively fissile and do not cause nuclear blasts, they do release harmful radioactive contamination into the environment. Arguably, the munitions are therefore a form of nuclear weapon in the same manner as a low-yield “dirty bomb”.

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“The destruction of a society”: First the U.S. invaded Iraq — then we left it poisoned | Salon.com

Posted by M. C. on October 11, 2019

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

Ronald Reagan

IM FROM THE Government I'm Here To Help You Iron-on

https://www.salon.com/2019/09/07/the-destruction-of-a-society-first-the-u-s-invaded-iraq-then-we-left-it-poisoned/

David Masciotra

The political and moral culture of the United States allows for bipartisan cooperation to destroy an entire country, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process, without even the flimsiest of justification. Then, only a few years later, everyone can act as if it never happened.

In 2011, the U.S. withdrew most of its military personnel from Iraq, leaving the country in ruins. Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American military personnel perished in the war. Because the bombs have stopped falling from the sky and the invasion and occupation of Iraq no longer makes headlines, Americans likely devote no thought to the devastation that occurred in their name.

With the exception of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is currently polling at or below 2 percent, no candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has consistently addressed the criminality, cruelty and cavalier wastefulness of American foreign policy. Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the race, not only supported the war in Iraq — despite his recent incoherent claims to the contrary — but as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee acted as its most effective and influential salesman in the Democratic Party.

The blasé attitude of America toward the death and destruction it creates, all while boasting of its benevolence, cannot withstand the scrutiny of science. Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Michigan and recipient of the Rachel Carson Prize, has led several investigative expeditions in Iraq to determine how the pollutants and toxic chemicals from the U.S.-led war are poisoning Iraq’s people and environment. The health effects are catastrophic, and will remain so long after the war reached its official end…

Bombs and bullets have been used on an extreme scale in Iraq. Dropping tons of bombs and releasing millions of bullets leaves toxic residues the in air, water and soil of the targeted population. These pollutants continue to poison those populations years after the bombing stops.

What’s more, the United States imported thousands of tons of military equipment into Iraq to use in their occupation. They include, tanks, trucks, bombers, armored vehicles, infantry weapons, antiaircraft systems, artillery and mortars — some of which are coated with depleted uranium, and much more. These eventually find their way into U.S. military junkyards which remain across Iraq.

There are unknown numbers of military junkyards scattered across the Iraqi landscape.

Fluctuations in temperature facilitates the rusting and weathering of military junk, releasing toxic pollutants [including radioactive uranium compounds, neurotoxic lead and mercury, etc.] into the Iraqi environment.

Uranium and its related compounds remain toxic for millennia and poison local populations through food, air and water contamination…

I expect nothing from the American political establishment or their propaganda machines which masquerade as “news media” and feed uncritically off State Department press briefings.

Fortunately, there is a movement to criminalize environmental contamination caused by war. Damage to nature and the human environment must be considered a war crime.

Scientists are currently asking international lawmakers to adopt a fifth Geneva Convention which would recognize damage to nature as a war crime, alongside other war crimes. I hope that will make a difference in our ability to protect human lives and our environment.

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Veterans Exposed to Burn Pits Wait for Lawsuit Decision ...

Iraq burn pit

 

 

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The United States Did It Again: Its Warplanes Use White Phosphorous Munitions in Syria

Posted by M. C. on October 22, 2018

Napalm is just so 1970.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/10/14/us-did-it-again-warplanes-use-white-phosphorous-munitions-in-syria.html

PETER KORZUN

The US-led coalition used white phosphorus (WP) munitions while delivering air strikes against the Syrian province of Deir Ez-Zor on Oct. 13. The attack resulted in civilian casualties. Last month, WP munitions were also used by two US Air Force (USAF) F-15s in an attack on the town of Hajin in Deir-ez-Zor. The Syrian government has repeatedly condemned the US-led coalition, which claims that the need to fight ISIS justifies its military actions, while denying the fact it is using white phosphorous projectiles.

WP does not fall under the category of the chemical weapons that are banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention, but it is an incendiary weapon. As such, it cannot be used against non-combatants. Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons “prohibits the use of said incendiary weapons against civilians (already forbidden by the Geneva Conventions) or in civilian areas.” The substance ignites spontaneously upon contact with air, producing a dense white smoke. The heat can reach 800-900°C. No water will help. Severe injuries to internal organs could be caused when absorbed through the skin, ingested, or inhaled. Burning particles of white phosphorus produce thermal and chemical burns if they come into contact with the skin.

And Syria is not the only place where the US has used WP munitions. Read the rest of this entry »

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