Depleted Uranium

[48Highlander]

The post that started this all:   http://army.ca/forums/threads/23864/post-136340.html#msg136340

"If America is justified in attacking any persons who aid and abbet terrorists, then how are a number of people on Mr. Blum's list not also culpable in the same acts.  

CivU,
Are you defending that entire list of "war criminals"? Like this entry:
"General Norman Schwarzkopf, for his military leadership of the Iraqi carnage"

No, I'm not.   I did mention the Reagan administration and those involved with East Timor as specifically deplorable examples.   The invasion of Panama by George H.W. Bush could also fall under the aforementioned category...As for Schwarzkopf, from what I gather of Mr. Blum's argument it is largely based around his use of Uranium depleted ammunition and the horrific effects it has had on both American troops and continues to have within Iraq itself.   I do not think a General's leadership in an invasion itself can be considered a war crime.

Well I have to give some credit to CivU for trying to remain consistent while living in the same intellectual slum as William Blum. It takes considerable moral gymnastics to equate Reagan, Clinton and Norman Swartzkopf with Japanese war criminals.

If you actually read my posts I didn't "equate Reagan, Clinton and Norman Swartzkopf" but in fact associated a few persons on that list I felt stood out, and provided one reason why a specific action by Swartzkopf, the use of depleted uranium ammunition, should be seen as horrific.

Would you leave the Depleted Uranium thing alone?   It's been debunked hundreds of times by now.   You're not just beating the proverbial dead horse, you're turning it into pink paste.

[Edited to show chain of posts that initiated this topic in the origin thread]

 

[CivU]

How has depleted uranium been debunked?

It seems as though anything you don't believe is automatically untrue...

 

[48Highlander]

    Welcome to basic physics 101.

Depleted Uranium is what you get when you enrich natural uranium for use in reactors.  Natural uranium is mildly readioactive and exists in most soil in a concentration of a few parts per million.  It's a mixture of u-235 and u-238, bot only the 235 can be used in reactors so the u-238 needs to be removed.  The leftover u-238 forms depleted uranium, a metal which is much less radioactive than either enriched or natural uranium.  It has a halflife of roughly 4.5 billion years, meaning it decays very little.  Since you're probably clueless about nuclear decay I'll tell you that the faster the rate of nuclear decay, the more radioactive the metal.  U-235 for example has a halflife of 704 million years, which is why nuclear reactor meltdowns ARE dangerous.  In addition, U-238 releases primarily alpha particles.  Alpha particles as we all know cannot penetrate human skin.  That's it for the intro.  Next!

Depleted uranium, in addition to being an excellent penetrator for military munitions, has a variety of commercial uses.  DU can be used for armour, shielding, electromechanical counterweights, ballast, as a chemical catalyst, and even as a pigment.  The aircraft industry uses DU for sensors and balancing.

In conclusion, the dangers of Depleted Uranium are the boogeyman of the anti-war movement.  All scary-like, untill you find out it's not real.  Independant studies have been conducted by the WHO, UN EP, UK Royal Society, the European Comission, and the Health Council of the Netherlands.  None of them found any evidence to support that U-238 was in any way shape or form responsible for an increase in leukemia like the lefties keep claiming.  They DID find that U-238 could cause kidney damage and increased the chance of damage to several other organs, however, this would require large ammounts of DU imbedded inside the body.  If you have a DU penetrator inside your body chances are you died when it hit ya.  If you're still alive, thank Allah for his mercy and don't complain if you happen to die 10 years before your natural time.  In large enough quantities DU radiation inside the body can become a problem, however, the chemical properties of the metal in such high concentrations would produce much greater damage than the radiation.  Therefore it is no more likely to cause complications than the same ammount of lead or tungsten would.


So bud, no, me not beleiving it doesn't make it untrue, but can you PLEASE do a little research before talking out your arse?  I think I must have gone over this explanation at least a hundred times by now.  Gets annoying real fast.

 

[Slim]

There was chemical testing grounds discovered during the first gulf wars in Iraq, was there not...If a body of troops had driven though or stopped in one it could effect them years down the road as that stuff DOES linger for years and is quite dangerous...But of course there are no chemical weapons in Iraq under Hussain right?! Just ask the Kurds...

Slim

 

[McG]

Depleted uranium, in addition to being an excellent penetrator for military munitions, has a variety of commercial uses. DU can be used for armour, shielding, electromechanical counterweights, ballast, as a chemical catalyst, and even as a pigment. The aircraft industry uses DU for sensors and balancing.

Don't forget that the nuclear attenuation properties of DU make it an ideal material for radioactive waste containers (but costs make Lead more commercially efficient).

 

[48Highlander]

Don't forget that the nuclear attenuation properties of DU make it an ideal material for radioactive waste containers (but costs make Lead more commercially efficient).

Yep.  For that same reason it has also replaced lead in the construction of x-ray tubes.  Hey maybe we should try making DU-based paint   give the lefties something to really bitch about.

 

[CivU]

I gathered this from the World Health Organization:

"Levels of DU may exceed background levels of uranium close to DU contaminating events. Over the days and years following such an event, the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water."

And this from the United Nations Environment Programme"

"At the same time, the studies identified a number of remaining scientific uncertainties that should be further explored. These include the extent to which DU on the ground can filter through the soil and eventually contaminate groundwater, and the possibility that DU dust could later be re-suspended in the air by wind or human activity, with the risk that it could be breathed in. "

From the Royal Society, the British academy of sciences:

"And they urge more research to "help in assessing the hazards that may arise from the use of DU"

The information on depleted uranium is not conclusive, and most scientific groups who have performed studies found that the health risks need to be explored further.  There was a time when scientists didn't see health risks associated inhaling cigartette smoke as well, over time the health impacts of certain chemicals can become more readily apparent.

 

[Infanteer]

Since you guys really want to argue about DU, here's your own thread....

 

[McG]

CivU,
The health & environmental concerns you have raised are no different than for any other heavy metal.   Tungsten is commonly used in the same parts that DU would be used in.   Tungsten would have all the same risks.   War is hard on the environment just as it is hard on everything else.  So, lets not make a boogeyman out of something that is no worse than its alternatives.

 

[Infanteer]

War is hard on the environment just as it is hard on everything else.

If half of the plastics that we use were to burn, they would kill you in a few inhalations.  Does this mean we should discard plastic as a resource for winning wars?

 

[CivU]

"If half of the plastics that we use were to burn, they would kill you in a few inhalations.  Does this mean we should discard plastic as a resource for winning wars?"

Our primary use of plastics is not to burn them though, so the threat is minimal.  When a depleted uranium shell explodes and fragmented particles are left circulating in the air that are in fact harmful, then its use is in direct relation to the means of making it harmful.  What is being debated scientifically t is the quantity and nature of their transfer as the overarching health concern.

 

[Infanteer]

Perhaps you missed this statement....

War is hard on the environment just as it is hard on everything else. So, lets not make a boogeyman out of something that is no worse than its alternatives.

 

[Slim]

Try being in an enclosed enviorment when certain types of plasitics start to burn and smoke. I have a police officer friend of mine who saved two people from a burning truck. While he was rescuing them the dashboard was burning and smoking and my buddy inhaled some of it. the result...No more taste buds ever!

If a tank is hit and penetrated by a DU round, there will not be enough of the crew left alive to complain about effects of the round on their health!

A tank is the toughest armoured vehicle on the battlefield. Draw your own conclusions...

Slim

 

[CivU]

"If a tank is hit and penetrated by a DU round, there will not be enough of the crew left alive to complain about effects of the round on their health!"

What about people in the immediate area?  What about the residual effects?  Do these not remain things we need to identify?

 

[McG]

What about people in the immediate area? What about the residual effects? Do these not remain things we need to identify?

But why are you getting after DU?  Yes, it does pose health & environmental risks.  It poses the same risks of any heavy metal.  However, for a Sabot round to defeat a modern MBT it will be constructed from a heavy metal. 

Since you see the use of DU being tantamount to a war crime (because of health & environmental concerns), could we extrapolate that to say you believe the act of war is a war crime because health & environmental damage are unavoidable?

Or, are you ready to pull your head out and accept the principle of proportionality.

 

[Slim]

What about people in the immediate area?  What about the residual effects?  Do these not remain things we need to identify?

They get killed too. Thats what happens in war.

 

[CivU]

No, the act of war is not a war crime.  However, the nature of war has changed in this last century to involve more and more civilian targets, whether intentionally through carpret, fire or shock and awe bombing or ostensibly unintentionally, through depleted uranium, etc.

Should the role of militaries in this day and age, with the advancement of weaponry and technology that we know possess, not look to try and maximize military targets while limiting civilian ones?

 

[48Highlander]

No, the act of war is not a war crime.  However, the nature of war has changed in this last century to involve more and more civilian targets, whether intentionally through carpret, fire or shock and awe bombing or ostensibly unintentionally, through depleted uranium, etc.

Should the role of militaries in this day and age, with the advancement of weaponry and technology that we know possess, not look to try and maximize military targets while limiting civilian ones?

This man is smoking some really bad shit.

CivU, go look up some pictures of carpet bombing runs in London and Gerrmany duing WW2.  Look up the statistics for the number of Civilians killed by the bombings runs.  Then just TRY and tell me that warfare now includes more civilian targets.  I'm getting pretty close to simply dimissing you as just another waste of oxygen.  Keep up this nonsense and I gaurantee you'll earn the hostility of every member of these forums.

 

[Infanteer]

No, the act of war is not a war crime. However, the nature of war has changed in this last century to involve more and more civilian targets, whether intentionally through carpret, fire or shock and awe bombing or ostensibly unintentionally, through depleted uranium, etc.

This is a stretch.  Civilians have always and will always be casualties of war.  From the Assyrian King claiming to have destroyed his enemy's societies brick by brick to the salting of Carthage by Rome; from the depredations of the marauding armies of the Thirty-Years War to Sherman's march through Atlanta war has never been something separate from the societies that fight them.

Claiming that wars of the industrial and information ages hold the monopoly on high levels of civilian casualties misses some of the inherent themes of history.

 

[CivU]

If you look at the change in the nature of war over the last century, from the battles of attrition during WWI through to the present shock and awe campaigns in Iraq in March 2003, you cannot deny that the type of warfare occuring is not radically different, and that there are not more civilian casulties in ratio to military personnel...