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Does Israel use Depleted Uranium?
Ahnimus
Posts: 10,560
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches%20by%20Israeli%20leaders/2001/Statement%20by%20Dep%20FM%20Michael%20Melchior%20to%20the%20Durban
These states would have us believe that they are anti-Zionist, not antisemitic, but again and again this lie is disproved. What are the despicable caricatures of Jews that fill the Arab press and are being circulated at this Conference: what are the vicious libels so freely invented and disseminated by our enemies - about the use of poison gas, or depleted uranium bullets, or injecting babies with the Aids virus - if not the reincarnation of age-old antisemitic canards?
http://wwwterrorista.mfa.gov.il/mfa/government/speeches%20by%20israeli%20leaders/2002/press%20conference%20with%20fm%20shimon%20peres%20and%20major%20ge
want to speak about the military situation around the compound of Arafat. There is a lot of disinformation that is given by the Palestinians - not a very new phenomenon. Remember their saying that Israeli Mossad is responsible for the demolition of the Twin Towers in New York, that Israeli soldiers are giving poisoned candies to the Palestinian children, etc. They also say that Israel is using uranium.
http://www.nic.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Articles/1996/WHO%20WILL%20SUBDUE%20THE%20KATYUSHA%20-%2030-Apr-96
"Phalanx" guns, which are in service in both the US and Israeli navies, and are designed to intercept very short-range sea-to-sea missiles. The heart of the system is a radar-directed "gatling" gun with six 20 mm barrels. When a sea-to-sea missile approaches a ship, at a height of only a few meters, and generally at sub-sonic speed, the radar locks onto the missile and immediately activates the cannon that fires a "lead screen" of shells made from depleted uranium, which hit the missile and explode it.
http://www.mod.gov.il/pages/mafat/pdfs/2005-11.pdf
Land Based Phalanx Takes Aim At Rockets, Artillery and Mortars.
All Israeli government websites
These states would have us believe that they are anti-Zionist, not antisemitic, but again and again this lie is disproved. What are the despicable caricatures of Jews that fill the Arab press and are being circulated at this Conference: what are the vicious libels so freely invented and disseminated by our enemies - about the use of poison gas, or depleted uranium bullets, or injecting babies with the Aids virus - if not the reincarnation of age-old antisemitic canards?
http://wwwterrorista.mfa.gov.il/mfa/government/speeches%20by%20israeli%20leaders/2002/press%20conference%20with%20fm%20shimon%20peres%20and%20major%20ge
want to speak about the military situation around the compound of Arafat. There is a lot of disinformation that is given by the Palestinians - not a very new phenomenon. Remember their saying that Israeli Mossad is responsible for the demolition of the Twin Towers in New York, that Israeli soldiers are giving poisoned candies to the Palestinian children, etc. They also say that Israel is using uranium.
http://www.nic.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Articles/1996/WHO%20WILL%20SUBDUE%20THE%20KATYUSHA%20-%2030-Apr-96
"Phalanx" guns, which are in service in both the US and Israeli navies, and are designed to intercept very short-range sea-to-sea missiles. The heart of the system is a radar-directed "gatling" gun with six 20 mm barrels. When a sea-to-sea missile approaches a ship, at a height of only a few meters, and generally at sub-sonic speed, the radar locks onto the missile and immediately activates the cannon that fires a "lead screen" of shells made from depleted uranium, which hit the missile and explode it.
http://www.mod.gov.il/pages/mafat/pdfs/2005-11.pdf
Land Based Phalanx Takes Aim At Rockets, Artillery and Mortars.
All Israeli government websites
I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
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It's also good for contaminating regions.
Debatable.
There would certainly be better ways.
Just a curosity question.
Logically, yes ... Assuming that DU is an effective contaminant, it probably should. It would seep into the water table and wind up in Israeli soil, or fragments could be blown back across the border.
Yeah I thought that...curious on just how radiocative it really is? Eg. What is the rate of decay...percentage of it that has decayed?
Fun science type of questions....
The half-life of Uranium-232 is 4.5 billion years I believe. Let me collect some info and I'll post it.
My understanding is that it does release radiation, but not enough to actually make anyone sick. Of course, those results come from American studies and they could be biased ... I am not sure how well done the studies were. The UN deems DU to be too toxic for routine use on the battlefield, but the UN is not a scientific body and did not use scientific evidence to reach this verdict ... It used a vote of member nations.
There has been a link proposed between DU and soldiers and Iraqi civilians getting sick and showing high rates of cancer. Indeed, these data seem legit. People in areas where DU was used do seem sicker. However, the link between this illness and DU isn't completely clear. Its correlational ... For example, increased cancer rates in Iraq could conceivably be due to hydrocarbon toxicity, after all the oil fires and such ... Or maybe DU AND the oil fires contribute to the increased rates of illness.
I think the jury is still out on DU ... I am not going to conclude that it is safe, but I think the data are mixed to date.
Yeah I pictured you wearing a hamas headband converting faiths...haha
In military applications, when alloyed, Depleted Uranium [DU] is ideal for use in armor penetrators. These solid metal projectiles have the speed, mass and physical properties to perform exceptionally well against armored targets. DU provides a substantial performance advantage, well above other competing materials. This allows DU penetrators to defeat an armored target at a significantly greater distance. Also, DU's density and physical properties make it ideal for use as armor plate. DU has been used in weapon systems for many years in both applications.
Depleted uranium results from the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. Natural uranium is a slightly radioactive metal that is present in most rocks and soils as well as in many rivers and sea water. Natural uranium consists primarily of a mixture of two isotopes (forms) of uranium, Uranium-235 (U235) and Uranium-238 (U238), in the proportion of about 0.7 and 99.3 percent, respectively. Nuclear reactors require U235 to produce energy, therefore, the natural uranium has to be enriched to obtain the isotope U235 by removing a large part of the U238. Uranium-238 becomes DU, which is 0.7 times as radioactive as natural uranium. Since DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, there is very little decay of those DU materials.
U-238 Decay Series
http://www.csupomona.edu/~pbsiegel/www/decaychain/U238.html
Photos and Additional Information
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUL20060122&articleId=1777
All radioactivity is bad for people, we know Uranium is bad, DU is no different.
But the question is whether or not DU provides more harmful radiation exposure than does nature itself ... People are exposed to small amounts of radiation every day. Does DU provide a huge increase in this exposure, and is this increase associated with increased illness?
It certainly seems possible ... And I am not one of those people that thinks Israel needs to use DU weapons. My point was that there is conflicting evidence out there regarding how dangerous DU really is.
If the US is including them in their "aid" to Israel, it is quite possible. They make DU bullets as well. The Israeli's are however using a newly developed nerve gas. It tastes sweet, smells like faintly of mint or nothing, and the originally pure white smoke turns into a black haze. Victims who inhale this smoke go insane and have to be held down at all four limbs on a bed for hours while they moan and convulse in pain, otherwise they will tear their own skin off from the burning itching sensation, or commit suicide to end it all.
That's some bad shit happening right there...
Well, there have been extensive studies into DU, and even if the results were debatable, for safety concerns it should not be used.
This stuff has a half life of 4.5 billion years. That is 4.5 billion years from now the ill effects will only be just half of what it is today. The stuff is already way up in the atmosphere worldwide. DU has accounted for the same numer of radioactive atoms as 400,000 Hiroshima's as of 2004 statistics (lower) as well I've seen. I was reading Scientists in North America can measure barium particles from it it in peoples hair from just being outside. It's fucked up.
Yea, it shouldn't make the difference, but DU use anywhere will affect us here. When Chernobyl melted down 5x the normal radiation was recorded all over the world. That's how quickly and vast it spreads. DU will spread slower and the small amount used is likely to seriously affect one region for a long time, with minor spreading. However, over time of expanded use it will seriously contaminate the entire planet. If it's not bad enough that Iraq is already fucked.
Despite the massive amounts of research and studies on soldiers and combatants and civilians pouring in with mutated armless, legless, eyeless babies, massively elevated cancer rates of US, and International soldiers we keep using more and more DU
this will be the real legacy of our foreign policy
here are some articles...
Here's the website of a UK based group trying to ban it, with all of their information.
http://www.cadu.org.uk/
Here is a website supporting DU as the only viable alternative for armor penetrating rounds:
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/faq_17apr.htm
Here's a BBC special report, including links to numerous attempts by the EU - countries who have already measured significant amounts of increased uranium particles over their heads, to ban the weapons
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/...um/default.stm
Here's a British Newspaper - The Sunday Herald's Report on how the UK and USA continue to use DU despite the fact that the UN considers them a weapon of mass destruction
http://www.sundayherald.com/32522
...personally though the UN is not the best method of arguing anything - you're bound to encounter some kind of hypocritical fallacy somewhere
Here is an interview with a radiation expert from Berkely who has quite a fine list of credentials:
http://www.universalfriends.org/depleted_uranium.htm
this little tidbit from the article says volumes...
Gulf War soldiers who served in 1991 had normal babies before the Gulf War. [In a study of 251 Gulf War veterans by the Department of Veterans Affairs, it was determined that 67% of the babies born to soldiers after the Gulf War had severe birth defects]. They were born without brains, without eyes, [with] organs missing, without legs or arms, or they had terrible radiation related blood diseases for instance.
Here is an article written by the same woman who was interviewed in the previous link:
http://www.health-now.org/site/artic...08&menu Id=14
This article seems to go off the handle in the conspiracy nut direction but...nonetheless if it's credible it's condemning
http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/Aug05/200805DU.htm
Please anyone who can find sources to the contrary I'd love to read them, I would love to believe that a few environment nuts are blowing this whole thing out of proportion because it scares the hell out of me - at the current pace we'd have to keep pregnant women in clean rooms for 9 months so they can birth genetically unaltered offspring
If this is true, if the numbers are straight, and the conclusions valid - the continuing use of these weapons may effect every single human being on the planet given enough time - there doesn't seem to be any dearth of situations where these weapons will be used in the near future
Radiation Chart
http://www.gsi.de/onTEAM/grafik/1054884094/NuclearChartLaserspectroscopy.png
Video explaining Nuclear Configurations and Radioactive Decay
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=8210725549983447275&q=nuclear
325,000 or 250,000...something like 40% of the guys and gals that came home from the gulf war are sick and dying. Thats a dirty little secret being kept highly confidential now for as long as possible. How many of the young vets have to start dropping before this story comes raging out in the media like a bull in a china shop? It's coming. These troops got DU particles floating around inside them. Key areas of the body as well like organs and glands. Once in the bloodstream that where they often lodge and "mysteriously" incapacitate. Mysterious yeah right.
Intentionally different how? Because of the bomb design itself? or what "happens to it in nature" (Donald Rumsfeld voice) after it impacts. Because the delivery method "per se" does not exist on an engineer's spec drawing means it does not exist at all?
I can see how they could slip that decision under the eyes the radar. It really all started when Bush cried the "I'll make any goddam law I wan't" law shortly after the 9/11 thing. Holy cry of the dictator.
Ahhh boy...
Taken from the following 2 UN reports, if you require the links let me know. some different studies by universities and other groups are contained in the report as to contamination and birth defects...
UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS - 3 August 1998
UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS - 14 July 2003
"We, of course, agree with the Sub-Commission that the use of weaponry containing depleted uranium in armed conflict is incompatible with existing human rights and humanitarian law. In our numerous oral and written statements on the issue of this weaponry we have set out four tests that all weapons must pass in order to be used in armed conflict: the weapons and their effect must be contained to the legal field of battle (the "geographical" test); the weapons and their effect must cease to function when the armed conflict is over (the "temporal" test); the weapons and their effect must not be unduly inhumane or cause undue suffering (the "humaneness" test); and the weapons can not unduly harm the environment (the "environment" test). Weaponry containing depleted uranium has been increasing in the news and subject of widespread international condemnation, especially as it was so widely used in the new war against Iraq. One study of children born of United States veterans of the first Gulf War shows a more than 60ncidence of disability, deformity and other serious medical problems. Another study shows that United States Gulf War veteran' children have a much higher likelihood of having three specific birth defects: two types heart valve abnormality to children of male veterans, and genito-urinary defects to children born of female veterans. "Gulf WarBirth Defects" in the Lexington-Herald Leader, 4 June 2003. A study of British veterans of the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo reveals that they have 10 - 14 times the level of chromosomal abnormalities than usual. H. Schrader, A. Heimers, R. Frentzel-Beyme, A. Schott & W. Hoffmann, "Chromosome aberration analysis in perifiral lymphocytes of Gulf war and Balkan war veterans," in Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol.103 no.3, pp. 211-220.
There is increasing evidence that troubling weaponry was also used in Afghanistan, as a Canadian medical research facility found that the urine of Afghani people near where the United States carried out military operations contained radioactive isotopes 100 to 400 times higher than Gulf War veterans from the United Kingdom tested in 1999. The report is posted at http://www.umrc.net. The maximum permissible level for members of the public in the United States is considered to be 12 nanograms per year. The Canadian team recorded an average 315.5 nanograms in people in Jalalabad, Tora Bora and Mazar-e-Sharif. A 12-year-old boy near Kabul tested at 2,031 nanograms. After a second trip to Afghanistan, the Canadian team documented comparable results in a much broader area and larger population group. A prominent Afghani physician reports that there is a dramatic increase in birth defects in Afghanistan and people are experiencing catastrophic health consequences.
Regarding the use of weapons used against Iraq this spring, it is clear that much weaponry containing depleted uranium was used. For example Abrams tanks only use DU ordnance. The bombs fired on Baghdad and other cities as part of "shock and awe" are alleged to have had DU nosecones. Cluster bombs were admittedly used in urban areas in an attempt to protect British troops. Paul Waugh, "Allied use of cluster bombs illegal, minister admits," The Independent, 30 May 2003. While the amount of DU dispersed over Iraq for the second time in less than 15 years is unclear, it is clear that the United States does not intend to clean up the DU nor even fully disclose where it was used and in what amounts.
Our organization considers the Iraq situation an atrocity followed by a catastrophe. The international community simply must respond or risk being overtaken in every way by a power that did not and does not intend to abide by the principles of humanitarian law carefully carved out since the first Geneva Convention of 1864 and The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The weapons already in use are terrifying enough, without contemplating those planned in the future.
We urge the Sub-Commission to request Mr. Yeung Sik Yuen to continue his work on all these weapons. In the course of his work on this topic he has become one of the few experts in this field and the Sub-Commission is well advised to request him to prepare an additional follow up paper. Indeed, it would take years for another to catch up to his expertise. The importance of this endeavor cannot possibly be overestimated. The fate of the whole world lies in being able to carry out true disarmament. The smaller, poorer countries cannot possible keep up with "arm-chair" wars or they will bankrupt themselves. Even the other developed countries are far, far behind this technological madness. If the United States is allowed to use and develop these weapons, all other countries are reduced to peonage at the mercy of the United States. Therefore, it is essential that the international community find a way to truly rid the world of illegal weapons.
In our Memorandum we identify the four basic rules for weaponry under existing customary and treaty-based humanitarian law: (i) weapons must be able to be contained to legal military fields of action (the geographical requirement); (ii) weapons must be able to cease harming action when the armed conflict is over (the temporal requirement); (iii) weapons may not cause undue suffering (the humanitarian requirement); and (iv) weapons must not unduly harm the environment (the environmental requirement). We conclude that the use of most of the weapons listed in resolutions 1996/16 and 1997/36, especially weaponry containing depleted uranium, would constitute a per se violation of these requirements. We also conclude that production or threat of production, stockpiling and development of weapons whose use would constitute a per se violation of humanitarian law could be viewed as coercive, torture, a serious threat to peace, a threat to the right to self-determination and a threat to the right to life.
Mr. Yeung Sik Yuen's assessment of when weapons are to be considered banned by operation of law is stated somewhat differently but is essentially compatible with ours. However, he adds an essential element that we had not included -- the requirement that all weapons use must be in proportion to the legitimate military objectives. Thus even "legal" weapons might be used illegally -- as when using a large bomb against a small, lightly defended military outpost and causing injury and damage in excess of the actual military gain. This is an important addition, as several weapons systems are now being proposed that would severely tax this rule. One of these, being developed in the United States, would allow the United States to engage in an armed conflict anywhere in the world from its own territory. Code-named FALCON (for Force Application and Launch from the Continental United States), weapons delivery systems are being planned that would carry 12,000 pound bombs anywhere in the world in less than two hours from a US launch. As the United States would not have any military personnel on site, it would be impossible to assess proportionality. And the "enemy" would have no way at all to defend itself as the "enemy" would not have the same weapons capability. The United States is also planning smaller bombs that can be launched into space, and when guided over its target, dropped to earth. These would be able to penetrate 70 feet of solid rock. They are defended by United States officials because it "would free the US military from reliance on forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively to destabilising or threatening actions by hostile countries or terrorist organizations." From the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) invitation for bids, posted on its website, reported by Julian Borger, The Guardian, 1 July 2003. We call wars to be waged this way "arm chair" wars. The United State military will not have to leave home, but can effectively destroy a country from their homes. The United States "combatants" never have to see combat, nor the destruction they cause with the bombs they send from home. "
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
It has a low level radioactivity, with a main peak at 1001 kev. It can be dangerous if inhaled in huge quantities right after an explosion. It deposits in waters and eventually adsorbed by some plants. At that stage, however, is no more dangerous through radioactivity but through its chemical toxicity, that is quite high.
www.amnesty.org.uk
www.amnesty.org.uk
Its some kind of a "magazine" called "world military R&D", which presents all kind of world wide military R&D mini-articals. that link is for 11/2005 issue, and the specific research you're talking about is related to the US army.
Here it is:
Basically it tells us that the *US* army improved the old "Phalanx" system (an interception system for rockets, missiles, artillery & Mortars who was once used only in ships), by adding it an IR (Infra-Red) sophisticated camera, advanced video system to catch up any movments, several radar systems, some kind of weapon system and a special arming (doesn't say exactly what it is). This mobiled improved system was designed for the war in Iraq as a defensive tool for US soliders.
After reading it all, I have some comments:
1. (ref 1) Rabbi Malchior is a great supporter for the establish of a Palestinian country, he is (or was) a member of the labor party. Just wanted you to know.
2. (ref 1+2) The Rabbi was talking about Palestinian accusations (made especially by Suha Arafat, btw), about using depleted uranium bullets against Palestinian civilians. Israel denaied doing such thing.
3. (ref 3) This (1996) artical is related to the one I translated here (2005). We are talking about an arming system who is used in ships against other military ships rockets.
4. (ref 4) Like I wrote before, the US army improved the old "Phalanx" system (an interception system for rockets, missiles etc' who was once used only in ships), into an advance weapon system specially for the war in Iraq as a defensive tool for US ground soliders. This is a new technology (the artical is from 11/2005, when the system still wasn't in operational use), so it is not clear whether the US army is already operating it in Iraq, nor whether Israel has received these systems.
I don't know what is there you wanted to prove (or why), but it didn't work.
So it can't be directly, anti-palestinian. It can be undirectly, through long term exposition when it dissolves.
(I talk for the sake of science. For the sake of people I'm for a total banning of depleted uranium. More: I'm for a total stop of the arms trade)
www.amnesty.org.uk