[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t’s a global nuclear holocaust. It effects all living things. That’s why they call it “omnicide,” which means it kills all living things — the plants, the animals, the bacteria. Everything.

[Malthus]

The problem with depleted uranium is not radiation but that is a heavy poisonous metal like tungsten. This is pure baloney

[pilferage]

I'd say attempted omnicide. There's just no way we could wipe out all life on Earth. I really don't understand why this is that surprising...
we're a motivated industrialized society, of course we're going to see an across the board increase in carcinogens. Granted, this is a bit overt, but imo what we're seeing here is somewhat analogous to the weapons and tactics testing that occured in pre WW spain.

[pilferage]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Malthus', 'T')his is pure baloney

[killJOY]

OK. What about this claim:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he DU burns at such high temperatures. It’s a pyroforic metal which means it burns. The bullets and big caliber shells are actually on fire when they come out of the gun barrel because they are ignited by the friction in the gun barrel. Seventy percent of the DU metal becomes a metal vapor. It’s actually a radioactive gas weapon and a terrain contaminant.

[DomusAlbion]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', 'O')K. What about this claim:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he DU burns at such high temperatures. It’s a pyroforic metal which means it burns. The bullets and big caliber shells are actually on fire when they come out of the gun barrel because they are ignited by the friction in the gun barrel. Seventy percent of the DU metal becomes a metal vapor. It’s actually a radioactive gas weapon and a terrain contaminant.

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he danger with DU is not radiation which is minimal but breathing in the residual uranium dust which is highly poisonous.

[killJOY]

It gets worse.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world.

For these weapons have released deadly, carcinogenic and mutagenic, radioactive particles in such abundance that-whipped up by sandstorms and carried on trade winds - there is no corner of the globe they cannot penetrate-including Britain. For the wind has no boundaries and time is on their side: the radioactivity persists for over 4,500,000,000 years and can cause cancer, leukemia, brain damage, kidney failure, and extreme birth defects - killing millions of every age for centuries to come. A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time.

[pilferage]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DomusAlbion', 'T')he danger with DU is not radiation which is minimal but breathing in the residual uranium dust which is highly poisonous.

[OilsNotWell]

This discussion is absolutely not complete without a reference to this prior thread....

PO DU Thread

See my prior post listing the flash presentations, etc...

As I mentioned, we should refer to DU munitions in a more accurate way...

We should call them "Nuclear Waste Weapons" or NWW's, or NW2's, or NucWa's, or whatever, but not 'depleted' since that sounds too much like 'weak' and they are anything but weak... They are highly toxic and quite dangerous...

Use of these weapons are a war crime. A crime against humanity.

We have contaiminated ourselves and the Earth. This is genocide, in the true sense of the word....gene killing....

Just look at those unfortunately deformed children...and you will understand why I speak this way...there is NO WAY the vastly increased birth deformities and cancer rates are a 'coincidence'....

Gulf war illness is DU poisoning. Period.

[UIUCstudent01]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pilferage', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DomusAlbion', 'T')he danger with DU is not radiation which is minimal but breathing in the residual uranium dust which is highly poisonous.

[rerere]

DU weapons:

Is it radioactive? Simple - get some DU and check with giger counter or place in shallow container of Carbon Dioxide/water and see if you get 'movement' of the fog. (cloud chamber) I've been looking for a source of DU to do this experiment myself. Can't find a source however, and not really willing to go to Iraq and get some. I have a $5 bar bet that is a source of radiation.

Is it a heavy metal poison? Yup seems so.

Has the US done reasearch into what it does? I'm sure. Can you get this info? Hell no. Because if the research were to formally exist, the use of the 'effective' munition/armour would result in charges under the Geneva Convention as a war crime.
(article 23 Geneva Convention 4. Geneva Convention protocol 1925 For the people who've not read the Geneva Convention in full)

At the point where the US of A becomes 'a loser', and 'the winners right the history books' - the use of DU is gonna bite someone hard in the darrieaire.

[pea-jay]

Okay, I must say I am a DU novice here. Never gave it much thought until I started reading about the subject. I know see they are a real problem on a local basis (place of use) but from what I understand there are some disagreements on whether or not this is true.

My questions are: how much of this stuff do we regularly use? I remember it was used during both invasions but has there been a tonnage estimate? Who else used this in history? Why ARE we using it anyway?

Is this a sleeper issue or much ado about (almost) nothing?

[killJOY]

I decided to write Leuren Moret. She sent the following list of URLs.

I have to say this...my country--which you couldn't get me to budge from with a crowbar--has descended to the worst evil.

We are mass murderers, war criminals, dispensers of WMDs and infant cancers. Scream it from the rooftops.

http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Deplete ... 1804.shtml

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ ... 67E27C.htm

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/e ... g_how.html

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/fo ... read=62203

[katkinkate]

Waaaaah, stop the world!!! I want to get off!!!!!!!!

[Malthus]

Depleted uranium has two possible modes of instigating biological damage - ionizing radiation due to the fact that it's a radioactive metal, and biological toxicity due to the fact that it's a "heavy" metal. Regarding the first of these, radioactively "depleted uranium" is basically as little radioactive as it's possible to be and still be radioactive and not inert. This may sound like a quibble, but the half-life of uranium-238, the major radioactive component of depleted uranium (since it's been "depleted" of other uranium isotopes) is 4.5 x 109 (i.e., billion) years (not "109" years as news pieces have erroneously reported). In other words, over the entire 4.6 billion year age of the Earth, the quantity of uranium-238 on this planet has decreased by only half. That is barely detectably radioactive at all, on the human timescale.

Even when it does decay, virtually all (> 99.99%) of uranium-238 follows the mode of alpha decay (emission of a Helium-4 nucleus), which cannot penetrate beyond a couple of inches in air and is stopped cold by sheet of paper. Contrast with gamma rays (high energy electromagnetic radiation emitted by some radioactive decayers) which can penetrate through feet or meters of lead and are highly destructive to biological tissue.

The possibility of heavy-metal toxicity by uranium is potentially of greater scientific importance. That, though, is fundamentally no different than toxicity due to say lead, which have traditionally been used (without environmentalists' extraordinary complaints) as bullets on battlefields for centuries. Don't believe the extraordinary claims of the levtist propaganda sure it isn't something that I want my children to play with but it aint as bad as they depict it.

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Malthus', 'E')ven when it does decay, virtually all (> 99.99%) of uranium-238 follows the mode of alpha decay (emission of a Helium-4 nucleus), which cannot penetrate beyond a couple of inches in air and is stopped cold by sheet of paper. Contrast with gamma rays (high energy electromagnetic radiation emitted by some radioactive decayers) which can penetrate through feet or meters of lead and are highly destructive to biological tissue.

[OilsNotWell]

KJ, thanks for your postings on this.

[rerere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Malthus', 'E')ven when it does decay, virtually all (> 99.99%) of uranium-238 follows the mode of alpha decay (emission of a Helium-4 nucleus), which cannot penetrate beyond a couple of inches in air and is stopped cold by sheet of paper. .... highly destructive to biological tissue.

[katkinkate]

Yes, now there's the rub.

I remember in uni, we did a chemistry prac with radioactive strontium. We were allowed to pick it up because alpha waves won't go through skin. But when Chenobel blew, it poured lots of this radioactive strontium into the atmosphere, which settled on the fields of N.Europe and was eaten by cows. Strontium acts like calcium in the body and will displace calcium if ingested and they had to ban the sale of milk from that part of Europe for several years so no-one would drink the strontium-laced milk and get bone cancer.

So back to the point. Alpha waves fine outside the body but deadly inside.