It comes as no surprise that even when the West is navel-gazing over the twentieth anniversary of its interventionist war on the Iraqi people the true nature of the conflict and how it was bankrolled by the use of the by-products of nuclear weapons’ production is again being denied. Putin is surely no fool and is well aware of the effect that the continuing proliferation of the use of such munitions by NATO will have on international opinion (esp. that of countries such as Xi Jinping’s China). Surely only the sock-puppets who make up the membership of NATO and their parasitic geppettos have the hubris to declare (and be in sufficient denial to believe), that, quote; "Depleted uranium “is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons”, the MoD said.
“The British Army has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades,” the statement added.
“Russia knows this, but is deliberately trying to disinform. Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low.”
Former British Army tank commander - and chemical weapons expert - Col Hamish de Breton-Gordon, said Mr Putin’s comments were “classic disinformation”.
He said depleted uranium rounds used by Challenger 2 tanks contained only trace elements of depleted uranium.
He added it was “laughable” to suggest depleted uranium rounds were in any way linked to nuclear weapons, which uses enriched uranium.
Depleted uranium is what is left over after natural uranium has been enriched, either for weapons-making or for reactor fuel.": https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65032671
Far from being simply disingenuous these are falsehoods of the highest order.
Firstly lets examine the current neoliberal attitude towards nuclear power generally. Does it not strike anyone as odd that most countries (apart from France who employ their nuclear industry to prop up their mouldering imperialist ambitions), have no intention of maintaining a nuclear component to their energy supply of anything more than around 15%? Why is this? In a time when alternatives to fossil fuels are desperately being sort (and leaving aside the continually promoted notion that nuclear power in any way represents a CO2 “friendly” technology, quote; " "When the nuclear industry claims that nuclear power is “carbon -free”, it is basically taking advantage of the fact that many people don’t know the difference between a “carbon footprint” and “direct carbon emissions”. Our individual direct CO2 emissions are basically limited to whatever CO2 we exhale when we breathe- but our carbon footprint is much larger than those limited emissions. Our individual carbon footprint depends on how much gasoline we use, how much electricity we use, and, in general, how much of anything and everything we consume or use. Studies that show nuclear is carbon-neutral are considering only the direct emissions, not the carbon footprint
That limited and simplistic approach is scientifically and mathematically incorrect. If we take a good hard look at the carbon-footprint of nuclear power, we discover that it has the largest carbon footprint of any energy source other than the fossil fuels. Very large carbon emissions are generated by various different stages in the production of nuclear energy, thereby increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Tons of carbon emissions are generated by the following activities which are all necessary in the production of nuclear energy:
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MINING - Uranium (or thorium).
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MILLING – transportation to millworks, taking the raw ore and converting it to “yellowcake” uranium ore.
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CONVERSION - Construction of the uranium conversion facility, transportation of the uranium “yellowcake” to a conversion facility, dissolving it to form UF6, conversion of “yellowcake” to UF6.
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ENRICHMENT - Construction of the uranium enrichment facility, construction of the cylinders used to transport the UF6, transportation of the UF6 to the enrichment facility, enrichment of the uranium.
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FUEL PELLETS - Formation of uranium fuel pellets, transportation of the uranium fuel pellets.
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NUCLEAR POWER PLANT CONSTRUCTION - Construction of the nuclear power plant, with its massive amounts of concrete and steel, which will take several years of using heavy construction equipment to complete. Keep in mind that both steel and concrete production are carbon-intensive.
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SUPPORTING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS - Construction of the necessary infrastructure to support the nuclear power plant (roads, transmission lines, barge canals, etc.)
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GENERATORS - Use of heavy-duty diesel generators to run the cooling system during routine maintenance, refueling, shut downs resulting from increased summertime water temperatures, any SCRAM, and power outage emergencies.
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WASTE STORAGE - Building RadWaste storage facilities, building radwaste storage containers and transporting the waste to the storage facilities. Transfering RadWaste from one geographic location to another, across the country, or the ocean.
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WASTE PROCESSING - Building reprocessing facilities, transporting the radwaste to the reprocessing facility, reprocessing the radwaste, building storage for the radwaste generated by reprocessing.
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WASTE INCINERATION - Building radwaste incineration facilities, transporting the waste to the incineration facility, incinerating the RadWaste.
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WASTE VITRIFICATION - Building vitrification plants, transporting waste to vitrification plants, vitrifying the RadWaste involving heating the materials to very high temperatures.
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MONITORING OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE - carbon pollution generated by monitoring and guarding the radwaste for eternity.
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DECOMISSIONING AND DECONTAMINATION -decontaminating and demolishing the nuclear plants, reactors, enrichment facilities, and other support infrastructure.
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ACCIDENTS - mitigation and clean-up efforts on nuclear accidents-huge carbon contribution.
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DAMAGED REACTORS AND ACCIDENTS - Building sarcophagus structures around failed nuclear power facilities. Monitoring, securing and periodically re-entombing failed nuclear power facilities for all eternity.
There are more nuclear carbon-footprint considerations than the ones stated here, but this list is a good general start.No one source has actually calculated the carbon footprint for nuclear energy taking into consideration all of the above sources of carbon emissions." Go to: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2015/11/flush-greenwash-nuclear-powers-true-co2.html?spref=tw), and if, as is claimed by the industry, modern nuclear power stations represent a technology as safe as any other, why is it that more nuclear power stations are not being proposed?
The answer is that nuclear power has never been primarily about energy production. Remember the famous “energy output dial” at Calderhall? It was a fake!
In this regard I heartily recommend a documentary by PBS called, “The Atom and US”, quote; “Action-packed tour through the history of one of the most controversial subjects of the 20th century – nuclear power – as told by those who experienced it first-hand. Focusing on events in the US, UK, France and Germany, it charts its social and political development from the early days of post-war atomic euphoria, through to the struggling ‘nuclear renaissance’ of the present day.”
View vid: https://binge.com.au/shows/show-the-atom-and-us!9304
Nuclear power generation has always been about enriching uranium and, thus, also producing plutonium for the production of nuclear weapons. The defence/nuclear industry (yes these are the same thing), has always been aware just how dangerous their, so-called, science is and has tried to limit (in their megalomaniac way), the public’s exposure to the terrible risk of nuclear accident. With, as we know, only limited success; “First you get Windscale and end up on a Three Mile Island where Chernobyl falls off and you get Fukushima-ed!”… and these are the one’s we’ve got to hear about, quote; " Quote; “Ask yourselves how it has come to be acceptable for, for instance; The Russian and American presidents (ostensibly -and in reality- gnashing their teeth over Poland), to cabal themselves during the recent summit in Tokyo, get their heads together on how to repair the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor ( http://www.stwr.org/land-energy-water/nuclear-power-no-panacea-critics-say.html Mihama Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia Archive-It Wayback Machine -Edited 11/12/10-), and keep the whole affair from the public?”: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2016/07/hinkleypoint-did-you-hear-one-about.html?spref=tw
“Mr. Miyagi how come you Fukushima?! Ah…no-body prefecture!”
So please, to claim that; “Depleted uranium “is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons”” Is blatantly untrue! That fact is that depleted uranium would not exist without nuclear weapons production. Of-course when it was discovered that D.U could replace tungsten in sabo-discarding weapons (and heavy calibre munitions of other kinds), the slavering beasts of the “Dollar/Pound” Deep State (and NWO), in the West leapt at the opportunity of prosecuting armed conflict that would ensure for them control over the planet’s dwindling fossil fuel reserves whilst not costing them the entirety of their own reserves to do so (regardless, of-course, of the true cost to both the population of the countries -and others-, in which they so philanthropically “intervened” -, and the global environment, of their actions).
The MoD also claim that, quote; “The vapour settles as dust, which is poisonous and also weakly radioactive.”
This is a highly controversial claim that is contested by many of the world’s leading researchers and experts in the field, quote; "GUARDIAN, UK - Depleted uranium, which is used in armor-piercing ammunition, causes widespread damage to DNA which could lead to lung cancer, according to a study of the metal’s effects on human lung cells. The study adds to growing evidence that DU causes health problems on battlefields long after hostilities have ceased.0508 05 1DU is a byproduct of uranium refinement for nuclear power. It is much less radioactive than other uranium isotopes, and its high density - twice that of lead - makes it useful for armor and armor piercing shells. It has been used in conflicts including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq and there have been increasing concerns about the health effects of DU dust left on the battlefield. In November, the Ministry of Defense was forced to counteract claims that apparent increases in cancers and birth defects among Iraqis in southern Iraq were due to DU in weapons.
Now researchers at the University of Southern Maine have shown that DU damages DNA in human lung cells. The team, led by John Pierce Wise, exposed cultures of the cells to uranium compounds at different concentrations. The compounds caused breaks in the chromosomes within cells and stopped them from growing and dividing healthily. “These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant [DNA damage] risk and could possibly result in lung cancer,” the team wrote in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. . . Prof Wise said it is too early to say whether DU causes lung cancer in people exposed on the battlefield because the disease takes several decades to develop.
“Our data suggest that it should be monitored as the potential risk is there,” he said": http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/08/1059/
…
"Health and environmental effects of depleted uranium are at the heart of scientific studies, a lawsuit in the New York courts and legislative bills in more than a dozen states (although not in Florida). . .
Despite a 1996 U.N. resolution opposing its use because of discovery of health problems after the first Gulf War, the military studies have concluded there was no evidence that exposure to the metal caused illnesses. . .
To the military, the effectiveness of weapons and armor made with depleted uranium outweighs any residual effects. Their bottom line: Depleted uranium saves soldiers’ lives in combat. . .
But Brim and others think there will not be enough known until soldiers are tested for exposure. They compare the debate over depleted uranium to the controversy surrounding Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide used to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam. Speculation over its effects continued for more than two decades before the Defense Department agreed to compensate veterans who suffered from ailments linked to its use.":
"CANADIAN REPORT: U.S. USE OF DEPLETED URANIUM RAISED RADIOACTIVITY 300 TIMES
MNA - Canadian research centers have reported that during the war against Iraq the U.S. military used depleted uranium weapons which caused the radiation level to rise at least 300 times above normal, and the weapons caused similar effects in Afghanistan.
U.S. troops have recently begun removing contaminated topsoil in Iraq, taking it to an unknown location. Scientists believe the next generation of children of citizens of both countries exposed to DU will suffer from higher rates of birth defects and cancer.
The Uranium Medical Research Center issued a report based on a 13-day survey throughout the primary conflict zones in urban and rural areas of central and southern Iraq on October 2003, according to Risq News. . .
The most disturbing circumstance was observed in the U.S. occupied base in southwestern Baghdad in the Auweirj district. It is close to the international airport and hosts one of the largest coalition bases around Baghdad, occupying the operational headquarters of the Iraqi Special Republican Guard. . . Departing the coalition-occupied base was a long, a steady stream of tandem-axle dump trucks carrying full loads of sand, heading south away from the city. Returning from the south was a second stream of fully loaded dump trucks waiting to enter the base. As the team passed the base’s main entrance, the gates were opened to reveal bulldozers spreading soil while front-end loaders were filling the trucks that had just emptied their loads of soil (silt and sand). The arriving trucks were delivering loads of sand into the base while the departing trucks were hauling away the base’s topsoil.
DEPLETED URANIUM FOUND IN TROOPS
JUAN GONZALEZ, NY DAILY NEWS - Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are contaminated with radiation likely caused by dust from depleted uranium shells fired by U.S. troops, a Daily News investigation has found. They are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah. . . A nuclear medicine expert who examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four “almost certainly” inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests conducted at the request of The News revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers."
"ROB EDWARDS, SUNDAY HERALD, UK - An expert report warning that the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population would be endangered by British and US depleted uranium weapons has been kept secret. The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organisation, which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO.
Baverstock also believes that if the study had been published when it was completed in 2001, there would have been more pressure on the US and UK to limit their use of DU weapons in last year’s war, and to clean up afterwards. Hundreds of thousands of DU shells were fired by coalition tanks and planes during the conflict, and there has been no comprehensive decontamination. Experts from the United Nations Environment Program have so far not been allowed into Iraq to assess the pollution.
U.S. LEFT 75 TONS OF DEPLETED URANIUM TO POLLUTE IRAQ
U.S. FORCES UNLEASHED at least 75 tons of toxic depleted uranium on Iraq during the war, reports the Christian Science Monitor. An unnamed U.S. Central Command spokesman disclosed to the Monitor last week that coalition forces fired 300,000 bullets coated with armored-piercing depleted uranium during the war. “The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five DU bullets to 1 – a mix that would have left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq,” wrote correspondent Scott Peterson. Peterson measured four sites around Baghdad struck with depleted uranium munitions and found high levels of radioactive contamination, but few warnings to this effect issued among the populace at large. While the Pentagon maintains that spent weapons coated with the low-level, radioactive nuclear-waste are relatively harmless, Peterson notes that U.S. soldiers have taken it among themselves to print leaflets or post signs warning of DU contamination. “After we shoot something with DU, we’re not supposed to go around it, due to the fact that it could cause cancer,” said one sergeant requesting anonymity."
For more please go to: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2012/06/depleted-uranium-progressive-review.html
Quote; “Now there’s a Cinderella issue…The lack of care and attention paid to the issue of Depleted Uranium use by the West in its recent imperialist wars of aggression and intervention (esp. in the Middle East), by the so-called radical-left exemplifies my point…or are my tastes too “catholic”? Certainly protestant-ism in Britain (some might well still say “Puritanism”), does not like to deal with the rights of infants or the unborn…Are they truly “property” then?..It is sickening to think just how useful the publicization of this terrible crime could have been (and still could be), to an alternative narrative of our recent “crusade” (GWR Bush’s own word), and just how lazy, negligent and incompetent has been the handling of the issue by the oh-so-enlightened social reformers who populate our so called “alternative media” and campaigning organisations. The Depleted Uranium issue has remained the territory of senior academics and physicians and it has not made its way into public consciousness…this is a serious indictment of the blinkered attitude of those who want to have-their-cake-and-eat-it in our “liberal” societies…Such ignorance also has a deleterious effect on the resolution of the conflict between radical Islam and the rest of us, for without the realisation that the perpetration of such terrible crimes might well help explain (if not excuse), the murderous rage of ISIS, Boko Haram and other such organisations (who if not directly affected are certainly influenced by the knowledge of just how far the West is prepared to go in order to secure more blood-fuel for its near hysterical market driven society), any dialogue between the otherwise seemingly diametrically opposed philosophies of Christianity and Islam is effectively made impossible!”: https://www.arafel.co.uk/2018/09/free-of-consequences-liberal-conceit.html
Quite apart from the oft reported birth deformities of children born to mother’s exposed to D.U, there may be other “unwanted consequences” of its use, quote; “imagine many tons* of a very heavy highly radioactive metal being discharged and dispersed into a local environment in which it can particulate in the most efficient manner possible.
Then imagine this particulate dust being thrust into the Northern or Northern Sub-Tropical Jet-streams by desert storms (I’m told such things occur).
Then as all this uranium and plutonium (“for it is I Great Plutocrat!”), is circling the Earth and as it does so squeezing, contracting and distorting both the Earth’s magnetosphere (-Edit 15/03/11- “Astrotometric” correlation -see ref: to “Astrotometry” below- the magnetosphere is described as an “interactive” boundary Magnetosphere - Wikipedia ), and it’s geology.
Squeezing and contracting until…“Pop! Crunch!”…the pressure is released and WHAM a huge tsunamic event occurs in Sumatra!”…
…"*Regardless of the precise figures involved it is my belief that particulate D.U, behaving in the manner I have described, was responsible for the deaths of 250,000 people.
“At NATO headquarters in Brussels, Britain and the US joined forces to kill off an Italian proposal, backed by Germany, for the alliance’s 19 member countries to stop using depleted uranium ammunition until further notice . . . Malcolm Hooper, emeritus professor of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University, described the Ministry of Defence move as a “cynical betrayal” and “vicious injustice.” The MoD, he said, was testing for high-level exposure to soluble material, rather than long-term, low-level, exposure to radiation inside the body. It was indulging in “Mickey Mouse science”. GUARDIAN” From “Depleted Uranium; Stories From The Archives of The Progressive Review” (go to http://www.prorev.com/du.htm )
When I met David (a British corporal), then recently returned from Iraq ( who had been working in bomb disposal in Basra immediately following the taking of the city), he told me that apart from having to dispose of both bombs and body parts on a daily basis he had seen vehicles (against which D.U munitions had been used), which had been politely cordoned off with yellow “crime-scene” tape. We looked at each other and laughed…
…("…and if we knew why the bowl of petunias -did- that we would know a lot more about the Universe than we do at the moment.").
He told me, “I’ll go anywhere else but I won’t go back to Iraq, it’s a mad- house!”
I am also aware that earlier readers (ie. prior to this edit), may have wondered whether I believe that depleted uranium alone was responsible for the Sumatran tsunami. The answer is no I don’t, I see it more as the straw the broke the back of the poor camel that had little chance of passing through “The Eye of The Needle” in the first instance!
By which I mean that as a final component of the “unholy synergism” which also includes; nuclear testing, nuclear power, particle beam research, fusion power research (and if Steven.J.Smith is to be believed possibly also “Seismic Weapons” testing), d.u dispersal in the way I have described can be seen as providing the trigger event which caused the Sumatran disaster." Go to: "Arafel": "What's that Coming Over The Hill?"
Putin is not blameless in this regard either though, quote; "Russia is arming its tanks with controversial depleted uranium shells.
While depleted uranium, or DU, is extremely dense and can punch through thick tank armor, many believe that these shells release small doses of radiation, like miniature neutron bombs. The U.S. has used DU shells in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
A Russian Defense Ministry bulletin said Russian T-80BV tanks would be armed with these powerful munitions, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. The bulletin noted that “the T-80BVM (the letter M stands for ‘modernized’) features ‘the improved weapons stabilizer and the loading mechanism for the 3BM59 Svinets-1 and 3BM60 Svinets-2 munitions.’”
The Svinets-1 has a tungsten carbide core, while the Svinets-2 uses depleted uranium. according to the Below the Ring armor site, published by a pair of Dutch defense experts. A 2016 post speculated that Russia might have been producing these special rounds for several years as replacements for existing tank ammunition.
The shells “utilize an aluminum sabot with three points of contact - this is rather unique, as most other types of APFSDS sabot use only two points of contacts,” Below the Ring said. “If and how this affects accuracy and barrel wear is currently not known.”
The Svinets-2 is not the first Russian shell to use depleted uranium. The 3BM-32 Vant, designed for Soviet 125-millimeter tank cannon, also contained a DU core. But the new rounds are longer.
“Compared to the 3BM-32 Vant APFSDS with a 380-mm-long [14.7-inch] DU penetrator, the two types of new ammunition have an approximately 79 to 84 percent longer projectile, which should lead to a significant increase in penetration power,” Below the Ring estimated.
The problem is that older Russian tank ammunition has difficult piercing advanced tank armor such as that found on the U.S. M-1 Abrams or Israeli Merkava. “The 3BM-42 Mango relies on an outdated pentrator design, using two relatively short tungsten rods inside a steel body,” according to Below the Ring. “…Steel penetrates armor less efficiently than a high-density heavy metal alloy.”
Thus, the appeal of DU shells as tank killers (you can find a concise scientific explanation of depleted uranium ammunition here). There are 120-millimeter DU shells for the M-1 Abrams and 30-millimeter shell for the A-10 Warthog. Ironically, the Abrams tank uses depleted uranium in its armor plating to stop anti-tank shells.
The U.S. military says depleted uranium ammunition is safe, for the most part. “When fired, or after ‘cooking off’ in fires or explosions, the exposed depleted uranium rod poses an extremely low radiological threat as long as it remains outside the body,” says a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. “Taken into the body via metal fragments or dust-like particles, depleted uranium may pose a long-term health hazard to personnel if the amount is large. However, the amount which remains in the body depends on a number of factors, including the amount inhaled or ingested, the particle size and the ability of the particles to dissolve in body fluids.”
However, even the Veterans Administration acknowledges that depleted uranium poses health risks to soldiers, such as those who fought in Operation Desert Storm, where DU rounds were used to destroy Iraqi tanks. There are also complaints that depleted uranium contaminates the environment, such as in Iraq. The Pentagon promised that it wouldn’t use DU ammunition in Syria, though it later admitted that it fired thousands of rounds in 2015.": https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/america-russian-tanks-are-now-shooting-depleted-uranium-bullets-175219
It’s the same issue as that of conducting any kind of armed conflict in the vicinity of nuclear power stations (even a large conventional weapon striking a nuclear core would -to all intents and purposes-, be the equivalent of a nuclear strike). So if such were to happen would we blame Putin? Or would history rather conclude that any and all of those involved in promoting rather than preventing any armed conflict that resulted in such a disaster were equally to blame and that it was selfishness and hubris on both sides that led to the catastrophe? Perhaps if one could imagine that the consequences of such a nuclear disaster might be confined to effects only to the combatants’ nations one might squirm one’s way out of taking responsibility, however, as one remembers from Chernobyl any radioactive cloud created might find its way to many nations who, far from being involved in the conflict that caused such, were actively campaigning for moderation and peace during the conflict!
What toadying, obsequious, enabling (et.al), and hugely partial neoliberal shills our mainstream journalists now are! Can they not work all this out for themselves or are their rectums now so well greased they are no longer sensate of the hands being thrust up them to work their disgusting mouths?
Our opposition is no use either, Keir Starmer (a man who claims to be an expert in the field of human rights), supports the NATO agenda and as such represents another cowardly shill (and let’s face it “shrill”), with about as much integrity as a used condom.
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