U.S. nuclear attacks cause cancer epidemic in Iraq

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When will we stop our War of Terror?

They'd call it a nuclear attack if some "terrorist" decided to use a "dirty bomb" made out of nuclear waste. American shells are made of nuclear waste so it's the same thing.

This reminds me of a wonderful wire report headline that was something like "U.S. plans death camp" - this was to report a plan to set up an execution chamber in Guantanomo to dispose of some of the prisoners.

There was a report out of the Balkans where they analysed some of this "depleted uranium" and found traces of neptunium and plutonium. Those who say that uranium-238 is harmless surely can't say this of neptunium and plutonium. As it is, the uranium is made into an aerosol that is breathed and ingested otherwise by people and these emit alpha radiation. The defenders of this war material like to say that it's harmless because it's not gamma radiation, alpha radiation can be stopped by a sheet of paper. Not when it's lodged in your lungs it can't.

I doubt you'd see any problems showing up in those personnel, the problem isn't simply being around the shells, the problem is the dust thrown up when one hits something and both shatters and adheres to nearby material. I do believe that exposure to DU dust by ground troops has been proposed as a possible cause of Gulf War syndrome, though I'm far from familiar with the details.

One thing I do wonder about is where was the DU expended that later caused so much civilian exposure? DU is entirely an anti-armor weapon used to destroy enemy tanks and other armored vehicles, and usually those sorts of battles don't take place in populated areas. Perhaps the locals have been scavenging the wreckage or something, otherwise I don't see how the exposure levels could be causing the cancer spikes that are being alleged.

A dirty bomb is designed to spread radiation over the widest area possible. The uranium in shells is there to increase penetration by the shells, as the mass is contained in a smaller area than the equivalent mass of lead. This means that the pressure upon impact is higher. It's not the same thing at all.

Whether or not the intent is the same the result of both spreads radioactive dust where it can be inhaled or ingested to do the most damage.

Yes, but he said it should be considered a nuclear attack, like a dirty bomb would.

When radioactivity is the destructive agent it is not unreasonable to use "nuclear" as a term describing the danger.

Crops, animals, walking over it, wind carrying it across flat areas to populated areas with buildings and walls. It takes time for pollution to begin significantly affecting an area, and I doubt people were getting cancer treatment or diagnoses during the fighting.

When you consider the astronomical cancer and deformities figure for Fallujah I can't help but think, all this for those miserable Blackwater mercenaries? By the way, Blackwater was caught charging the government for prostitution expenses; that media that swallowed those doctored O'Keefe "pimp 'n ho" videos was of course conspicuous in their silence on this one - tax money going towards vice!

Hate to go all semantics again, but I believe the proper nomenclature for a dirty bomb would be a "radiological attack", where as "nuclear attack" is used exclusively for weapons utilizing nuclear fission or fusion for their destructive capabilities. Somewhat ironically, modern atomic weaponry is so much more efficient in it's use of fissionable material that a true "nuclear" attack has far less radioactive fallout than a dirty bomb would, it was unspent radioactive isotopes adhering to the dust particles at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that caused the long term harm, not the radiation released from the actual explosions. The same advances that have made nuclear weapons much smaller have also made them much cleaner, I guess efficiency is it's own reward.

Just to cap this off, a more accurate thread title might have been "US Uranium Munitions Linked to Cancer..." or something to that effect, but given the ideological bent on display here, I doubt the inaccuracy was accidental.

What about "nuclear waste attacks" - that's what it is, nuclear waste. Dumping nuclear waste on people is a crime. By the way, I see that the right wing media's reporting on the subject has been to blame the cancers on Saddam's non-existent nerve gas. That's what the headlines read at Fox News, and "depleted uranium" is mentioned in passing in the body of the article and quickly forgotten.

Amusingly, one of the British right wing press reports with that headline included comments by people who actually try to reason with the unreasonable, remarking that nerve gas cannot cause cancer and make scientific points to support this. The choice of headline was purely propaganda.

Nobody ever intimated a nuclear explosion took place. But the evil effects of such an explosion include the terrible effects of radiation and those effects can be attributed only to nuclear emanations. It is not in error to label the problems nuclear. Your semantics are exceedingly picky.

What can I say, I have a high standard for honesty.

Or a misconception of nuclear damage.

Nuclear attacks are subject to a serious taboo. It's my opinion that this covers the use of nuclear waste in weapons - think for a moment if some terrorist were to use nuclear waste in a weapon and how this would be received. Naturally, because the militaries of Civilisation have discovered this nuclear waste to be a kind of "silver bullet" to fight evil, that taboo has been dropped simply by refusing to mention the fact that nuclear waste is being used as a weapon, and preferring not to talk about it at all. If it's not mentioned, it does not exist. That's how global events are covered.

True nuclear weapons don't leave much in the way of radioactive fallout anymore, like I detailed in earlier posts greater efficiency has led to reduced waste and thus reduced residual effects after a nuclear weapon has been used. The damage done by a nuke comes from it's massive heat and explosive force, neither of which is present when DU munitions are used, they are about as dissimilar as possible in effect. But enough on that.

What I'm arguing about here is the way that dishonest language has been used in an attempt to lead the reader to a predetermined point of view, rather than simply presenting the known facts and allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. You can argue that since DU is a waste product of nuclear production that using it in a weapon makes that automatically a "nuclear weapon", but I don't think you'd argue that the presence of the toxic chemical lead in conventional bullets makes them into "chemical weapons". The argument is disingenuous at best and outright deceptive at worst, and distracts from the very real questions surrounding the use of DU projectiles. Better to let the facts speak for themselves than to try and manipulate people's reactions with loaded terms, it weakens the argument and creates the appearance of a shaky foundation even if the information is otherwise solid.