Sunday, 26 March 2023

Depleted Uranium



posted by Anon @ 00:14   2 Comments

2 Comments:

At 28 March 2023 at 02:26 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

The poisonous, radioactive depleted uranium (DU) - leftover from nuclear power production, or manufacture of 'nuclear weapons' - is used in munitions, because it is the cheapest way to effectively pierce the armour of battle tanks and other military vehicles or structures.

Normal steel munitions will often just slightly deform, but not pierce, steel armour. Something denser and thus stronger than steel is needed.

An ideal material is tungsten - the material of the thin filament inside old-style light bulbs - but that is hugely expensive in large quantities as would be needed in artillery shells.

The 'lightly radioactive' depleted uranium, is cheap waste material of heavy density, and so the militaries use it, even tho it poisons and harms even the military troops who handle and fire DU munitions. And of course it poisons both the people and the landscape in the areas where it is used.

DU is maybe the ultimate symbol of how oligarchies don't even care about harming the troops who fight for them on their own 'side', nor about civilian suffering.

As well as the long-term huge human toll of cancers and birth defects in Iraq noted above, there is a similar situation in Serbia, where DU weapons were heavily used by NATO in the 1990s Balkan wars. Serbia now leads Europe in massive cancers and birth defects.

The British decision to supply Ukraine with DU munitions, is thus a kind of poisonous radioactive attack on the people and farming landscape in Ukraine and even the troops involved.

Russia has such munitions as well, hesitating to use them in a region they partly intend to keep governing. With DU being so awful, some discuss whether chemical or nuclear weapons would be a justified response.

DU in Serbia and its tragic results
https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/03/26/drowning-in-natos-toxic-uranium-genocide-in-serbia/

DU from Britain to poison Ukraine
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/mines-depleted-uranium-and-important

 
At 28 March 2023 at 04:15 , Anonymous Anonymous said...



Uranium weapons being employed in Ukraine have significantly increased Uranium levels in the air in the UK

Christopher Busby
Environmental Research SIA, Riga Latvia
christo@greenaudit.org




Abstract
Data covering the period November 2017 to November 2022 was obtained from the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston to find if there was an increase in Uranium associated with the Ukraine war. Results from 9 High Volume Air Samplers deployed onsite and offsite by AWE showed that there were significantly increased levels of Uranium in all 9 HVAS samplers beginning in February 2022 when the war began. The result has significant public health implications for the UK and Europe.

Keywords: uranium, depleted uranium, particles, Ukraine War, Aldermaston, cancer, birth defect.


Background

Uranium weapons have been increasingly employed in battle action since their first use by the US and UK forces in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Since then, they have been used in the Balkans in the late 1990s, then Kosovo in 2000, probably in Afghanistan in 2002 and then also in the 2nd Gulf War (GW2) in March and April 2003. On impact, uranium penetrators burn fiercely to give an aerosol of sub micron diameter oxide particles which are largely insoluble and remain in the environment for many years [1].

There is considerable public and scientific concern that these radioactive particles may remain suspended for long periods, or may become resuspended and are therefore available for inhalation by non-combatants at some distance from the point of impact. Little research seems to have been carried out on the distance travelled by the uranium aerosols. The military maintain that the uranium remains near the point of impact, and the Royal Society report also states that the material does not travel more than some tens of metres. On the other hand, measurements of uranium in local populations in Kosovo some nine months after the use of uranium weapons tested positive for depleted uranium in urine and the United Nations (UNEP) found uranium particles in air filters in Bosnia and Kosovo some years after its use. The author visited both Kosovo in 2001 (with Nippon TV) and South Iraq in 2000 (with Al Jazeera), and measured DU residues in the environment using scintillation counting for beta and alpha radiation. Samples were taken in Kosovo and analysed in Wales to show the presence of DU particles precipitated from snow and present in puddles far from the impact points. Later, information on Uranium in air samplers deployed by the Atomic Weapons Establishment showed the presence of Uranium from the 2nd Gulf War in 2003 [2] in a study similar to the present one.


https://greenaudit.org/publications/
The question of the dispersion of uranium aerosols from battlefields is of significant legal interest, since if a radioactive weapon resulted in the general contamination of the public in the country of deployment or elsewhere, the weapon would be classifiable as one of indiscriminate effect.

 

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