One difference from the Cold War era to today is that some theocratic Muslim countries are inching their way towards building nuclear weapons. Their leaders may not have the same qualms about themselves and their people dying because in their religion they would be considered martyrs when they die in a nuclear exchange with us infidels. Martyrdom for them is a one way ticket direct to heaven. It’s not that far fetched. We have seen enough suicide attacks (e.g. 9/11) to know that some of them would relish the opportunity to unleash nuclear weapons on the West.
They both contaminate the land with radioactivity, the ulltimate in anti-life poisons. The only difference is the speed of the results. DU takes longer to show effects, but otherwise the end result is the same.
DU weapons are not ''used for piercing tanks''. They are used to spread tadioactive dust to weaken a potential future enemy by causing high rates of illnesses and birth defects. Piercing tanks is a cover story to justify it to the masses. The American Christian Fundamentalist government has plans to deploy it in all of the Middle East to make a Bibical prediction come true. Look up ''Wormwood'' for details on what the American war criminals want to make happen.
You are mistaken about the purposes of DU weapons. They are used to pierce tanks (etc); the dust effects as have been claimed are highly disputed or exaggerated, and are peripheral effects and not intended primary purpose.
You seem to have more faith than I do in whatever the American military bosses say. I judge their actions, not their words. The claim that these weapons are used for penetration of armor plate is nothing but a cover story to excuse the real effects to the public. More than 150,000 of these weapons have been deployed all over Iraq and Afganistan, most of them against soft targets not needing armor piercing capability, and many of them just for target practice. The results are the worst war crime in history by so wide a margin it does not matter who is in second place.
The American military bosses lie all the time. Just because they say a weapon is intended for one purpose does not mean that is true. Nothing they say has anything to do with their real motives.
The "debate" over nuclear power, and nuclear safety in general, is not about scientific facts. It is about feelings and values.
Some people feel nuclear power is dangerous. They feel it deep in their insides. They do not want to live on the same planet with it. Nothing can change that deep feeling, no matter what the scientific evidence says.
Other people feel no danger from nuclear power. They consider the alleged dangers of it a fantasy. They think the people who are afraid of it are just ignorant of scientific facts. No amount of evidence can ever convince them nuclear power is dangerous. They simply do not feel any danger from it.
These two character types cannot communicate. They live in different worlds. They both are convinced the other side is ignorant, unable to see the Truth, with a capital "T", and that they have the Facts, with a capital "F", on their side.
Trying to debate either side on a basis of scientific evidence is a lost cause. They are not interested in evidence. They are both trying to express deep feelings. And nuclear power is only the vehicle they are using to express their feelings about how the world works and what kind of a world they want to live in.
So the only way to talk about nuclear power is to ignore the scientific facts and talk about what kind of a world do you want to live in? What kind of a world is the best one to live in? What kind of a world do you think this world is? And what kind of a world would it be if you could make it over the way you want it to be?
And that line of questioning brings out the vast gulf between the thinking and more importantly, the FEELING, of the mechanistic-minded people who feel safe with nuclear power because they have no real contact with their deepest biological roots, and the relatively healthy individuals who cannot and will not tolerate nuclear power because they know instictively that it is Evil, with a capital "E".
Because that is the real issue here: The people who are against anything nuclear KNOW in their bones that this stuff is Death, with a capital "D", and no amount of scientific evidence will ever make any difference to them. That feeling is a deep biological instinct.
And the people who favor nuclear power cannot understand that. They cannot FEEL that instinctive dread of anything nuclear. They lack the sense organ to feel that instinctive dread.
So it pointless to try to win over anyone to either side. All that can be done is to give the anti-nuclear people as much ammunition as possible to use in the poilitical arena. And in that arena, things are not decided by appeal to science and scientific facts. Things are decided by appeal to emotions.
And since the majority of people are anti-nuclear in their character make-up and feel that instinctive dread of anything nuclear, that is a very good thing.
The degree of contamination of the two sources has no serious equivalence. As we know also, the harm from DU is circulation of particles that are toxic. Read the study by Fetter. A moratorium on DU is justified but it is not a “nuclear weapon” in the sense we abolitionists mean.
If it uses radioactivity it is a nuclear weapon. It just works in slow motion compared to a bomb.
The dramatic explosion of a nuclear bomb is not the most important effect it has. That only destroys buildings and humans who happen to be nearby. The long term contamination of the biosphere is much more important. The blast only has a local effect, but releasing tons of tiny radioactive particles and radioactive gases into the atmosphere has a global effect and will keep on having it forever. That is why the Americans and their allies should be considered the worst war criminals in history, far worse than the Nazis they so love to demonize.
And since you keep saying you are an ''abolitionist'', why do you persist in making excuses for the enemy and repeating their propaganda lines? Frankly, I get a distinct impression that you are confirming my long-term assumption that the movement to abolish nuclear weapons has been infiltrated and co-opted.
No, that is not what a nuclear weapon is traditionally defined as. It could be a radiation device without being an explosive device causing an immediate destructive impact from an atomic or hydrogen weapon detonation. "Dirty bombs" also have radiation impacts but are not considered nuclear weapons. I insist on precision. If everying is a nuclear weapon, then nothing is. Bananas have radiation too, just as does the human body. We have to distinguish, and we have to focus on worst impacts.
I’m talking about whatever nation you live in. You don’t get to choose whether or not you have to fight. Part of the bargain for being allowed to live in a society is the requirement to fight for it if required — even if you are against the war. If you don’t like it you can vote for a government that’s more in line with your values or leave the country.
I can’t believe you find a moral equivalency between the so called Anglo-American empire and the Nazis. You know… the regime that tried to incinerate an entire race in ovens.
And what’s your issue with empires? Is there any place on Earth that wasn’t conquered and reconquered many times, over tens of thousands of years? With very few exceptions, there are no true “natives” anywhere on Earth. The natives everyone feels bad about conquered the land they’re on from people before them.
Any weapon that uses radioactivity is a nuclear weapon, no matter if there is some organization that says otherwise or not. I do not have to use only your definitions. And mentioning bananas and humans as ''radioactive'' is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the subject under discussion.
I suggest you look at the sources of funding for any studies. I suspect much of it comes from the Pentagon or other U.S. government funding sources. Since 1945 most funding for scientific research has been from them. I do not automatically believe any scientific report. I prefer to check the sources of funding for it and the connections of the scientists involved before assuming it is credible.
My understanding is that you generally cannot distinguish a nuclear armed ICBM from a conventionally armed equivalent. For this reason any incoming missile is likely to be judged as nuclear armed in a deterrence scenario (of use them or loose them); and a retaliatory strike could launch nuclear against a non-nuclear missile. This why some of us argue for ending launch on warning policy to make the world slightly safer.
Did you check the link I provided? That claim has nothing to do with any ''conspiracy nutbars''. It rests on testimony from an eyewitness.
Eyewitness tesimony by someone who was there is usually sufficient for a conviction in a criminal trial, so it is enough to at least require a through and unbiased investigation, not arrogant dismissal just because the accused in this case is a government, not just an individual.
There is plenty of evidence. Google ''depleted uranium'' for many articles on the use of radioactive artillery shells in several recent wars. Iraqi doctors are seeing thousands of cases per year more than before the American invasion of miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects and childhood cancer due to this American weapon.
“ Depleted uranium (DU) is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process. It is mildly radioactive and has the same chemical toxicity and radiological properties as natural uranium.”
Depleted uranium is made from used reactor fuel rods and fabricated into artillery shells that pulverize upon impact into microscopic particles that remain radioactive forever. The health hazard is not due to extremely intense radioactivity, but to the size of the particles that enables them to enter the body and lodge within it, which naturally occuring uranium ore does not do.
Did I mention anything about the Middle East? Are you imagining things?
By “we” I mean when our nation is fighting an enemy. Nobody cares if they didn’t do harm to you. If we listened to people like you we would have stayed out of WWII and let the Nazis win. Fortunately we don’t decide to go to war based on whether or not you were personally harmed.
As for these depleted uranium munitions... As the Harvard article states, “Unfortunately, it has been difficult for epidemiologists to determine whether there is a clear link between depleted uranium exposure and health outcomes among local populations.” The jury is still out.
In any case, in any conflict where things are being blown up and incinerated there is a high likelihood of a multitude of toxins being dispersed. All sorts of negative health effects happen to the population living in a war zone. That’s the nature of war.
When YOUR nation is fighting one of YOUR enemies I do not care about any of YOUR reasons for doing so. I will either stay out of it or. if I choose to take a side, I will decide which side on a basis of the information available to me about the issues, not according to some irrelevant accident such as where on the surface of the earth I happened to be born.
As for WW2, history has shown there was very little to choose between Germany and the Anglo-American Empire. I would have stayed out of it.
Vladimir Putin has insisted on having the largest stockpile in the world. Russia is the foil to any reduction efforts. Lack of confidence in the American nuclear umbrella is already spurring proliferation talk in Europe. Reagan understood the need to negotiate from a strong position. Contemporary American weakness is not creating peace.
Sometimes disaster can be averted by a few people. But what happens when we don't have those kind of people when we need them?
See Seymour Hersh's article on how some American military (without Biden's knowledge) cleverly averted a more serious reaction by Israel to Iran "attack."
All this is obsolete. The modern form of nuclear war has already been waged by the U.S. against several countries, including Iraq, Afganistan, Bosnia, Syria, and others where so-called ''depleted uranium'' weapons have permanently contaminated large areas with radioactive dust. The sabotage of the Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl by British agents in 1986 was also an act of nuclear war.
The rulers of America in the Pentagon are insane, but not stupid. They figured out a way to wage a nuclear war without anybody knowing it. Just trump up some excuse for a ''conventional'' war, then deploy low intensity nuclear weapons to have the same long term effect as a nuclear bomb explosion.
They call such covert nuclear weapons an ''Area Interdiction'' weapon and the aim is to render any potential enemy country permanently unable to fight against America ever again because forever after, whoever lives there will have to expend much of their energy and resources caring for the sick.
In contrast to modern nuclear methods of poisoning any potential enemy country with radioactive dust, the old-style nuclear weapon, a World War Two type bomb intended to make a big explosion, is unreliable. The physics of such a bomb is very poorly understood and it fails to detonate so frequently that in any war scenario it could not be depended on.
“ The sabotage of the Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl by British agents in 1986 was also an act of nuclear war.” You need help. There are other sites for conspiracy nutbars.
That's a conspiracy theory which means, it's not based on evidence. The interesting thing about that, is wondering who caused that to be spread around? The Soviets or Chinese?
Well, you should. It may not be as dramatic as a big explosion, but over the long run it is much more damaging. Do some research on it and see what conclusions you come to.
But the ''disarmament community'' has been throughly infiltrated and taken over by Pentagon agents. It is today no more than a distraction being used to soak up anti-war individuals and keep them busy doing useless protests instead of doing things that might actually interfere with military operations.
Right now the newest nuclear weapon is in Finnland, which has recently joined NATO, meaning it is now an American Puppet State. There is a nuclear reactor there. It is in an areea with few inhabitants, but look at the weather maps! If it ever has a massive leak the cloud of debris will go straight to St. Petersberg, and then on to Moscow. So if the U.S. give the order, the Finns will blow it up, though no doubt claiming either that it was an accident or that it was hit by a Russian missile, and wipe out Russias two biggest cities.
That reactor, at that location, is a nuclear weapon. And don't tell me nobody in Washington has ever thought of that. But there has been no mention of this situationb by the alleged ''peace movement''. And for a very good reason: There is no real peace movement. Only Pentagon shills.
Where is the evidence to back up that claim #1, #2 why would the U.S. risk contaminating their own troops, gov contractors and allies? It's an irrational and cost ineffective measure.
All the money they spend goes into somebodys pockets, so the people who benefit from that ''expense'' do not see it as an expense, they see it as profit. That is in fact one of the main reasons for wars: somebody is making a profit from them. And those are the same people who happen to control the government.
The U.S. Army forced hundreds of their own troops to watch atomic bonb tests from close range with no protection. They poisoned many more with agent orange in Viet Nam and many others in the Gulf War by forcing them to handle DU munitions.
The record shows that the top brass regard the rank and file as expendable. That has been true for every army in history. The current crop of psychopaths is no exception.
I’ve spent some time on DU risks and effects over a few years. Some of the best analysis I found was the work done by Steve Fetter et al. I think it’s still valid.
I do not believe any studies by any scientist with his government credentials. I suggest you look up some writings of Ernest Sternsglass and John Goffman.
The anti-nuke movement is starting to grow now, as the relentless push to build more reactors builds up steam, but it is working under a severe handicap. The movement has to go along with the official orthodox scientific theories of what radioactivity is, what causes it, how it functions, and how it is harmful to living systems. They do not have any rival theory to propose in its place.
But the problem is, if you believe the official theory, nukes are safe, or at least, can be made safe. The official theory is wrong, but it is the only theory the anti-nuke people know of, so they cannot dispute it. The real reason most anti nukers are anti-nuke is not based on any scientific appraisal, but on a gut feeling that this stuff is Evil, with a capital E. They are right. Radioactivity is something qualatatively different from any mere chemical poison. It strikes at the very roots of Life, with a capital L.
But to speak of such things in public would be to lose the argument. It would sound like mere emotionalism and superstition to anyone with a scientific education, which is what they call being indoctrinated into the prevailing belief system.
Any attempt to place the gut feeling on an orthodox scientific basis is doomed to fail. As long as the term scientific is considered to mean only the official orthodox science, there is no scientific argument possible against nuclear energy. The official theories are specificly designed to weed out any gut feelings.
The anti nuke movement would be better off to forget about trying to make the public think there are scientific reasons for avoiding nuclear power, and instead work on exploiting their strong point, that most people share the gut feeling about nukes being Evil, but are not able to articulate it or do not dare to voice it aloud for fear of sounding uneducated or unscientific. The populist anti abortion movement has worked this kind of a campaign strategy very successfully. They have no scientific basis for what they say, but they are very successful at tapping into peoples emotional revulsion for abortion.
To do that, the movement would have to challenge the scientists claim to expertise. The movement would have to say to the public, the scientists are wrong. This is the way things really are, and the scientists do not know what they are talking about.
Then it would become a debate between the movement and the official scientific community, which currently claims a monopoly of knowledge of how the psysical world works. I think that trying to discredit science and convince the public science is simply wrong would be a better strategy than trying to make a case against nukes within the official science theory, which was designed for the purpose of making nuclear energy seem safe and controlable.
I once met a Japanese Buddist monk who had been a nuclear physicist. He quit that career and became a monk because he saw an experiment that his knowledge of science could not explain. A Japanese anti-nuclear group had planted concentric rings of spiderworts all around a nuclear reactor. The particular species of spiderwort chosen is very sensitive to low level radiation damage, and when examined under a microscope, showed the color changes caused by broken chromosomes in direct proportion to proximity to the reactor, in every direction. That means the effect was able to travel against the prevailing wind.
There was no detectable radiation even right up against the wall of the reactor containment vessel. So SOMETHING capable of a biological effect but undetectable by any manmade instrument, was able to escape from the unbroken containment shielding and could move upwind. I have asked many physicists about that experiment. They all have the same reaction: they say it could not have happened. So far, none has ever even tried to think of how it COULD have happened. The reaction is always to refuse to believe the data, not to try to understand it.
And that is how modern science always reacts to new data. Science is a system designed to avoid knowing how the world works. A person who is going to become a scientist is usually someone who is afraid of knowing what is really happening in the world around him and is attracted to science as a career because it offers an escape route by allowing him to become convinced of false information instead of having to confront reality.
Of course I am a cynic. I am also convinced a lot of people have identical fingerprints, that apes are descended from humans, and that American presidential elections are rigged. In short, I do not agree with the mainstream on much. Do you? And if so, why?
One difference from the Cold War era to today is that some theocratic Muslim countries are inching their way towards building nuclear weapons. Their leaders may not have the same qualms about themselves and their people dying because in their religion they would be considered martyrs when they die in a nuclear exchange with us infidels. Martyrdom for them is a one way ticket direct to heaven. It’s not that far fetched. We have seen enough suicide attacks (e.g. 9/11) to know that some of them would relish the opportunity to unleash nuclear weapons on the West.
There is no important parallel between DU weapons (used for piercing tanks etc.) and a nuclear weapon detonation weapon. Do not conflate them.
They both contaminate the land with radioactivity, the ulltimate in anti-life poisons. The only difference is the speed of the results. DU takes longer to show effects, but otherwise the end result is the same.
DU weapons are not ''used for piercing tanks''. They are used to spread tadioactive dust to weaken a potential future enemy by causing high rates of illnesses and birth defects. Piercing tanks is a cover story to justify it to the masses. The American Christian Fundamentalist government has plans to deploy it in all of the Middle East to make a Bibical prediction come true. Look up ''Wormwood'' for details on what the American war criminals want to make happen.
You are mistaken about the purposes of DU weapons. They are used to pierce tanks (etc); the dust effects as have been claimed are highly disputed or exaggerated, and are peripheral effects and not intended primary purpose.
You seem to have more faith than I do in whatever the American military bosses say. I judge their actions, not their words. The claim that these weapons are used for penetration of armor plate is nothing but a cover story to excuse the real effects to the public. More than 150,000 of these weapons have been deployed all over Iraq and Afganistan, most of them against soft targets not needing armor piercing capability, and many of them just for target practice. The results are the worst war crime in history by so wide a margin it does not matter who is in second place.
The American military bosses lie all the time. Just because they say a weapon is intended for one purpose does not mean that is true. Nothing they say has anything to do with their real motives.
My assessment is based on the studies done, not primarily by “military bosses”. Definitely not the “worst war crime in history”. I think you’ll find the sources for that claim are not reputable. https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/2000/01/the_hazard_posed_by_depleted_u.html.
The "debate" over nuclear power, and nuclear safety in general, is not about scientific facts. It is about feelings and values.
Some people feel nuclear power is dangerous. They feel it deep in their insides. They do not want to live on the same planet with it. Nothing can change that deep feeling, no matter what the scientific evidence says.
Other people feel no danger from nuclear power. They consider the alleged dangers of it a fantasy. They think the people who are afraid of it are just ignorant of scientific facts. No amount of evidence can ever convince them nuclear power is dangerous. They simply do not feel any danger from it.
These two character types cannot communicate. They live in different worlds. They both are convinced the other side is ignorant, unable to see the Truth, with a capital "T", and that they have the Facts, with a capital "F", on their side.
Trying to debate either side on a basis of scientific evidence is a lost cause. They are not interested in evidence. They are both trying to express deep feelings. And nuclear power is only the vehicle they are using to express their feelings about how the world works and what kind of a world they want to live in.
So the only way to talk about nuclear power is to ignore the scientific facts and talk about what kind of a world do you want to live in? What kind of a world is the best one to live in? What kind of a world do you think this world is? And what kind of a world would it be if you could make it over the way you want it to be?
And that line of questioning brings out the vast gulf between the thinking and more importantly, the FEELING, of the mechanistic-minded people who feel safe with nuclear power because they have no real contact with their deepest biological roots, and the relatively healthy individuals who cannot and will not tolerate nuclear power because they know instictively that it is Evil, with a capital "E".
Because that is the real issue here: The people who are against anything nuclear KNOW in their bones that this stuff is Death, with a capital "D", and no amount of scientific evidence will ever make any difference to them. That feeling is a deep biological instinct.
And the people who favor nuclear power cannot understand that. They cannot FEEL that instinctive dread of anything nuclear. They lack the sense organ to feel that instinctive dread.
So it pointless to try to win over anyone to either side. All that can be done is to give the anti-nuclear people as much ammunition as possible to use in the poilitical arena. And in that arena, things are not decided by appeal to science and scientific facts. Things are decided by appeal to emotions.
And since the majority of people are anti-nuclear in their character make-up and feel that instinctive dread of anything nuclear, that is a very good thing.
The degree of contamination of the two sources has no serious equivalence. As we know also, the harm from DU is circulation of particles that are toxic. Read the study by Fetter. A moratorium on DU is justified but it is not a “nuclear weapon” in the sense we abolitionists mean.
If it uses radioactivity it is a nuclear weapon. It just works in slow motion compared to a bomb.
The dramatic explosion of a nuclear bomb is not the most important effect it has. That only destroys buildings and humans who happen to be nearby. The long term contamination of the biosphere is much more important. The blast only has a local effect, but releasing tons of tiny radioactive particles and radioactive gases into the atmosphere has a global effect and will keep on having it forever. That is why the Americans and their allies should be considered the worst war criminals in history, far worse than the Nazis they so love to demonize.
And since you keep saying you are an ''abolitionist'', why do you persist in making excuses for the enemy and repeating their propaganda lines? Frankly, I get a distinct impression that you are confirming my long-term assumption that the movement to abolish nuclear weapons has been infiltrated and co-opted.
No, that is not what a nuclear weapon is traditionally defined as. It could be a radiation device without being an explosive device causing an immediate destructive impact from an atomic or hydrogen weapon detonation. "Dirty bombs" also have radiation impacts but are not considered nuclear weapons. I insist on precision. If everying is a nuclear weapon, then nothing is. Bananas have radiation too, just as does the human body. We have to distinguish, and we have to focus on worst impacts.
Apropos threats.
https://ufointel.wordpress.com/2024/04/27/ufo-video-2/
I’m talking about whatever nation you live in. You don’t get to choose whether or not you have to fight. Part of the bargain for being allowed to live in a society is the requirement to fight for it if required — even if you are against the war. If you don’t like it you can vote for a government that’s more in line with your values or leave the country.
I can’t believe you find a moral equivalency between the so called Anglo-American empire and the Nazis. You know… the regime that tried to incinerate an entire race in ovens.
And what’s your issue with empires? Is there any place on Earth that wasn’t conquered and reconquered many times, over tens of thousands of years? With very few exceptions, there are no true “natives” anywhere on Earth. The natives everyone feels bad about conquered the land they’re on from people before them.
Any weapon that uses radioactivity is a nuclear weapon, no matter if there is some organization that says otherwise or not. I do not have to use only your definitions. And mentioning bananas and humans as ''radioactive'' is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the subject under discussion.
I suggest you look at the sources of funding for any studies. I suspect much of it comes from the Pentagon or other U.S. government funding sources. Since 1945 most funding for scientific research has been from them. I do not automatically believe any scientific report. I prefer to check the sources of funding for it and the connections of the scientists involved before assuming it is credible.
My understanding is that you generally cannot distinguish a nuclear armed ICBM from a conventionally armed equivalent. For this reason any incoming missile is likely to be judged as nuclear armed in a deterrence scenario (of use them or loose them); and a retaliatory strike could launch nuclear against a non-nuclear missile. This why some of us argue for ending launch on warning policy to make the world slightly safer.
Did you check the link I provided? That claim has nothing to do with any ''conspiracy nutbars''. It rests on testimony from an eyewitness.
Eyewitness tesimony by someone who was there is usually sufficient for a conviction in a criminal trial, so it is enough to at least require a through and unbiased investigation, not arrogant dismissal just because the accused in this case is a government, not just an individual.
There is plenty of evidence. Google ''depleted uranium'' for many articles on the use of radioactive artillery shells in several recent wars. Iraqi doctors are seeing thousands of cases per year more than before the American invasion of miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects and childhood cancer due to this American weapon.
“ Depleted uranium (DU) is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process. It is mildly radioactive and has the same chemical toxicity and radiological properties as natural uranium.”
https://www.cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca/eng/resources/fact-sheets/depleted-uranium-perspective/#
Depleted uranium is made from used reactor fuel rods and fabricated into artillery shells that pulverize upon impact into microscopic particles that remain radioactive forever. The health hazard is not due to extremely intense radioactivity, but to the size of the particles that enables them to enter the body and lodge within it, which naturally occuring uranium ore does not do.
That is part of their charm. The aerosolized particles will be breathed in by the soldiers we want to kill.
The concentration is high in the immediate vicinity of the target.
Afterwards it quickly disperses.
I do not know who you mean by ''we''. I have no reason to want to kill any soldiers in the Middle East. None of them have ever harmed me.
As for the facts of the case:
https://hir.harvard.edu/depleted-uranium-devastated-health-military-operations-and-environmental-injustice-in-the-middle-east/
https://thebulletin.org/2020/07/war-and-the-environment/
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2013/3/15/iraq-wars-legacy-of-cancer
https://merip.org/2000/06/depleted-uranium-haunts-kosovo-and-iraq/
Did I mention anything about the Middle East? Are you imagining things?
By “we” I mean when our nation is fighting an enemy. Nobody cares if they didn’t do harm to you. If we listened to people like you we would have stayed out of WWII and let the Nazis win. Fortunately we don’t decide to go to war based on whether or not you were personally harmed.
As for these depleted uranium munitions... As the Harvard article states, “Unfortunately, it has been difficult for epidemiologists to determine whether there is a clear link between depleted uranium exposure and health outcomes among local populations.” The jury is still out.
In any case, in any conflict where things are being blown up and incinerated there is a high likelihood of a multitude of toxins being dispersed. All sorts of negative health effects happen to the population living in a war zone. That’s the nature of war.
When YOUR nation is fighting one of YOUR enemies I do not care about any of YOUR reasons for doing so. I will either stay out of it or. if I choose to take a side, I will decide which side on a basis of the information available to me about the issues, not according to some irrelevant accident such as where on the surface of the earth I happened to be born.
As for WW2, history has shown there was very little to choose between Germany and the Anglo-American Empire. I would have stayed out of it.
Vladimir Putin has insisted on having the largest stockpile in the world. Russia is the foil to any reduction efforts. Lack of confidence in the American nuclear umbrella is already spurring proliferation talk in Europe. Reagan understood the need to negotiate from a strong position. Contemporary American weakness is not creating peace.
Sometimes disaster can be averted by a few people. But what happens when we don't have those kind of people when we need them?
See Seymour Hersh's article on how some American military (without Biden's knowledge) cleverly averted a more serious reaction by Israel to Iran "attack."
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/a-military-solution-to-a-political
All this is obsolete. The modern form of nuclear war has already been waged by the U.S. against several countries, including Iraq, Afganistan, Bosnia, Syria, and others where so-called ''depleted uranium'' weapons have permanently contaminated large areas with radioactive dust. The sabotage of the Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl by British agents in 1986 was also an act of nuclear war.
https://hermajestysothersecretservice.blogspot.com/
The rulers of America in the Pentagon are insane, but not stupid. They figured out a way to wage a nuclear war without anybody knowing it. Just trump up some excuse for a ''conventional'' war, then deploy low intensity nuclear weapons to have the same long term effect as a nuclear bomb explosion.
They call such covert nuclear weapons an ''Area Interdiction'' weapon and the aim is to render any potential enemy country permanently unable to fight against America ever again because forever after, whoever lives there will have to expend much of their energy and resources caring for the sick.
In contrast to modern nuclear methods of poisoning any potential enemy country with radioactive dust, the old-style nuclear weapon, a World War Two type bomb intended to make a big explosion, is unreliable. The physics of such a bomb is very poorly understood and it fails to detonate so frequently that in any war scenario it could not be depended on.
“ The sabotage of the Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl by British agents in 1986 was also an act of nuclear war.” You need help. There are other sites for conspiracy nutbars.
That's a conspiracy theory which means, it's not based on evidence. The interesting thing about that, is wondering who caused that to be spread around? The Soviets or Chinese?
We in the disarmament community do not put DU in the same category as nuclear weapons.
Well, you should. It may not be as dramatic as a big explosion, but over the long run it is much more damaging. Do some research on it and see what conclusions you come to.
But the ''disarmament community'' has been throughly infiltrated and taken over by Pentagon agents. It is today no more than a distraction being used to soak up anti-war individuals and keep them busy doing useless protests instead of doing things that might actually interfere with military operations.
Right now the newest nuclear weapon is in Finnland, which has recently joined NATO, meaning it is now an American Puppet State. There is a nuclear reactor there. It is in an areea with few inhabitants, but look at the weather maps! If it ever has a massive leak the cloud of debris will go straight to St. Petersberg, and then on to Moscow. So if the U.S. give the order, the Finns will blow it up, though no doubt claiming either that it was an accident or that it was hit by a Russian missile, and wipe out Russias two biggest cities.
That reactor, at that location, is a nuclear weapon. And don't tell me nobody in Washington has ever thought of that. But there has been no mention of this situationb by the alleged ''peace movement''. And for a very good reason: There is no real peace movement. Only Pentagon shills.
Where is the evidence to back up that claim #1, #2 why would the U.S. risk contaminating their own troops, gov contractors and allies? It's an irrational and cost ineffective measure.
So? Does it seem too far fetched to consider that maybe they ARE irrational?
And since when did they ever consider the health of their own troops? Common soldiers have always been considered expendable.
They put tons of money into their own troops! They do care about the troops it is not rational or beneficial to kill your own protection.
All the money they spend goes into somebodys pockets, so the people who benefit from that ''expense'' do not see it as an expense, they see it as profit. That is in fact one of the main reasons for wars: somebody is making a profit from them. And those are the same people who happen to control the government.
The U.S. Army forced hundreds of their own troops to watch atomic bonb tests from close range with no protection. They poisoned many more with agent orange in Viet Nam and many others in the Gulf War by forcing them to handle DU munitions.
The record shows that the top brass regard the rank and file as expendable. That has been true for every army in history. The current crop of psychopaths is no exception.
I’ve spent some time on DU risks and effects over a few years. Some of the best analysis I found was the work done by Steve Fetter et al. I think it’s still valid.
I do not believe any studies by any scientist with his government credentials. I suggest you look up some writings of Ernest Sternsglass and John Goffman.
Ha!
The anti-nuke movement is starting to grow now, as the relentless push to build more reactors builds up steam, but it is working under a severe handicap. The movement has to go along with the official orthodox scientific theories of what radioactivity is, what causes it, how it functions, and how it is harmful to living systems. They do not have any rival theory to propose in its place.
But the problem is, if you believe the official theory, nukes are safe, or at least, can be made safe. The official theory is wrong, but it is the only theory the anti-nuke people know of, so they cannot dispute it. The real reason most anti nukers are anti-nuke is not based on any scientific appraisal, but on a gut feeling that this stuff is Evil, with a capital E. They are right. Radioactivity is something qualatatively different from any mere chemical poison. It strikes at the very roots of Life, with a capital L.
But to speak of such things in public would be to lose the argument. It would sound like mere emotionalism and superstition to anyone with a scientific education, which is what they call being indoctrinated into the prevailing belief system.
Any attempt to place the gut feeling on an orthodox scientific basis is doomed to fail. As long as the term scientific is considered to mean only the official orthodox science, there is no scientific argument possible against nuclear energy. The official theories are specificly designed to weed out any gut feelings.
The anti nuke movement would be better off to forget about trying to make the public think there are scientific reasons for avoiding nuclear power, and instead work on exploiting their strong point, that most people share the gut feeling about nukes being Evil, but are not able to articulate it or do not dare to voice it aloud for fear of sounding uneducated or unscientific. The populist anti abortion movement has worked this kind of a campaign strategy very successfully. They have no scientific basis for what they say, but they are very successful at tapping into peoples emotional revulsion for abortion.
To do that, the movement would have to challenge the scientists claim to expertise. The movement would have to say to the public, the scientists are wrong. This is the way things really are, and the scientists do not know what they are talking about.
Then it would become a debate between the movement and the official scientific community, which currently claims a monopoly of knowledge of how the psysical world works. I think that trying to discredit science and convince the public science is simply wrong would be a better strategy than trying to make a case against nukes within the official science theory, which was designed for the purpose of making nuclear energy seem safe and controlable.
I once met a Japanese Buddist monk who had been a nuclear physicist. He quit that career and became a monk because he saw an experiment that his knowledge of science could not explain. A Japanese anti-nuclear group had planted concentric rings of spiderworts all around a nuclear reactor. The particular species of spiderwort chosen is very sensitive to low level radiation damage, and when examined under a microscope, showed the color changes caused by broken chromosomes in direct proportion to proximity to the reactor, in every direction. That means the effect was able to travel against the prevailing wind.
There was no detectable radiation even right up against the wall of the reactor containment vessel. So SOMETHING capable of a biological effect but undetectable by any manmade instrument, was able to escape from the unbroken containment shielding and could move upwind. I have asked many physicists about that experiment. They all have the same reaction: they say it could not have happened. So far, none has ever even tried to think of how it COULD have happened. The reaction is always to refuse to believe the data, not to try to understand it.
And that is how modern science always reacts to new data. Science is a system designed to avoid knowing how the world works. A person who is going to become a scientist is usually someone who is afraid of knowing what is really happening in the world around him and is attracted to science as a career because it offers an escape route by allowing him to become convinced of false information instead of having to confront reality.
Of course I am a cynic. I am also convinced a lot of people have identical fingerprints, that apes are descended from humans, and that American presidential elections are rigged. In short, I do not agree with the mainstream on much. Do you? And if so, why?