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The_Red_Crayon
Exposer of Truth
Registered: 08/13/03
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Loc: Smokey Mtns. TN
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Depleted Uranium
#5156205 - 01/08/06 08:57 PM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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What does the political consensus feel about Uranium weapons used on the battlefield. Many countries have used them predominantly by the U.S. in Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, Also in the Balkans and BH territories. Its toxicity is debated but it has shown in contaminated areas risk of a cancer and birth defects.
Do you think its use in the battlefield should be legal?
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
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Now, I'm VERY liberal, but I'm also a scientist....
As such, I really have no problem w/ depleted uranium ammunition. Depleted Uranium is LESS radioactive than the uranium found naturally in the Earth. Any student knows that. While forming it into bullets obviously concentrates it, I still see little evidence to show that is harmful in ANY quantity.
I'm not sure where the incidence of higher birth defects, etc, comes from. Links?
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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Rono
DSYSB since '01
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-------------------- "Life has never been weird enough for my liking"
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daimyo
Monticello
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I don't care what's used on the battlefield. Not like it's a playground or something.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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carbonhoots
old hand
Registered: 09/11/01
Posts: 1,351
Loc: BC Canada
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Re: Depleted Uranium [Re: daimyo]
#5157036 - 01/09/06 12:24 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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It's half life is 4.5 billion years, it is a very toxic heavy metal disregarding the radioactivity.
-------------------- -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES
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Falcon91Wolvrn03
Stranger
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Re: Depleted Uranium [Re: daimyo]
#5157168 - 01/09/06 01:33 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
daimyo said: I don't care what's used on the battlefield. Not like it's a playground or something.
I sure hope you're in the military making comments like that.
-------------------- I am in a minority on the shroomery, as I frequently defend the opposing side when they have a point about something or when my side make believes something about them. I also attack my side if I think they're wrong. People here get very confused by that and think it means I prefer the other side.
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JonnyOnTheSpot
Sober Surfer
Registered: 01/27/02
Posts: 11,527
Loc: North Carolina
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and lets not forget that people live in the battleground after the war is over, which is where the concern comes in. if the battleground was some barren wasteland that no one ever visited for a thousand years after the war then that would be one thing, but currently the battleground is Baghdad and other heavily populated areas.
i won't pretend to know for sure whether or not DU has real negative health consequences or not (i don't really know) but there is evidence that it does. Since so many people claim to care about the welfare of the Iraqis i think the obvious choice would be to determine once and for all whether it does or not, because if it does, then it must be stopped. otherwise we are all just hypocrites when we talk about helping iraq.
-------------------- Religion is for people who are afraid of going to Hell; spirituality is for those who have been there.
Edited by JonnyOnTheSpot (01/09/06 04:47 AM)
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Hiflyer
Stranger
Registered: 01/09/06
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Quote:
Madtowntripper said: Now, I'm VERY liberal, but I'm also a scientist....
As such, I really have no problem w/ depleted uranium ammunition. Depleted Uranium is LESS radioactive than the uranium found naturally in the Earth. Any student knows that. While forming it into bullets obviously concentrates it, I still see little evidence to show that is harmful in ANY quantity.
I'm not sure where the incidence of higher birth defects, etc, comes from. Links?
Do you have some stats/evidence/studies to back up this position?
There was the "Radiation: a New Generation of Hibakusha" documentary. It seems like DU would be a cause of exposure...but we'd need to see the geiger levels of various places and overlap that with DU use, or nuke plants/ weapons facilities.
Funny, the French and Japanese are right up at the top of the list for Nuclear Power plants per capita, I think.
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JonnyOnTheSpot
Sober Surfer
Registered: 01/27/02
Posts: 11,527
Loc: North Carolina
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Re: Depleted Uranium [Re: Hiflyer]
#5157407 - 01/09/06 04:47 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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who is this puppet?
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
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Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said:
Quote:
daimyo said: I don't care what's used on the battlefield. Not like it's a playground or something.
I sure hope you're in the military making comments like that.
Soon enough. You?
Why do you believe that military service is a prerequisite to an opinion on the matter of using depleted uranium on a battlefield?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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Redstorm
Prince of Bugs
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Re: Depleted Uranium [Re: daimyo]
#5157985 - 01/09/06 11:28 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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My only problem with depleted uranium is when it is used against urban targets, where the radioactivity has a high chance of having an effect on civilians long after the round is shot.
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Los_Pepes
Stranger
Registered: 06/26/05
Posts: 731
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Re: Depleted Uranium [Re: Redstorm]
#5159356 - 01/09/06 06:06 PM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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Fanatic muslims believe that the only guarantee they have of going to heaven is to die fighting for the cause of Allah. Now everyone is happy.
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Falcon91Wolvrn03
Stranger
Registered: 03/16/05
Posts: 32,557
Loc: California, US
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Re: Depleted Uranium [Re: daimyo]
#5160313 - 01/09/06 09:40 PM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
daimyo said:
Quote:
Falcon91Wolvrn03 said: I sure hope you're in the military making comments like that.
Soon enough. You?
Yes, eight years.
Quote:
Why do you believe that military service is a prerequisite to an opinion on the matter of using depleted uranium on a battlefield?
It's not a prerequisite, it just seems rather callous to me for an armchair general to say "who gives a fuck what soldiers are exposed to?"
-------------------- I am in a minority on the shroomery, as I frequently defend the opposing side when they have a point about something or when my side make believes something about them. I also attack my side if I think they're wrong. People here get very confused by that and think it means I prefer the other side.
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wilshire
free radical
Registered: 05/11/05
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Loc: SE PA
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i don't see any problem with using it in armor, but i'll agree that it's overused in munitions.
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