I got this article via al-Jazeera which in turn got it from The Independent. The article claims that British scientists tested soil samples from places that got bombed in Lebanon and discovered a high level of radiation indicating the use of uranium. Now I’m no scientist but if this is true, I repeat if this is true, then the IDF is bloody screwed, murderous and no different from suicide bombers targeting innocent people and children in Israel. Let me guess, it must be justified right? I mean hey the Palestinians are are a terrorists supporting people so must the Lebanese be too. Yaaay! Screw them all. Let’s bomb those Hezbollah loving Lebanese with some weapons containing uranium so that their future generations get born all mutated and deformed. Who cares, Hezbollah or innocent civilians, they’re all the same.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s unfortunate. As you may know, the United States (and probably also the UK, although I’m not certain about that) regularly use ordinance containing partially depleted uranium in theatres of war where people are expected to carry on living in the future (such as Iraqi villages.) Uranium-tipped bullets are used to pierce armor more effectively, but residual fallout can cause significant contamination, as has been demonstrated by Geiger readings from battle sites.
Nothing in war is justified.
However, I disagree that harming civilians while defending your country is the samne as targeting civilians for fun and without need.
Either way, uranium is a rather normal material used in bullets and you’ll find it in ammunition all over the place. If it hadn’t been Israel, this would not even be mentioned.
(Why is it that everybody knows exactly all the details of Israel’s warfare while very few people can describe a Lebanese rocket filled with metal parts built to kill as many people as possible without doing much harm to buildings and equipment?)
If the unfortunate targets in Lebanon want to carry on living, they should have told “Hizbullah” about that BEFORE Hizbullah started throwing rockets at me. The country that defended me tends to take my defence rather seriously I’m afraid, and if I have to choose between being defended and caring for the people who didn’t do anything to stop the attack on me, I know where I stand.
And I absolutely doubt that this is any different for those who cry for the victims, to be honest.
I will show compassion once they don’t try to kill me any more.
Fact is that when armed people arrive in your village and start shooting at somebody from there, the war has come to your village. If you don’t want the war in your village, tell your “friends”, not your enemies. The Lebanese had that option, the Israelis didn’t.
I think it’s not the first time a democracy used nuclear ammunition (not sure bout the radiation level though). I believe to remember that NATO used such in Serbia as well as armor braking ammo…
Depleted uranium is included in ammo to make it weigh more (uranium is very dense) without changing it’s size, so that it will pierce armor that would block the same ammo (shells and bullets) if made only of steel.
I’ve been hearing this for years. How do leftward observers remain so clueless about basic physics that they scream “nukes” when shells are *densified* with depleted uranium. Oddly, I recall in discussions of former Yugoslavia that even lucid explanations about F=MA didn’t seem to convince them that these aren’t neutron bombs.
My impression is that the degree of residual radioactivity of the uranium involved is very low, and not harmful. Some contest this, but my impression is that it is found to pose no radiological danger to anyone at all, however it does chemically pollute the land which may cause some bad health effects later.
This sounds like a “create a story about evil Israel” story. I realize that passes for “news” in much MSM.
Ye Gods, what a crock of shit.
This is, quite simply, a fucking lie. I want to take the “scientists” making this shit up and the “journalists” publishing this libel and spend an hour with them in a locked room - just them, me and a crowbar.
If Israel would have used nuclear weapons in Lebanon you’d know, because of the mushroom clouds and the fact that in that part of the Middle East higher life forms could no longer survive. It’s as simple as that.
Depleted Uranium has slightly less radiation in it than lead.
Using enriched uranium in conventional ammunition is like shooting people with diamonds. Moreover, it’s a sure way to give your soldiers radiation sickness.
Ye fucking Gods, these disgusting twisted terrorist supporting bigots really DO think that the population of this Earth is comprised solely of lobotomized morons. Nuclear science? Any 5-years old with a Down Syndrome should know better.
For fuck’s sake, you filthy humans disgust me more than fucking ever. Enjoy the upcoming nuclear holocaust - you richly deserve it. Fucking braindead apes.
Look, guys:
I deal with this professionally on a daily basis.
Here is a brief analysis of the article in the Independent:
http://shlemazl.blogspot.com/2006/10/dr-busby-for-nobel-prize-or-israels-new.html
Drima, don’t you know better than to believe an Al-Jazeera article with attached ‘photo of black smoke’ without inquiring a little further before stating it as fact?
I’m a little surprised. I know your post says “if it is true”, but your headline paints it as conclusive. And worse than that, you seemed more than happy to believe it yourself, to the extent that you went into a little rant about who views whose lives as worth more than whose.
Leaving aside the last part of your post, which I’ll presume was written in the heat of an emotional moment and which, knowing your usual form, I’ll treat as being out of character, there are some reports, by some people - even so-called “experts” - that need to be taken with more than a small helping of salt. Or depleted uranium. Or whatever condiment takes your fancy.
By the way, a simple google search of ‘depleted uranium’ will give you ample, small ‘i’ independent articles defining that substance and explaining its use in weaponry and armor.
And apart from that, the ‘discovery’ of ‘traces of uranium’ in any soil that may be analyzed will prove nothing more than that there were traces of uranium in the soil. Uranium is a naturally occurring element (much of Australia is made up of it). It’s existence in nature won’t prove anything about any alleged military use.
“who views whose lives as worth more than whose.”
Well, that is easy, really. Arab lives are worth more than Jewish lives (or Israeli Arab lives). If it was any other way, the world would discuss why Hizbullah throws rockets at Israeli civilians, rockets that are meant to kill as many people as possible, rather than how violent Israel’s response is.
And that belief is so powerful that international organisations will always look at Israel’s reaction first, and only after denouncing it as the crime that defending Jewish lives is will they look at whether it was also a crime for Lebanon to murder Jews in the first place.
There is a very easy and cheap way of stopping Israel from doing all these bad things.
Leave the Jews alone!
They tried it in Germany, leaving them alone, and, incidentally, Dresden is now longer being bombed. The German government has also decided not to allow anybody to attack Poland from German territory any more. Not that Germans like Poland, they don’t have to. They only have to like Dresden.
I was there once, in Dresden. Nice city. I don’t like it though. But do I think it should be bombed? No. I might like Beirut, I don’t know. And I certainly don’t think it should be bombed.
Heh, mmm. Oh… Okay…My bad… Excuse me for my lack of knowledge about this whole “uranium” thingy. I haven’t been involved in military training and I don’t know squat about weaponry.
“Leaving aside the last part of your post, which I’ll presume was written in the heat of an emotional moment …”
Mmmm, okay let’s just call this post an emotional reaction
BTW I could not find it on the English AJ site. My Arab is not strong enough to read yet…
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