[lit-ideas] Re: America Under Bush
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 03 Nov 2005 01:52:16 -0600
Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx wrote:
. . . .One thing regarding this particular war that I have not heard
spoken about for a long time (it was one of the arguments that I had
had when I was concerned about this war--for there concern I had was
if we used the same types of weapons that we used in the first Gulf
War...)
That is, we used depleted uranium (coated?) on weapons that our
soldiers used. I don't know if we also did on the bombs we have dropped.
But, the health issues for the civilians because of the first Gulf War
regarding things like the deformities, etc. were pretty bad and still
there since things had not been cleaned up by anyone.
Did we, are we, still using the same weaponry? Does anyone know?
While uranium as a "heavy metal" is not something one should ingest, the
uranium in question is "depleted," meaning that it once
may have been used in a nuclear reactor but it's not the kind of uranium
that's particularly radioactive. (That's why nuclear bombs are so
difficult to make, and why you need centrifuges; some isotopes of
uranium are more radioactive than others.)
But the reason for using the uranium is that the metal is very dense and
very strong. It does not deform its shape even under intense stress. So
the Army uses this as a "core" for armor piercing rounds. The pointed
uranium core penetrates the softer steel armor. Some of it melts or
flakes off, flying around the inside of the destroyed tank, and that's
the stuff that is most dangerous. But I think the danger is more from
the metalic qualities rather than the radioactive qualities. (There are
probably a lot more dangerous byproducts of explosions inside a tank;
the uranium is probably one of the lesser worries.)
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx
Forest Park, IL, USA
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