[Fis] May we build a CIVILIZED WORLD ORDER? (3) part 2 of 3

From: elohimjl <[email protected]>
Date: Sat 19 Apr 2003 - 10:17:36 CEST

OUR CURRENT NUCLEAR WAR
C. A. Hilgartner, MD

The issues in the proposed "preemptive" strike against Iraq go beyond
making the United States the aggressors; beyond violating
international law, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Decisions, the US
Constitution and Bill of Rights, etc. They even go beyond committing
genocide against the Iraqi people.

In order to understand what I say, look up "depleted uranium" on a
search engine.

I offer my comments in outline form, as briefly as possible.

0. Natural uranium occurs in several isotopes, including a
fissionable isotope, symbolized as U-235, which we could in principle
use to make nuclear "devices", nuclear power plants, etc.; and the
most common isotope, U-238, which will not undergo nuclear fission.
"Depleted" uranium means that some part of the military-industrial
complex has already extracted the fissionable isotope of uranium --
symbolized as U-235 -- leaving behind the 99.3% of the original
sample, which consists mainly of U-238. The weapons with which we
have armed our military forces use depleted uranium projectiles, a
coating of depleted uranium on the bombs which our Air Force
personnel will drop, etc.

1. Uranium has a very high density -- 1.8 times that of lead.
Projectiles or missiles containing depleted uranium have such a high
momentum that they penetrate standard steel armor, etc., "like
butter." When they strike an obstacle, the uranium shatters into fine
particles, about 70% of which then spontaneously burn, in the oxygen
of the atmosphere, into uranium oxide smoke - forming aerosol
particles, less than 5 microns in diameter. Organisms -- human or
non-human -- exposed to particles of this size will breathe them in
and retain at least some of them, get them into any wounds they may
have, etc..

2. Uranium, like lead, cadmium, arsenic, etc., functions as a
poison if it gets inside a living organism.

3. Uranium spontaneously undergoes radioactive decay, emitting
two kinds of ionizing radiation: alpha particles (helium nuclei,
traveling at very high velocities -- very heavy, very harmful, but
not able to penetrate very far) and gamma rays (like super-energetic
X-rays -- very harmful, and able to penetrate).

4. A sample of uranium (U-238) has a half-life of almost 4.5
BILLION years. Since the era in which the sun and all the different
planets formed, approximately half of the entire quantity of U-238 in
our solar system has by now decayed. It will take that long for half
of the remainder to decay.

5. Ionizing radiation damages any living organism which it
strikes. All known kinds of living organisms make and use DNA to
store, preserve and reproduce the kind of information needed to grow
and maintain that kind of living organism. DNA specifically absorbs
ionizing radiation, getting damaged or destroyed when it does so.
Ionizing radiation does other kinds of harm to living organisms, less
well understood. Any organism with blood capillaries -- the kind of
circulatory system we humans have -- proves particularly vulnerable
to ionizing radiation. A whole-body dose of something like 500
roentgen units suffices to kill at least half of a population of
humans. Having a source of ionizing radiation INSIDE of a living
organism proves particularly harmful. And a chemically toxic source
of radiation proves even more harmful.

6. Back at the height of the Cold War, some Americans began
speculating about what would happen if a Malevolent Enemy should
release a few grams, or pounds, of some finely-divided radioactive
isotope upwind of some American population center. The consequences
they envisioned seemed horrifying -- and predictably accurate in
terms of what scientists know about the effects of ionizing radiation
on living organisms.

In the course of the first Gulf War, our forces bombarded the people,
non-human organisms and terrain of Iraq with something on the order
of 312 tons of depleted uranium -- approximately 624,000 pounds of
uranium, about 436,000 pounds of it in the form of aerosol particles
-- finely-divided uranium oxide. These particles will travel long
distances when airborne.

If the US government would permit anyone to go into Iraq and measure
radioactive contamination of the terrain in various places, I surmise
that they might find that at least parts of Iraq got so heavily
contaminated with uranium as to render them uninhabitable.

I invite you to go on the internet and find some of the reports of
the plight of the civilians -- the men, women and children -- of
Iraq today. I predict that you will find accounts of radiation
sickness, uranium toxicity, leukemias and cancers, birth defects,
grossly deformed babies, stillborns, etc., etc. (*)

After the first Gulf war, some of our returning soldiers experienced
ill-defined symptoms which got labeled "Gulf War Syndrome". As I
understand it, these veterans received no information at all about
the possibility that they may have gotten exposed to ionizing
radiation, including internal particles of uranium, both from
handling the weapons issued to them as well as from the uranium they
distributed by using those weapons. As I understand it, they found
great difficulty getting any medical attention at all, from the VA
Hospital system, and perhaps, elsewhere.

The US. Veterans Administration prepared a report on a state-wide
survey of the reproductive health of 251 families of Gulf War
veterans living in Mississippi. The report deals with their children
conceived and born since the war. They found that sixty-seven percent
of the babies born had severe eye defects or no eyes and ears - along
with susceptibility to infections, respiratory problems, etc.

7. By now, anyone in the "developed" world who can field an army
has supplied their armed forces with uranium-tipped weapons. Any
military unit that engages in maneuvers -- if they fire their
depleted uranium weapons -- will leave that part of Earth's crust
contaminated with fragments and colloidal particles of uranium.

As I understand it, in order to provide any hope of withstanding the
fire of an enemy armed with depleted uranium weapons, our weapons
manufacturers have lined our tanks, and perhaps, other vehicles, with
depleted uranium armor. Every time they enter and operate these
vehicles, their crews climb into a radiation chamber. Anyone who
manufactures, transports, handles or fires uranium-tipped or -lined
weapons gets exposed to ionizing radiation. And every microgram of
uranium used in a military campaign gets left there, to poison and
irradiate any living organisms that wander by.

8. INFERENCE: Any warfare in which the combatants use depleted
uranium weapons makes the planet less habitable. How much of that
kind of insult will it take to make Planet Earth as uninhabitable as
our Moon?

No one knows for sure.

And we can't find out -- make the required careful, and repeated,
measurements -- without in the process sterilizing our planet. If the
experiments leave any humans living, how would we know that we had in
fact applied enough insult to make the planet uninhabitable?

Of course, as Jonathan Schell pointed out in his book, The Fate of
the Earth, under the conditions signified by the word extinction, the
planet would harbor no humans to observe present conditions and
generate a report, and no human to report to.

9. THE MAIN ISSUE in the "To War Or Not To War" debate: Do we
DESIRE to sterilize our planet? Do we actually SEEK to produce
species suicide and extinction of humans, and perhaps, pan-biocide --
the annihilation of the other kinds of living organisms also?

In my opinion, the decision -- no matter who makes it -- the decision
to GO to war risks sterilizing Planet Earth.

You can find this essay also on my website -- www.hilgart.org

In the left margin, click on "New"; and on the "New Additions!" page,
click on the title: "Our Current Nuclear War."

        Besides this essay, you will find other materials related to
the current survival-crisis we have generated, and concerning what we
will have to DO to avert self-inflicted extinction.

Andy Hilgartner

(*) The photograps that may be sent as part 3 of "May we build a
CIVILIZED WORLD ORDER? (3)" have been distributed by the Colectivo de
Abogados "Jos� Alvear Restrepo", from Colombia. Fuente: MISIONES ON
LINE-Edici�n # 1350. Lunes 13 de ENERO de 2003 -Secci�n ULTIMO
MOMENTO.

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Received on Sun Apr 20 19:29:23 2003

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