National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said this week, when asked about UK shipments of Depleted Uranium weapons to Ukraine: “If Russia is deeply concerned about the welfare of their tanks and tank soldiers, the safest thing for them to do is move them across the border, get them out of Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesperson Garron Garn said Depleted Uranium had “saved the lives of many service members in combat,” and “other countries have long possessed depleted uranium rounds as well, including Russia.”
Welcome to the bottom of the abyss of moral thinking. If Russia — the folks you’re sending deadly weapons to kill — does it, then it must be acceptable! If a weapon kills people on one side in a war then it can be described instead as having saved lives on the other side of a war, even if it prolonged or escalated a war! And a weapon widely believed to cause horrible illness and birth defects years later to those who live where it’s used should be characterized as a concern only in the context of tanks and soldiers!
The reason that numerous countries have banned Depleted Uranium weapons, and most of the world’s countries have repeatedly tried to get them restricted, monitored, investigated, and reported on, is that numerous doctors and scientists strongly suspect these weapons of causing huge numbers of illnesses and birth defects in the Balkans and in Iraq, beginning several years after their use, and lasting until who knows when. If you’re employed to smooth over the violation of all rules for the Rules Based Order, you’re clearly supposed to avoid the actual concern entirely.
Here’s how the New York Times skirts the issue: “Questions have long followed the use of depleted uranium in some munitions and armor, as outside groups have raised environmental and safety concerns. A 2022 report from the United Nations Environment Program identified depleted uranium as a risk in the war in Ukraine, saying that while it does not release radiation that can penetrate healthy skin, it ‘does have the potential to cause radiation damage if inhaled or ingested,’ which can happen when the material is pulverized on impact. The Pentagon has also deemed depleted uranium safe, though after the U.S. military used it in Iraq, some activists and others connected it to birth defects and cancers. Numerous studies have been conducted on a possible link, without firm conclusions.”
Oh, well, there’s some possibility that what caused those record cancer rates and hideous birth defects was mostly other toxic war weapons and burn pits, not just Depleted Uranium, so fire away! I mean, if the Pentagon has “deemed” it safe. What more could you ask!
Well, you could ask whether they’d be comfortable blowing the stuff through the air ducts in the Pentagon, but that would be inappropriate. After all, people work there. In Ukraine we’re not dealing with people so much as Russians and Ukrainians, and really that’s pretty much who will live there for years to come, no matter who wins, if humanity survives, so who cares!
- New Study Documents Depleted Uranium Impacts on Children in Iraq
- No Future for Depleted Uranium
- Laid to Waste
- US Sends Planes Armed with Depleted Uranium to the Middle East
- Iraq War Records Reignite Debate Over US Use of Depleted Uranium
- Depleted Uranium ‘Threatens Balkan Cancer Epidemic’
- How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq’s nuclear nightmare
- US promised it wouldn’t use Depleted Uranium in Syria. But then it did.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. This originally appeared at WorldBeyondWar.org.
Well then, Mr. Kirby would not mind if a little were sprinkled around his homes, would he?
Kirby is a professional liar (his job is to “spin” to the press) so his profundities about depleated uranium shells are just more of the same to me.
I rarely watch him live in his pressers given he’s just spinning out propoganda to give the press their daily talking points for their stories.
He was going to say that about those shells and I’m sure if Putin puts something similar into that theater Kirby will deem it as escalation with ecological/medical concerns that borders on a war crime.
Using these weapons is a tacit admission that they know Ukraine will not regain the territory Russia has taken. They’re intentionally contaminating it so the Russians can’t use that land.
Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesperson Garron Garn said Depleted Uranium had “saved the lives of many service members in combat,” and “other countries have long possessed depleted uranium rounds as well, including Russia.”
What an ass clown. And a fucking liar. There is no way in hell he can prove depleted uranium saved anybody’s life. And of course, it’s ok to be evil if others are evil.
Easy peasy: Anyone caught possessing, using DU, conspiring to obtain or use DU will bs charged and tried. If found guilty they will be sentenced to have their throat slit and then be caged with up to three large cats such as lions, tigers, Pumas, or Chetas. As in eaten ALIVE…
Yeah, because that approach has proven sooooo successful with e.g. cocaine.
Just my brand of satire…!!!!! Or a bad day dealing with my government’s hypocrisy…..?????
I live in hope, maybe it will swamp the Crowns who sent it..
Freaks, geeks & Kirby put it on their breakfast cereal… What me worry..?????
Meanwhile the Australians have offered to send Ukraine anti-tank munitions made from depleted vegemite. Which is even more frightening.
Transparent liers. The danger has nothing to do with the actual impact, or contact with munution.
Proven beyond any doubt — depleted uranium shells turn into RUST and spread through AIR, SOIL and WATER. Each microscopic particle is radioactive. It can reach humans through breathing radioactive dust particles, food grown in soil, animals that graze in contaminated fields, and all life depeendent on water will consume radioactive particles,
Those particles are not dangerous because of amountvof radiation, but because of its effect on DNA. The ability of cells to multiply and die becomes damaged and cancers form. And withbthe death of any human, plant, fish or animal – particles simply attach themselvex to another host, blow as dust in the air, For thousands of years.
This is a criminally irresponsible behaviour. Serious, deliberate criminality.
And cotaminating soil and water of Mesopotamia, Balkans, Levant.
And now contemplating contaminating some of the most. fertile soil on esrh in Ukraine.
Using depleted uranium in wespinry is merelyba way of gettingvrid of massive stock of nuclear waste.
If we were not so stuck up we could workbwithbRussia and use its expertise in new, design of rapid burn reactors, which orocesses nuclear waste. Russia is an absolute leader in the technology. At the momen co-producing one in China,
Tussia built NPP will be loadedvwith fuel in Turkey this month marking the start of full capacity operation,