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As a writer I do not have a set of words to describe what 142
Degrees in the shade is like. I've seen 120 D. in Phoenix and 110 D in the
spa's sauna I use. One hundred forty-two degrees leaves me speechless. Try
to imagine 142 D temperature while wearing a helmet, long sleeve shirt,
long pants, a bullet proof vest, boots, and carrying a 70 pound pack.
By contrast the Inuit of Alaska and Canada have
thirty-seven words to precisely talk about different kinds of snow.
So, since the temperature is heating up in Iraq
it seemed like a good time to float this story to different Internet sites
and news publications. There was one story in 2003 of one 19 year old
British soldier whose military job was to work in a British tank. In Iraq.
In the summer. Word is, from London, that he forgot to drink enough water
and he literally cooked in his tank.
But, this story is not about the temperature in
Iraq. You can bet, though, the weather will be really important for those
Americans unfortunate enough to still be in Iraq this summer.
This story is about American weapons built with
Uranium components for the business end of things. Just about all American
bullets, 120 mm tank shells, missiles, dumb bombs, smart bombs, 500 and
2,000 pound bombs, cruise missiles, and anything else engineered to help
our side in the war of us against them has Uranium in it. Lots of Uranium.
In the case of a cruise missile, as much as 800
pounds of the stuff. This article is about how much radioactive uranium our
guys, representing us, the citizens of the United States, let fly in Iraq.
Turns out they used about 4,000,000 pounds of the stuff, give or take. That
is a bunch.
Now, most people have no idea how much Four
Million Pounds of anything is, much less of Uranium Dust (UD), which this
stuff turns into when it is shot or exploded. Suffice it to say it is about
equal to 1,333 cars that weigh three thousand pounds per car. That is a lot
of cars; but, we can imagine what a parking lot with one thousand three
hundred and thirty three cars is like. The point is: this was and is an
industrial strength operation. It is still going on, too.
No sir-ee, putting Four Million Pounds of
Radioactive Uranium Dust (RUD) on the ground in Iraq was a definitely
"on-purpose" kind of thing. It was not "just an accident."
We, the citizens of the United States, through our kids in the Army, did
this on purpose.
When the uranium bullets, missiles, or bombs hit
something or explode most of the radioactive uranium turns instantly to
very, very small dust particles, too fine to even see. When US Troopers or
Iraqis breathe even a tiny amount into their lungs, as little as One Gram,
it is the same as getting an X-Ray every hour for the rest of their
shortened life.
The uranium cannot be removed, there is no
treatment, there is no cure. The uranium will long outlast the Veterans'
and the Iraqis' bodies though; for, you see, it lasts virtually forever.
But, it gets worse. Seems an Admiral who is the
former Chief of the Naval Staff of India wanted to know how much radiation
this represented. He also wanted to express the amount in a figure that the
world, especially the non American world, could easily understand.
The Admiral decided to figure out how many
Nagasaki Atom Bombs it would take to deliver the equivalent of the total
amount of radiation deployed in Iraq in 2003 in Four Million Pounds of
uranium.
The Admiral also wanted to figure out how much
radiation the United States Military Forces have deployed in the last Five
American Wars, the so-called Five Nuclear Wars.
That is a simple enough task for somebody like
the Naval Chief of Staff for a country that is a member of the Nuclear
Club. Using the Nagasaki bomb for the measuring stick is a particularly
gruesome twist, though. For those of you in the States who do not know it,
the United States Military Forces dropped two nuclear Bombs on Japan at the
close of World War II. The whole world remembers that.
One Atom Bomb was dropped by Americans on the
city of Hiroshima, the other on the city of Nagasaki three days later.
About 170,000 people were incinerated immediately. It was a really big
deal.
It is a measuring stick that plays very well in
the rest of the world; but, not very well on Fox News (Fair & Balanced)
(c) or the rest of the Fox-like American media. The Department of Energy
still lists the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations as "tests."
The admiral released the data months ago at a scientific conference in
India. This article is the first report of the data in the United States.
It will first be released on the Internet.
The admiral in India calculated the number of
radioactive atoms in the Nagasaki bomb and compared it with the number in
the 4,000,000 pounds of uranium left in Iraq from the 2003 war. Now,
believe me, it is a lot more complex than that; but, that is essentially
what the experts in India did.
How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the
Radiation loosed in the 2003 Iraq war? Answer: About 250,000 Nuclear Bombs.
How many Nagasaki Nuclear Bombs equal the
Radiation loosed in the last Five American Nuclear Wars? Answer: About
400,000 Nuclear Bombs.
Who would do something like this?
We would. The only people in the history of the
world to engage in Nuclear Wars are Americans, citizens of the United
States. Allegedly, the Germans and Japanese of WWII also wanted to engage
in nuclear wars, except the American Military beat them to the draw, so to
speak.
Respected academic scholars could debate forever
whether or not Herr Hitler, Fuhrer of Germany, would have deployed uranium
munitions in the Sudetenland if the weapons had been available. Certainly
the Germans knew just as much about uranium wars as we did at the time. It
seems doubtful that Adolph Hitler would have ordered the use of uranium
munitions there because the Sudetenland was so close to the Fatherland,
Nazi Germany.
An American General named Leslie Groves was in
charge of the bomb making operation called The Manhattan Project. In 1943
The War Department knew exactly what uranium bullets and bombs were good
for.
If the nuclear weapons did not detonate in
Japan, the use of uranium bullets and bombs were the fall back position. It
was not till Ronald Reagan was President in 1980 did the re-named Defense
Department resurrect the deadly radioactive uranium bullets, bombs, and
missiles. No wonder his popular nick-name was Ronnie Ray-Guns.
The American Military knew the symptoms of
radiation poisoning in 1943 too; starting with the irritated sore throat
through to an agonizing death from being cooked from the inside out.
President Bush promised to invade twelve
countries in the 2003 State of the Union speech. I believe the man. For
some reason, some misguided Americans do not believe him, or think he was
"exaggerating." The rest of the world has every reason to believe
him, though.
Not to worry, the President has plenty of raw
material for radioactive uranium munitions left. There are more than 77,000
Tons stored at the 103 nuclear waste plants and the several Nuclear Weapons
Labs in the US. Each one makes another 250 pounds of radioactive material a
day for radioactive bullets, bombs, and missiles. Not to put too fine a
point on it; but, that is enough for 40.5 more gloriously successful
campaigns like the 2003 Nuclear War in Iraq.
Every year about this time the Southern winds
leave a fine desert sand on the windshields of cars parked outside in
Continental Europe and Britain. Soon this sand dust will carry a
surprise. Thanks to the Americans. Thanks to us. We did this to the world.
And, we wonder why they hate and despise us so.
These uranium weapons' indiscriminate killing
effect gives a whole new meaning to the age old term: cannon fodder. In Iraq,
what goes around, comes around. If not the uranium munitions themselves,
the uranium dust will be in the bodies of our returning armed forces, time
bombs slowly ticking away the lives of the gullible and the ignorant with
their very own internal radiation source, the cannon fodder of the 21st
Century American Nuclear Wars.
Put your ending to this article next.
A lot of people have done everything we can
think of to stop these nuclear wars. Even more specifically to stop the use
of uranium as a munition and shut down the nuclear power plants. We have
tried and failed for years. Why don't you give it a try? Can't hurt
anything! Write what steps you would take to turn this situation around.
Contact me at: bobnichols@cox.net.
Bob
Nichols
writes in Oklahoma City and is the Editorial writer for DemoOkie.com. Bob
Nichols is a contributing writer for LiberalSlant, Democratic
Underground, OnlineJournal, AmericaHeldHostage, and other online dot com
publications. Mr. Nichols is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma
Observer and other print publications. He lives and works in
Oklahoma. He is a member of CASE -- Citizens' Action for Safe Energy,
and President of the Carrie Dickerson Foundation. CASE has successfully
killed two serious, well funded attempts to build Nuclear Power Plants in
Oklahoma and several attempts to site what is now known as the "Yucca
Mountain Reactor Dump" in Oklahoma. All these efforts to build nuclear
facilities have failed. CASE won every time. Copyright 2004, Bob Nichols.
All rights reserved. Permission for reposting is allowed provided the
complete text and attribution are kept intact.
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