Speculation as evidence
The Guardian regurgitates baseless accusations against the US military in an article entitled “Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault“. The article claims that “researchers”, who are never named by the Guardian, have linked US weapons to birth defects in Fallujah’s children. Completely, unfounded, even in the article;
“We suspect that the population is chronically exposed to an environmental agent,” said one of the report’s authors, environmental toxicologist Mozhgan Savabieasfahani. “We don’t know what that environmental factor is, but we are doing more tests to find out.”
Yeah, “we don’t know what caused the defects, but we’re pretty sure it’s the Americans”. They’ve had nearly seven years “to find out” and they’re empty-handed. Of course, they love to blame depleted uranium;
The findings are likely to prompt further speculation that the defects were caused by depleted uranium rounds, which were heavily used in two large battles in the city in April and November 2004. The rounds, which contain ionising radiation, are a core component of the armouries of numerous militaries and militias.
Depleted uranium is used primarily as an anti-armor weapon. How many tanks did al Qaeda have in Falujah? The only reason that depleted uranium is useful as weapon is because it’s density allows it to punch a hole in armor at a very speed. You can find all kinds of misinformation about depleted uranium from the anti-war crowd and conspiracy nuts who tell us that we’re disposing of our nuclear waste with the DU darts – a fairly expensive endeavor of dispsing a few ounces of uranium at a shot.
However, no evidence has yet been established that proves this, and some researchers instead claim that depleted uranium has been demonstrably proven not to be a contaminant.
So, I wonder why the Guardian even mentioned this research-less research. Well, beyond the headline, of course.
Category: Media
More from the Good Doctor from Ann Arbor Mich and Iranian born mozedgh salamilickem
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/02/12/nonviolent-protest-continues-across-iran-as-people-chant-referendum-referendum-this-is-the-peoples-slogan/
The cause of the birth defects couldn’t possibly be that Fallujans have been marrying their cousins for the past 200 years through arranged marriages, could it?
Or the steady diet of uncooked sheeps brains that their parents have been eating that causes human encephalopothy?
AP; you’re crazy. Don’t you know that anything bad in the world is our fault?
I know absolutely nothing about DU weaponry, had never even heard of it until I read about it here. So I went on line to do some reading.
I still don’t know anything. The stories on line go from one extreme, that those weapons will kill people and mutate fetuses for the next 50 generations, to the other extreme, that the DU burns itself up and becomes harmless once it’s expended. While there are many seemingly well ordered, well researched articles, I was left thoroughly bewildered by the information I came across.
But blaming us for the birth defects seems like a mere practicality; after all, who else will allow their overdeveloped sense of responsibility to take the blame and come up with millions of dollars in reparations and all the medical care they could possibly want?
I’m sure this Jackass never heard of canister rounds? DU is a great weapon for shredding the enemies of the US, therefore it MUST be evil. Winning overwhelming victories against “oppressed peoples fighting for Liberation”? well take away the weapons. Soldiers still doing too good a job? Find some chicken shit reason to prosecute them. Transnational progressivism at its best
You think that’s bad? I’ve driven myself insane of the years trying the keep the battle’s wikipedia entry from turning into a editorial on the evils of the US military based on speculative evidence like this. As a matter of fact this exact article was added just a couple days ago. I’ve pretty much just given up because I don’t have the time anymore.
Sometimes I wonder if the people that spit this poison out at the masses really do believe it themselves. I’m with the composer of the earlier post stating that inbreeding and food choices are a cause of birth defects. Also I’m sure a large number of readers know what the streets of Iraq are like: trash,human and medical waste, various chemicals are just tossed out into the streets where kids play. Come on that’s got to have some kind of effect. Anyways Happy New Years everyone.
When I used to talk with Kuwaiti officers about their legal system, I always said that if they truly believed in “Inshallah,” there could be no such thing as personal liability and lawsuits in the legal system.
Something doesn’t happen unless Allah willed it, and to file a legal claim against man (or the United States for that matter) for negligence would be to deny Allah’s role in determining earthly events, and therefore they are committing an act of heresy by even alleging negligence.
We never really talked about law after that.
There is another very obvious reason for the “spike in abnormalities.” Western observers are recording the incidents of birth defects. One of the linked articles indicated that until US forces entered the area, most miscarriages and birth defects were not listed as abnormal, and records were not kept stringently. Part of that would be social; since “face” is important to them, the idea of producing a defective infant would be abhorrent, so it was probably denied or hidden previously.
Oh, come on, folks, you know the deal. It’s not the nature of the evidence, but the seriousness of the charge. Fat (now Dead) Ted said so.
Okay, time for the tanker to chime in here. The M1 series tank’s main tank killing round is a M829A2 APFSDS-T ammunition (kinetic energy round with long rod penetrator, made of depleted uranium, with a muzzle velocity of 1,675 m/sec, and delivers something like 18-20 megajoules of energy at the point of impact. The megajoule (MJ) is equal to one million joules, or approximately the kinetic energy of a one-tonne vehicle moving at 160 km/h (100 mph) So it’s like getting hit by a 20-ton vehicle going 100 MPH, or a car going 2000 MPH. Great for shearing off T-72 turrets, but just pokes holes in really soft targets like buildings. It has little value in urban fighting, unless you want to punch a hole in every building in a given city block. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s M919 25mm APDS-T sabot round is also made from DU, and highly effective in urban fighting, especially for shooting through walls at targets playing pop up games, when you don’t want to just blow a big hole in the building. In 2004, there was no cannister round yet developed for the M1A1. (Though it was in development and fielded in 2005, it was not used in Fallujah.) The M1A1s in Fallujah did have, and made good use of, the new MPAT, or multipurpose anti-tank, round, which has an air-ground proximity fuse selector, and is great for either swatting helicopters from the sky, destroying bunkers, or turning buildings into rubble and rubble into dust. (There is also the MPAT-OR, obstacle reducing, but I don’t think that was available in 04, either. It is great for turning concrete into atoms.) The Tanks also made use of the HEAT, or high-explosive, anti-tank rounds, but these are also less than optimal in urban fighting, unless you want to make tall buildings into tall rubble piles. So, the bulk of the work from armored vehicles was done with the M240 MG and the M2 .50 cal, neither of which fires a DU round. The bulk of DU distributed on the battlefield was either by the M2 Bradley or… Read more »
[…] Speculation as evidence – This Ain’t Hell […]
This is the sort of clueless idiocy which permeates this article:
“with some scientists claiming they leave behind a toxic residue, caused when the round – either from an assault rifle or artillery piece”
Even if there is some toxicity left behind by DU, I don’t really care. We Turkey Slapped those dudes, and I didn’t feel the least bit of sympathy. Hell I wish we could have done in in an Najaaf, Karbala, Mosul, and Baghdad. I’m sure theres more than a few Leathernecks that would have loved to level Ramadi.
I didn’t hear these nip noids complaining when tankers of Chlorine gas were used as VBIEDs. Or when Sadam gassed the shit out of the Kurds and Iranians. how about the rape of Kuwait city. Lets face it, the Left is just plain gleeful at any chance to tear down what Regan called “the shining beacon”. The sad fact is that these retards are trying to bring back the soviet way of life. what was the old line the NVA used “a hut for everyone and a rice paddy to shit in”? I could use another quote “forgive them for they know not what they do”. Taring down the US may seem like a good idea to bring world peace (we kinda have instigated a lot of major wars) but in reality what replaces us will be far worse than anything else that came before.
Leave it to Chuck Z to bring it home with the technical and the philosophical.
Rock on Sir!!