I have become death; the destroyer of worlds.

I wonder what Professor Oppenheimer would say about the use of depleted uranium as a weapon of mass destruction.

I have become death; the destroyer of worlds he has been quoted as saying after he saw the first nuclear bomb called the Trinity explode in the Nevada Desert.

According to physicist and Dr. Helen Caldicott who is an expert on nuclear energy and weaponry, the men who worked in the Manhattan project turned their energy towards the development of nuclear energy to make up for the evil they had created.

I doubt if they had the use of depleted uranium and other radioactive waste as a weapon of mass destruction in mind. Yet this is what the NATO and the United States army now use in not just bunker busters and Armour penetrating missiles but also in bullets meant for people and other assorted missiles.

When I woke up to the awful truth about the attacks on 911, I could not conceive of the truly evil nature of the military complex and the government’s complicity in the utter destruction of the Middle East and its ancient cultures. Yet this is exactly what is happening.

While the American government denies the use of depleted uranium more than a quarter million of the United States troops that served in the first Iraq war are now sick and on benefits waiting to die a horrible death. Almost 15 years after the Iraq war celebrated as a major victory the trail of burned out cars complete with skeletons of Iraqi soldiers killed by missiles made of depleted uranium are still visible in the desert and they are still radioactive.

Let me explain to you about depleted uranium and other radioactive waste. Since the two are used together I will for now refer to them as DU.

DU has twice the weight of lead and has an awesome quality; it is self igniting and when it explodes it sets everything on fire instantly at temperatures of around 3000° C. After which it becomes a fine ceramic dust cloud, its particles no bigger than nano particles. This is important because normal molecules are unable to penetrate the walls of cells in the human body but the nano particles are so small that they can literally penetrate everything. This dust now covers the burned out cars, the entirety of a southern Iraq, Kuwait and has been found back as far as England, the NASA space station and America. If you breathe in the dust of the radioactive nano particles they start travelling through the membrane of your lungs and throughout your body emitting radioactive rays. Depending on where the nano particles and up at they will do their deadly work. While some of them will be excreted contaminating your environment, your family and friends, some of them will end up in your bones, in your scrotum, in your sperm and if you’re a woman they could end up in your ovaries and if you become pregnant they could end up in the foetus. Because the particles are so small they can literally end up inside your regenerative cells and end up changing your DNA. When this happens while your baby is developing and growing inside your womb there is no telling what will come out of it once you go into delivery. In Iraq people no longer ask, “is it a boy or a girl”, they ask, “is it normal”.

The United Nations took on a resolution that declared the use of DU illegal which makes the use of it on the battlefield illegal and a war crime.

According to a August 2002 report by the UN sub commission, laws which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid employing ‘poison or poisoned weapons’ and ‘arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering’. All of these laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in armed conflicts.

But in Iraq and Afghanistan the suffering continues and will increase as their countries are turned into a nuclear wasteland. New Zealand soldiers will come back just like their American colleagues with mystery illnesses malformed offspring when they’re trying to have a baby. What it means that is that every single country that still supports the coalition of the willing is involved in a holocaust of truly Biblical proportions. We are there not to help liberate these people but to steal their resources and to destroy their countries for ever.

This alone should be cause for every New Zealander to demand the return of our troops.

This alone should be cause for every New Zealander to demand an investigation into the very reasons as to why Helen Clark and Phil Goff allowed this country with its strong anti nuclear stance to become part of this genocide and to demand a new international investigation as to what really happened on 911.

If the United States and NATO are prepared to use these horrific weapons of mass destruction against the very people they accused of having weapons of mass destruction than it is not too far fetched to reach a conclusion that they would be prepared to use violence against the people who were working in the twin towers. If the United States and NATO are prepared to literally wipe entire regions of the map while poisoning their own troops and those of the coalition of the willing then is not too far fetched to reach the conclusion that we’re dealing with psychopathic mass murderers who are prepare to do whatever it takes in order to gain control over the world oil reserves in the Middle East and whom we will need to remove from their positions of power if we want to see this world survive.

Because if we don’t we will all have become death; the destroyer of worlds.

I recommend Dr. Thomas Fasy...

of Mount Sinai as another reliable source regarding "DU Truth";

Here is an excellent introduction to DU poisoning, for anyone new to this;

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/reprehensor/14

This presentation was given at the "World Tribunal on Iraq" in June 2005 in Istanbul.

(I do not recomment Leuren Moret at the bottom of my post at democraticunderground.com, stick with Rokke and Fasy.)

Some links on the negative health effects of depleted uranium

The first link below is to a post by reprehensor at DemocraticUnderground.com. The post consists of a presentation on depleted uranium by Michael Fasy MD PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology, Mt. Sinai Medical School, NY and posted to Democratic Underground with his permission.

Snip from Professor Fasy's presentation:

By the early 1900s, uranium was well recognized to be a kidney toxin. By the mid-1940s, uranium was known to be a neurotoxin. By the early 1970s, uranium was recognized to be a carcinogen based on mortality studies of uranium workers and on experiments with dogs and monkeys. The first evidence that uranyl ions bind to DNA was reported in 1949 and by the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a mutagen. Also, in the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a teratogen, that is, an inducer of birth defects. The toxic effects of uranium on the kidney and on the nervous system typically occur within days of exposure and radiation probably plays little or no role in mediating these effects. In contrast, the carcinogenic effects of uranium have a delayed onset. The teratogenic effects of uranium might be due to exposure of one parent prior to conception as well as to exposure of the mother to uranium early in pregnancy.

Now let us briefly consider the routes of exposure to uranium. In the context of the dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons, this means exposure to uranium oxides. By far the most dangerous route of exposure to uranium oxides is the inhalational or respiratory route. Absorption of uranium oxides through the gastrointestinal tract, the skin and the conjunctivae is possible but quite limited.

Following impact with hard targets, uranium metal undergoes combustion releasing large quantities of very small uranium oxide dust particles into the environment.

These dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons are drastically different from the natural uranium that is normally present in rocks and soil.

Soil particles contain uranium at very low concentrations, typically less than 5 parts per million; the vast majority of these soil particles, however, are too large to be inhaled deep into the lungs. In contrast, the dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons contain very high concentrations of uranium, typically more than 500.000 parts per million; moreover, most of the D.U. dust particles are sufficiently small to be inhaled deep into the lungs. Thus, compared to the uranium naturally present in the environment, D.U. dust contains uranium in a form that is vastly more bio-available and more readily internalized.

Uranyl ions bind to DNA; they bind in the minor groove of DNA. While bound to DNA, uranyl ions are chemically reactive and can give rise to free radicals which may damage DNA. Chemically mediated DNA damage of this type may contribute to the ability of uranium to induce cancers.

I would now like to present some epidemiologic data from the Basra governate in the south of Iraq. In February 1991, more than 300 tons (possibly much more than 300 tons) of D.U. weapons were used in South of Iraq. After 5-6 year latent periods, increases in childhood cancers and birth defects were documented in the Basra governate. The most recent data indicate a four fold increase in pediatric malignancies and a seven fold increase in congenital malformations compared to 1990, the year preceeding the war.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&f...

Uranium’s Effect On DNA Established
by Kate Melville

The use of depleted uranium in munitions and weaponry is likely to come under intense scrutiny now that new research that found that uranium can bind to human DNA. The finding will likely have far-reaching implications for returned soldiers, civilians living in what were once war-zones and people who might live near uranium mines or processing facilities.

Uranium - when manifested as a radioactive metal - has profound and debilitating effects on human DNA. These radioactive effects have been well understood for decades, but there has been considerable debate and little agreement concerning the possible health risks associated with low-grade uranium ore (yellowcake) and depleted uranium.

Now however, Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns has established that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations, triggering a whole slew of protein replication errors, some of which can lead to various cancers. Stearns' research, published in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis, confirms what many have suspected for some time - that uranium can damage DNA as a heavy metal, independently of its radioactive properties. "Essentially, if you get a heavy metal stuck on DNA, you can get a mutation," Stearns explained. While other heavy metals are known to bind to DNA, Stearns and her team were the first to identify this characteristic with uranium.

Depleted uranium - what is left over when the highly radioactive isotopes of uranium are removed - is widely used by the military. Anti-tank weapons, tank armor and ammunition rounds are just some of the applications. "The health effects of uranium really haven't been studied since the Manhattan Project (the development of the atomic bomb in the early 1940s). But now there is more interest in the health effects of depleted uranium. People are asking questions now," Stearns said.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060307010324data_trunc_sys.shtml

PRESENTATION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (23 June 2005)

Keith Baverstock PhD; Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kuopio, KUOPIO, Finland

I have, during a career of some 30 years, developed expertise in evaluating risks regarding the environmental and occupational exposure to ionising radiation and radioactive materials in many different situations. I have done this in the context of employment by the UK Medical Research Council (1971 to 1991) and the European Regional Office of the World Health Organisation (1991 to 2003), both ostensibly "independent" organisations.

Between 2000 and 2002 I examined the evidence relating to risks from the mildly radioactive depleted uranium. My concern was especially raised by the specific exposure context of inhalation of the dust particles produced when a depleted uranium munition impacts a hardened target and burns, producing fine particles of DU oxide (DUO). This material has no natural analogue and does not arise in the normal refining and processing of uranium for nuclear fuel. There is, therefore, no prior experience of exposure to this material than its use in Iraq in 1991.

According to the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP), inhaled DUO would pose a hazard to the lung from radiation if it were insoluble and a chemical toxicity risk to the kidney (physiological toxicity of kidney malfunction) if it were soluble.

DUO is in fact part insoluble and part sparingly soluble. Since 1998 evidence has accrued that human cells exposed in the laboratory to low concentrations of DU exhibit changes characteristic of malignant cells and indeed, when implanted into host animals, will lead to malignancy. In these experiments it seems unlikely, given the low concentrations and the experimental conditions, that this effect is mediated by radiation, but is rather a chemically mediated genotoxicity. (See for example 1-6 The non-radioactive element, nickel, produces similar effects and is an established carcinogen.

In 2001 this evidence led me to believe that inhaled DUO particles, which are capable of penetrating the deep lung (where they would be retained for long periods) posed, for a period of weeks to months, not only a radiotoxicity risk but also a chemical genotoxicity risk and potentially a synergy between the two. Thus any risk evaluated on the basis of the ICRP recommendations would be likely to underestimate the true risk.

In addition, that DU is only mildly radioactive through alpha emission, raises the possibility of a further risk route mediated by the so called "bystander effect". (See for example; 7, 8) Here a single cell "hit" by an alpha particle sends signals to surrounding cells causing them to behave as if they had been irradiated. In circumstances where bystanders predominate (low dose exposure to alpha particles for example) the bystander effect acts to amplify the "radiation effect".

Thus, detailed examination of DUO reveals three potential risk routes in addition to the conventional radiotoxicity caused by direct irradiation, namely, chemical genotoxicity, synergy between radiation and chemical toxicities and a bystander route.

http://www.grassrootspeace.org/keith_baverstock_23june05.htm