What non-scientist can tell you in a world of faraway events what is true and what is not? In a world where science is carried on in laboratories on a “top secret” basis? In a world where military authorities freely fabricate, mislead, and cover-up the truth?
Unless one is a trained expert, which I am not, much of what one writes can only be educated conjecture. However, some people supply indications that one may be uncomfortably near the truth.
“Your latest [article] about Bush being DU contaminated is pure rubbish .. there is no DU contamination much farther than a few yards from each wrecked tank. You are the one poisoning the world with their lies [i.e., those of Dr. Leuren Moret and Dr. Doug Rokke]. I presume that you really have no scientific education or experience at all. If you do, explain why you believe the trash that Moret and Rokke have posted. Do you also think that government agents have kidnapped your kid, Moret makes that claim, or forced your car off the road, Rokke has.” (My emphasis.)
No, I have no scientific education or experience at all. Well, maybe I do. Not much though.
Lt. Col. Helbig has riled enough people to invite web comment from DU activists. The headline on one website, Axis of Logic (google), reads: “LTC Roger Helbig, United States Air Force: A Bully Pushing Around Civilians -- Air Force Colonel Abuses American Citizens over Uranium Weapons Coverup.”
San Francisco journalist and DU activist Bob Nichols reports that: "Individuals on web sites throughout the United States have complained over a period of months about the abusive and aggressive actions of an Air Force Lieut. Colonel named Roger Helbig. ... Col. Helbig has consistently misrepresented himself and his participation, voluntarily or on a paid basis, as a ‘minder’ or enforcer for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions."
Why bother trying to thwart DU activists if what they say is manifestly untrue? If I were to tell you that the Sun revolves around the Earth, you would probably ignore me. No, I must have come close to a truth to have stirred up an Air Force lieutenant colonel, even a retired one. (Most lieutenant colonels wouldn't give me the time of day.)
In my opinion, the same thrust to cover up the events of 9/11 is at work to cover up the lethal effects of so-called “depleted” uranium. That overall thrust is to establish American dominance in world affairs before the U.S. economy collapses under the weight of its own debt and the rejection of the greenback as the world's premier currency.
We are watching the sunset of the American empire. And in that sunset the American military is lashing out, using weapons that endanger the world in a desperate attempt to secure global dominance.
While on the surface of things the American sunset push looks militarily unstoppable, in fact it may already have been stopped. The Russians have supplied Iran with numerous Sunburn missiles, capable of Mach 2.2 speeds, flying below the radar, moving erratically in the last few seconds before impact.
Some say (remember, I am no expert) that the Sunburn is itself unstoppable by any existing American weapons system and may have made the U.S. carrier fleet obsolete. Wherever Sunburns have been deployed, the American military appears to keep its distance. Probably wisely too.
The three carrier fleets stationed in the Persian Gulf could be formidable instruments of American military might. Or they could be sitting ducks for Iranian Sunburns.
We won’t know until either George Bush or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulls the trigger. I would certainly advise the President not to send any more carriers into that Iranian lake, the Persian Gulf, until he sees the fate of … however many carriers are there now (numbers vary from source to source).
In the pause that we are now in, one has to ask if any world leader is capable of hearing the voice of reason. Even if they are not, the people need to make them hear.
This is what the voice of reason tells me: If the United States goes to war with Iran, it will explode in and over that country thousands of tons of “depleted” uranium, which forms the core of a wide range of American (British, Russian, and Israeli) weapons right now.
Exploded DU will create a ceramic aerosol or cloud of particles one or two microns in size. The fact that they are “ceramic” means they are rugged and enduring. These particles will travel on the winds around the world, radioactive for a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
DoD spokesmen used to tell schoolchildren that DU was so harmless that you could sprinkle it on your Cheerios for breakfast. So for Lt. Col. Helbig to acknowledge that “there is no DU contamination much farther than a few yards from each wrecked tank” - i.e., that DU is indeed radioactive – is a big step forward towards the truth for DoD and its spokesmen.
Most DU experts that I consider reliable (Dr. Rosalie Bertel, Dai Williams, and yes, Dr. Leuren Moret, and Dr. Doug Rokke) say that a dose as small as a millionth of a gram, if ingested, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin, is sufficient to kill.
I am told that non-combatant women can ingest or inhale DU directly or be irradiated by the “hot semen” of their returning GI husbands. Either way, they may give birth to horribly deformed babies or to babies that die within months.
I am also told that there is no protective gear good enough to keep DU out. Besides, once a soldier takes the gear off, he or she is immediately irradiated.
Once irradiated, one cannot be treated or cured. A DU-contaminated land is a wasteland, forever. It cannot be cleaned up.
If we keep using uranium weapons, all the world will be a wasteland. War with Iran having occurred, we will not be able to turn the clock back.
You can listen to Lt. Col. Helbig if you like. But the gamble you take is that he is misleading you and that he is wrong and, in listening to him and going ahead with a war in Iran, we may have turned the whole planet into a DU wasteland.
Can we afford to take that gamble?
