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War against Iran ? Its not just about nuclear bombs.

Oz | 23.08.2008 00:32 | Anti-militarism | Technology | World

Even ther CIA says Iran has No nuke programme ,but the U$ and israel still do a song and dance about "enriched uranium."Why?
It may not be the Bomb and enriched uranium that the US is worried about but the depleted uranium by-product.




If ,you run a nuclear energy plant using enriched uranium ,depleted uranium is the waste by--product.
But if ,you want to make depleted Uranium metal tipped weapons,enriched uranium is only the necessary by-product and course it is useful as a fuel for civilian Nuclear energy plants.
It is not usefull for building nukes if you have no nuke building capacity.

"A DU shell, marketed by their manufacturers as the Silver Bullet is made up of a
DU penetrator rod encase in a light metal backed up by explosive. When fired the
DU slices through tank armour like butter, catching fire (DU is pyrophoric) and
aerosolizing into a very fine uranium ceramic dust. A typical Silver Bullet
fired from an A10 Warthog or Harrier jet contains 300 grams of DU. These planes
are equipped with 30mm Gatling guns that can fire 3900 shells per minute,
usually every fifth shell is a Silver Bullet. This means that either of these
planes could release 234 kilograms of DU in a minute. Estimates are that over
300 tonnes of DU was dropped on Southern Iraq and only about 10 tonnes on the
Balkans."

Iran does not need
exploding nukes for self defence to destroy
the usa military machine ,if it already has uranium metal tipped weapons.
"DU slices through tank armour like butter ".

Just using Uranium metal tipped weapons will
do just fine(and everyone knows
that iran has plenty of DU metal and is
rapidly refining and mining more )and this
is the real reason bush wants
to stop irans refining of uranium..
It is everyday conventional weapons and bullets and shells
with uranium metal tips that can make
the entire imperialist military war machines vulnerable and obsolete if they are in the hands of third world forces of national independance.
Especialy vulnerable thin skinned aircraft carriers that are comparmentalised by bulkheads .
just as gunpowder made obsolete
castles and knights in armor,
so likewise,big and small uranium metal shells and warheads
may now have now made aircraft carriers, cruisers and
armoured personel carriers of empire obsolete and
now so easily totally destroyed.
The destructive power of Uranium tipped weapons were a major reason for the quick victory and low casualty rates for the invading powers in the first and second Gulf wars not some great tactical skills and superior abilities of the troops.

Quote: Peterson Christian Science Monitor:
"Iran has honed a swarming tactic, in which small and lightly armed speedboats come at far larger warships from different directions. A classified

Pentagon war game in 2002 simulated just such an attack and in it the Navy lost 16 major warships.. "The sheer numbers involved overloaded their

ability, both mentally and electronically, to handle the attack," .."a retired Marine Corps officer who commanded the swarming force, .."The whole thing
was over in five, maybe 10 minutes."

And that is just on the sea .

Amongst all the other normal U$ "war against terror" bullshit propaganda ,the Christian Science Reporter Scott Peterson discusses how Iran can look after its
own interests.

'But nearby US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf
provide a host of targets. Iran claimed last October that it
could rain down 11,000 rockets upon "the enemy" within one
minute of an attack and that rate "would continue."

 http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0620/p07s04-wome.html?page=2



In a real gulf war against Iran .Should Iran now possess uranium tipped and thermobaric weapons , any ships trapped and attempting to escape through

the narrow straits out of the initial gulf slaughterhouse would be trapped like rats on a sinking ship at the narrow straits.

Wikipedia says: "It is thought that between 17 and 20 states have weapons incorporating depleted uranium in their arsenals. They include the U.S., the

UK, France, Russia, China, Taiwan, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, Iraq and Taiwan. DU ammunition is

manufactured in 18 countries. Only the US and the UK have acknowledged using DU weapons.[22]"

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

These are dangerous materials in the hands of imperialists and their criminal use of them in agressive war as in Iraq and Afghanistan is genocidal.

But ,if you want to stop third world countries defending themselves against tank invasions or planes and marines launched from aircraft carriers and

troopships,you get the "left "to campaign against DU on behalf of those imperialists monopolies already armed with nuclear bomb capabilities and

uranium metal tipped weapons,weapon that they themselves criminaly use right now ,everyday in Iraq and Afghanistan.


On D.U. weapons Extracts:
DU’s radioactivity is in the form of Alpha particles. Alpha particles are
rightly described by the military as the ‘weakest’ form of radiation, they can
be stopped by skin. However, when aerosolized into ceramic dust they are easily
inhaled and can stay in the lungs for years, irradiating lung tissues causing
emphysema or fibrosis. In addition to being inhaled, DU dust can settle on
plants where it can be eaten and on open wounds, common in a war zone, where
there is no skin to block the alpha radiation from irradiating soft body
tissues. In the USA particles of DU have been found in the filters of
air-conditioning units over 20 miles from any known source.
In addition to its radioactivity,.
Depleted Uranium is also chemically toxic as a
heavy metal. DU dissolves in water. This heavy metal toxicity can be absorbed
byplants and pollute ground water reserves. DU ends up in the kidneys and gastro
intestinal tract causing a host of illnesses in a similar way to lead poisoning.
While veterans’ organizations in the US claim that hundreds of ex service
persons and their families have been adversely affected by DU, it impossible to
estimate the number of people in Iraq and the Balkans suffering from a range of
illnesses including congenital birth deformities caused by DU.
By its indiscriminate nature and its ability to manifest itself through
generations, Depleted Uranium is a weapon of genocide."


DEPLETED URANIUM THE SECRET NUCLEAR WAR
Since the development of the first nuclear power generators, which utilised the
‘peaceful atom’ in the 1950s, stockpiles of the radioactive waste known as
Depleted Uranium have been growing.
Natural uranium ore contains about 0.7% U235, traces (0.005%)U234 and the rest
(about 99.3%) is U238. They each have 92 protons but different numbers of
electrons (143, 142 and 146 respectively). In order for it to be used in nuclear
reactors the percentage of U235 needs to be increased to between 3 and 4%
depending on the type of reactor. This process is known as enrichment. As you
can imagine if you enrich uranium from 0.7% to about 3.5% U235, there’ll be a
lot of U238 left over, this is Depleted Uranium, as opposed to Enriched Uranium.
Still radioactive, still toxic and with a half life of about 4.2 billion years
(ie: forever), there is 7 times as much DU produced by the enrichment process as
there is EU. Seven tonnes of waste for each tonne of product.
Back in the late 60s the US Dept of Energy started copping a lot of flak about
the huge stockpiles of radioactive waste it was storing in containers similar to
cream cans in paddocks and yards adjoining their nuclear facilities.
In an
effort to reduce this stockpile they asked American industry to come up with
ideas of how to reuse it.
As DU is quite heavy (about 1.7 times the density of lead) most of ideas
industry came up with made use of this property. Some of the successful ideas
included using DU as counterweights in aircraft and ships and as a shielding for
more highly radioactive waste.
At this time the USA was in the middle of the Vietnam War and its relationship
with China so low that imports of Chinese tungsten were being threatened.
Tungsten was (and is) used by weapons manufacturers for armour piercing
ammunition because of its density: it was only a matter of time before some evil
military bastard thought of replacing Chinese tungsten with radioactive waste.
And so began one of the most insidious chapters of US military history and
that’s saying something.
For the full DU weopons background article go to to :

 http://www.nukefreeaus.org/campaigns/Weapons/Depleteduranium.html
So, That's the weapons made from the depleted uranium stuff.

But ,this writer is by no means an expert or pretends to really understands this nuclear stuff . All I understand or grasp is that i extremely hot

thermobaric weapons wouldn't mix well with ships and enclosed spaces with compartmentalised bulkheads.

Thermobaric weapons :
So think of their effect on the empire ships not just enclosed on spaces like buildings or Bora Bora caves.

Alright ,that's just the super hot uranium tips in addition :
Does Iran now not only have uranium tipped weapons and have also have uranium tipped aluminium powder thermobaric weapons technology too?

Thermobaric weapons.
"When the American military bought them in 2005, President George W Bush said:
"There are going to be some awfully surprised terrorists when the thermobaric
Hellfire comes knocking."
Despite the Bush rhetoric, it is unlikely anyone targeted by the missile would
know much about it. The laser-guided missile has a warhead packed with
fluorinated aluminium powder surrounding a small charge.
When it hits the target, the charge disperses the aluminium powder throughout
the target building. The cloud then ignites, causing a massive secondary blast
that tears throughout any enclosed space.
The blast creates a vacuum which draws air and debris back in, creating pressure
of up to 430lb per sq in. The more heavily the building is protected, the more
concentrated the blast.
The cloud of burning aluminium powder means victims often die from asphyxiation
before the pressure shreds their organs.

 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4187835.ece



Are the days of gunboat diplomacy and seaborne power empires about to come to a close?
A small ship can defeat a big ship using the methods of guerila war to defend a country from attack ON THE SEAS as found in such military theories the strategy an d taxcryics developed by Mao and Lin in "long live the victory of Peoples War. "'terrorism "is not required.
As the Chinese and Vietnamese People showed in the long run in protracted war People
are the deciding factor in war not technology although a bit of can help along the way.

Want to join the imperialist navies or the marines and sail about in coffin ships ?

This real world military reality, is why patriotic or more realistic high amerikan military war leaders like sacked admiral Fallon and even many in the CIA are in a quite revoltagainst Bush/Cheney/Israeli plans to attack Iran as simply religious crazy.

 http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/pentagon-opposes-iran-attack/2008/07/03/1214950950417.html


Related:

 http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/how-iran-would-retaliate-if-it-comes-war-why-bush-now-run-us-aircraft-carriers-would-be-coffin#comments

Oz

Comments

Hide the following 6 comments

Confusion

23.08.2008 16:18

I trhink you're confusing several things here, but:

if you're saying DU bullets are effective, then yes, they are. Not a superweapon, but quite effective. However, you don't need to make them from DU - ordinary uranium would have exactly the same effect. Thus, to say Iran is enriching uranium in order to make DU bullets makes no sense. However, if you already have large quantities of DU, then making bullets from it does make sense.

muinaru


Nothing to do with Uranium or Nukes: that´s the pretext.

25.08.2008 21:39

Iran is quasi state-socialist, which marks it out as an enemy of the US. It´s also a regional economic power. There is a danger that an economically successful Iran might encourage other countires, such as US client or puppet states in the region, to move away from neoliberalism towards some form of socialism and threaten US´s economic strength.

There´s nothing new about this idea; the US has a long history of attacking such countries, and completelt destroying them, vietnam, cambodia right up to Iraq.

What might deter th US from continuing this type of foreign policy: aggressive, unprovoked war, to grow its economy, is its current economic weakness and decline.

Harold Hamlet


Prosperity and pretext

26.08.2008 06:53

Of course - I'd forgotten how the US likes to obliterate economically successful countries and keep them in poverty. Like Germany, Japan, and South Korea? Lucky old North Korea, then, to have escaped the depredations of America - think of all those prosperous, well fed people in the north ...

miunaru


No Foolin, the hour is late.

26.08.2008 21:16

It’s the first time I have heard that spreading poverty per se is a US foreign objective; although I have heard before other people say that the US behaves “like Germany, Japan,..” did during WWII, though not, “...South Korea?”. And "north Korea", I am sure every one just wants to give them a hug.


However, it is said that Poverty has often been one of the consequences, but not the primary objective. The other mor serius consequence is death especially if you were socialist or a supporter of trade unions. Or perhaps you were just one of the many millions of innocent bystanders.

Arguably, this brand of US foreign policy was at its most successful in the 70´s when they managed to destroy the successful democratic socialist (Keynesian) economies of many South American States. It did so using a range of tactics, such as invasion, supporting right wing coups, and funding vast armies of fascist death squads. Much poverty ensued and much of the damage done then is still being repaired today by Democratic socialist states like Venezuela and its allies.

Iraq was to be a successful culmination of 30 years of US foreign policy experience (mostly failures, with some short-lived profitable successes, like former Soviet Republics, Pakistan ) in trying to transform state socialist or democratic socialist economies into neoliberal paradises for US corporations. Then Iran. To be sure they would have followed up with Venezuela and a few other South American states too that have turned their backs on US led dogmatic neoliberal ideology, if shock and bombing had achieved its goals.

The desperate call to war against Iraq to get the imperial ball rolling again, made by what some people say were psychopathic fascists, has turned out to be the biggest US foreign policy disaster ever – their Waterloo!

In fact, facing defeat in Afghanistan, and without means or ways to protect client states like Georgia, or to invade or engineer coups in countries like Venezuela, the US Empire is looking more and more like it´s collapsing – its economy is struggling to avoid freefall 1930´s style. It would be a little ironic if the US went into to a depression as it empire shrinks, because it was after the 1930´s depression that they began to create it. Full-circle!

Anyway, I think it more relevant to compare the US to Britain, and not Germany, Japan or South Korea: Like the British, the US are going to have to learn to survive without an empire

Harold Hamlet


Well, dream on

27.08.2008 07:25

I love the phrases like 'neoliberal paradises for US corporations'. Gives that nice warm fuzzy feeling reminiscent of late nights in student lodgings.

Any analysis of US interventions in the 70s has to look not at neoliberalism, which as a concept didn't exist then, but at the Cold War. Ineed, any analysis which ignores the Cold War is rather like writing a history of Germany in the twentieth century and ignoring WW II.

America doesn't have to invade Iran to sell it cars, aircraft, whatever. That is the first fallacy. Iran will buy high tech goods from America because it has no choice.

Second, I think Keynesian economics has been discredited except perhaps by those whose economic education ended about thrity years ago.

And if the US economy does collapse (as you obviously would like to see it collapse), then the world will be condemned to a good deal more poverty. In the cliche of the newpapera, when the American economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches pneumonia. But I'm sure your schadenfreude would blind you to that.

muinaru


Really! that nice warm fuzzy feeling

27.08.2008 22:28


Schadenfreude! I dont like to see people suffering. I dont want to see the family I have in the US end up in a trailer park living off Mc Donald’s - there´s enough poverty in the USA as it is.


Firstly, Hayek led the formulation of neoliberalism before the 70´s. And Pinochet implemented a blueprint provided by the Chicago School in the 70´s: it was by force, rapid and in full. Denis Healy, the UK Labour Chancellor, took orders from the IMF in the 70´s starting the neoliberal ball rolling in the UK, which Thatcher took up with zeal; Brown´s still running with that “reforming government” ball all the way to Bustsville because there’s no where else to run.

Secondly, the US, themselves, are implementing Keynesian policies now, for example, running huge deficits, massive state support to industry, and the finance sectors. And even the nationalisation of banks for crying out loud! Neoliberalism is not for the US, because it doesn’t work; it’s a disaster It wants to impose it on others so that they can swiftly rip them off.

As well, my analysis does partially rest on the cold war myth of “Reds under the bed”; then it was “War On Communism, now It’s war on Terror. The cold war was an agreed stand off between the US and USSR spheres of influence. So when countries like Chile, Brazil, vietnam and so on, developed democratic socialist governance, the US accused them of being Russian backed and flavoured Communists; this was a pretext to use violence to overthrow and install US flavoured capitalist supporting puppet governments - often nasty military dictatorships.

Finally, apart from all the aid the US gives to its client sates that it insists must be spent on US military hardware, and other heavy selling techniques and things, the US wants it’s corporations doing business there: owning stuff, and a stake in the natural resources (oil in Iran’s case). It also wants the high margin banking and finance operations; and of course a large military base there too, not just to help it with business, but so it can knock over the next state that uses a significant proportion of its income to increase economic freedom across their population.



Harold Hamlet

Harold Hamlet


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