Dissent or Sedition?

Townhall.com ^ | April 24, 2006 | W. Thomas Smith Jr.

[SuzyQ2]

The vitriol leveled against Clinton during his administration was tasteless, to be sure. But the attacks against Bush (a commander-in-chief in time of war) and his chief lieutenants, have not only soiled the grounds of common decency; they may well have crossed over from general dissent into the realm of sedition.

[djfox1]

Anyone with a geiger counter in Iraq, Afganistan, or Kosovo,

Apparently you can't find anyone with a geiger counter in Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo...if you could, you certainly would have posted a link to an objective source that supports your contention.

knows that this is obfuscating bullcrap, as does any grunt whose had to put on protective gear to handle the stuff. Everywhere we've used depeted uranium, the death rate from childhood leukemia--the canary in the coalmine of radiation hazard--has shot up alarmingly.

Pure-D mind-numbingly ignorant horse dung. There has been NO pure-reviewed articles suggsting that there is an increase in childhood leukemia ANYWHERE that depleted uranium has been used....you could EAT depleted uranium dust and it wouldn't be enough to cause you any harm. In fact, I salt my food with it all the time.

As I said before, if you have an authoritative, objective cite that supports ANY of your claims about DU, then post it, I'll be glad to review it.

[donh]

In short, there was a plethora of reasons for removing Saddam...you, like many, focused and obsessed only on the ONE reason presented by the media, and that's why you have an incorrect perception of history.

What you have here, is excuses. Excuses for being lied into a war of aggression. None of these reasons are what was featured by the administration, because none of these reasons would have pursuaded the US public, the UN or the congress into initiating a war of aggression. However much you wish to tout these as reasonable excuses--and a pretense that the administration was behaving like responsible adults--for going to war, the bald, plainly obvious bull in the china shop of this reasoning is that the WMD's were waved in our faces, and only the fear of WMD was going to get us off the dime. You apparently enjoy being hoodwinked and treated like a dimwitted child, so that your taxes can go for murdering and/or torturing 30,000 or so Iraqi's but I am under-appreciative.

[donh]

you could EAT depleted uranium dust and it wouldn't be enough to cause you any harm. In fact, I salt my food with it all the time.

Of course you do, Agent Orange turnovers, I assume. Probably the troops who have to wear special gear to handle it do, to. May I presume you rely on high quality peer reviewed sources commissioned by the Army, or it's friends in Congress?

Who do you think you're kidding? Where's your "pure-reviewed" articles from scientific journals that suggests "depleted" uranium dust ISN'T severely hazardous to human health?

http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du_iraq.htm

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3627

Durakovic A.
The Quantitative Analysis of Uranium Isotopes in the Urine of the Civilian
Population of Eastern Afghanistan after Operation Enduring Freedom
Military Medicine 170, 4:277-84, 2005

Durakovic A.
Undiagnosed Illnesses and Radioactive Warfare
Croatian Medical Journal, 44, 5:520-532, 2003

Durakovic A.
On Depleted Uranium Gulf war and Balkan Syndrome
Croatian Medical Journal, 42, 373-377, 2001

Durakovic A.
Medical Effects of Internal Contamination with Uranium
Croatian Medical Journal, 40, 49-66, 1999

Durakovic A., Horan P., Dietz L.
The Quantitative Analysis of Depleted Uranium Isotopes in British, Canadian,
and United States Gulf War Veterans
Military Medicine, 167, 8:620-627, 2002

Durakovic A., Dietz L., Horan P., Zimmerman I.
Estimate of the Time-zero Lung Burden of Depleted Uranium in Gulf War Veterans
by the 24 Hour Urinary Excretion and Exponential Decay Analysis
Military Medicine 168, 8:600-605, 2003

Or see most any publication by Dr Rosalie Bertell or Dr Hari Sharma, or any of the thousands of medical lit studies you could find which are used to justify technicians wearing lead bibs when they irradiate you, and justify the safety staff at nuclear power sites.

Here's a quote from the military-friendly leaked AEA Technology report that forecast 500,000 extra cancers over 10 years among the people of Iraq following the release of 50 tons of DU aerosolised dust. The report recommended taking measures to keep DU information out of the hands of the public. Apparently they were successful with you.

"Handling heavy metal munitions does pose some potential hazards, as does the possibility of the spread of radioactive and toxic contaminations as a result of firing in battle. and can become a long-term problem if not dealt with .and [pose] a risk to both military and civilian population."

What US Government Documents Admit:

"If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body are both chemical and radiological."

"Personnel inside or near vehicles struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal exposures."

Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI), Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the U.S. Army, June 1995

"Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer."

"Aerosol DU exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects."

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) report, included as Appendix D of AMMCOM's Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study, Danesi, July 1990.

"Inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and a toxicity risk."

Operation Desert Storm: Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal With Depleted Uranium Contamination, United States General Accounting Office (GAO/NSIAD-93-90), January 1993, pp. 17-18.

[secretagent]

Link doesn't work for me. "404"

[Freee-dame]

The President should make these points clearly and forcefully. "They have the right to dissent but it shows terrible judgement. It encourages our enemies. It costs the lives of our soldiers fighting around the world today and will encourage others to attack us in the future. They have not learned the lessons of history and do not deserve to remain in positions of responsibility."

One can hope. Turning the other cheek doesn't work with terrorists or the Dems.

[Freee-dame]

At the risk of repeating myself. We mislead our congress-critters and the UN

A person is not lying if he states what he actually believes. I wish this administration would stand up for itself.

Valerie Plame should be criticized for her lousy work as a WMD analyst, a member of the very group giving the administration bad information, instead of hailed as some kind of hero. That group also was probably not lying, but analyzing bad information from the field.