Israel's nuclear war in Lebanon

What can I say? America and Israel. The only two countries to use nuclear weapons. This vista of endless wars, each one becoming more horrifying than the last, is what the bushistas promise us. The criminal bush has told us that future presidents will have to solve the Iraq problem. This push off of accountability is little georgie’s signature position throughout his life. He has NEVER had to face up to the consequences of his actions.

And now, daddy has to bail him out again. Most men, at least real men, by the time they’re in their fifties don’t have to go running to daddy. But our little georgie still does. What’s that tell you about us, that he’s still the president? You know, we need to look at ourselves, too. We are, after all, allowing this uranium poisoning of innocent victims. Do we really want it to continue for another 2 years, and then let the war criminals go retire in ease and comfort? Is that justice? Is that courage? Is that even wise?

The bush policies, foreign and domestic both, are condemning our children and grandchildren to a life of deprivation and fear. Fear of their own government, as well as those peoples we are inflaming by our actions now. We haven’t gotten over our own Civil War after 140 years. Why would we think these people are going to forget? Especially since they will still be living with the effects of our actions. He is bankrupting this nation with his wars and tax cuts for the rich.

These are the stakes in November. And this is why neither the republican party or the bushistas can afford to lose control of Congress. It shows their desperation as their ads crawl further into the gutter with each passing day. The question remains.

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Britain and US defy demand for immediate ceasefire
By Anne Penketh, Ben Russell, Colin Brown and Stephen Castle
Published: 21 July 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1188875.ece

Israeli warplanes continued their bombardment of Lebanon yesterday, defying a demand by Kofi Annan for an immediate end to fighting on the ninth day of a war that has led to the "collective punishment of the Lebanese people" .

Two countries, the US and Britain, defiantly refused to back the international clamour for an immediate ceasfire between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas. Their ambivalence about civilian deaths in Lebanon has given Israel a powerful signal that it can continue its attacks with impunity.
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United States to Israel: you have one more week to blast Hizbullah
Bush 'gave green light' for limited attack, say Israeli and UK sources
Ewen MacAskill, Simon Tisdall and Patrick Wintour
Wednesday July 19, 2006
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1823817,00.html

The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.

The Bush administration, backed by Britain, has blocked efforts for an immediate halt to the fighting initiated at the UN security council, the G8 summit in St Petersburg and the European foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

"It's clear the Americans have given the Israelis the green light. They [the Israeli attacks] will be allowed to go on longer, perhaps for another week," a senior European official said yesterday. Diplomatic sources said there was a clear time limit, partly dictated by fears that a prolonged conflict could spin out of control.

US strategy in allowing Israel this freedom for a limited period has several objectives, one of which is delivering a slap to Iran and Syria, who Washington claims are directing Hizbullah and Hamas militants from behind the scenes.
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Mystery of Israel's secret uranium bomb
Alarm over radioactive legacy left by attack on Lebanon
Robert Fisk
28 October 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American "bunker-buster" bombs on Hizbollah's Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know - after it first categorically denied using such munitions - that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures". Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry - used by the Ministry of Defence - which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste product of the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.
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Report: Israel used uranium-based warheads in Lebanon war
By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
28/10/2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/780516.html

Studies carried out by a European Union-affiliated organization suggest the Israel Air Force used experimental missiles employing uranium against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the British newspaper The Independent reported on its website on Saturday.

According to the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, Doctor Chris Busby, tests carried out on soil taken from craters where Israeli missiles impacted showed 'elevated radiation signatures.'

Busby's report concluded that such results could be caused either by bunker-busting conventional bombs using uranium or a new kind of weapon bearing a "novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash."

An Italian television report aired last week made a similar claim, raising the possibility that Israel had used a weapon in the Gaza Strip in recent months, causing especially serious physical injuries, such as amputated limbs and severe burns.

The report claimed the weapon is similar to one developed by the U.S. military, known as DIME, which causes a powerful and lethal blast, but only within a relatively small radius.

The Italian report is based on the eyewitness accounts of medical doctors in the Strip, as well as tests carried out in an Italian laboratory. The investigative team is the same one that exposed, several months ago, the use by U.S. forces in Iraq of phosphorous bombs, against Iraqi rebels in Faluja.
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Depleted Uranium Radioactive Contamination In Iraq: An Overview
By Prof Souad N. Al-Azzawi
August 31, 2006
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/DU-Azzawi.htm

Depleted Uranium (DU) weaponry has been used against Iraq for the first time in the history of recent wars. The magnitude of the complications and damage related to the use of such radioactive and toxic weapons on the environment and the human population mostly results from the intended concealment, denial and misleading information released by the Pentagon about the quantities, characteristics and the area’s in Iraq, in which these weapons have been used.

Revelation of information regarding what is called the Gulf War Syndrome among exposed American veterans helped Iraqi researchers and Medical Doctors to understand the nature of the effect of these weapons, and the means required to investigate further into this issue.

The synergetic impact on health due to the post Gulf War I economical sanctions and DU related radioactive contamination raised the number of casualties in contaminated areas as in southern Iraq.

Continual usage of DU after Gulf War I on other Iraqi territories through the illegal No-Fly Zones and the major DU loaded Cruise Missiles attack of year 1998, all contributed in making the problem increasingly complex.

During 2003, military operations conducted in Iraq by the invading forces used additional rounds of DU in heavily populated areas such as Baghdad, Samawa and other provinces. It is only fair to conclude that the environment in Iraq and its population have been exposed continuously to DU weaponry or its contaminating remains, since 1991.
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