Colin Powell recently denied the harmful effects of Depleted Uranium (DU), which has been used in every major American conflict in recent years.
InformationLiberation reports,
Members of WeAreChange Ohio confronted former Secretary of State Colin Powell about the use of depleted uranium in four separate wars– including Gulf Wars I & II, Kosovo and Bosnia. Powell admitted to its use, but denied its relative harm, repeatedly calling it “useful.”
Canada is the largest exporter of Depleted Uranium, with millions of dollars of revenue per year, up to 60% going to the U.S. Some assert that all of the DU used in the Balkans has some Canadian content.
Doug Westerman of Global Research presents a hypothetical scenario,
…Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Japanese Citizen’s Tribunal (having no legal standing) recommending banning DU, in connection with allegations of war crimes due to use of indescriminate weapons such as DU.
Nikhil Shah argues in Depleted Uranium And International Law over the legality of the use of DU, and concludes,
Public pressure should also continue to force the U.S. and NATO countries to clean up the contaminated sites that they are responsible for.[198] In addition, legal action should be brought in specific cases for negligence in order to get some redress from the negative health effects of DU.[199] These local judicial decisions can be utilized as a subsidiary means to determine the rules of international law according to article 38(1)(d) of the Statute of the ICJ.[200] To help better define the legality of DU, pressure should also mount to get more conclusive and objective studies about its effects on combatants and non-combatants and to stop parties like the U.S. from compromising studies put forth by UN and the WHO.[201] Such pressure has been successful in the past with the anti-nuclear weapons campaign leading to the World Court opinion against the use of nuclear weapons.[202]
The circumstance that the uranium the Americans use in warfare is depleted just underscores their general decency. They would win some of their wars much more easily if they permitted themselves a nuke or two, but they lately have refused to take the easy path, even after an astonishing provocation which, I think, might have exhausted my own patience.
Similarly, saying that Canada is “complicit in DU” acknowledges Canada’s continued existence as a distinct nation. One could imagine that Canada has some irremediable defect that makes it unsuitable for annexation; however, such a supposition seems unwarranted. So, given the great imbalance in numbers, power, and wealth between the U.S. and Canada, it seems Canada’s being something other than a territory of the U.S. is another mark of the Americans’ decency.
As for the citation of remarks by Colin Powell, one could scarcely have made a worse choice in support of one’s case. Powell is such a milquetoast, blandly decent fellow that acknowledging his complacency about the use of depleted uranium corrupts a reader’s presupposition that depleted uranium, being uranium, must therefore be bad.
LawIsCool: Thank you for your commentary. Stay tuned, we think you will enjoy one of our upcoming scheduled post immensely.