I wasn’t able to make it out to DarpaTech 2005, last week’s get-together of the Pentagon’s way-out researachers. Luckily, Defense Tech spy Catherine Macrae Hockmuth snuck in for all of us. She a veteran defense industry reporter who’s returning to the field after a little hiatus. Here’s what she found…
Its amazing how much defense conferences are like episodes of Law & Order. Even when you stop watching for a time its easy to jump back in because the issues never change. Law & Order is forever about perverts on the loose, people who kill family for insurance, and weird, doped-up rich kids who kill for fun. Speeches at defense conferences are always about shortening DODs odious procurement cycle, managing hordes of data, lifting the fog of war, and managing hordes of data.
DarpaTech, a technology conference held every 18 months in Anaheim by the Defense Departments mad scientists is no exception. Fortunately, Darpa program managers have always had a certain I-have-no-idea-if-this-will-work,-but charm, and that allows for some wild animation and ideas. And, oh yes, pleas to the defense industrial complex for help, which is the basic function of DarpaTech. Some 2,500 attendees listened attentively this week as PMs laid out their big ideas, closing with some variation on if you can help make this happen come see me.
At that, a few ideas:
Brain Caps. Navy Cmdr. Dylan Schmorrow wants to put brain caps on soldiers to improve their ability to take in new information under stress. Schmorrow, a Darpa program manager in the Information Processing Technology Office, is a naval aerospace experimental psychologist. The concept is based on the fact that humans can only handle so much information at any given time. As a result, complex human-machine interactive environments common in the military often fail under stress, according to a description of the program, Improving Warfighter Information Intake [formerly known as “Augmented Cognition” –ed.], on IPTOs Web site.
Schmorrow said if you were to ask a person whether he wanted lunch while he was giving a presentation and simultaneously answering questions from a crowd of people, you wouldnt get much of an answer. Thats because his brains verbal center is overloaded. But if you gestured to him by simulating eating a sandwich, he could probably nod or motion yes or no.
Schmorrow said brain caps would not read minds; they would just measure types of activity much the way mood rings report when someone is stressed out. More broadly, as displayed in IPTOs giant brain exhibit, artificial intelligence researchers are trying to teach computers how to learn and reason like us. Its the difference between programming a robot to play soccer, and enabling a robot to learn the game.
PANDA. Darpas IXO office wants software that can analyze strange maritime behavior, alerting the Navy when somethings not right such as a shipful of terrorists transporting WMDs. Apparently, pirates are something of a menace on the high seas, hijacking commercial vessels, stealing and selling illicit materials and wreaking havoc on the shipping industry. PANDA, or predictive analysis for naval deployment activities, would track local and global patterns of behavior by commercial vessels including their shipping routes and routine detours for fuel or paperwork. That way when a ship that always travels between Malaysia and Japan winds up in the Indian Ocean we know something is up.
Information Explotation Office (IXO) Program Manager Kendra Moore said currently this sort of tracking is done manually based on a list of about 100 vessels that are known to be troublemakers. She plans to issue a broad area announcement on the program in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the Sixth Fleet will soon be the first to deploy new software that will automate the tracking process until PANDA comes along. Moore said the automation software, Fast-C2AP, would make tracking down certain ships more like looking for a stock price online.
Multi-Modal Missiles. The military has missiles that can shoot down planes, and destroy tanks and bunkers, what it doesnt have is a single missile that can do all of those things. Oh, and, Tactical Technology Office Director Art Morrish asks, can it be handheld? Morrish asked attendees to play other thought games, such as:
What if we didnt have to trade efficiency for speed? What if we could make aircraft that could fly in and out of an area at Mach 1.5 or better and still have tens of hours to days of loiter time?
Space Dust. Gary Graham, from the Virtual Space Office, continued the game with a call for WMD-hunting space dust and other novelties.
The time is ripe for revolution. What if we could launch many small microsatellites and network them with WiFi, the way we link laptops to the web at Starbucks? What if we could develop a launch vehicle so light and reusable that we could move from limited launches to space sorties? What if we could develop antennas that are small on launch, enormous on orbit? Or apertures that build themselves in space? What if we could exploit near space to take advantage of the closer distances and eliminate orbital launch requirements altogether? What if, in the quest to monitor weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), we could sprinkle large geographic areas with dust that changes in the presence of WMD agents and monitor all this from space?
Sounds swell, Gary. As long as I’m not allergic. For more on Catherine’s take on DarpaTech, click on back tomorrow…
While the folks at DARPA can indeed be “whacky” it’s worth remembering that it was the folks at DARPA who once wondered “What if we could build a network of computers that would allow people all over the world to communicate?“
Their charter is to push the bounds of what is thought to be possible.
That “dust” proposal will have the tinfoil fraternity chattering like monkeys
All of this stuff in the ‘thought games’ has been achievable for years — but nobody has been bothered to make it happen.
They should do it soon, not just talk about it, there’s so much more to be done in so many fields of thought.
What is the deal with DU ? Where do these people come from that spout stupid statements about the half-life of an inert chunk of metal? I personally handled large amounts of DU more than 20 years ago for well over a year. I have not been found to have any problems due to that “exposure” at all. If DU is not vaprized it is not deadly(period). If it is then you have to breath in enough of it to harm your lungs. The chances of doing that are almost not possible. Go out and find out what education means and stop posting stupid statements. There may be a lot of other reasons why Vets will come back from the war ill or whatever but DU is probably way down on the list — like below VD for example.
NIMRUTH needs to stay away from airliners since DU is commonly used for counter weights in the flight controls of these aircraft. He also might encounter excessive exposure to cosmic rays.
how about they use that money to actually help people. How about they put all that crap back where it came from! THEIR ASS!
Yeah, well, mabey the Gulf War Syndrom is real, but as stated above the likley hood of DU being the cuplrit is incredabilly low. But what about nerve agents or something along thoes lines, that Sadam “didn’t have” having long term affects on soldiers? We’d never know about it, if saddam unleashed something, or our soldiers accidently cam in conntact with it, or we disperssed it when we took out a checmical weapons site, and only today do we see the affects of it. But I guess it is impossible to look outwards when something is wrong, its always that evil gov conspiracy, huh?
By the way, the leading researchers into G.W.S. belive it was more than likely caused by exposure to chemical agents in Iraq, not from DU, do some reading on the subject.
Nimrod does have a point though. It did cost a hell of a lot less to drop all of our conventional weapons in the deserts of Iraq than to take them home after the cold war folded. I am sure the europeans didn’t want millions of tons of old toxic and degrading hard bombs left in thier back yard, and the americans back home don’t want incinerators in their backyards. Desert storm I was a war of conveinience for Bush I and Saddam. We dumped our old junk on the desert on top of Saddam’s excess Shiite men. Bush I and Saddam both won that war.
erex
Re: Depleted Uranium
Hey Chuck, DU is not an “inert chunk of metal”. You are right that with proper handling it can be.…somewhat safe. Once it has been used it become much more radioactive. Sometimes on the order of 260 millirads an hour. The safe limit is 100 per year.
“a Geiger counter carried by a visiting reporter starts singing when it nears a DU bullet fragment no bigger than a pencil eraser. It registers nearly 1,000 times normal background radiation levels on the digital readout.“
Aplha particles are stopped by the skin or cloth. Handled correctly, they need not be dangerous. The real issue is what happens once it is inside the human body. Common sense should tell one that highly radioactive dust inside the body could easily cause cancer or a host of other health problems.
“DU experts say they are most concerned at how DU is transformed on the battlefield, after burning, into a toxic oxide dust that emits alpha particles. While those can be easily stopped by the skin, once inside the body, studies have shown that they can destroy cells in soft tissue. While one study on rats linked DU fragments in muscle tissue to increased cancer risk, health effects on humans remain inconclusive.“
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Back on topic. I think that brain caps sound neat. I want one so I don’t need a keyboard or a monitor. Just hook me in. Reminds me of Arthur C Clark’s 3010. Everyone had a brain cap by then. I think he over estimated how long it would take.
Oops! Here’s the URL:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html
ta-ta
DARPA did give us the internet. It has given us many useful things, good things. We have to do war research in order to prevent threats that might be around the corner. Having said that, the West spends ridiculous amounts of money on threats that aren’t even there. Why not simply collaborate on some skookum research (that’s aboriginal American for “neato”) and let’s develop a future of peace? Plan for peace, work for peace, and research why people like El Quiada, funded originally by the CIA— would want to blow us up in the West. Could it be something we did/do/may do/have done? Argh, that old MIRROR, DARPA ought to invent a very big mirror for all of us to look into. When you find your navels, let me know. Graig in Soviet Canuckastan to the North, you know, the one you stole the AVRO Arrow from. Tee hee.
After reading through the comments above:
NIMRUTH needs to consult a dictionary.
Brenda has good answers.
I would like one of those ‘brain caps’, too.ASAP
If we want the quality of our lives to be better we have to link the quality of the elected representatives lives to our economic reality.
Politics in a capitalistic society is driven by the economics of that society.
Currently we have allowed big business to take control of our political systems.
Big business is run or driven by the quarterly report. That means short term thinking. Which in turn means short term thinking in our political systems.
The Citizens of this country mostly you and I or the collective “us” are driven by long term thinking or living. That period of time usually means 3 linked generations (Grandparents, Parents, Children).
The cure for the problems of the citizens “us” is to take away the ties between big business and politics and return the political representation to the Citizens. Most of us know that sounds great in theory but we don’t have a way of making that theory a reality.
Actually the way to make it happen is to tie the economic well being of our elected representatives to the economic well being of the Citizens “us” that they are supposed to represent.
A very simple way to do this is to make it a condition for all elected representatives to live in the same economic conditions as the average Citizen they represent. We must also make it a condition that they may not be allowed to live above the economic conditions of the average Citizen after they leave office.
This will do many things to correct the problems we face now and the ones we will face in the future.
Imagine how many different ways politics will be changed.
Here are a few: *********************
Bi-partisan politics would dissapear.
Control of elections/politics by big business would become pointless. Elected officials leaving office would watch the newly elected officials like a hawk. ***********************************
The job goals of elected officials would have a direct economic impact on themselves which in turn would mean a direct impact on the lives of the Citizens they represent.
As the quality of life improves for us it will also improve for business as it will take away corporate welfare and with an overall improvement in the economy driven by better economic conditions for the consumers (again “us”) business will make more money and that will be good for the workers “us” because we will have more money to buy the products we make.
Corporate slavery will end.
Outsourcing of Jobs for the Citizens will stop. Corporations that want to do business in the USA will have to use US Citizens for the work. This will actually help Corporations in the long run as they will have to pay a fair wage for the work done which means the worker/consumer will have the money to buy the products those Companies make.
Sending our jobs overseas or out of the country to workers who are not being paid enough to buy the things they make will ruin the Corporations and destroy the economy here which will cause a chain reaction of destruction of other country’s economies.
We can’t have free trade with countries that have made slaves of their citizens/workers.
If we don’t stop the loss of jobs here we will one day become slaves also.
We the Citizens of this country must wake up to the fact that the current political structure is going to ruin us as a people and as a country.
We have the right to demand economic representation by our elected representaives.
If we do not do this we will be insuring the economic collapse of our society. It will also mean the economic collapse of the world economy.
If we do change to the new political system, many other countries will adopt the same basic system.
Thank You
I thought Al Gore invented the internet.
Re: Depleted Uranium
Hey Chuck, DU is not an “inert chunk of metal”.
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Metal is never inert biologically.
Go to a government lab and you’ll see that zero valent Lead is treated like one of earth’s most dangerous substances. I am quite sure DU not only has comparable toxic effects as Pb (or Hg), but also has the radiation thing going for it.
Imagine that a corporation spewed out the same amount of zero valent Pb across america that our military spewed across Iraq. I am sure the media would want the CEO and cohorts publically crucified.
It would make Enron and WorldCom look like a Sunday picnic.
Re: The real hazards of Depleted Uranium
Are slight. We should be more concerned with the millions of tons of radioactive dust that was thrown up into the upper atmosphere from all the nuke tests before they were banned. I wonder if the tobacco companies are being used as scapegoats to cover the real source of lung cancer. TTBOMK lung cancer was not a problem amongst native Americans who introduced it to the world.
Like Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome seems to attack the nervous system and immune system. This suggests effects from exposure to nerve agents not radiation, which usually causes cancer and tissue damage. There are reliable reports that some of the ammo dumps destroyed in Iraq did contain WMD’s. In small amounts (below initial terminal levels) Sarin could be the most likely cause.
I doubt this last war will have high numbers of DWS.
Re: The real hazards of Depleted Uranium
Are slight. We should be more concerned with the millions of tons of radioactive dust that was thrown up into the upper atmosphere from all the nuke tests before they were banned.
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100% I agree. My point was that it isn’t the health affects of Pb, Hg, U.… but the precieved affects.
As for tobacco, I don’t know if us Red-men put any additives in the tobacco like nowadays. Maybe it is bleached paper that causes lung cancer(?
And: How do you know lung cancer wasn’t a problem with Native Americans? Have you ever read a study in JAMA about it? Be careful of knowledge, it is never absolute.
DU is very deadly if you are on the wrong end of a DU projectile. Iraqis are more endangered by the (radiation from the) destruction of the radium dials in their Soviet vehicles after being hit by the DU projectile. Since we don’t have/make DU bullets that is a red herring but if we did they would probably go straight through any body they hit causing less damage than conventional bullets. DU is used in anti-tank (and in tank) weapons, anything meant to go through armor, and in armor itself. Being depleted it is not significantly radioactive.
Talk about the tin foil hat brigade, NIMRUTH is not only a member but must be a leading official. This is what happens on a steady diet of lunatic conspiricy theory web sites. I would love to see his Bigfoot photo collection. Heck, I wonder how often he has been abducted by aliens. A regular caller to Art Bell no doubt.
Most of these “new” DARPA ideas are just recycled from old (1970’s) “Iron Man” Marvel comics. I spent a lot of time in grad school reading goofy old government feasability studies and stuff (it beat the hell out of writing up) and came across a lot of ideas I was familiar with from reading Iron Man comics 20 years earlier.
in response to NimRuth and all other DU whiners — I wouldn’t have had a problem with nuking the whole place in the beginning. My compassion for a land where the local religion teaches that war be brought to anyone who disagrees with yours is quite limited, and diminishes to none as soon as you bring death and destruction to 3000 of my brothers & sisters on our sovereign soil. Sure, SH is gone now, but they let him reign, they did not rise up on their own.
So, if a little DU adds to the colors of the sunset, remember, they’re alive. They’re not vapor. They would’ve been if W put a bit more Texas in his response as I would’ve done.
Rules for war:
1. Win
2. Don’t ever lose
3. When faced with a moral dilemma that could possibly create a losing situation, follow rules 1 & 2.
One thing about reading comics and sci-fi… It is where all the really cool ideas get checked out… Wells and his tanks, Gibson and the wet-ware… It is just a matter of time when people are nothing more than the triggers or better yet, the wars are fought by twelve year olds playing video games… Oh yeah, Ender’s Game…
Nt
Braincaps = moodrings of the mind = science? Time to send a certain Lt. Cmdr back to the fleet…preferably operating nothing with more tonnage than a launch.
hey i am very interested in the military but i am unable to be in the service because i have had to mony broken and broke bones ot join and i am a single mother of 3 children and my youngest one is a army child because i now have a x-husband that is at fort. drumm ny . I have tried everything to try to get information on how to become a pen-pal. If anyone can answer it for great email me at texasangel69692002@yahoo.com and i will try to keep u entertained.
Right on, Rik. You said it.
in response to NimRuth and all other DU whiners — I wouldn’t have had a problem with nuking the whole place in the beginning. My compassion for a land where the local religion teaches that war be brought to anyone who disagrees with yours is quite limited, and diminishes to none as soon as you bring death and destruction to 3000 of my brothers & sisters on our sovereign soil. Sure, SH is gone now, but they let him reign, they did not rise up on their own.
So, if a little DU adds to the colors of the sunset, remember, they’re alive. They’re not vapor. They would’ve been if W put a bit more Texas in his response as I would’ve done.
Rules for war:
1. Win
2. Don’t ever lose
3. When faced with a moral dilemma that could possibly create a losing situation, follow rules 1 & 2.
Rik, August 19, 2005 07:22 AM
Re the thread on Amerind — Native American — Indian exposure to tobacco and DU — Somewhere in the 60’s University of Indiana did a paper on longevity of the pre-1492 inhabitants of this republic. The findings were that 45 was a ripe old age and infant mortality was horrendous. Since the non-smoking dead were no exposed to DU any attempt in 2005 to relate these matters is simply hot air and something less than nonsense.
Entry 215483
1st After 50+yrs of study The Minds that matter are still just figureing out all the possible long term effects of exposure to radioactive elements on and in the human body. BESIDES the obvious HAHA YOUR DEAD! So unless your in the immediate area where DU rounds are impacting, thus prone to breath the dust, Then there are probably more dangerous and prevelant dangers to worry about. Like Lead poisoning from catching a live round in an ambush. That so many of our Brethren are being exposed to for what exactly is still to be determined.
3rd While Kill’um all and let God sort’em out sounds great. The Bible In the teachings of Jesus Tell us to Love thy Neighbor and in the end He’ll deal with all those others, who think thier going to rule the earth. So In God we trust, God bless America, and to every one else… Have a nice day, You Know who you are.
2nd The People We have elected to represent us, That are shown to be Liars and self serving Corporate whipping boys and girls. Should be made to live in the environment that thier actions have created for so many of the people that they claim to represent.
Wait a minute before everyone starts spewing the propaganda about DU post by anit american sites lets exam DU scientificially. DU mean depleted uranium. Depelted indicates it is less radioactive the naturally occurring uranium (40% less actually). Uranium in found as rocks in many locations around the US. Natural uranium contains 99% U-238 ( the rest is U –234(0.2%) and U –235 (0.7%). During the enrichment process, U 235 is removed for use in nuclear power plants. As U-235 is removed so is about 60% of the radioactivity. So DU is fairly benign from a radiation point of view. BUT, it is a heavy metal toxicity problem. Critics of DU (read people who want to take away our best weapon) suggest that we switch to tungsten rounds. Unfortunately Tungsten has been shown to be a probable carcinogen.
As far as Du dust being a hazard, it is but only if you are within 50 meters of a vehicle when it struck by a DU round (it is such a heavy molecule it doesn’t travel far or resuspend easily). From studies conducted on Gulf War 1 vets, Du uptake by breathing is minimal if any due to the size of the DU atam and the permeability of the lungs to such big molecules. If you breathe in Du, you are going to cough it up in your spit or swallow the flem and GI uptake just doesn’t happen. The only vets with issues were those hit by friendly fire and that have fragments remaining in their bodies. The human organ DU can damage is the kidneys, but of the 45 vets tracked none have shown any damage.
the reporter must have held the DU right up against the Du to get a response. this is way we teach our soldiers that DU is NOT a cool trophy to take home. Plus it shouldn’t be eaten.
As far as doses from DU to our tank crews, assuming the lived in the M1-A1 24/7 for a year the driver (the position with the highest exposure rate) would receive about 1200 mrem per year. This about 3 times what we get from background radiation in the US, but much less than what a worker in the radiation field can receive. (or equal to about 6 chest xrays)
I think the real issue here is how effective of a weapon and shield is it? Ask our tankers and most are enthuesiastic backers. a slight dose of radiation is better than immediate lead poisoning (if you get my drift) War is ugly. If you don’t believe me, visit our military burn wards once. Soldiers know that better than anyone. volunteered to protect our country
well I red some thing about An med that was given thrue injecktion to soldirs for protection for some bio bacteria some thing this med can make alergy to some people From theire own closterol now I did forget about that exacktly I was Posted once IN SFTT and an japanice guy wrote an book about this , but the truth is yes deplated uranum has an effeckt but on large doses and Na ya , Guess about technology the futurE lies iN have Interactive geer that is conneckted to an base that monitors sleaping heat every thing , but to tell u the truth the problem with technology it is starting to intefeer with the clasick basick teatchings i meaN an soldir training dont know how much exacktly but with tech stuff this means more time not just making classick skills lessar , as For the problem of armies that they would try stuff on soldirs some times with out telling them and some times bye forcing an soldir thrue hes contrackt to take some thing , and na ya thats not so good , as as what they have and dont have well at least they would have some technologies that are 20 years advanced . Now Im kinda an persone who believes thers an solution to every problem . But what is effcting the army is its biocracy I mean the romans in thE end did loose much of theire fighting spirit because too much bio cracy . but na ya about simolations and stuff like that they can harm the brain and the data can cause many things to go wrong . so best thing is to have hi technology but with as much less options because this DATA too much can harm . I mean eaven pilots i thin the future thrue theire body an pc program would do many things as hight and stuff automateckly , and like lock with blinking and na ya with technology thers two things that is hard fots an inventer to invent then some one who can sommel diffarent inventions for an certain some thing but some thing elsde hard is to make the invention work with an mechanisem that takes as much less space and gives speed . but I mean amagion an pilot that can feal the outer dimensions of the Emviorment wile hes om hes plane i mean amagion swiming with out seen or swiming with tank oxygeen it is not like swiming Free able to turnm see and having good dimensional manuver this means that using the body emotion an pilot would in the future determain hight speed and other things but the body is liked with some thing smart and outer sensors that give to the pilot the fealing of the dimens of the emviorment hes is in . Na ya guess thats since fiction lol .
Re the thread on Amerind — Native American — Indian exposure to tobacco and DU
A friend of mine worked as an archeologist and he told me that burial sites in PA typically had 85% of the buials appear to have cause of death be head wounds and most were quite young folks by our standards, go figure. I think tobacco was the least of their worries.
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Du uptake by breathing is minimal if any due to the size of the DU atam and the permeability of the lungs to such big molecules
Don’t believe any of the baloney ‘they’ tell you. I don’t know what you mean by a Du atom but the size distribution of the dust particles I would expect are probably includes the size of modern diesel exhaust… the worst possible size for lungs. Explore how the EPA and our government mandated that diesel exhaust be on the 5 to 10u size, then years later learned that that was the worst possible size. I am sure the same type half-baked stuff goes on in the military with munitions.
erex
want to see the all pre-plan of osama .….….. and about the pentagon.….….
I wonder whatever happened to the integrated NBC audio visual protective helmet designs? I don’t know if I came up with it or just heard of it in some science fiction show. The idea is a Star Wars type full covering helmet with all the bells and whistles. In my concepts it is very possible to use mobile cellular phone towers and the easier radio towers to keep every soldier in touch. I don’t see why the radios arent’ built in the helmet instead of strap on. There are also high power infrared seeing devices that could be used mobile to feed video to a visor. I have seen the newer battle gear on television and it just doesn’t protect the head, protect the breathing, and have voice activated audio, and of course the only visual comes from the sight on the gun, not large “seeing” devices that could allow soldiers to move around effectively in complete zero visibility due to smoke or CS gas. If this isn’t made yet, it is only due to money, because all the separate technologies are mature and should be affordable to make this integrated NBC audio visual helmet. I will not even get into the laser mapping, the GPS mapping feeds, and even greater detail in case it is top secret, or I get to help design it. Any comments, links, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Depleted Uranium not a depleted hazard. Although they use the term depleted it is very misleading. After reading a few of the comments by people on DU I would like to throw my knowledge of the DU into the ring. I have worked in the defense business as a soldier, civilian, and contractor for a combination of 12 years. I have worked with DU for quite a few of them. I am currently and engineer and worked with the Dept of the Army as a radiological worker and handler. First thing on DU is, it is not inert, or user friendly.
During after the initial Gulf war the Army conducted a study on the effects of DU. In 1991, the Army’s leading scientist working on DU studied how DU effects enemy tanks destroyed and our own tanks hit by it. His finding is that we as the defense establishment should stop using it immediately because as was then and as it is now we have no proper safety equipment for handling, and after action clean up.
DU in a high velocity strike with an armoed vehicle super heats and sharpens instead of blunting like tungsten. It makes for an excellent armor piercing munition. The problem is when it super heats it oxidizes and emits particles into the air that are smaller than .03 microns and becomes more radioactive and cancer causing. DU particles that are this size, .03 microns, or smaller than .03 microns are too small to be filtered by the NBC mask. So even the precautions they give soldiers in the field aren’t really helpful. Which state from the CTT manual, “go to MOPP 4(which is mask, suit, gloves, and boots.)cordon off the area and call in the NBC unit support. But at .03 microns and smaller DU particles can become airborne and travel miles carried by wind currents. Therefore we are endangering the life of soldiers and civlians(our civilians also)on the battlefield. Also we are leaving the “liberated Iraqis” a gift that is already deforming new born children in the country and continue to do so for another 4.5 billion years. We maybe very possibly irradiating the whole country of Iraq.
I love my country and preparing to deploy to Iraq in less than two weeks. I have served it in many ways. But the continued use of DU is wrong. It is against Geneva Convention because no munition or agent used in warfare can have a lasting effect after the “trigger pull”. In other words you aren’t supposed to poison the country for 4.5 billion years which is the approximate half life of DU. And to those who say “well its only mildly radiotive” I say to them and arsenic in small doses is only mildly toxic also.
Why is everyone so worried about the health of our enemies? I am absolutely stunned by talk of right and wrong munitions (i.e. ways to kill thine enemy). There’s only one good enemy, and that’s a dead one. Who gives a spit the way they die. If everyone’s going to complain about depleted Uranium, then let’s just give it to them “un-cut” (to coin a drug smuggling phrase). We’re the only society in history worried more about our enemies than ourselves. We should mercilessly hunt them down and kill them with whatever works, be it a nuke or a 2x4 across the head! It’s this “we have to be nice and play by the rules” mentality that is going to cost us our nation. I’m sure glad we had leaders in WWII that had the courage to stand up and fight like they wanted to win. Oh by the way, if we had not nuked Japan, their plan B was to nerve gas them into submission (both morally and practically correct decisions). If folks like y’all had been in positions of power circa 1945, we’d all be eating sushi or marching to Wagner tunes right about now! You make me want to wretch!
Matt, we care because we’re supposed to be better than our enemies. (That’s why the Geneva convention was drafted and signed by the ‘civilized’ nations of the time: so that if those nations went to war, they’d have a set of standard rules and regulations to show other people that “this is how a war should be fought — yes, you have to kill people in a war, but there’s no reason to be disrespectful to your enemy while doing it.”)
Yes, they’re fighting agaist us and killing our people (not to mention their own).
Yes, we’re fighting back and shooting/killing them.
But why, why, WHY should we leave behind toxic dusts that’ll harm the innocent as well as the guilty? Why should we poison the people we’re supposed to be helping (i.e., those who, while they may not want us in their country, aren’t out killing our soldiers)?
The answer, plain and simple, is that we shouldn’t. Yes, kill the enemy by all means — but don’t leave behind toxins (like Agent Orange, mustard gas, or radioactive waste — and radioactive waste is precisely what DU dust is) that’ll kill the innocent as well as the guilty is all I’m trying to say.
For the record, that’s why I — and quite likely a majority of other people — are disgusted by the nuclear-fission bomb: it’s an indiscriminate weapon, capable of destroying a target as large as New York City with a single detonation and killing not just any soldiers living there, but the rest of the city’s population too.
Personally, I’d prefer urban combat to a nuclear strike — yes, urban combat is bloody, messy, and turns cities into meat-grinders, but I’d rather have a meat-grinder than an uninhabitable radioactive crater, thankyouverymuch!
Ummm, hello…
1. DU is used in the form of bullets. They are supposed to the harmful to ones health.
2. DU exists in nature and has absolutely nothing to do with “atomic weapons”.
3. Of course DU is toxic, so is lead, copper, iron, blah blah blah.
4. Bullets are supposed to kill and maim. Get over it.
5. Get over it and return to reality.
about wars being fought by 12 year olds and such as in the book Enders’ Game, there are varitable reasons for that to come true. Just take a look at the aircraft we are manufacturing. Predator anyone?
My post was supposed to first put emphasis on not how it effects them but more how DU effects US. If you can’t see that because of your blind hate then my condolences. But the PROBLEM with DU is its toxcity and how it effects OUR soldiers, my brothers and sister, your children, and on a side note possibly ME while serving in Iraq. DU is a poison that is killing not only the “bad guys” but also those who are brave enough to serve our nation(and its politcal agenda.) We fight a war fommented on on false assumptions. Dont tell I am wrong I get to see it first hand. Tell the soldiers in my unit we are here to defend our country and a large percentage will laugh at YOU.
Second to all you with the “scorched earth” mentality. I say this, we take an oath to uphold the Constitution and we are trained to fight with honor. We are trained to uphold the rules of war and the rules put in place by the Geneva convention. Any suggestion about nuking them all or laying waste to the place is DISHONORABLE. I as an American am disgusted by ignorant people who say we should just kill them all. It is sentiment that now and throughout history has only posed to make an enemy fight harder. Knowing that they have NOTHING to lose people will fight accordingly. DU is a poison that is easier dispensed through war than put in someones backyard in the Southwest. I hold myself to high standards and dumping my trash in someone else’s backyard is not honorable even it they are my enenmy.
PS: don’t have a lot of time for proofreading.
*enemy
to Craig Burns: Planning for war IS planning for peace. If a rich country is not able to fight and win whatever sort of war it might encounter, then war will be thrust on it because it can’t defend itself, it is “easy pickins”, as it were.
I like so much the new tecnology for every thing
now i live in mozambique but ‚i look for jobs
i am archt.eng? please give chance for change my life.
Best regards
Sergio
cellfhone n828957220
Thank you for the post on what the future my hold. I wish more people would remember that positive changes in warfare will save lives. To all the fallen, past and future.
you are worried about munnicia, i want to know when we are going to start using napalm . there is no such thing as a good enemy
To George I wish would use Napalm instead of DU at least it has no bad effect for the user. Great negative effect for the receiver.
In Iraq keeping soldiers fighting,
Wes
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