Legalising war crimes: USA has gone too far

a reply to: purplemer

* - The Us is not the only nation who uses DU - UK, France, Russia, China, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, Iraq and Taiwan and Iran.

* - Russia / USSR has used DU rounds since the 1970's and still does today however they refuse to acknowledge it officially, jut like the nations listed above. The US and UK are the only 2 nations who have formally acknowledged use of DU ammunition.

As for the claims of international law violations in its use - Its not a violation of ANY international laws on the subject -

In 1996 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory opinion on the "legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons".[36] This made it clear, in paragraphs 54, 55 and 56, that international law on poisonous weapons—the Second Hague Declaration of 29 July 1899, Hague Convention IV of 18 October 1907 and the Geneva Protocol of 17 June 1925—did not cover nuclear weapons, because their prime or exclusive use was not to poison or asphyxiate. This ICJ opinion was about nuclear weapons, but the sentence "The terms have been understood, in the practice of States, in their ordinary sense as covering weapons whose prime, or even exclusive, effect is to poison or asphyxiate," also removes depleted uranium weaponry from coverage by the same treaties as their primary use is not to poison or asphyxiate, but to destroy materiel and kill soldiers through kinetic energy.

The Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the United Nations Human Rights Commission,[37] passed two motions[38] — the first in 1996[39] and the second in 1997.[40] They listed weapons of mass destruction, or weapons with indiscriminate effect, or of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and urged all states to curb the production and the spread of such weapons. Included in the list was weaponry containing depleted uranium. The committee authorized a working paper, in the context of human rights and humanitarian norms, of the weapons.

The requested UN working paper was delivered in 2002[41] by Y. K. J. Yeung Sik Yuen in accordance with Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights resolution 2001/36. He argues that the use of DU in weapons, along with the other weapons listed by the Sub‑Commission, may breach one or more of the following treaties: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations, the Genocide Convention, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions including Protocol I, the Convention on Conventional Weapons of 1980, and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Yeung Sik Yuen writes in Paragraph 133 under the title "Legal compliance of weapons containing DU as a new weapon":


Annex II to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material 1980 (which became operative on 8 February 1997) classifies DU as a category II nuclear material. Storage and transport rules are set down for that category which indicates that DU is considered sufficiently "hot" and dangerous to warrant these protections. But since weapons containing DU are relatively new weapons no treaty exists yet to regulate, limit or prohibit its use. The legality or illegality of DU weapons must therefore be tested by recourse to the general rules governing the use of weapons under humanitarian and human rights law which have already been analysed in Part I of this paper, and more particularly at paragraph 35 which states that parties to Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 have an obligation to ascertain that new weapons do not violate the laws and customs of war or any other international law. As mentioned, the International Court of Justice considers this rule binding customary humanitarian law.

Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia led a committee of staff lawyers to investigate possible treaty prohibitions against the use of DU in weapons. Their findings were that:[42]


There is no specific treaty ban on the use of DU projectiles. There is a developing scientific debate and concern expressed regarding the impact of the use of such projectiles and it is possible that, in future, there will be a consensus view in international legal circles that use of such projectiles violate general principles of the law applicable to use of weapons in armed conflict. No such consensus exists at present.[43]

Depleted Uranium - Wikipedia - All sources cited at bottom of page

a reply to: Xcathdra

When war has finished munitons have to be removed from the battle ground can you explain to how one goes about removing Depleted Uranium.

You can use all the clever words you like to express thats is not a war crime using DU. Using compounds that cause lasting and generation effects to a civillian population is a war crime.

a reply to: purplemer

Yeah the claim made was the US committed war crimes by using DU. No clever words were used, just the facts, as I pointed them out to you.


Use of DU is not banned nor is it a war crime.

a reply to: Xcathdra

and and i have pointed out the use of DU is open to interpetation. Since however the its the big players that are using it nothing is being done.

regardless of what you say seeing massive increase in cluster cancers in iraq which is strongly associated with DU and seeing really badly deformed children being born as a consequnt of its use is a war crime. Do you really need a peice of paper to tell you that.

Hope you are good

and kind regards

Whether or not DU is specifically prohibited under international law is rather beside the point IMO.

Once used, the uranium dust generated effects all living things, including US troops. Why would a POTUS who supports his troops order that stuff be used?

Or, why would he NOT order its use halted?

a reply to: purplemer

and I pointed out that the international law claim is false as DU is not restricted by any international law.

Children being born deformed is not a war crime either. At what point are you guys going to stick to one point and actually produce evidence to actually support the claims you are making?

You guys started with the whole journalist enemy combatant BS while completely ignoring common sense and the Geneva conventions. once that was debunked you guys went down the road of claiming DU was a war crime and its use banned by international law. When it was shown that claim was also false you are now trying to argue about deformed children in Iraq, trying to link it to DU, and claiming that is a war crime.

Here is an idea - Get your facts right the first time and you guys would not have to keep coming back with backup claim failures.

The reports from Iraq about DU are based on guesses made by the doctors and others considering the Us nor the UK have ever stated when and where DU was used. The same claims about DU were made in Afghanistan. The doctor claiming it was because of the US was linked to various groups who oppose the US on just about everything. Kind of like RT and its blame the west for all evil while ignoring anything and everything that shows something different.

Depleted uranium (DU; also referred to in the past as Q-metal, depletalloy or D-38) is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope U-235 than natural uranium.[2] (Natural uranium is about 0.72% U-235—the fissile isotope, and the DU used by the U.S. Department of Defense contain less than 0.3% U-235). Uses of DU take advantage of its very high density of 19.1 g/cm3 (68.4% denser than lead). Civilian uses include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy and industrial radiography equipment and containers used to transport radioactive materials. Military uses include defensive armor plating and armor-piercing projectiles.

Most depleted uranium arises as a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors and in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Enrichment processes generate uranium with a higher-than-natural concentration of lower-mass uranium isotopes (in particular U-235, which is the uranium isotope supporting the fission chain reaction) with the bulk of the feed ending up as depleted uranium, in some cases with mass fractions of U-235 and U-234 less than a third of those in natural uranium. U-238 has a much longer halflife than the lighter isotopes, and DU therefore emits less alpha radiation than the same mass of natural uranium. DU from nuclear reprocessing will have different isotopic ratios from enrichment-byproduct DU, and can be distinguished from it by the presence of U-236.[3]

DU used in US munitions has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium.[4] Trace transuranics (another indicator of the use of reprocessed material) have been reported to be present in some US tank armor.[4]

The use of DU in munitions is controversial because of questions about potential long-term health effects.[5][6] Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure, because uranium is a toxic metal.[7] It is only weakly radioactive because of its long radioactive half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238, 700 million years for uranium-235; or 1 part per million every 6446 and 1010 years, respectively). The biological half-life (the average time it takes for the human body to eliminate half the amount in the body) for uranium is about 15 days.[8] The aerosol or spallation frangible powder produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites, leading to possible inhalation by human beings.[9]

The actual level of acute and chronic toxicity of DU is also controversial. Several studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, and of genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure.[5] A 2005 epidemiology review concluded: "In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."[10]

Question for you and others -
Why do you blame the US for everything while completely and totally ignoring other countries? Are you truly concerned about DU use and the possible affect on people or is the topic something you are trying to use to come after the US just because?

I also noticed your position ignores other countries using DU. Why?

What does your posts have to do with the op and its failed argument that's not supported by facts?

a reply to: purplemer

You can use all the clever words you like to express thats is not a war crime using DU. Using compounds that cause lasting and generation effects to a civillian population is a war crime.

By your definition, every act of war is a war crime. For example, French men are, on average, shorter than other European men because of the military selection process in the First World War, generations ago.

Now stop the propaganda and show where the new Pentagon legal manual contradicts the Geneva Conventions. Oh yeah, you can't because it doesn't. This thread should be moved t [HOAX!].

a reply to: DJW001

Now stop the propaganda and show where the new Pentagon legal manual contradicts the Geneva Conventions. Oh yeah, you can't because it doesn't. This thread should be moved t [HOAX!].

Really not so hard

The international dispatches about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq -- replete with graphic details about overcrowded hospitals, U.S. cluster bomb shrapnel buried in the flesh of children, babies deformed by U.S. depleted uranium, farms and markets destroyed by U.S. bombs -- do not make pleasant reading. The mounting evidence from Iraq establishes what many Americans may not want to face: that the highest leaders of the land are violating almost every international agreement relating to the rules of war. Unless we address the possibility of the war crimes by the Bush administration

...

For the high officials who planned and supervised military operations in Iraq, the "shock-and-awe" campaign encompasses three major types of war crimes, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949: The "wanton destruction of cities, towns, and villages" in violation of the Nuremberg principles. The premeditated use of weapons known to cause unnecessary suffering and indiscriminate destruction. The use of depleted uranium, the poison of radiation that is destroying the lives of untold numbers of civilians and soldiers, including American personnel.

www.inmotionmagazine.com...

a reply to: purplemer

Really not so hard

Thank you for proving it impossible... you linked to anti-American propaganda, not the actual documents.

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: purplemer

Really not so hard

Thank you for proving it impossible... you linked to anti-American propaganda, not the actual documents.

You can bring a horse to ater you cannot make it drink...

take care

Isn't it time to start the USA USA chants and let the US move on to the next place to invade and harvest.

originally posted by: purplemer

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: purplemer

Really not so hard

Thank you for proving it impossible... you linked to anti-American propaganda, not the actual documents.

You can bring a horse to ater you cannot make it drink...

take care

You're right, you're never going to admit that the OP is a lie. Be seeing you.

originally posted by: roadgravel
Isn't it time to start the USA USA chants and let the US move on to the next place to invade and harvest.

Sorry, but Russia is the world leader in invasions now. Ross-i-ya! Ross-i-ya!

originally posted by: DJW001

originally posted by: roadgravel
Isn't it time to start the USA USA chants and let the US move on to the next place to invade and harvest.

Sorry, but Russia is the world leader in invasions now. Ross-i-ya! Ross-i-ya!

USA is the global leader. Invasion in the name of democracy and peace. That's an lol policy for sure.

originally posted by: purplemer
a reply to: NavyDoc

Secondly, for something to be a "war crime" it has to be intentional. Nothing has demonstrated any intentional attempt to cause birth defects in Iraq.

If you use a wepon with known side effects then its use is intentional. Would you give DU to your pregnant wife..?

But there are no "known side effects." The radiation exposure working in a tank with DU for a year is the equivalent exposure to a single cross country flight.

a reply to: NavyDoc

But there are no "known side effects." The radiation exposure working in a tank with DU for a year is the equivalent exposure to a single cross country flight.

How can you be so sure there are no side effects. Others in authority seem to think different.

Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects. Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion. Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported. Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.

www.nbcnews.com...

A study performed in April of 2007 by researchers at the University of Southern Maine concluded that, “exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant genotoxic risk (risk of genetic mutation) and could possibly result in lung cancer." A paper published in the same year in the scientific journal, 'Science of the Total Environment,' found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments, as well as household dust in the vicinity of a DU weapons factory in Colonie, New York 23 years after the plant had closed and despite massive efforts at clean up by the U.S. Army Corp of engineers. It also presented the fact that traces of DU contamination still remain in the urine of former workers and neighbors of the plant.

A study performed in April of 2007 by researchers at the University of Southern Maine concluded that, “exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant genotoxic risk (risk of genetic mutation) and could possibly result in lung cancer." A paper published in the same year in the scientific journal, 'Science of the Total Environment,' found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments, as well as household dust in the vicinity of a DU weapons factory in Colonie, New York 23 years after the plant had closed and despite massive efforts at clean up by the U.S. Army Corp of engineers.

It also presented the fact that traces of DU contamination still remain in the urine of former workers and neighbors of the plant.

a reply to: DJW001

You're right, you're never going to admit that the OP is a lie. Be seeing you.

Soo long and thanks for all the fish..

originally posted by: yuppa

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14

originally posted by: yuppa
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

"collatorral damage was a "film" and not based on real life though. Also We normally dont shoot AMERICAN reporters because they have the intelligence to know where to go and who to associate with.

No, what I am referring to is a video tape of actual American soldiers firing a cannon from a helicopter and killing a bunch of reporters.

I apologize, the correct name is Collateral Murder.

www.youtube.com...

One mans murder is another mans Righteous kill. They were embedded with terrorist they get what was coming to them. They knew the risk going there and ignored it if anything they need a darwin award.

Who says they were "embedded with terrorists?" That is a pretty war crimey attitude you got there brah.

We absolutely need press access to all things in the world in order to provide a check on government, INCLUDING and especially military, and to provide third party information to the public. This is even in our foundational American principles.

Saying that it is okay to target journalists or not account for mistakes when they do by accident is pure irresponsibility and immoral.

I'm sure you will believe that it was cool for ISIS to decapitate Foley, because "he was embedded with the enemy and had it coming and deserved a Darwin Award."

Seriously though, I'm shocked by attitudes like yours.

originally posted by: NavyDoc

originally posted by: purplemer
a reply to: NavyDoc

Secondly, for something to be a "war crime" it has to be intentional. Nothing has demonstrated any intentional attempt to cause birth defects in Iraq.

If you use a wepon with known side effects then its use is intentional. Would you give DU to your pregnant wife..?

But there are no "known side effects." The radiation exposure working in a tank with DU for a year is the equivalent exposure to a single cross country flight.

That isn't the issue. The issue is consuming or inhaling "hot particles" in the environment. Those DO have a very serious side effect.

Things such as leukemia have skyrocketed in Iraq since the Gulf Wars.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: purplemer

and I pointed out that the international law claim is false as DU is not restricted by any international law.

Children being born deformed is not a war crime either. At what point are you guys going to stick to one point and actually produce evidence to actually support the claims you are making?

You guys started with the whole journalist enemy combatant BS while completely ignoring common sense and the Geneva conventions. once that was debunked you guys went down the road of claiming DU was a war crime and its use banned by international law. When it was shown that claim was also false you are now trying to argue about deformed children in Iraq, trying to link it to DU, and claiming that is a war crime.

Here is an idea - Get your facts right the first time and you guys would not have to keep coming back with backup claim failures.

The reports from Iraq about DU are based on guesses made by the doctors and others considering the Us nor the UK have ever stated when and where DU was used. The same claims about DU were made in Afghanistan. The doctor claiming it was because of the US was linked to various groups who oppose the US on just about everything. Kind of like RT and its blame the west for all evil while ignoring anything and everything that shows something different.

Depleted uranium (DU; also referred to in the past as Q-metal, depletalloy or D-38) is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope U-235 than natural uranium.[2] (Natural uranium is about 0.72% U-235—the fissile isotope, and the DU used by the U.S. Department of Defense contain less than 0.3% U-235). Uses of DU take advantage of its very high density of 19.1 g/cm3 (68.4% denser than lead). Civilian uses include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy and industrial radiography equipment and containers used to transport radioactive materials. Military uses include defensive armor plating and armor-piercing projectiles.

Most depleted uranium arises as a byproduct of the production of enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors and in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Enrichment processes generate uranium with a higher-than-natural concentration of lower-mass uranium isotopes (in particular U-235, which is the uranium isotope supporting the fission chain reaction) with the bulk of the feed ending up as depleted uranium, in some cases with mass fractions of U-235 and U-234 less than a third of those in natural uranium. U-238 has a much longer halflife than the lighter isotopes, and DU therefore emits less alpha radiation than the same mass of natural uranium. DU from nuclear reprocessing will have different isotopic ratios from enrichment-byproduct DU, and can be distinguished from it by the presence of U-236.[3]

DU used in US munitions has 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium.[4] Trace transuranics (another indicator of the use of reprocessed material) have been reported to be present in some US tank armor.[4]

The use of DU in munitions is controversial because of questions about potential long-term health effects.[5][6] Normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems can be affected by uranium exposure, because uranium is a toxic metal.[7] It is only weakly radioactive because of its long radioactive half-life (4.468 billion years for uranium-238, 700 million years for uranium-235; or 1 part per million every 6446 and 1010 years, respectively). The biological half-life (the average time it takes for the human body to eliminate half the amount in the body) for uranium is about 15 days.[8] The aerosol or spallation frangible powder produced during impact and combustion of depleted uranium munitions can potentially contaminate wide areas around the impact sites, leading to possible inhalation by human beings.[9]

The actual level of acute and chronic toxicity of DU is also controversial. Several studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, and of genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure.[5] A 2005 epidemiology review concluded: "In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU."[10]

Question for you and others -
Why do you blame the US for everything while completely and totally ignoring other countries? Are you truly concerned about DU use and the possible affect on people or is the topic something you are trying to use to come after the US just because?

I also noticed your position ignores other countries using DU. Why?

What does your posts have to do with the op and its failed argument that's not supported by facts?

Fine.

Want to know what ARE war crimes that the US has committed?

1) George Bush Jr. engaging in an unprovoked war of aggression on Iraq. That is the war crime of aggression. Boom. Illegal under international law.
2) George Bush Jr. and co. legitimizing torture. ALSO a war crime...

Violations of international law

3) The US/CIA factually fueled coups to overthrow democracies and install dictators. THAT Is most definitely a violation of international law.
4) Funding/arming civil wars
5) Assassinations

Even if you try to claim that those people tortured/held without trial weren't legal combatants, you are using the "letter of the law to violate the spirit of the law."

Moreover, many of those tortured turned out to be completely innocent and not even combatants. Are you going to tell us that it isn't a war crime to torture innocent civilians? Hint, it is...

Are you going to support the US violating human rights and due process, outlined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

You guys are missing the forest for the trees, although I recognize that you have some solid arguments surrounding the ops claims specifically.