Customer Reviews

Metal of Dishonor-Depleted Uranium: How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers & Civilians with DU Weapons

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Another excellent book by Clark. Ask yourself if the our government has ever lied to us or ever kept the facts from us...and you'll see why metal of dishonor isnt promoted by our political intelligensia, its a book for people who have consciousness, not some so called patriots whose tribalistic nationalism refuses to acknowledge that the US committed crimes against humanity in the Middle East and beyond.

Some reviewers have attacked this book as representing the far left and antiwar perspective. I think this consideration is beside the point. I consider myself in both categories, but find this book to be a dismal collection of unscientific and fully erroneous essays. A couple of the essay authors take a more cautious perspective; they raise questions that must be addressed and point out irresponsibility and dishonesty within the Department of Defense. These contributors, however, are in the minority. The majority of the contributing essays are based on rumors (found to be false) and some essays fall into the category of the bizarre. If you are interested in gaining a better insight into the depleted uranium issue, check out some of the serious scientific studies (e.g., the study by the Royal Society).

Because this book can be held up as an example of antiwar stupidity, it does a great disservice to those of us who are trying to end the war in Iraq and hold the current administration accountable for war crimes and their attack on our civil liberties.

This book distorts the truth from the title through the end. The reviewer who claims that Cheney had anything to do with depleted uranium is just venting their frustration with a war gone horribly wrong in Iraq. DU has two purposes, to kill tanks and to protect tanks. The kinetic energy penetrator, a small diameter metal rod made of DU alloyed with Titanium, was developed because nothing that the US had in the 60's would penetrate the armor of the modern Soviet tank and thousands of these tanks were poised on the border expected to begin World War III. The Army developed the DU penetrator and the Air Force developed the A-10 close support aircraft tank killer to fire the 30mm penetrator. Before the Gulf War, the A-10 production line was shut down and the airplanes were being retired to the bone yard; then it was used against Saddam's thousands of tanks and it worked as advertised. The DU penetrator did penetrate modern armor and did kill tanks. There is one large group of people who should be in this discussion; the US tank crews who are still alive today because they had a one-shot, one-kill DU projectile and because many of them had "heavy armor", DU clad in steel armor plate. These two advances brought American and UK tank crews home. Do any of you readers know any of them? Why do they not speak out about the "magic bullet" that saved their lives? It is time that they did instead of letting a bunch of anti-depleted uranium crusaders mix politics with pseudoscience and dominate the debate. If you would like to learn about depleted uranium, Uranium 238, the most common isotope of naturally occuring uranium, go to the website depletedcraniumdotcom or go to the Yahoo Group DUStory. If you write me at DUStorydashowneratyahoogroupsdotcom, I will write back to you.

I've just begun reading it but I'm already finding it very important both for its content and for its reference material. I interlibrary-loaned the book, which took...three or four months to obtain. The copy I have is a never before read copy from Manhattanville College in New York. I only hope that I don't remain the only reader.

I appreciate that there are apologists for the US military's use of depleted uranium, just as there were for the use of the atomic bomb and phosphorus bombs on the civilian populations of Japan and Germany. This time our soldiers are also being injured as a result of the use of this form of ammo, just as troops were the casualties of their own mustard gas when the wind would shift after a barrage. But only someone who safely sits at home and has never witnessed war first hand can be so purposely ignorant and unfeeling about the horrors inflicted both on soldiers and on innocent civilians, including babies still in their mothers' wombs. The half-life of U238 (DU is 99% U238) is 4.5 billion years! Uranium byproducts(such as Thorium (Th232)) have even longer half-lives, making uranium an element that gets more radioactive during its own decay process. US Army field manuals (copies of which are easily obtained) indicate that those who handle DU contaminated vehicles or DU injured individuals must wear gas masks and protective radiological suits. Around 9,640 tanks shells and 850,000 aircraft 30mm rounds were used during the first Gulf war. This translates to nearly 650,000 pounds of actual DU deposited on Iraqi soil! That's a lot of nuclear waste! And far more ammo has been used over the past 6 years with the current invasion and occupation of Iraq. And when the projectile cuts through the armor, the DU penetrator and parts of the tank get so hot that it literally vaporizes and 18-70% of the DU usually oxidizes depending upon the type of impact. Direct impact yields 99% oxidization. A Uranium oxide (which consists of insoluble UO2 and soluble UO3) aerosol forms, where 50-96% of the particles are less than 10 microns and hence can be inhaled easily. So it is hardly a surprise when tons of radioactive vapor is released into the air and contaminates the sand over hundreds of square miles that there has been a health impact for the inhabitants which include US soldiers stationed in Iraq for repeated 6-10 month tours of duty.

While these dry facts can be easily ignored by the war mongers, it is harder to ignore the thousands of pictures of badly deformed babies that have been born in Iraq over the past 5 years. No one with a heart or a conscience would consider this anything but barbaric and truly war crimes of historic proportions. We are talking about the destruction of a country's people for countless generations just to make it possible for US oil companies to get no-bid contracts at the point of US guns.

Metal of Dishonor is mandatory reading for anyone interested in learning the truth about the lengths the government will go to dominate the world. This is part of the so-called New World Order, under which the gap between rich and poor has spread even wider.

Iraq was just one victim of this global aggression cloaked in phony platitudes about preserving democracy and human rights.

U.S. troops, as always, are just cannon fodder. The people or Iraq, who were also victimized by the use of depleted uranium are viewed as being less than human in order to justify attacking them.

Reminds you of how racism was used to justify the trade in African people who were enslaved.

This is just another book that tries to blame radiation for something bad, in this case Gulf War Syndrome. The anti nukes cast about for something bad and then find the nearest man-made radiation source. BINGO, that particular man-made radiation caused the problem.

This book has 28 chapthers, each by a different author, each grinding his/her own axe - usually the same old tired (and wrong) argument that man-made radiation causes whatever evil is the subject of the day.

In this book, the anti-nukes exploit our veterans to push their own agenda. Shame on them.

In this book Caldicott messages truths to match her left wing leanings. If you are to the far left you will love this book.