Israel - Iran and regional players | Please post respectfully and stay on topic
- Thread starter Raoul
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Were the yanks dropping these in Iraq?
Yup, kids are still being born with defects to this day around Mosul as a result.
Jesus fecking christ, that's monstrous. Dropping dirty bombs is absolutely disgusting and something I thought even America would be against. Fecking terrorists.
I don't even understand the logic or the case to be made - from the military perspective - in dropping these bombs. Nuclear radiation devices. Also used in ammunition if I;m not mistaken (rounds). Again, I do not understand the reasoning behind it. There is absolutely no ethical consideration which goes into it.
It's straight up terrorism, nothing else can explain that behaviour.
This is hugely misleading.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ible_effects_on_cancer_and_birth_defect_rates
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7903104/
The main issues regarding cancer are in Baghdad, not Mosul, and the rise in Mosul of problems falls in line with practically all other places.
The paper said that there is an increase in cancer that *could* be attributed to depleted Uranium - but there is no direct link.
Soldiers who directly handled Depleted Uranium on a regular basis had higher rates of cancer than those who did not, and those who served in places with depleted Uranium exposure from shells do not have a higher rate of cancer than places which does not.
A shit tonne of research funded by the West and by Iraqi institutions have tried to link the two together but nobody has been able to do so. Most major militaries use DU because the radioactive properties remaining are not any more carinogenic than hundreds of other weapons that are used.
There are just too many carcinogenics in war, and DU munitions have not shown to have higher rates of birth defects / cancer than simply breathing in smoke from spotter flares or dust from explosion residue.
But because it's got "Uranium" in it, everyone freaks out, just like "White Phosphorus" in flare munitions.
When both are legal, accepted, methods of war that have had multiple studies and research into their applications.
It is radioactive*, unless the physics is not borne out by the description. It - depleted uranium - causes all sorts of cancers. Again, if there is some alteration in the munitions which does not exist in the general sense, I'd be glad to know.
Also, why bother with it at all?
(given as "mildly" by various sources, but obviously radioactive all the same).
I think that's the pertinent question. Moreover why on civilian dense areas?
Has to be said, it's also a matter of pick your journal/scholar when it comes to this stuff.
"
Uranium-238 is an alpha radioactive emitter. On degradation, it shoots mainly alpha, and to a lesser quantity beta particles. Man, in and around the battle field, is exposed to DU hazards by radiation, inhalation, swallowing, and wound contamination. In the human body, DU is nephro-toxic, it is mostly excreted via the kidney causing acute nephritis, however, it is also excreted in the semen, and uranyl ions infiltrate the testes, ovaries, placenta, embryo, and central nervous system."
"
Uranium-238 is an alpha radioactive emitter. On degradation, it shoots mainly alpha, and to a lesser quantity beta particles. Man, in and around the battle field, is exposed to DU hazards by radiation, inhalation, swallowing, and wound contamination. In the human body, DU is nephro-toxic, it is mostly excreted via the kidney causing acute nephritis, however, it is also excreted in the semen, and uranyl ions infiltrate the testes, ovaries, placenta, embryo, and central nervous system."
You are more likely to get cancer from living below sea-level and being close to sources of Radon than you are to get cancer from Depleted Uranium.
The danger posed from DU is not from radiation poisoning, but from the chemical toxic composition of the munitions themselves.
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/h...t_Ukraine_conflict.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
As for the why?
It's mainly used as an armour piercing round found on tanks. It's used in Armoured Combat. Nobody is lobbing shells of DU into civilian populations.
That's what I presumed (at tanks and also through heavy/massive walls).
However, there are a lot of journals and scholars who link DU directly to birth defects.
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...s-exposed-to-war-dust.pdf?ref=hir.harvard.edu
You could go journal for journal (just take a look at Google scholar) on the matter. But as benign as some would have it, it is still nuclear/radioactive (in alpha rays). I don't see the point in risking it. It's hardly a consensus either way so why bother? And ,it has to be said, what tanks were the Americans/British firing at? There were none after about three days when the entire Iraqi army surrendered.
What armoured resistance are they up against in Lebanon?
Oh I was talking about why UK/US used it in the gulf wars given context was about mosul.
I have no idea why Israel would need it.
Going line by line:
From the first paper you link:
About 1200 tonnes of ammunition were dropped on Iraq during the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003. As a result, contamination occurred in more than 350 sites in Iraq. Currently, Iraqis are facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7000 to 8000 new ones registered each year. In Baghdad cancer incidences per 100,000 population have increased, just as they have also increased in Basra. The overall incidence of breast and lung cancer, Leukaemia and Lymphoma, has doubled even tripled. The situation in Mosul city is similar to other regions. Before the Gulf Wars Mosul had a higher rate of cancer, but the rate of cancer has further increased since the Gulf Wars.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mosul-sites-studied-for-Uranium-contamination_fig1_237013467
I don't see how this is in line with "no effect of DU"
From the second:
Most studies (n=30, 83%) reported a positive association between uranium exposure and adverse health outcomes. However, we found that the reviewed body of evidence suffers from a high risk of bias.
"Direct link" from your quote in the case of cancer or birth defects means a biochemical mechanism. This means studies on cell culture and mice. These are expensive, time-consuming, and not typically done by the same groups collecting disease data from patients. I'm not an epidemologist but this chain of evidence (from a 2020 paper) looks very solid to me:
Finally, it is a bit insane to think DU wouldn't cause birth defects. Uranium is a (very) heavy metal. heavy metal toxicity is a known problem, from things like lead and mercury. Leaving aside the radioactivity of DU, as a heavy metal, it is logical to assume, absent convincing evidence the other way (which doesn't exist), that it is highly toxic.
And yes, people freak out just from the name white phosphorous, what fools they are. It's not because it literally burns you entirely to death, and because its use on civilian housing has been documented in multiple Israeli "mowings of the lawn".
Is there a significant difference between the toxicity resulting from depleted uranium munitions compared to say lead, which I assume is what is ordinarily used?
Going line by line:
From the first paper you link:
About 1200 tonnes of ammunition were dropped on Iraq during the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003. As a result, contamination occurred in more than 350 sites in Iraq. Currently, Iraqis are facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7000 to 8000 new ones registered each year. In Baghdad cancer incidences per 100,000 population have increased, just as they have also increased in Basra. The overall incidence of breast and lung cancer, Leukaemia and Lymphoma, has doubled even tripled. The situation in Mosul city is similar to other regions. Before the Gulf Wars Mosul had a higher rate of cancer, but the rate of cancer has further increased since the Gulf Wars.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mosul-sites-studied-for-Uranium-contamination_fig1_237013467
I don't see how this is in line with "no effect of DU"
From the second:
Most studies (n=30, 83%) reported a positive association between uranium exposure and adverse health outcomes. However, we found that the reviewed body of evidence suffers from a high risk of bias.
"Direct link" from your quote in the case of cancer or birth defects means a biochemical mechanism. This means studies on cell culture and mice. These are expensive, time-consuming, and not typically done by the same groups collecting disease data from patients. I'm not an epidemologist but this chain of evidence (from a 2020 paper) looks very solid to me:
Finally, it is a bit insane to think DU wouldn't cause birth defects. Uranium is a (very) heavy metal. heavy metal toxicity is a known problem, from things like lead and mercury. Leaving aside the radioactivity of DU, as a heavy metal, it is logical to assume, absent convincing evidence the other way (which doesn't exist), that it is highly toxic.
And yes, people freak out just from the name white phosphorous, what fools they are. It's not because it literally burns you entirely to death, and because its use on civilian housing has been documented in multiple Israeli "mowings of the lawn".
Yes, sorry if I wasn't clear, my qualms with the claim was related to the terms like "Dirty Bomb" which implies radiation is the main concern, which it is not.
Regarding DU munitions causing toxicity, it is true but no more toxic than hundreds of other armaments that are regularly used in war. My main point of contest was that the radiation side of DU was problematic, not that there were no bad side effects.
On the flip side, which the paper even concludes at the bottom, there were so many munition types used in the war. It is almost impossible to decide which one is the one causing the health problems. The only known source of medium term health problems is actually munitions of any kind taking down housing/walls and asbesdos exposure.
It's why it's used in Kinetic penetrator munitions by the way, of all the alternatives research over half a century, DU is actually so far the safest and least toxic AP round. HEAT for example, is even worse than AP when it comes to health considerations.
White phosphorus on it's own is fine, accepted and not banned under any kind. All basic training in all NATO countries exposes you to White phosphorus on a daily basis, all ground operations involve white phosphorus in some ways. All smoke grenades, flares, etc are primarily WP. They are not banned, they are perfectly allowed to be used and is used by every military in the world.
Using WP as a fuel source for incendiary munitions is what is banned. But know-it-alls on Twitter see some white smoke popping up somewhere and immediately start generating noise about war crimes when that application is specifically and explicitly declared to be legal and acceptable.
Actual WP Incendiary munitions produce zero white smoke whatsoever.
Lead is far worse, which is why it's not even considered for AP despite it being cheaper to procure.
For context guys,
Every single US tank in service is covered in 5 tonnes of Depleted Uranium.
Assad in Syria? Use of WP and condemned. What was the difference? And as it is a gas which does, as you expect, gas people, I don't see how anyone with an ounce of ethic can claim it is fine just because a law tells them so. That's zombie thinking. Almost everything that happens in war is a crime tolerated by law.
Assad used White phosphorus incendiary munitions, which are banned
Sophistry to me. People have choked and been burned by the presence of WP just generically (not the catechism of incendiary munitions and whole gamut of fetishized laws which tell you what is good or evil in war: spoiler alert, it's all evil.
Sorry but who on earth is setting off pure WP gas anyway?
The general WP use in all militaries is to slow-burn in a containerized low heat mechanism that generates white smoke.
Every single damn military in the world uses it:
We used to set off WP grenades in Barracks during ceremonies, guess we're all evil feckers trying to kill each other.
You ever fired a flare? That's white phosphorus. You ever seen a smoke machine? Small chance of it being WP.
Seen a tank fire a protective screen of smoke? WP.
All new recruits going through basic has to do training courses while under cover of a thick layer of smoke made from....you guessed it....WP!
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/white-phosphorus
Many have set off WP. You can find it on Wiki or any scholarly historical site. Being some kind of military historian, why should I have to show you? The israelis do it. That everyone does it (which I doubt, to the same usage...) doesn't mean anything.
Is there any military weapon you will not find some way to defend because you happen to drink the military koolaid. A kind of cult. Complete fetish.
Rode an atomic bomb from an airplane, does that make me insane? Aye.
The smoke from burning phosphorus is also harmful to the eyes and respiratory tract due to the presence of phosphoric acids and phosphine.
I, and all my friends, must be actually Marvel characters, for the tens of hours we've spent in White Phosphorus smoke without any respiratory or eye problems!
Or there are obvious degrees of what is harmful in WP practice and what is not which you note and also entirely avoid. This is obviously the correct answer.
Or the WHO is just fabricating. Whatever.
Really appreciate all the insight @AfonsoAlves. Hope you never leave this site 
I wanted to post a bracketed *on a serious note* and write that but I found it much more amusing to serve your indignation.
Hint: Most military legal uses of WP are perfectly acceptable: unless you're an unlucky sod where an air launched flare lands directly on your head from a very low altitude flight.
On a serious note, that makes you a terrible interlocutor. Even if you think yourself correct, and capable of refutation, you'll prefer to rile people up or play into what you perceive as indignation for a laugh (by your own admission, not my allegation).. Congratulations.
For the record:
The Israeli army fired artillery shells containing white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, in military operations along Lebanon’s southern border between 10 and 16 October 2023, Amnesty International said today. One attack on the town of Dhayra on 16 October must be investigated as a war crime because it was an indiscriminate attack that injured at least nine civilians and damaged civilian objects, and was therefore unlawful, said the organization.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/n...lebanon-as-cross-border-hostilities-escalate/
That meets your own threshold. Unless you are right about everything, and I'm not trying to draw you into a pointless argument, and all the various journals, scholars, and human rights organizations are wrong.
"Set off WP", not release it in it's pure gas form, because it's pointless. It just turns into an explosion anyway.
Nobody has released WP in its pure gas form because it just burns when exposed to the air - so you have to put it in a munition of sorts. Sorry if you feel if this is pedantic but for me this is a clear distrinction.
I oppose most if not all biological weapons, I oppose white phosphorous munitions (just not what you're describing), I oppose all thermobarics even though they're legal. I've seen the consequences of them.
I oppose massed tube artillery as a method of war in urban warfare and I most vehmently oppose civilian terror bombing.
Stop putting words into my mouth.
I understand this (the first line). But the Israelis have put it into munitions.
I agree with the other two lines and we are basically not arguing now. Nor am I trying to put words into your mouth, your posts are on the record by themselves, but rather trying to understand some facts regarding principles which you have just now given to me.
I don't do this on a regular basis, even those I diametrically believe are not only wrong but bad faith actors, I engage in good faith with. Check the Ukraine thread for that. I just think you taking the ridiculous moral high horse on this one is absurd.
The last one, we've discussed this in the Palestine thread.
It's legal, there was a provision added to the geneva convention that Artillery shells with WP as a secondary illuminatory function is legal.
I'm not defending Israel. I'm defending what is and what is not acceptable from a legal standpoint. Don't confuse the two.
Do I think setting off dual purpose WP munitions in civilian centers is disgusting? Yeah.
Is it technically legal? Yeah.
This explains why one wouldn't want to be in the path of burning white phosphorus:
Here is how it is used by Israel:
It was repeated over time and in different locations, with the IDF "air-bursting" the munition in populated areas up to the last days of its military operation. Even if intended as an obscurant rather than as a weapon, the IDF's repeated firing of air-burst white phosphorus shells from 155mm artillery into densely populated areas was indiscriminate and indicates the commission of war crimes. [...] the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus in populated areas until the last days of the operation reveals a pattern or policy of conduct rather than incidental or accidental usage. In one of the cases documented in this report – the January 15 strike on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) headquarters in Gaza City – the IDF kept firing white phosphorus despite repeated warnings from UN personnel about the danger to civilians.
In the crowded Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, for example, Israeli forces on January 15 fired air-burst white phosphorus directly over homes and apartment buildings where civilians were living or taking shelter, killing at least four civilians from one family. On that day, white phosphorus shells struck the al-Quds Hospital and its administration building run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, setting parts of the hospital on fire and forcing the evacuation of about 50 patients and 500 neighborhood residents who had taken refuge there.
At another well-marked UN facility – a school in Beit Lahiya sheltering roughly 1,600 displaced persons – the IDF air-burst at least three white phosphorus shells on January 17, the day before the cessation of major hostilities. One discharged shell landed in a classroom, killing two brothers who were sleeping and severely injuring their mother and a cousin. The attack wounded another 12 people and set a classroom on fire. As with all of its facilities in Gaza, the UN had provided the IDF with the GPS coordinates of the school prior to military operations.
In the attacks on the UNRWA compound and the UN Beit Lahiya school, Human Rights Watch's investigation revealed no military justification for using white phosphorus as an obscurant because Israeli forces were not on the ground in those areas at the time of the attacks. When queried by Human Rights Watch by letter about these incidents, the IDF declined to respond, citing its ongoing investigation.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/25/rain-fire/israels-unlawful-use-white-phosphorus-gaza
Here is how it is used by Israel:
It was repeated over time and in different locations, with the IDF "air-bursting" the munition in populated areas up to the last days of its military operation. Even if intended as an obscurant rather than as a weapon, the IDF's repeated firing of air-burst white phosphorus shells from 155mm artillery into densely populated areas was indiscriminate and indicates the commission of war crimes. [...] the repeated use of air-burst white phosphorus in populated areas until the last days of the operation reveals a pattern or policy of conduct rather than incidental or accidental usage. In one of the cases documented in this report – the January 15 strike on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) headquarters in Gaza City – the IDF kept firing white phosphorus despite repeated warnings from UN personnel about the danger to civilians.
In the crowded Gaza City neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, for example, Israeli forces on January 15 fired air-burst white phosphorus directly over homes and apartment buildings where civilians were living or taking shelter, killing at least four civilians from one family. On that day, white phosphorus shells struck the al-Quds Hospital and its administration building run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, setting parts of the hospital on fire and forcing the evacuation of about 50 patients and 500 neighborhood residents who had taken refuge there.
At another well-marked UN facility – a school in Beit Lahiya sheltering roughly 1,600 displaced persons – the IDF air-burst at least three white phosphorus shells on January 17, the day before the cessation of major hostilities. One discharged shell landed in a classroom, killing two brothers who were sleeping and severely injuring their mother and a cousin. The attack wounded another 12 people and set a classroom on fire. As with all of its facilities in Gaza, the UN had provided the IDF with the GPS coordinates of the school prior to military operations.
In the attacks on the UNRWA compound and the UN Beit Lahiya school, Human Rights Watch's investigation revealed no military justification for using white phosphorus as an obscurant because Israeli forces were not on the ground in those areas at the time of the attacks. When queried by Human Rights Watch by letter about these incidents, the IDF declined to respond, citing its ongoing investigation.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/25/rain-fire/israels-unlawful-use-white-phosphorus-gaza
The invasion of Iraq, by many, was declared legal. It was entirely criminal. War is almost always, with some conventions, such as banning of various weapons by many/all parties, illegal but covered by law.
The case of the Israelis using WP in Gaza historically and currently. It was used as a munition, qua human rights orgs, just last year. Now, you should know the answer to the next question: bearing in mind that the Israelis used WP without going into Gaza, in the past, what use can it have as cover? What can be its use if there are no troops and/or tanks-etc to cover? In the past, the Israelis have done this with no incursion into Gaza at all.
None, it's manipulating a loophole to enact punitive destruction on people and infrastructure.
You can condemn it as such though without resorting to war crimes, which is what a lot of people were doing.
This is what I'm getting at, or wanted you to explain (not some expedition into self-righteousness). I wanted to know what you think about the disjuncture between the practice (covered by law) and the law itself. You seem to be of my opinion that WP, used as weapon, ought to be banned. And that was the general point I was trying to settle.
All the leaks were that all the top foreign policy guys in the Biden administration were excited about this war. Now, this is pretty much being confirmed by everyone including Harris. I believe the US goes into these negotiations knowing that nothing will come out of them in the end, it only serves as a diplomatic cover to whatever Israel is planning. These plans are almost guaranteed known by the US.
Muslims dying is good for muslims.
Feck me, when you consider the ramifications, this is evil.. from the BBC website..
Israel struck vital irrigation infrastructure in Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon, causing heavy damage and endangering Lebanon’s food security, according to Sami Alawieh, the head of the Litani River National Authority.
Israeli strikes first hit a main irrigation canal in the Arzay area northeast of Tyre, destroying it and cutting off water from much of the southern coast of Lebanon - from the outskirts of Sidon to the outskirts of Naqoora, he says.
Then, it struck roads leading to the main pumping station in Qasmiyeh, further south from Arzay, he adds.
“They hit all our means of distributing water,” Alawieh tells the BBC.
Water from the damaged channel flooded nearby agricultural land, causing widespread losses.
“This is civilian infrastructure, protected by international humanitarian law,” he says. “This could be a war crime and a systemic policy aimed at preventing Lebanon from exploiting its water resources.”
The BBC has approached the Israeli military for comment.
Israel struck vital irrigation infrastructure in Lebanon on Tuesday afternoon, causing heavy damage and endangering Lebanon’s food security, according to Sami Alawieh, the head of the Litani River National Authority.
Israeli strikes first hit a main irrigation canal in the Arzay area northeast of Tyre, destroying it and cutting off water from much of the southern coast of Lebanon - from the outskirts of Sidon to the outskirts of Naqoora, he says.
Then, it struck roads leading to the main pumping station in Qasmiyeh, further south from Arzay, he adds.
“They hit all our means of distributing water,” Alawieh tells the BBC.
Water from the damaged channel flooded nearby agricultural land, causing widespread losses.
“This is civilian infrastructure, protected by international humanitarian law,” he says. “This could be a war crime and a systemic policy aimed at preventing Lebanon from exploiting its water resources.”
The BBC has approached the Israeli military for comment.