I do not want to minimize the consequences of war, but this article has no plausibility.
DU is toxic, but the main hazard is inhaling the dust. That's likely not a big issue unless you're near impacting rounds...
We talk about semi-desert environment where dust flies all around, and it doesn't become easily locked in soil like in more humid environment. If you live a kilometer downwind from place where an A-10 smashed some iraqi tanks with DU ammunition, you have clear source of exposure.
Regardless why isn’t there a growing movement to call the perpetrators of this war criminals?
You're kidding right?
Before the US invasion, the largest protests in the world happened all over the world against it and it didn't do anything.
> Social movement researchers have described the 15 February protest as "the largest protest event in human history"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_prot...
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-attitudes-towa...
Obama seemed to have the dream of stopping the partisan bickering and reuniting the country, prosecuting the former presidential administration would not have helped with that (not that this dream/mission got anywhere close to reality in his 8 years).
Another reason was prosecuting them would've meant subsequent administrations would look for any wrongdoing they could use against the previous admin. (Well, this is what the GOP did anyway, say with Benghazi).
This applies even when international courts have found the US guilty, since the US does not recognize the authority of international courts against them. See the case of the mining of Nicaragua's harbors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
As a point of comparison, regular U-238 is present at low levels all over the place in Colorado, it's naturally in the rock & soil. As long as the amounts are low, the radiation is low, and it mostly stays put, it's not a big problem.
This particular instance is horrible but also unimportant. The US killed literally thousands of civilians when they invaded in 2003. There is a long, long list of worse things that the US military has done; even ignoring anything prior to the Iraq invasion in 2003.
https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2016/09/29/the-toxicit...
In other words, the article admits that the author does not really know about the toxicity effects of DE and uses lead only as a best guess.
Furthermore, the article clearly distinguishes between the toxic effects and radioactive effects. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than the usual uranium, but it is still plenty radioactive. And the effects of radioactivity are pretty bad when you are breathing the stuff in.
That said, what was done here is despicable and it is clear evidence of a war crime.
Copper, lead, whatever else, should contaminate all around as fine dust.
No it isn't, it's the government that we find deeply grubby. And this subject is unrelated to china.
China deserves all the bashing it gets (and some more), but news of past weeks are very biased only and precisely against it. Like it would be, I dunno, orchestrated or something.
