GUEST BLOG: Martin and Lois Griffiths – PATH TO SANITY

Depleted Uranium! The US admits to using Depleted Uranium in Syria.

 I thought the world had stopped using Depleted Uranium years ago. We used to have here in Christchurch a small group, DUET, Depleted Uranium Education Team. Three of our members spoke to a select committee , calling for, if I remember correctly, our Government to follow the example of the Belgian Government and ban our  NZ Forces from  having  anything to do with DU weapons.

I first heard about DU at a talk after the First Gulf War, given by visiting Swedish peace people, at the Christchurch Quaker Meeting House . They passed around photos of horribly deformed foetuses from Iraq, caused by DU.

Militaries like to use DU, a waste product from the nuclear industry because it very cheap and effective. Missiles made with DU can tear right through a tank, as if were made of butter.

The military defenders argue that the alpha rays emitted from  DU  are harmless, as the fissile part of uranium 235 has been removed .

Harmless ? Yes and no. Coal burning the fireplace is harmless but a hot coal in your mouth is very harmful. When a DU missile pierces a tank say, it burns at a very high temperature creating  fine aerosol particles. Outside the body these are harmless but if inhaled or ingested the alpha particles damage DNA, hence the deformed foetuses. Iraq has been left so DU polluted that women in some areas have been advised not to have babies.

Shame on the US. Perhaps the PM or Mr McCully could diplomatically rise this with the US?

Another issue Martin and I have taken up in the past has to do with cluster bombs. Whenever cluster bombs are used, some remain unexploded, ready to keep on killing after hostilities cease.

Depleted Uranium missiles should be banned, cluster bombs should be banned , white phosphorus used on populated areas should be banned, biological weapons should be banned, whatever type of bomb that still litters  Laos should banned.

Nuclear weapons should be banned. There are real fears that some day, nuclear weapons will be used maybe as a result of a misunderstanding. Wasn’t Obama awarded a Peace Prize in anticipation that he would oppose nuclear weapons? And now Obama has allocated a trillion dollars  to ‘modernize’ the US nuclear arsenal.

Drone warfare, turning indiscriminate killing into computer games, should be banned.

Now we’re told that cyber warfare is the up and coming WMD. (Did anyone see the film Zero Days?)

What’s really going on? Why are more and more resources and scientific ingenuity being employed in weaponry? Don’t the world’s powerful understand that the survival of our species depends on facing the reality of possible runaway climate change? Don’t the world’s powerful understand that we, all of humanity, are in this together.

Maybe it’s to do with money, big money. Governments are  willing lavish obscene sums on military corporations. Arms fairs are held, tempting governments into buying the latest in killing technology. It’s time for civil society  to demand that the world  ban war, not just individual weapons such as Depleted Uranium, but war.

A good start would be for civil society to shut down  arms fairs, such as the one about to be held in Auckland.

New Zealand could by example lead the world down a path to sanity.

Lois and Martin Griffiths are retired teachers who share an interest in justice issues, peace issues, Palestine.