RantsCounterRants:  Follow-up on the economic of war…

 

The following post is in response to comment(s) from my esteemed Salon Blog colleague, Jan Haugland.  You can catch his rebuttal post and more of our exchange at his site.

 

Jan --

 

I am not laying the entirety of blame for 'Gulf War Syndrome' at the door of DU -- it very much appears to have multiple causes, stress and other biological/chemical exposures being potential agents as well as exposure to DU.  The fact that there were multiple agents makes the puzzlingly broad range of GWS symptoms understandable.  To date, DU has not been conclusively ruled out as a contributing factor to some portion of GWS cases. 

 

I do not absolve DU of any toxicity, whether as radiologically or chemically active agent.  The Pugwash report you supplied does not do so either, nor does Dai Williams' report referenced in the Wired article.  Note these particular comments from the Pugwash report:

 

At the moment all we can say technically is: (i) we must control doses to all those most exposed to risk; and, (ii) such doses must be ALARP (as low as reasonably practical).

 

This, in the absence of a body of independently researched, clear and persuasive information that confirm DU is NOT toxic when used in weaponry.  The Gulf War use of DU was not a "controlled" application, limiting exposure to combatants only; there is nothing to suggest that any pending/potential application in another assault on Iraq will be any more "controlled" than the last time.  If anything, Pugwash's report emphasizes the need for public debate over what exactly is "ALARP".

 

I'm sure anyone living in a country with an existing 600,000 pounds of DU forcibly sprinkled across their land in varying concentrations and unspecified radioactivity will have a different opinion of ALARP.

 

The answer to the question(s) is still avoided, in all of these exchanges: why is the cost of clean-up not included upfront in discussions about the economics of war?

 

Does the US military have the right to use DU because it is less expensive to manufacture than tungsten, without taking into consideration the entirety of human costs?

 

Did not the Bush Administration forget to budget monies for Afghanistan this year, being reminded by Hamid Karzai about promises to Afghanistan for reconstruction monies before the amount was subsequently added to the budget?  Will reconstruction AND clean-up be forgotten by the Bush Administration as well?

 

And are these really irrational questions to ask in public venue, before we begin another assault?  As an American citizen, I'm already looking at more than 1 billion in deficits ahead, much of it to fund this war.  I'd like to know what ALL the costs are, economically and socially, for which I and my countrymen will be held accountable.  This country broke away from its parent in part because of taxation without representation -- I'd like to know what the hell my bill is going to be before we start any military action, particularly one I don't support.

 

Norway isn’t going to be picking up any portion of this 1B+ deficit.  Norway will be impacted in any potential/pending Iraqi assault much as they were in the Gulf War.  How easy for you to argue that DU isn’t toxic, implying there’s no resulting costs to either Iraqis or to Americans.  Now that’s irrational.

 

Best regards,

 

~Rayne

 

- - -

 

DU = depleted uranium, used in missiles, particularly "bunker busters" where heavy metals provide additional penetration

GWS = Gulf War Syndrome

ALARP = as low as reasonably practical

 

  11:49:43 AM    comment []

WARNING:  Blogrolling Babysteps in progress

 

The saga continues; I’m still trying to figure out how to use Active Renderer (aR) to produce a blogroll (or other outlined navlinks) at the right hand side of my blog site.

 

I’ve sent an email about the aR site to Marc Parrot; there’s a couple of quirky things going on that suggest the tutorial is expandable, but it’s not cooperating for me.  (He says he’s been playing with the site a bit, could explain what I’ve seen.)  What I have seen so far in aR tells me I need to learn how to outline in Radio first, then migrate to aR.

 

Last night I muddled together my first blogroll, located for the moment at the bottom left under my navigator links.  Woohoo!  My first .opml file!  It’s not pretty, but it’s all mine!

 

(I gotta’ get a life, I am such a cheap date if I can be thrilled over that miniscule accomplishment!)

 

After mucking around with all this, I’ve made a couple of observations:

 

§         I need to take a class in web development; my limited self-taught skills in HTML and XML aren’t enough to keep up with where I want to go.  I’m ready to move up to the next level (although certification isn’t exactly an end goal).

 

§         Blogging is still not entirely a “post-and-play” technology for most of us – those bloggers who have little or no previous experience in HTML, XML, Java, Perl, graphics, website development, etc.  There’s a gap for us that needs to be filled, something for the person who may know the fundamentals of writing but not web publishing.  I’m no idiot, having worked with a number of obscure and pain-in-the-ass applications in both business and I/S, yet I still find myself scratching my head over some of the documentation and terminology available for so-called “simple and personal instant web publishing”.  Most of it still assumes its users possess a certain base level of proficiency or understanding; bad assumption (i.e., do you know where to find a “tray icon” in an application? I do, but the average non-I/S user does not!)

 

Perhaps I shouldn’t kvetch about the invisible barrier(s) to blogging for everyone.  It does mean that only the very determined will be here in the blogosphere.

 

More soon -- hopefully improvements as well.

 

  10:58:23 AM    comment []