Thursday, October 24, 2024

Dropping DU on Gaza and Lebanon

Bludgeoning by Block-Busting Bunker Buster Bombs

by Ingmar Lee - CounterPunch.org

 
October 4, 2024

Throughout the current Genocidal State of Apartheid Israel’s Gommorah-ization of Gaza, gargantuan American-made and supplied “Bunker-Buster”  bombs have been used to level hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and churches, aid-distribution sites, United Nations compounds, tent encampments, orphanages and anywhere else that Gaza’s defenceless, exhausted and innocent citizens gather. 


Biden’s lavish and non-stop gifting of weaponry to Israel includes hundreds of Bunker Busters bombs. Bunker Buster bombing has become an iconic emblem of the American, and by their proxy, Israel’s cooperative ATROCITY now being visited on the strip.

Bunker Busters, also known as “Guided Bomb Units,” (GBU’s) weigh in, on average, at one ton each, but some of them, such as the GBU 28’s and GBU 37’s weigh as much as 5000 lbs. and have the added acronym’s “Massive Ordnance Penetrator” (MOP) and “Mother Of All Bombs” (MOAB). From Wikipedia:

“…The initial batch of GBU-28s was built from modified 8-inch (203 mm) artillery barrels (principally from deactivated M110 howitzers), but later examples are purpose-built with the BLU-113 bomb body made by National Forge of Irvine, Pennsylvania. They weigh 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg) and contain 630 pounds (286 kg) of tritonal explosive. The GBU-28 C/B version uses the 5,000-pound BLU-122 bomb body, which contains AFX-757 explosive in a 4,000-pound (1,800 kg) casing machined from a single piece of ES-1 Eglin steel alloy. The operator illuminates a target with a laser designator and the munition guides itself to the spot of laser light reflected from the target. When the GBU-28 hits the ground, a short-delay time fuze is activated which triggers detonation when it has penetrated deeply enough to completely destroy the target…”

More recently no less than 83 of these massive weapons were fired in a gargantuan block-busting bombardment in the heart of Beirut, which blasted through 6 hi-rise apartment blocks, and then bludgeoned down through solid rock to assassinate Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah. This laser-focused monstrous attack simultaneously killed 100’s of innocent Lebanese civilians. And although the gruesome American bunker buster bomb is, on the WMD destruction cline, only surpassed by the utterly apocalyptic Nuke, methinks these bunker- busters currently being dropped on Palestine and Lebanon are actually, already radioactive.

According to the “How Stuff Works” website:

“…One way to make a bunker buster heavier while maintaining a narrow cross-sectional area is to use a metal that is heavier than steel. Lead is heavier, but it is so soft that it is useless in a penetrator — lead would deform or disintegrate when the bomb hits the target. One material that is both extremely strong and extremely dense is depleted uranium. DU is the material of choice for penetrating weapons because of these properties..”

The one most hideous aspect of the American Bunker-Buster bomb that is, as far as I can see, not being discussed anywhere, is the very real probability that these voracious weapons derive a considerable degree of their massive destructive power from Depleted Uranium. By many accounts, the assassination of Nasrallah was conducted in close consultation with American military intelligence. Clearly, by the sheer size and focus of the assault they knew they were going to have to penetrate deep. It is highly likely that Depleted Uranium-enhanced Bunker Busters were unleashed in that attack.

The American military’s shameless, most cowardly and liberal use of Depleted Uranium munitions, in their Attack, Invasion, Occupation, Torture, Rape and Massacre (never was a “war”) of Iraq, not only caused unprecedented devastation, but has left a lasting Nuclear contamination of the country. The hideous miasma of Depleted Uranium irradiation has been spread not only in Iraq, but everywhere in the world where American weaponry is spewed. Again, from Wikipedia:

More than 782,414 DU rounds were fired during the 1991 war in Iraq, mostly by US forces. In a three-week period of conflict in Iraq during 2003, it was estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of depleted uranium munitions were used.[43] More than 300,000 DU rounds were fired during the 2003 war, the vast majority by US troops. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that between 170 and 1,700 tonnes of depleted uranium was dropped in Iraq by the US military since 2003, whereas the UK reported firing 1.9 tonnes of depleted uranium weapons in said country.

The American irradiation of Iraq has resulted in a subsequent legacy of gruesome birth defects see here . Although there is a vast body of research linking the use of Depleted Uranium in weaponry and grotesque human birth defects, there’s no indication that its use has ever been curtailed by the American for-profit War Machine.

The good people of Gaza, Lebanon and, no doubt, now imminently, Iran, need to be immediately forewarned that they are, almost certainly being, or about to be  irradiated by DU Bunker-Busters being rained down by America and their awful proxy, the Israeli state. Everyone in Beirut needs to be aware that their beautiful city is now most probably blanketed with Geiger-gagging radioactive dust.

Americans, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki already contaminating their national conscience, should not be happy by being joined-at-the-hip to the Israeli warmongers. I would like to assume that by the total absence of any national polling that directly asks Americans (or Canadians, Australians or Europeans) if they support their government’s grovelling obeisance to the Genocidal State of Apartheid Israel, that a considerable majority are opposed. Somehow, in spite of the best efforts of the Israel lobby, I’ve still got some shred of faith in a general goodness of humanity.

It is beyond horrifying that the use of Depleted Uranium munitions continue being normalized by these incessant warmongering belligerents. But it is ever more terrifying right now to see America’s interminable ally, -the Bunker Buster Berserker, Netanyahu- for whom the immense destructive power of American Bunker Busters are not enough, has now gone right off the deep end with Iran, with his twitching finger hovering eagerly over his Nuke trigger…

 

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