Two Stories Collide in the Desert

Over the past two weeks, the world has watched in horror as a potential nuclear holocaust has unfolded in Japan. We have worried and fretted over both the short and long-term health effects of leaking radiation for the Japanese population. Quite a few Americans are even worried about the level of radiation that has come across the ocean to our shores!

This event has caused many to look at the subject of nuclear energy with new eyes. While the industry itself works fervently to convince the public there is little to worry about, this hasn't stopped many from discussing this issue up one side and down the other. The whole subject is in vogue right now.

The other big topic on the minds of many Americans is the undeclared war on Libya. There have been numerous and wide-ranging discussions on the humanitarian need, the overall costs, and whether or not President Obama has the constitutional right to send us into war without congressional approval.

Generally speaking, these two issues would be completely separate as they involve different spheres. In this case, however, these two far flung issues have collided somewhat in the deserts of Libya. As Dave Lindorff writes in "Toxic Intervention: Are NATO Forces Poisoning Libya with Depleted Uranium as They 'Protect' Civilians?"

Images of Libyan civilians and rebels celebrating around the burning hulks of the Libyan army’s tanks and armored personnel carriers, which had been hit by US, French and British aircraft ordnance in the early hours of the US-led assault on the forces of Col. Muammar Gaddafy, could well have been unknowingly inhaling the deadly dust of the uranium weapons favored by Western military forces for anti-tank warfare.

Specifically, the British-built Harrier jets used by British naval air forces and also by US Marine pilots, are often equipped with pod-mounted cannons that fire 20 mm shells -- shells that often have uranium projectiles designed to penetrate heavy armor...It would be a tragic irony if rebels in Libya, after calling for assistance from the US and other NATO countries, succeeded in overthrowing the country’s long-time tyrant Gaddafy, only to have their country contaminated by uranium dust -- the fate already suffered by the peoples of Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.