Re: Depleted Uranium

[David Sciacchitano <ralevy@erols.com>]

Why do you say this position is "not-well thought out"?

DU ordnance is dangerous and the consequences of its use may present both
NATO and Serbia with problems of cleanup that will be difficult and
expensive to address, but Kosovo is a real place, with real victims of a
massive and continuing atrocity, and with real soldiers and airmen risking
their lives on a daily basis in an effort to stop what the Serbians are
doing there.  War is a terrible and deadly business for those involved,
whatever weapons are used or not used.

DU can be cleaned up, albeit with difficulty, can it not?  But victims of
gang rape cannot be unraped, and executed boys and teenagers, and dead
mothers and fathers and grandparents, cannot be brought back to life.  
The resettlement and reconstruction of Kosovo, if it ever takes place,
will be far beyond any part of that effort that might be required to clean
up DU and other dangerous ordnance.

You have an admirable passion regarding the use of such deadly weapons but
what do you advocate as a realistic alternative?  Should the U.S. and
Europe turn a blind eye to atrocities in Kosovo, or prosecute the war with
less energy, because to do something entails more risk and danger than to
do nothing?  Or because there are other civil wars around the world where
there are atrocities occurring and where NATO chooses not to be involved?

Should more lives be sacrificed, in a war that has already gone well
beyond a level of destruction either side imagined, for a neat principal
or an admirable goal, and no more?  Is it better to let thousands die
today to prevent a potential threat to people in the future?  If you,
yourself, were in the position of having to decide whether or not to use
such weapons, and to accept the responsibility personally for the
consequences of your decision in human lives, would you find it so easy to
dismiss the views of those in favor of the use of such weapons as "not
well thought out"?