World News

22056 readers

120 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Exclusive: US to send depleted-uranium munitions to Ukraine (www.reuters.com)

submitted 1 year ago by jimmydoreisalefty@lemmus.org to c/news@beehaw.org

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmus.org/post/587773

Edit: antiwar article, quotes for both articles

The rounds, which could help destroy Russian tanks, are part of a new military aid package for Ukraine set to be unveiled in the next week. The munitions can be fired from U.S. Abrams tanks that, according to a person familiar with the matter, are expected be delivered to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

Although Britain sent depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine earlier this year, this would be the first U.S. shipment of the ammunition and will likely stir controversy. It follows an earlier decision by the Biden administration to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite concerns over the dangers such weapons pose to civilians.

The United States used depleted uranium munitions in massive quantities in the 1990 and 2003 Gulf Wars and the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia in 1999.

Still, the radioactive material could add to Ukraine's massive post-war clean-up challenge. Parts of the country are already strewn with unexploded ordnance from cluster bombs and other munitions and hundreds of thousands of anti-personnel mines.

https://news.antiwar.com/2023/09/03/us-to-arm-ukraine-with-toxic-depleted-uranium-ammunition/

But at this point in the war, the administration has shown it’s not concerned about damaging Ukraine’s environment. In July, the US started arming Ukraine with cluster bombs, which spread small submunitions over large areas. Unexploded submunitions, or bomblets, can be found by civilians years or decades after use. Because of their history of killing civilians, cluster munitions have been banned by over 100 countries.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] liv@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I get where you're coming from too. Especially since the Russians appear to have added that to their list of crimes. Fight uranium with uranium.

I'm very wary of the argument that people can use whatever weapons they like in their own country. War crimes are a thing in international law for good reason.

I'm a strong supporter of the "court of last resort" the ICC, and I firmly believe that it's the duty of all the world's citizens to oppose war crimes, genocides, and crimes against humanity wherever they occur.

Fighting war crimes with war crimes happens a lot - we have seen it in the past year in Ethiopia as well - but a line has to be drawn somewhere or attrocities keep escalating and everyone becomes monsters.

For me, that line is here. I appreciate that for you the line might be further along though.