The Devil’s Arsenal: the weapons of war

….The 2007 law deserves attention for two reasons. One potential concern is for transit and storage by the United States and other NATO members of depleted uranium weapons on and through Belgian territory.  The port of Antwerp has been an important trans-shipment point for material for operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and ISAF.  The other is the implications of the law for Belgium’s position on depleted uranium issues in international for a.  On the first point, we have been assured by Werner Bauwens, Director of the Non-Proliferation and Export Controls Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that the law will not impact transit or storage of such weapons  by the United States and NATO…

Earlier this year the Courier Mail reported: Australia does not use depleted uranium. The official line is Australian troops can only come into contact with DU if they serve alongside NATO forces, such as the US, which use it extensively….Tony Halter, a 13 year navy and army veteran, offers chilling insight into his exposure to depleted uranium used in the field.  His proficiency with Arabic, Farsi and Pashtun got him deployed to Afghanistan….”In the Shah-i-Kot Valley where Australians are now, you kneel down to avoid some clown firing at you and say, ‘Oh look, there’s some’,” he said of DU munitions.  Halter said bullets and bombs were marked with a DU sign spray-painted in yellow…

Recently Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the U.S. led foreign forces of using weapons with nuclear components. The Cyprus Green Party called on its government to investigate the risk of allowing Canadian forces to clean their potentially radioactive vehicles in Cyprus. Significantly, 148 states supported a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on state users of depleted uranium weapons to reveal where the weapons have been fired when asked to do so by affected countries.

Perhaps the Labor Government may care to explain Australia’s abstention from that vote?

Cluster munitions

A report of the IBA Task Force on Terrorism notes that the U.S. admitted to the use of cluster munitions in ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’. These weapons leave unexploded bomblets over a  wide area, resulting in a lasting risk of civilian casualties both during and long after conflict.  They added that only in extreme theoretical situation where cluster munitions were to be used on combatants only, with all unexploded ordainments cleared post conflict,  would the use of cluster munitions respect the principal of distinction between combatants and civilians.  The U.S. has not yet ratified the convention on cluster munitions which is now in force as regards its state parties.

What is our Labor Government’s response to cables alleging that it secretly worked with the United States to weaken a key international treaty to ban cluster bombs?

Human Terrain System (HTS) & Biometrics

HTS is an U.S. Army-led initiative that includes anthropologists helping U.S. troops better understand local customs to avoid cultural mishaps.

In 2007 the American Anthropological Association expressed its disapproval of the HTS program because:

As members of HTS teams, anthropologists provide information and counsel to US military field commanders.  This poses a risk that information provided by HTS anthropologists could be used to make decisions about identifying and selecting specific populations as targets of US military operations either in the short or long term…. it creates conditions which are likely to place anthropologists in positions in which their work will be in violation of the AAA Code of Ethics and that its use of anthropologists poses a danger to both the anthropologists and persons other anthropologists study. 

I was recently contacted by an American source who suggested that: