Canada’s cost in Afghanistan!

[Mogz]

And MOGZ: I like reading your posts. You can count me among those who respect and agree with what you have to say. Not blindly, mind you ... I like to keep educated on these matters, but it's fantastic to have the opinions of those who have been there, instead of relying on TV and other media (which I don't trust as far as I can throw it, especially the excessively Liberal CBC). Impartiality my a$$.

Thanks for the encouragment. I will say that i'd never want anyone to blindly follow an idea. If you don't agree with the military, or Afghanistan, that is your right as a free person. However it annoys me to no end when someone basis their dislike on rumours, fearmongering, or blatant disinformation. It's refreshing to hear someone say what you did, that you follow a cause and/or ideal only if you're well informed on it. It may have something to do with the fact that you're a fellow Albertan though, smartest people in the Dominion

 

[Jay]

Next to Ontarians that is!

 

[Mogz]

A place to live, a place to grow, Ontari-ari-ari-oh!

I hate you Jay.

 

[I think not]

Are we using you as a frame of reference Jay?

 

[Jay]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afghanistan!

A place to live, a place to grow, Ontari-ari-ari-oh!

I hate you Jay.

:lol: :lol:

 

[Em]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afgh

So is it 4 billion dollars? Did I hear correctly that it has cost Canada 4 billion dollars to date for our involvement in Afghanistan?

I wonder what actual good we could do in the world let alone at home with 4 billion dollars. Are we really getting worth for our dollars? We seem quite selective with our “marching for freedom” while a genocide in Africa takes place. Not to mention children starving in the poor countries. Are we really getting worth for our dollars?

Well, first off, Canada cannot save the world, we can only peck away at one or two issues at a time. Second, I believe that our money is well spent. Even if it was twice as much as you suggest, I believe that if you count the number of lives saved, the number of tortures prevented, all the terror from the Taliban that is now being prevented, the newly organized Afghan military and police, the restructured economy so 9 year old kids don't have to work in poppy fields ... on and on ... if you count all of that, then the world has gotten excellent value for our money spent. As long as some government official is not personally benefitting through some scam. And yes, there are MILLIONS of African people who need assistance. Sudan is simply one of many. Sierra Leone? Yup. DRC (Zaire)? Yup. Zimbabwe? Yeah, they have problems too. Should we help them all out? Well I would love to, but how much do you think we can commit? Our government is proposing to expand the military. That means maybe in a few years we WILL be able to help Afghanistan AND Sudan! There are 6-odd billion people on the planet, and probably 3 of those could benefit from Canadian intervention in some way. SHOULD we? Probably not. We have to select our battles, and when we do, we should stick to it until it's done.

Our last government (and the people of Canada) decided to assist with Afghanistan. So, our new government is saying, "Cool, good, okay, now we need more tools and we need to keep at it until it's all done." I can't believe people are bellyaching about it. You could compare it to a home project ... right now Canada is repairing and renovating one area, lets say I dunno, a bedroom. Do you want to stop half-way through and leave it unfinished so you can start on the bathroom? No, you complete the bedroom first, THEN do the bathroom silly. That's where we're at. (IMO).

And yes, Alberta is the greatest place on Earth. GO OILERS!!!

 

[Jay]

Are we using you as a frame of reference Jay?

Well not everyone in Ontario is as briliant as I...

 

[Socrates the Greek]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afghanistan!

And we're off:

1.

Dead soldiers in body bags are coming back home more frequent then originally thought!

You call this frequent? 15 soldiers since 2001? I'm sorry my friend, but that isn't frequent by any stretch of the imagination. The U.S. loses anywhere from 4-10 soldiers KIA in Iraq A DAY. Furthermore our death count is highly misleading. Yes 15 soldiers have been killed, but how many by direct contact with the enemy? 8:

2 by an IED
1 by suicide bomber
4 by IED
1 by gunshot wound

The other 7 have been killed by accidents:

4 by a U.S. F-16
3 by vehicle accidents

The 7 killed in Afghanistan by non-hostile circumstances could have easily been killed whilst training in Canada. The CF loses dozens of soldiers killed or wounded each year in training exercises. We've had guys run over and killed by tanks, blow up by grenades, shot by machine guns, guys who've fell while rappeling, guys who've drowned while parachuting in to a lake. I'm not trying to say that the deaths of the lads killed non-hostily are all less significant than the boys who were, however I am saying that their deaths should not be a benchmark as to how the mission is going. Their deaths were accidents that could have happened anywhere.

Now back to the "body count", 15 is not a lot since 2001. This nation has sufferd worse casualties in shorter time spans. Some notables:

The Battle of Paardeberg South Africa: 31 Canadians Killed

The Battle of the Somme: 1,373 Canadians killed in 13 days

The Battle of Vimy Ridge : 3,598 Canadians killed

The Dieppe Raid: 907 Canadians killed in 11 hours

Battle of Ortona: 2000+ Canadians killed

D-Day Landing (and breakout): 1,017 Canadians killed in 6 days

Battle of the Schedlt: 6,367 Canadians killed in 31 days

The Battle of Kapyong: 10 Canadians killed in 24 hours

The Battle of Ledra Palace (Cyprus): 28 Canadians killed

The Former Yugoslavia: 23 Canadians killed by direct contact with the enemy

The above is just a smattering of the casualties this nation has suffered since the turn of the 20th Century. As you can see, 15 is but a drop in the bucket when compared to some of these figures.

Retired soldiers end up with mental trauma, loss of arms, or legs, or on a wheal chair, and a minisqual pention to help them pick up the pices, when they come back home!

It's one thing to spout crap about our casualties. It's other to demean the way we treat our boys when they come home. Every soldier that has come home wounded, right from Sgt. Lorne Forde up to MCpl Paul Franklin, have been treated well, very well. You make it sound like they're alone, when they're not, not by a long shot. When a soldier is wounded and moved to Landsthul Germany, we fly their families to them, lodge them, provided them an escort. We the wounded are ready to return to Canada we then fly them all together. Back in Canada while they're in hospital we pay for the parking fees for the family so they can go visit, we hand the family buckets of money so purchases can be made to make the lives of the wounded easier. When they're finally discharged, if their houses need modification, we do it. Their pensions, you know nothing. A soldier wounded overseas, regardless of rank, will never have to work again. Even the lowest private, if he's wounded and cannot do his job, the pension he receives is almost triple his yearly salary, the dollar figure climbs as a soldier climbs in rank. As for them coming home wounded, it's part of the job, and we accept that. Don't try and drum up pitty for us, we don't need it. Look at MCpl Paul Franklin, the man is so positive. Even asked point blank if he was angry he was wounded, he said no. He had a job to do, and he did it. He was unlucky. Our lads are treated like gold when they're hurt, we go to great lengths to make their lives easier, and they're not abandon by any stretch of the imagination. Do you think the Americans care like we do about their multitudes of wounded? I highly doubt it.

Canada has a soldier reproduction problem; more soldiers are retiring than soldiers being recruited, which make the deployment of troops to fight stupid wars very costly and unjustified.

We don't have a reproduction problem...at all. In fact the numbers in the CF have risen by over 5,000 since last spring. So you're out to lunch on that and I don't need to say more.

To use up men and women as if they are disregard-able items is sad

That's a soldiers job. If you don't like it, don't join the Army. Enough said?

Two additional years in Afghanistan will destroy our Canadian soldier’s families in order to help Bush with a stupidly justified war. Afghanistan will be one of Harpers black eyes during his short term as PM.

So what about police officers? Like the one killed in Windsor recently? Don't you think his family is destroyed? Should we remove all police officers from the streets of Windsor to prevent any more from being killed? Moronic no?

As for Harper, how did Afghanistan become his War? We entered it back in 2001, well before he was Prime Minister. Do me a favour, and answer this Socrates, how does the War fall soley on Harper, having not been in power for even 10% of it? Why can't some people see past their dislike for Conservatism and inhabit reality?

Hey Monz I don't care how much you love Bush and Harper, it is fact that many soldier come back from combat all fucked up and after they are no longer useable they are left to pick up the pieces.
If you think that as we speak there are no soldiers that wish they had never joint the forces because of the way their lives have turned out, you are dreaming. War sucks and in this war Canada will lose together with the Americans. 60 wars on the planet Canada dose not have the means to fight on all the conflict on the surface of our planet. We have problems here at home but all the brownnosers that support this war are hypocrites they will clean up the mess in the world while their home needs savvier fixing. Harper is a brown nose to Bush like it or not. Harper hates the media and Afghanistan will be Harpers Black eye.

 

[Jay]

First of all it's Mogz, and second of all I doubt he cares how much you love the Taliban either.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afghanistan!

And we're off:

1.

Dead soldiers in body bags are coming back home more frequent then originally thought!

You call this frequent? 15 soldiers since 2001? I'm sorry my friend, but that isn't frequent by any stretch of the imagination. The U.S. loses anywhere from 4-10 soldiers KIA in Iraq A DAY. Furthermore our death count is highly misleading. Yes 15 soldiers have been killed, but how many by direct contact with the enemy? 8:

2 by an IED
1 by suicide bomber
4 by IED
1 by gunshot wound

The other 7 have been killed by accidents:

4 by a U.S. F-16
3 by vehicle accidents

The 7 killed in Afghanistan by non-hostile circumstances could have easily been killed whilst training in Canada. The CF loses dozens of soldiers killed or wounded each year in training exercises. We've had guys run over and killed by tanks, blow up by grenades, shot by machine guns, guys who've fell while rappeling, guys who've drowned while parachuting in to a lake. I'm not trying to say that the deaths of the lads killed non-hostily are all less significant than the boys who were, however I am saying that their deaths should not be a benchmark as to how the mission is going. Their deaths were accidents that could have happened anywhere.

Now back to the "body count", 15 is not a lot since 2001. This nation has sufferd worse casualties in shorter time spans. Some notables:

The Battle of Paardeberg South Africa: 31 Canadians Killed

The Battle of the Somme: 1,373 Canadians killed in 13 days

The Battle of Vimy Ridge : 3,598 Canadians killed

The Dieppe Raid: 907 Canadians killed in 11 hours

Battle of Ortona: 2000+ Canadians killed

D-Day Landing (and breakout): 1,017 Canadians killed in 6 days

Battle of the Schedlt: 6,367 Canadians killed in 31 days

The Battle of Kapyong: 10 Canadians killed in 24 hours

The Battle of Ledra Palace (Cyprus): 28 Canadians killed

The Former Yugoslavia: 23 Canadians killed by direct contact with the enemy

The above is just a smattering of the casualties this nation has suffered since the turn of the 20th Century. As you can see, 15 is but a drop in the bucket when compared to some of these figures.

Retired soldiers end up with mental trauma, loss of arms, or legs, or on a wheal chair, and a minisqual pention to help them pick up the pices, when they come back home!

It's one thing to spout crap about our casualties. It's other to demean the way we treat our boys when they come home. Every soldier that has come home wounded, right from Sgt. Lorne Forde up to MCpl Paul Franklin, have been treated well, very well. You make it sound like they're alone, when they're not, not by a long shot. When a soldier is wounded and moved to Landsthul Germany, we fly their families to them, lodge them, provided them an escort. We the wounded are ready to return to Canada we then fly them all together. Back in Canada while they're in hospital we pay for the parking fees for the family so they can go visit, we hand the family buckets of money so purchases can be made to make the lives of the wounded easier. When they're finally discharged, if their houses need modification, we do it. Their pensions, you know nothing. A soldier wounded overseas, regardless of rank, will never have to work again. Even the lowest private, if he's wounded and cannot do his job, the pension he receives is almost triple his yearly salary, the dollar figure climbs as a soldier climbs in rank. As for them coming home wounded, it's part of the job, and we accept that. Don't try and drum up pitty for us, we don't need it. Look at MCpl Paul Franklin, the man is so positive. Even asked point blank if he was angry he was wounded, he said no. He had a job to do, and he did it. He was unlucky. Our lads are treated like gold when they're hurt, we go to great lengths to make their lives easier, and they're not abandon by any stretch of the imagination. Do you think the Americans care like we do about their multitudes of wounded? I highly doubt it.

Canada has a soldier reproduction problem; more soldiers are retiring than soldiers being recruited, which make the deployment of troops to fight stupid wars very costly and unjustified.

We don't have a reproduction problem...at all. In fact the numbers in the CF have risen by over 5,000 since last spring. So you're out to lunch on that and I don't need to say more.

To use up men and women as if they are disregard-able items is sad

That's a soldiers job. If you don't like it, don't join the Army. Enough said?

Two additional years in Afghanistan will destroy our Canadian soldier’s families in order to help Bush with a stupidly justified war. Afghanistan will be one of Harpers black eyes during his short term as PM.

So what about police officers? Like the one killed in Windsor recently? Don't you think his family is destroyed? Should we remove all police officers from the streets of Windsor to prevent any more from being killed? Moronic no?

As for Harper, how did Afghanistan become his War? We entered it back in 2001, well before he was Prime Minister. Do me a favour, and answer this Socrates, how does the War fall soley on Harper, having not been in power for even 10% of it? Why can't some people see past their dislike for Conservatism and inhabit reality?

Hey Monz I don't care how much you love Bush and Harper, it is fact that many soldier come back from combat all *censored* up and after they are no longer useable they are left to pick up the pieces.
If you think that as we speak there are no soldiers that wish they had never joint the forces because of the way their lives have turned out, you are dreaming. War sucks and in this war Canada will lose together with the Americans. 60 wars on the planet Canada dose not have the means to fight on all the conflict on the surface of our planet. We have problems here at home but all the brownnosers that support this war are hypocrites they will clean up the mess in the world while their home needs savvier fixing. Harper is a brown nose to Bush like it or not. Harper hates the media and Afghanistan will be Harpers Black eye.

You're saying Soldiers who come back from serious injuries such as losing a limb are on longer useable? What the hell does that mean?

Sounds like you're against a Soldier who might have lost a limb saying him or her are no longer useable. Are you against disabled Veterans?

I love how Hypocrites like you are calling this "Harper's War" when it was the Liberals who first sent Canadian Soldiers to Afghanistan..

 

[elevennevele]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afgh

Well, first off, Canada cannot save the world, we can only peck away at one or two issues at a time. Second, I believe that our money is well spent. Even if it was twice as much as you suggest, I believe that if you count the number of lives saved, the number of tortures prevented, all the terror from the Taliban that is now being prevented, the newly organized Afghan military and police, the restructured economy so 9 year old kids don't have to work in poppy fields ... on and on ... if you count all of that, then the world has gotten excellent value for our money spent. As long as some government official is not personally benefitting through some scam. And yes, there are MILLIONS of African people who need assistance. Sudan is simply one of many. Sierra Leone? Yup. DRC (Zaire)? Yup. Zimbabwe? Yeah, they have problems too. Should we help them all out? Well I would love to, but how much do you think we can commit? Our government is proposing to expand the military. That means maybe in a few years we WILL be able to help Afghanistan AND Sudan! There are 6-odd billion people on the planet, and probably 3 of those could benefit from Canadian intervention in some way. SHOULD we? Probably not. We have to select our battles, and when we do, we should stick to it until it's done.

How many lives are saved? Do you know (or is it just not qualitative)? Maybe we aren't torturing the Afgans but the US tortured them. So they went from different torturers. Do you know the figures of how many were tortured under the old regime and do you know the figure of the crime being committed under the fragmented society? Do these numbers still have more worth than the hundred of thousands of lives slaughtered in Africa? Actually slaughtered.

You seem pretty sure of yourself. I’m not, and you haven’t proven how the other areas don’t have the same worth for our 4 billion.

How about we take that money out of Alberta’s oil revenue. Why not out of the good of your heart?

 

[elevennevele]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afghanistan!

I love how Hypocrites like you are calling this "Harper's War" when it was the Liberals who first sent Canadian Soldiers to Afghanistan..[/i][/b]

It depends on how much Harper puts his own personal touch to it.

 

[Em]

{sigh} I think you missed my point. What I am trying to say is that WE ARE THERE, we started a job, we have to finish the job, or the 4 billion you cite that we have spent on it will TRULY be wasted, THEN who does it help?

Do YOU have the numbers of how many people were tortured by Americans? Or perhaps it's not quantitative.

I don't propose to have all the answers to those questions, but what I am trying to say is that is not the point. And you know what, the Americans are decreasing their presence in Afghanistan. So even if they WERE part of the problem, it's past tense. Or perhaps you are going to charge the Candian troops with torturing as many innocents as the previous regime did, Hmm?

And you know what else? If the Alberta government pledged 4 billion of it's oil revenue to work on helping in Afghanistan or in Sudan or in the DRC or in Sierra Leone or in Laos or in Uganda, I would say Absolutely! I donate regularly to various causes. Not because I can afford it either, in fact my family and I often have to make sacrifices - and they really do seem like petty sacrifices in the face of what our assistance can do elsewhere. If it means eating KD for 3 weeks of lunches, it's worth it. At least I HAVE 3 weeks of KD, and at least I am WILLING to go without something better.

But we have a couple of thousand troops over in Afghanistan, and ALL of the hand full of military personnel whom I have conversed with are thoroughly convinced that their time there was effective at helping people better their lives. And their discourse is the only reliable information I have. I do not trust the media, so don't tell me about what you've seen on TV or on the Radio. Talk to the folks who have been there, who personally assisted the people who need it. Building a medical aid center, for example, to dress the wounds of people injured by malicious terrorists or warlords. Those are dollars well spent, if you ask me.

So I say it again. We are there, we are effective, it's worth it, and we need to finish the job.

 

[Johnny Utah]

"SO-CRAAAAAATES!!!!!"

 

[missile]

As of today, the body count has reached 17..16 soldiers and 1 diplomat. Our only female Capt. bit the proverbial dust this A.M.

 

[Socrates the Greek]

Dead soldiers in body bags are coming back home more frequent then originally thought!

Retired soldiers end up with mental trauma, loss of arms, or legs, or on a wheal chair, and a minisqual pention to help them pick up the pices, when they come back home!

Canada has a soldier reproduction problem; more soldiers are retiring than soldiers being recruited, which make the deployment of troops to fight stupid wars very costly and unjustified. To use up men and women as if they are disregard-able items is sad, it is clear that the intellect Harper is embracing is similar to his mentor Bush who is at an all time low in the polls of some 30%.
Two additional years in Afghanistan will destroy our Canadian soldier’s families in order to help Bush with a stupidly justified war. Afghanistan will be one of Harpers black eyes during his short term as PM.

It's close minded people like you who will hurt the moral of Canadian Soldiers and their families back home with you're attitude. You don't think people like you with you're Anti-Afghanistan Mission statements don't have an impact on the Soldiers serving and their families? They need support not a bunch of Bloody Belly Aching..

Ye, they need support, what do you do Johnny do you go to the widow wife’s and offer them support on regular basis? How do you comfort these people who have lost their sons, daughters, husbands, what do you do to help these people, seating on the fence telling me I don’t know what is good for me doesn’t help the drama in these peoples world. Wake up Johnny this life is stupid when you sit there and talk with 30 year old ideology about war and games. The world is so badly screwed up and angry to day Harper or Bush has the whole idea wrong. History has shown aggression is quicker than diplomacy and negotiation, which has become the incubator of hate and distraction.

Diplomacy often is placed in the back burner and hypocrisy is governing the way. The perfect analogy, the drunk verses the person who doesn’t drink and drive. The drunk in this instance is the power hungry politicians who think they will drive drunk and win, the same with the power hungry politicians who think they will rule come peace or war. That is the fuel that causes the enemy to take the war all over the planet. Imperialistic thinking is required in order for Capitalism to work. History has shown that Capitalism doesn’t give a rat’s ass about poverty and that Johnny is the fuel of international terrorism. Greed will eventually deliver a knock out on Capitalism, and the world will never be the same.
And Johnny let me tell you my difficult friend Socrates is more informed than you think.

 

[Socrates the Greek]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afghanistan!

I love how Hypocrites like you are calling this "Harper's War" when it was the Liberals who first sent Canadian Soldiers to Afghanistan..[/i][/b]

It depends on how much Harper puts his own personal touch to it.

Hey just because the Liberals indorsed the Afghani war it doesn’t mean that the Liberals were correct in doing so. War sucks. :wink: :lol: :wink:

 

[Mogz]

RE: Canada’s cost in Afgh

Hey Monz I don't care how much you love Bush and Harper, it is fact that many soldier come back from combat all *censored* up and after they are no longer useable they are left to pick up the pieces.
If you think that as we speak there are no soldiers that wish they had never joint the forces because of the way their lives have turned out, you are dreaming. War sucks and in this war Canada will lose together with the Americans. 60 wars on the planet Canada dose not have the means to fight on all the conflict on the surface of our planet. We have problems here at home but all the brownnosers that support this war are hypocrites they will clean up the mess in the world while their home needs savvier fixing. Harper is a brown nose to Bush like it or not. Harper hates the media and Afghanistan will be Harpers Black eye.

I have never said I loved Bush, or for that matter Harper. It's funny how in a Conversation regarding the CANADIAN ARMY Bush somehow or other gets drawn in to it. Also i'd like to take the time to point out that you never did answer my question as to why you always refer to this war as Harpers, regardless of the fact that the Liberals started us out in Afghanistan? Now back to the issue at hand, with regard to soldiers coming home "all f.cuked up" as you so eloquently put it. We don't deem our men "no longer useful". In fact Sgt. Lorne Ford, who lost an eye in 2002, was considered no longer capable of serving as an Infanteer, however a job was found for him at the Canadian Forces Parachute School in Trenton as an instructor. MCpl Paul Franklin who lost both his legs in 2006, has been offered a job as a medical instructor at the Canadian Forces Medical School in Borden. You don't even have a clue as to how well we treat our men and women who come home wounded. Maybe in the past we never did, but these days, our treatment of them is first rate. Once again, someone who has no concept of the military, is trying to argue a point with someone who's knee-deep in the military life. I'm just saying. Anyway the rest of your post is, well, tired, so i'll just leave it at this. You know nothing of Afghanistan, nothing of the military, and nothing of the way this nation defends itself. In short, on this issue, your opinion is utterly uneducated.

First of all it's Mogz, and second of all I doubt he cares how much you love the Taliban either.

Nope, I really don't

P.S. Answser my question Socrates, how is this Harpers War, when we invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the Liberal Party of Canada?

 

[Lineman]

Re: DU cost in Afghanistan - bad sperm

I don't think our soldiers have any problems reproducing. :roll:

Actually, YES - our soldiers DO have problems reproducing, in a physical sense.

DU ammo is usually the culprit for bad sperm in soldiers, but also there are many toxic chemicals used in basic military operations that can have the effect of sterility.

LINKS:

Health Canada report on DU and Gulf War symptoms in our soldiers:
http://tinyurl.com/ko7zy

Soldiers line up to bank sperm:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,,892104,00.html

"This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems."
\\

DU coverup by media, other reports on DU:
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/4.html

Well then let's discard the conspiracy theorist rags and concentrate on Health Canada and ACTUAL scientific data. You have read it haven't you?

DU is classified as a low-level radioactive material. In comparison, several consumer products contain radioactive material that also emits ionizing radiation, such as present-day smoke detectors. In medicine, radioactive materials and other sources of ionizing radiation are widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of some diseases.

Military personnel are not classified as radiation workers unless their job specifically qualifies as such. Under battlefield conditions, this classification needs to be determined explicitly so that individuals with duties requiring known exposure to radioactivity, such as cleanup of contaminated equipment, can be monitored and exposure controlled appropriately.

In the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists the authors tried to estimate the possible external gamma-radiation levels on the battlefield by assuming that 100 tons of depleted uranium had been distributed uniformly over a one-kilometer-wide strip along 100 kilometers of the "Highway of Death" between Kuwait City and Basra, a city in southern Iraq. The average dose for someone who lived in the area for a year would be about one mrem - or about 10 percent of the dose from uranium and its decay products already naturally occurring in the soil. The dose rate immediately around a destroyed vehicle could be about 30 times higher. But even that figure would only add about 10 percent to the natural background radiation.

However, because of the low radioactivity of depleted uranium, the radiation dose would be quite low. For someone close to the battle who inhaled one milligram of depleted uranium - an unlikely scenario - the equivalent whole-body dose would be up to 0.1 rem. That is roughly half the annual dose from inhaled radon and its decay products in a typical single family home in the United States. The estimated added risk of cancer death for such a dose would be about one in 20,000. (To put things in perspective, people in the United States have a one-in five risk of dying of cancer)."

Over 5000 hours of exposure to DU would be required before the current dose limit for exposure of the whole body (50 mSv) would be exceeded. The main external radiation hazard from DU is from contact with bare skin. The current dose limit to the skin will only be exceeded if the skin remains in contact continuously with DU for more than 250 hours per year.

Naomi H. Harley is an authority on radiation physics. She earned her Ph.D. in radiological physics at the New York University where she is currently a research professor at the University's School of Medicine, Department of Environmental Medicine. She has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles on radiation exposure, with emphasis on natural background radiation. She has written six chapters in books dealing with radiation or toxicology and holds three patents for radiation measurement devices. She is a council member on the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, an advisor to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, and an editor of the journal Environment International.

Harley says she's heard people project that the use of depleted uranium will cause tens of thousands of new cancers in Gulf War veterans and Iraqi citizens, but says such projections frighten veterans unnecessarily because there is no scientific support for such claims. "There is no way you can get enough uranium into the body to cause even one cancer. You can't inhale it, you can't ingest it. You would choke to death before you could inhale that much material."

DU is an extremely weak radioactive material that has never been implicated in lung cancer in human populations. Individuals who inhaled DU that remains in the lungs (insoluble fraction) from exposures during Persian Gulf service should not be concerned that there may harbor a serious threat to life. The literature suggests that there may be an increased risk of cancer among individuals exposed to enriched uranium, but that compound is orders of magnitude more radioactive than DU. Even exposure to natural uranium, with a radioactivity more than DU, is not considered to be a health threat. The lung cancer reported in uranium miners has been scientifically attributed to exposure to another airborne substance, namely radon

and so on and so on...

Thanks for the link that debunks your own drivel...

 

[dekhqonbacha]

Re: RE: Canada’s cost in Afgh

So is it 4 billion dollars? Did I hear correctly that it has cost Canada 4 billion dollars to date for our involvement in Afghanistan?

Are we really getting worth for our dollars?

I found only about 2bln. Quite a large difference.

It's good for canadian economy. It's called governent expenditure.