Home > Iranian president calls for war crimes charges on US

Iranian president calls for war crimes charges on US

by Open-Publishing - Sunday 27 November 2005
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Wars and conflicts International USA

Iran’s hard-line president called for the Bush administration to be tried on war crimes charges related to Iraq and denounced the West for its stance on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, state-run television reported today.

“You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq should be tried as war criminals in courts,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the US.

Ahmadinejad didn’t elaborate, but he was apparently referring to the US military’s use of artillery shells packed with depleted uranium, which is far less radioactive than natural uranium and is left over from the process of enriching uranium for use as nuclear fuel.

Since the 2003 start of the Iraq war, US forces have reportedly fired at least 120 tons of shells packed with depleted uranium, which is an extremely dense material used by the US and British militaries for tank armour and armour-piercing weapons. Once fired, the shells melt, vaporise and turn to dust.

“Who in the world are you to accuse Iran of suspicious nuclear armed activity?” asked the Iranian president during a nationally televised ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the establishment of the volunteer Basij paramilitary force.

Iran has been under intense pressure to curb its nuclear programme, which the US claims is part of an effort to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies such claims and says its nuclear programme is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity. But it insists that it has the right to develop its nuclear programme, including enrichment of nuclear fuel.

On Thursday, the 35-board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency met on Iran’s nuclear file after the US and Europe warned of UN Security Council action, accusing Iran of having documents that show how to produce parts of nuclear warheads.

Iran has temporarily stopped its enrichment programme, but negotiations between it and Britain, France and Germany broke off in August after Tehran unfroze another part of its programme - the conversion of raw uranium into the gas that is used as the feeder stock in enrichment.

Iran has also rejected European calls to halt work at its uranium conversion facility near city of Isfahan in central Iran.

Ahmadinejad rejected Western concerns over his country’s nuclear programme.

“They say Iran has to stop its peaceful nuclear activity since there is a probability of diversion while we are sure that they are developing and testing (nuclear weapons) every day,” Ahmadinejad said.

“They speak as if they are the lords of the world.”

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/11/26/story232183.html

Forum posts

  • Irans president meant the use of nuclear bombs on innocent Japanese in Hiroshima/Nagasaki, while Japan was already defeated and U.S. authorities thought they had to test it on human beings.

    The list of American war crimes and evironmental stupidity is endless. Americans can’t be considered as a human life form.

  • 86% is far less? Removing U235 only removes approximately 14% of the radioactivity from the uranium. This is because U235 if much easier to fission than the other isotopes (predominantly U238), which make up most of the mass, and are just as radioactive. Go back to your high school physics and chemistry books and check it out. These are *not* low level nuclear weapons; they are weapons of mass destruction. They just take a little longer than A-bombs to do their damage.

    • According to an article by the National Science Teachers Association, published August 21, 2003, only 45% of the nation’s high school graduates that year had taken 3 years of science courses, 45% chemistry, 25% physics and 26% Algebra II or higher. Of the high schoolers who took the ACT that year, only 26% had a score of 24 or higher. A score of 24 or higher for science on the ACT is indicative of a high probablity of passing with a C grade or higher a freshman science course in college. The report also cited that only 1 out of 5 high school graduates had a solid grasp of science. As dismal as all this sounds, this is a great improvement from 25 years past, when I was in high school, and the percentages were a third to a half lower than they are now.
      The point that I’m driving here is the vast majority of Americans do not have any high school science text books laying around at home, they wouldn’t know or care to know the difference between U235 or U238.
      The majority of Americans simply are not trained in science, which explains why so many engineering and science positions are taken up by foreign nationals in the US. Of course this means that America’s leadership in science and technology will very soon evaporate, since this trend of non-achievement in high school science has been going on for two generations. Science, engineering and the technologies they give birth are the tools by which humanity has finally risen from its dark ages; not the law, not journalism,not popular culture and certainly not religion.
      I doubt very much that the common American understands this truism yet, since the common American didn’t 25 years ago.
      Science and math are pathways for anyone of any age to attain the necessary intellectual equipment to understand and comprehend our world. Young people trained in science and math have far better confidence in their intellectual abilities than those who are not. A person trained in science and math has far better critical thinking faculties, memory retention, concentration and overall intellectual prowess than those who are not trained in these disciplines. I know this from a long personal history.
      This extraordinary lack of science education in the world’s most technologically advanced nation helps explain why our country’s citizens have such a hard time understanding anything more complex than a cell phone. It also explains why common Americans are so easily duped into military adventures that ultimately do not favor their economic interests, nor their future.
      The 21st Century will belong to the ancient cultures of India and China, whose burgeoning economies will allow them to give even more funding towards the education of their young, something the common American has failed to do, despite possessing the wherewithal to do it.

    • Yeah, that’s why they call the US Dumfuckistan.

      I have a great deal of respect for higher learning in the US. I was a high school drop out but unlike many in countries with social barriers on learning, I was able to go to University and earn a PhD.

      But the public educational system is a joke, and getting worse. By world standards, US education is pathetic and deeply rooted in an Apartheid separation of blacks and whites. Anyone who works in high-level research or engineering will tell you that Americans in hard sciences are few and far between.

      The rising tide of fundamentalism and anti-science sentiment on the part of the Christo-fascists controlling many of the education boards is cause for alarm.

      Not only don’t US pupils know the difference between isotopes and isometrics, they don’t care. They prefer to have reality packaged and delivered to them in bite-sized chunks like fast food. The notion of civic responsibility is nonexistent and I am amazed every day that we have anything even closely resembling a democracy. It is sad, because nearly every fact, document, and source is available to Americans through the Internet, libraries, and many public domain repositories. Education isn’t about knowing the difference between isotopes, its caring enough to find out and to understand the importance of things.

      For some reason, people here seem really intellectually lazy and just don’t understand the joy and POWER of knowledge. I think that reflects the role of fundamentalist religion, which replaces reasoned ethical living with superstition and dogma. Another part of it the rampant machismo, it just isn’t masculine to think, and power always overcomes reason—just look at the foreign policy.

      While the Wal-Mart-ization of American education will mean endless tyrrany of low-laying jobs for most,
      the real victims of the systemic illiteracy and laziness of the US culture will be the rest of the world. As we can see already, a megalomaniac has his hands wrapped around the world’s throat.

      Perhaps after they get nuk#ed, Americans will appreciate the difference between U2_35 and U2.38. Or perhaps, not.