Salted weapon — (*) A nuclear weapon which has, in addition to its normal components, certain elements or isotopes which capture neutrons at the time of the explosion and produce radioactive products over and above the usual radioactive weapon debris. See also minimum residual radioactivity weapon.1
Brine Recipe:
Soak and break into song.
Salt rung from the sea.
Bluegreenbrown marble is bawling in bursts.
Out loud. Ear-splitting rupture. Rippling.
A wave that washes over.
Our bodies. Salt and water. Normal components.
Crawl into a lap to lay in a bed of salted tears.
A concoction to hold the effects on things. Exploding.
Sounds that sweep over. Our bodies.
Making unnatural innards.
Build it. Salt it. Scatter it and wait.2
[1] US Department of Defense’s Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (October 17, 2007)
[2] Since the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, Afghanistan and Iraq have been continuously bombed by the US military. Weapons used have included cluster bombs and depleted uranium bombs. Approximately 3,000 tons of depleted uranium munitions have been used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
According to Dr. Yagasaki, while most of the radiation released by the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had very short half-life periods, DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. It is estimated that in the First Gulf War, 320 to 800 tons of DU were used, scattering 14,000 to 36,000 times more radiation than in Hiroshima. Since then, it is estimated that an additional 2000 tons of DU shells have been dropped on Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, both Iraq and Afghanistan have seen a severe rise in birth defects and cancers.
“What else do the Americans want? They killed us, they turned our newborns into horrific deformations, and they turned our farmlands into graveyards and destroyed our homes. On top of all that their planes fly over and spray us with bullets. We have nothing to lose; we will fight against them the same way we fought the previous monster [the former Soviet Union].” Sa’yed Gharib, April 2003