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US 'using chemical incendiary bombs in Iraq'
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Italian state TV, Rai, has broadcast a documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja.
Rai says this amounts to the illegal use of chemical arms, though the bombs are considered incendiary devices
[The documentary] shows a series of photographs from Falluja of corpses with the flesh burnt off but clothes still intact - which it says is consistent with the effects of white phosphorus on humans.
Jeff Englehart, described as a former US soldier who served in Falluja, tells of how he heard orders for white phosphorus to be deployed over military radio - and saw the results.
"Burned bodies, burned women, burned children; white phosphorus kills indiscriminately... When it makes contact with skin, then it's absolutely irreversible damage, burning flesh to the bone," he says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4417024.stm
Well, what do you know? There are WMDs in Iraq after all.
Only they brought in by 'the good guys', and they're being used indiscriminately on populated areas.
Well, that sure is one way of winning hearts and minds...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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That is truelly sick...
let's see them get done for breaking chemical weapons treaty
God. You folks should pay more attention... They are still using Napalm in some parts... :nervous:
But yeah. This has been out a while.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm
How many Iraqis must be thinking 'come back Saddam, all is forgotten'...
He's certainly preferable to this lot.
......good to see the greatest democractic nation leading by example.....so really they're covered either way, great.
But supposing it is "legal" for the US to use them, seeing as they haven't signed up to any treaties banning them, I presume Iran will allowed to acquire nuclear, chemical or biological weapons so long as they haven't signed up to any treaty banning them, correct? :rolleyes:
Anti-aircraft high calibre ammunition is legal. Would this mean it's okay to use them for shooting men at short range?
The hypocrisy of the US government is simply indescribable. But what's new?
The UK uses them too.
The legal restriction is on use against civillians and this case underlines why the US will not sign that Protocol. They were not targetting the civillians, which is what the protocol actually outlaws, and yet they are being accused in this thread of using the munition illegally. They have done no such thing.
It wouldn't be the first time.
What hypocrisy are you talking about?
The weapon is incendiary, not chemical. Always has been.
The hypocrisy of being the only nation on earth ever to have used nuclear weapons in anger, the nation that has killed most people through chemical warfare in history (half a million in Vietnam alone), and the nation with the biggest WMD arsenal in the world and yet threatening and attacking others for simply wanting to arm themselves with similar weapons.
The hypocrisy of portraying itself as a champion of justice and a campaigner against abuse, torture and cruelty when it happily tortures and inflicts inhuman and appalling cruelty on others. Such as the appalling and hideous effects white phosphorus has on the human body.
That kind of hypocrisy.
Source
Your continued excuses for wanton war crimes and crimes against humanity by Washington (now spanning numerous decades and multiple illegal acts of military aggression) grow lamer with every post you make, MoK.
I don't recall the "baddies" actually giving lectures on freedom, the value or human life, respect for the rule of international law or speaking against torture.
The only difference between them and the US government is that the former at least don't have the cheek to preach the world about one thing and do the other.
So they using Phos again? Hardly new news or supprising. Terrible thing... just not right at all. At least other Nations are often OPEN about it, and don't wait for it to come out in Scandal. Vietnam still suffers from Agent Orange terribly, not to mention some of the other, still unkown things used over there. Look at how the US treats it's own Veterans, for God's sake. Look at the guys offered no explanation for Gulf War Syndrome.
For the apparent leading Nations of the US and UK, we have a long way to come. Knowing a guy in the Forces, he's told me some nasty stuff. Wouldn't beleive some of the Weapons they are using. Napalm's still about, The Phos is in use, Chemical Weapons were used a fair bit by us in Gulf War 1.
It's not a clean thing is war.
There are still a small but ever growing proportion of Iraqi's who say they would rather be under Saddams reign. They are not yet a majoirty, so could not win an election... but... they at least had security, water, adn electricity. They don't now.
What would you rather have? Securtiy, electricity, and water... or liberty but none of the preceding? House bombed flat for some of them... other have a house, but the electric and water don't work and a gang of looters could pillage it at any time... no jobs for alot either. So what to do?
The UK does not use this chemical against people, the big book of warfare for UK forces says its to be used for smoke screens and fuel/ammunition dumps only.
The cynic in me says that if gas was any use in warfare (as oppossed to dropping it on unprepared towns) they wouldn't have banned it.
How about torture on those who are captured? At the end of the day we're all trying to win a war here, and they might have important information that can only be extracted by hideous torment.
The fact is, a line can and should be drawn, even in a war situation. And any civilised nation would consider the deliberate use of white phosphorous on troops, with the horrific effect it has on the human body, and an unacceptable monstrosity.
No I'm not. I think its not very efficient, as despite the hype gas in WW1 killed hardly anyone, most of those affected were injured and most of the injured returned to duty - certainly when compared by those hit by bullets. The best that gas will do against protected troops is force them into NBC suits, which are hot, sweaty and make it difficult to do some types of work.
Torture tends to be ineffective, so no I wouldn't support it. But I do support things like sleep deprivation, threats of death and breaking down people's mental resistance by humiliation.
The line may have to be drawn but phosphorous is no worse than being burnt alive in a tank. And explosive has a just as bad an effect on the humna body (as does a high velocity round which takes away half your intestines and doesn't kill you straight away).
At the end of the day war is brutal, white phosphorous and gas are no worse than loads of other weapons which no-one has tried to ban. It just that some people seem to belive that a bullet or shell is nice and clean and honourable.
At the end of the day any civilised country that goes to war and does so under self imposed sanctions which make victory less likely is wasting the lives of not just its own people, but those of the enemy it fights against. That would be the real monstrosity.
Is that your only reason for not supporting it?
Charming.
Do you object to soldiers having their throat slit? At the end of the day it's just another way of killing an enemy combatant, and you have to admit it has a massive psychological effect on the enemy...
Someone remind me again why do we ever use the word "honour" when talking about war "heroes"?
The difference is that trying to stop tanks (or sink ships, or bring down airplanes) is a basic necessity of war, and it is inevitable that those operating inside might be killed, and that sometimes death might involve a fire.
Deliberately dropping a burning substance over thousands of soldiers that will inexorably burn through their bodies all the way to the bone and cause them slow, indescribable agony is however not part of any conventional war, and should be considered unacceptable warfare by anyone but with the faintest trace of humanity in them- and as it happens, most countries already do.
Seeing as there are many other ways of flushing out or simply killing the said soldiers on the ground, this simply strikes as a vicious, needless, pointless and vengeful way to fight an enemy. It's not as if the US army didn't have enough alternative (and more effective) ways of killing or disabling an enemy anyway.
Even within the horrors of war there are basic rules we like to observe. Otherwise we would chop PoWs into small pieces on live TV. Or nuke civilian populations. Or mass rape women and shoot men and boys. I'm sorry, but the use of white phosphorous comes across as nothing more than a vicious, vengeful (and not particularly useful) tactic that should be persecuted as the odious war crime it is. As far as I'm concerned when an army uses such hideous weapons all bets are off and they are handing the enemy moral right to do anything, but absolutely anything to any captured soldiers of theirs.
The US should at least quitting pretending they are the free, civilised and just side fighting evil and oppression. They are as bad as each other.
The usefulness or otherwise of the weapon in question is actually secondary to the far more important issue of PR.
We are, effectively, fighting a small civil war, we can not do so with brute force alone (not with the troop numbers we have there) so we have to win by PR.
This is just one example is a really long list of balls ups.
But slitting the throat of a sleeping enemy isn't wrong - it demoralises the survivors and makes them more likely to surrender. Slitting the throat of a prisoner is wrong, because he is in your power and cannot take part in any further fighting.
Killing the enemy isn't wrong - if white phosphorus is slow, its ineffective. You need weapons which kill and disable the enemy within seconds. White phosphorous does that - OK its painful, but no worse than a gut wound from a normal bullet.
But your wrong on the basic neccessity of war - the basic neccessity of war is to drive the enemy to a point whether they are physically or mentally incapable of fighting on. You do that by destroying tanks, sinking ships and killing men. No amount of moral squeamishness will change these facts.
Flame weapons are a bit harsh. Phos is just fucking nasty. And as for Chemical warfare? Evil.
Evil and often inneficient as you say- alot of the guys return to duty. So... why not just kill them outright? Makes more sense.
No, but I suffered the effects of an IRA bomb. That fucking well hurt. Biological weapons are no use - they're indiscriminate and have a risk of infecting your own troops. Even the tests which were done using them were more aimed at how we could defend against them than how we could use them.
It depends on the use HE is better against dug in, phos is better for out in the open. Its also a demoraliser - people are more likely to run away or surrender - so its actually more merciful.
The point is that war is evil, it may be a neccessary evil at times, but it is still an evil. The moral person uses every means possible to get it over with as quickly as possible. Others seem willing to ignore the big evil to concentrate on the tiny ones.
Not sure if i'd rahter be dead or burned up with Phos - The aftercare for such things isn't great in the UK, let alone Iraq. Sure, phos will fuck the guys up - you won't be fighting after it, you will just surrender - but it's just nasty. I mean, who deserves to be burnt up? I am not sure if I would rather die or survive with the terrible wounds - I'd have to be in that situation to know. I'd bet half the people in that situation don't know what they'd rather be. These kind of weapons are also not very effective. Guys tend to have somesort of cover - then the Troops go in, find dead civilians, and lo! Terrorists pop out of their hiding holes all of a sudden. Really, we should have a) not started this war, or b) actually PLANNED what to do afterwards. We now find we are fighting a guerilla war, great. We need the SAS to target the leaders of these cells, take them out. Fighting on the streets will acheive nothing - Can't we learn from when the Russians fucked up Chechnya?
I suppose the most efficient way to stop insurgency in Iraq would be to kill everyone. I wouldn't suggest it though, or it might just happen.
Sorry to hear about the IRA bomb too. At least an end is in sight these days to that problem.