US confirms, used incendiary bombs in Fallujah

[moderateamericain]

I can't speak for Burns, but the only disrespect and bullshit I've had to experience in regards to the debate about the war comes from the left, where a loud declaration of having higher moral standards is frequently a self-deluding mask for the basest partisan motivations.

Alright, you are right, war is not illegal. I guess. So I guess that makes it alright to do anything. War is hell, and the will always be colateral. But the U.S. is always boasting a moral standard that the rest of the globe should follow. That in there itself is a mask.

There is still a shitload more of what we do not know of. What other weapons, they first deny of using. Then after some evidence comes out they finnaly DO admit to using those weapons. They if they will admit to that, when the evidence is found that they used other questionable munittions, what then?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The United nations is about the most powerless organization ive ever seen. The US would laugh at it if it tried to put American troops up for war crimes (unless legitimate in the eyes of the US). Not to mention Kofi Anna might wanna pull the UN troops off the 13 year old african girls that they are there to "protect". I bet slave trade, kiddie porn is a great money maker. Not to mention that pushinng the US to the point where it drops out of the UN would be akin to chewing off your own arm.

[BHS]

I can't speak for Burns, but the only disrespect and bullshit I've had to experience in regards to the debate about the war comes from the left, where a loud declaration of having higher moral standards is frequently a self-deluding mask for the basest partisan motivations.

I'm a Canadian with no vested partisan interest in the political dimension of the antiwar movement (I don't like the Democrats): what's my "base partisan motivation"?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did I say, "Black Dog's partisan motivations"? Um, no. Good to know that you think you're always in my sites, though (so to speak - this not to be taken as any sort of personal threat, my friend).

UPDATE: I think the word might actually be "sights". Army Guy?

[BHS]

I can't speak for Burns, but the only disrespect and bullshit I've had to experience in regards to the debate about the war comes from the left, where a loud declaration of having higher moral standards is frequently a self-deluding mask for the basest partisan motivations.

Alright, you are right, war is not illegal. I guess. So I guess that makes it alright to do anything. War is hell, and the will always be colateral. But the U.S. is always boasting a moral standard that the rest of the globe should follow. That in there itself is a mask.

There is still a shitload more of what we do not know of. What other weapons, they first deny of using. Then after some evidence comes out they finnaly DO admit to using those weapons. They if they will admit to that, when the evidence is found that they used other questionable munittions, what then?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I guess the UN will have to invade US to ensure they don't have such weapons.

[BHS]

theloniousfleabag:

The General Assembly (as do the Parliament of Canada and the US Congress) regularly passes resolutions about all sorts of things, approving of this and disapproving of that. None of these resolutions carry any real world weight or set legal precedent.

Kofi Annan's opinion is just his opinion. Unless you're keen to make the Secretary General a sort of global dictator.

Now, you could argue that the US should obey the rulings of the International Criminal Court on these matters, but if you're unwilling to force a neutered tinpot dictator like Saddam to comply with the conditions of a cease fire agreement that he was a party to, then good luck forcing the US to comply with the rulings of a court whos' legitimacy it has always argued against.

(And GATT was superceded by the World Trade Organisation quite a while ago.)

[BHS]

The United nations is about the most powerless organization ive ever seen.  The US would laugh at it if it tried to put American troops up for war crimes (unless legitimate in the eyes of the US). Not to mention Kofi Anna might wanna pull the UN troops off the 13 year old african girls that they are there to "protect".  I bet slave trade, kiddie porn is a great money maker.  Not to mention that pushinng the US to the point where it drops out of the UN would be akin to chewing off your own arm.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

More like the arm chewing off it's own body.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Army Guy,

Thanks for the info, well done.

BHS,

It's not a chemical weapon, unless you define any weapon involving a chemical reaction to be a chemical weapon, in which case every munition with an explosive charge in the shell is also a chemical weapon. Hell, if you really want to get technical about it, every weapon, including Al Capone's baseball bat, is made of chemical compounds. If you poked someone in the eye with a burning spliff that'd be a chemical weapon too.

While 'Willie Pete' isn't a 'banned weapon', since it's intended usage is not as a weapon, it can be used as such and the US has admitted doing so. from... http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...unitions/wp.htm

The Battle of Fallujah was conducted from 8 to 20 November 2004 with the last fire mission on 17 November. The battle was fought by an Army, Marine and Iraqi force of about 15,000 under the I Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF). US forces found WP to be useful in the Battle of Fallujah. "WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired “shake and bake” missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. ... We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."

However, this information should go hand in hand with the official denial, from... http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/lib...27-fallujah.htm

"The United States categorically denies the use of chemical weapons at anytime in Iraq, which includes the ongoing Fallujah operation. Furthermore, the United States does not under any circumstance support or condone the development, production, acquisition, transfer or use of chemical weapons by any country. All chemical weapons currently possessed by the United States have been declared to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and are being destroyed in the United States in accordance with our obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention."

and also...

Finally, some news accounts have claimed that U.S. forces have used "outlawed" phosphorus shells in Fallujah. Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. U.S. forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.

[Black Dog]

It's not a chemical weapon, unless you define any weapon involving a chemical reaction to be a chemical weapon...

I guess it depends on who uses it.

DURING THE BRUTAL CRACKDOWN THAT FOLLOWED THE KURDISH UPRISING, IRAQI FORCES LOYAL TO PRESIDENT SADDAM ((HUSSEIN)) MAY HAVE POSSIBLY USED WHITE PHOSPHOROUS (WP) CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST KURDISH REBELS AND THE POPULACE IN ERBIL(GEOCOORD:3412N/04401E) (VICINITY OF IRANIAN BORDER) AND DOHUK (GEOCOORD:3652N/04301E) (VICINITY OF IRAQI BORDER) PROVINCES, IRAQ. THE WP CHEMICAL WAS DELIVERED BY ARTILLERY ROUNDS AND HELICOPTER GUNSHIPS

More....

The Italian journalist who launched the controversy over the American use of white phosphorus (WP) as a weapon of war in the Fallujah siege has accused the Americans of hypocrisy.

Sigfrido Ranucci, who made the documentary for the RAI television channel aired two weeks ago, said that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP after the first Gulf War as a "chemical weapon".

The assessment was published in a declassified report on the American Department of Defence website. The file was headed: "Possible use of phosphorous chemical weapons by Iraq in Kurdish areas along the Iraqi-Turkish-Iranian borders."

[Montgomery Burns]

White (Phosphorous) Lies: Antiwar accusations aren’t as hot as critics think

Time again to try to cripple the U.S. military effort in Iraq. It's not enough that it sometimes seems like whenever we bomb a terrorist safe house we're accused of killing 40 civilians and no terrorists. (Why is it always 40?) Nor that we're told we must turn the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay into genteel facilities fit for Martha Stewart. Now the defeat-niks are screaming about our use of white phosphorus during the bloody battle for Fallujah last year.

Capable of being packed into a huge array of munitions, WP burns on contact with air and is highly useful for smoke-screening, smoke-marking, and as an anti-personnel weapon.

WP is hardly new, having been first used in the 19th century and subsequently in both world wars. Nor should it be news that it was used at Fallujah. An article in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery explicitly details the use of WP during the battle.

Yet it's being treated as a major new revelation because of an Italian documentary, now available on the Internet, titled Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre." It's as if the use of WP necessarily involves a massacre, or as if there haven't been awful massacres in recent years using nothing but machetes and clubs.

Further, there's no proof of any wrongdoing in the video itself. Rather it relies on "explanations" exclusively from the narrator and other anti-war zealots.

This includes the infamous Giuliana Sgrena, the reporter for the Italian Communist-party newspaper Il Manifesto, allegedly seized by courteous kidnappers. In turn for her release they conveniently demanded what she had also been demanding: Italy's withdrawal from the war. Her articles are so viciously anti-American they'd make Al Jazeera blush.

There are several accusations against our WP usage.

Some allege that it is outlawed by the Geneva Convention as a chemical weapon. Therefore our using it puts us in the same category as Saddam Hussein — or so claims the hugely popular far-left blogsite Daily Kos. But according to the more authoritative GlobalSecurity.org, "White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory."

Is it a chemical? Sure! So is something else you may have heard of called "gunpowder." And those chemicals used in high explosives? Yup, they're chemicals too.

Another charge is that contact with WP can cause awful and sometimes fatal burns. But painless ways of killing and destroying such as Star Trek's beam weapon phasers have yet to be developed. On the other hand, the vipers we cleaned out of Fallujah were just days earlier sawing off civilian heads with dull knives. Sound like a pleasant way to die?

Fact is, the soldier's weapon of choice remains high explosives. WP's best uses aren't against personnel at all, but to the extent it is employed this way its most practical application is flushing the enemy out of foxholes and trenches so that they can either surrender or be killed.

It's also claimed that civilians were "targeted" with WP, and the Italian video does display dead civilians. But how does this show they were the intended victims, rather than accidental casualties? It's not like when terrorists detonate bombs in crowded marketplaces or at weddings, where the intent is pretty clear.

Regardless of the weapon, how can you possibly avoid noncombatant deaths when the enemy not only hides among civilians but hides as civilians — in total violation of the Geneva Convention, for those of you keeping track?

Further, the dead civilians in the video are wearing clothing. Both the film's narrator and another of those defeat-nik "experts," former Marine Jeff Englehart, try to explain this away by saying WP can burn flesh while leaving clothes intact. But true weapons experts, such as GlobalSecurity.org Director John Pike, say there's no such black magic. "If it hits your clothes it will burn your clothes," he told reporters.

In short, this is just more hysterical rantings by the communists who want to discredit the USA.

[GostHacked]

In short, this is just more hysterical rantings by the communists who want to discredit the USA.[/code]

I think the US can do this all by themselves. All Bush has to do is speak, Freedom. Victory, Resolve. Let the chips fall where they may.