They Hate Us for Our Freedom...

Oh, and for burning their skin off.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm

merge with

/112/92/70554/1.html

It reads like a comic book:
If these guys weren't serious, it would be down right funny.

I thought we were fighting terror?

now we are using it?

Come on Mulch... We are fighting 'terrorists' not terror. If we were fighting terror we would have to wipe out half of Hollywood...

What is so shocking about this story? Is it the fact that, while at war, we use weapons that kill, maim, and destroy?

I am not in support of the political motivations that have placed our troops in Iraq. But while our troops are there, I am 100% in support of using the weapons at our disposal to save the lives of our troops by effectively killing the enemy.

The tactic of using incendiary munitions in warfare has long been an accepted practice. Burn them out of their holes, shoot them as they come out.

War is ugly. People get killed, preferably the enemy and not our troops.

Hollywood?

watcha gonna do when the WP runs wild on you?

Brutha

~Ulrika~

The issue here is this - is this or is it not chemical warfare ? The discussion is ludicrous, riddled with deceit and lies. The initial pretence was that this phosphorus was just a convenient white powder suitable for smoke screens. What an appalling lie.

Then the pretence was that it is just an incendiary - a producer of heat and fire. I saw an expert apologist on tv arguing that as long as it was the heat that damaged people, it was therefore not chemical, and ok. But it was possible it might damage chemically, which would not be ok. It would depend on which effect most damaged each body. Imagine. Do they think we are stupid?

Phosphorus is a frightful chemical weapon. It unites with water, and dampness in flesh, to dissolve and burrow in, igniting under and inside the flesh. As chemical a weapon as you can imagine.

"After explosion of phosphorous munition, flaming droplets may become embedded beneath skin, where they oxidize adjacent tissue unless removed."

A day of appalling news. Notice the immaculate timing of the oh-so-innocent-shock-horror-reaction over naughty torturing Iraqis just suddenly accidentally discovered.

What a brilliant propaganda move, just as pressure is beginning to build up over gradual exposure of US torturing. Including European countries waking up to illegal CIA torture prisons hidden in their territory, and illegal kidnap flights illegally using their airspace.

Gotta find some anti-torture credentials somehow. "I know, why don't we...."

i agree ellie, isn't it just a nice fortunate coinky dink to relieve pressure on the neo cons?

reread my post regarding Nick Bergs beheading, starting from the point where I say "Horrible stuff" at /112/f5/70764/3.html#post738871

timing is everything

a very sad thing is, true or not, conspiracy theory or unproven fact, I have to ask these questions at all; that they have proven themself so utterly untrustworthy where I give possible nonsense a second thought...

also, just recently the ultimate conspiracy theory made its way onto MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10053445/

as they say, it's only a conspiracy theory until it's proven true

War sucks, however you slice it. Phosphorous is a reactive element, but anyone who's taken chemistry can tell you that it's far from being a chemical weapon of the likes of cyanide, mustard gas, nerve gas, etc etc - it's meant to wound, not kill.

Take this paragraph:

Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone."

OMG! Burn down to the bone! Oh no!

Let's rewrite it with an "acceptable" weapon.

hiropendragonsaysthisissilly.org, a defence website, says: "Bullets penetrate the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because bullets continue to rip open flesh until it leaves the body... it could rip right down to the bone, or shatter bones, or gee whiz, kill you."

All weapons (with the exception of those designed not to permanently injure) are nasty. That's the whole point. They are meant to maim and kill. They are mean. The reason why chemical, nuclear and biological weapons are banned is because they kill indiscriminantly - they are so dangerous that civilian deaths cannot be avoided with their use. Phosphorous hardly classifies.

I may be against Bush's policies, especially the torture that has been somehow redefined as "not torture" but this kind of story is just plain leftist.

then why did the US deny it until it was proven that they used it?



now why didn't the US sign this treaty?

also, it should be noted:



so complaining that the US using incendiary weapons in a pro American "relatively calm" city full of mosques and civilians is leftist?

and we know US troops have never been ordered to kill civilians, right?

so if you say that 5% of the population were not insurgents, that would mean around 10,000 people were. If I accept that number as true, than why should i discount the lives and realities of the 190,000 or so civilians who, of course, were not effected by this chemical, yet conventional munitons?

was my sarcasm loud enough or should i draw a box around it?

sorry Hiro, I usually respect most of your opinions, but your position and defense of this tactic disappoints me greatly. The US does indeed have precision guided munitions, but WP is certainly not one of them(and I haven't even started my rant on cluster bombs and uranium tipped weapons yet).

Because lies in war are often necessary and acceptable - WWII's success of D-Day would not have been possible without huge amounts of trickery and lying. As long as things fall within the standards of Geneva conventions, and not about the overall reasoning behind the war, I find nothing wrong with lying about war.

In this case, perhaps there was (a) an intelligence reason that they didn't announce it (b) maybe they didn't want to deal with leftist media who know crap about chemistry

What I don't find acceptable is lying about torture, or for reasons behind starting a war, or about the realistic possibilities of victory. (Vietnam was the same way - it was proven that McNamara lied about many many figures, and it kept us in an unwinnable war much longer than we should have been. Conversely, if he had been realistic about numbers of enemy, perhaps the public could have taken things more seriously.)


Because phosphorous isn't a chemical weapon?

There are plenty of treaties the US doesn't sign. The Kyoto Pact, for instance, I originally criticized Bush for not signing, but upon reading the details, it was clear that it let China and other major polluters off the hook. It basically had a flat % decrease in pollution required, but the problem is that countries like China have really, really crappy standards for pollution, so them reducing their pollution by that % falls far, far short of where most Western countries already are at.


And clearly the insurgents had no respect for the mosques when they used them over and over again as rallying points and bases.

Do you so soon forget the images of the contractors who were burnt and hung on the Falluja bridge? There were tons of insurgents using the city as a hideout, and a staging point for skirmishes outside the city. Would you suggest the US military pass over it? Do you recall that, until the desecrated bodies photos - they were basically letting it be?

Criticisism for the politicians is due, but one thing is clear - America's soldiers are of the most professional in the world. Over and over again I've heard officers speak about avoiding civilian and religious targets, even if it meant putting soldiers in greater danger. I would recommend you get your facts straight before you dare accusing them of being reckless and Moslem-hating.


Again, "relatively calm" because the US basically had no presence there. Before the US invaded, it was basically a no-man's land where contractors would be escorted extra-heavily to go through, and always at night. So yes, it's not only leftist, it's misinformed.


I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are we talking Iraq, or previous wars? I've personally spoken to soldiers who fought in this war and in conflicts in the 1990's - protecting civilians is utmost priority.


phosphorous, first of all, is a metal. It's a reactive metal. It's a chemical only in that you will find it on the periodic table. It's not like other chemical weapons, were milligrams could wipe out thousands of people. It's no worse than having hollowpoint bullets - designed to inflict extra damage and stopping power rather than simply passing through the body.

War sucks. Weapons suck. We should avoid it as much as we can - certainly more than Bush tried to.


No, you're quite clear with your viewpoint.


Dude ... it's not like phosphorous magically spreads around.

You know what phosphorous is? Try a non-media source:
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts103.html

"What is white phosphorus?
White phosphorus is a colorless, white, or yellow waxy solid with a garlic-like odor. It does not occur naturally, but is manufactured from phosphate rocks.

White phosphorus reacts rapidly with oxygen, easily catching fire at temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above room temperature.

White phosphorus is used by the military in various types of ammunition, and to produce smoke for concealing troop movements and identifying targets.

It is also used by industry to produce phosphoric acid and other chemicals for use in fertilizers, food additives, and cleaning compounds. Small amounts of white phosphorus were used in the past in pesticides and fireworks."

Chemical weapon? Does this mean people shooting bottle rockets are using WMDs?

Not to add fuel to that fire, but I had heard recently that, during her captivity, Giuliana Sgrena had been told by her kidnappers that she was being held in order to prevent her from reporting on what fully went down in Falluja. She had previously reported that the U.S. had used "napalm" (which later would turn out to be WP) in Falluja and I believe she was beginning to look more into that when she was kidnapped. That begs to ask the question: if these guys are the guerrillas, wouldn't they want to show this side of the occupation to a foreign audience, instead of covering it up?



Actually, using white phosphorous or any type of incendiary weapon against civilians or military forces concentrated with civilian populations, like what was done here, is against the 1980 Geneva Convention of Conventional Weapons. Of course, the United States has only adopted two of the protocols (restriction of landmines and blinding laser weapons) to become a signatory nation, while abandoning the other two (restrictions on land mines and incendiary weapons).

The Army has always had some sort of peculiar relationship to WP. I remember reading the "Super Bowl" (Soldier's Manual of Common Tasks) and coming to the section on grenades. I had known about dangers of White Phosphorous before, but found it strange that the manual only mention that it was a signaling device, like colored smoke, and downplayed it's incendiary effect. The manual frequently mentioned that WP burns, so be careful with it, but you want to use Thermite to completely destroy equipment, because WP is unreliable in that regard. I should now mention that Thermite has almost no real offensive power, unless you plant it on top of somebody. It's effective range is very short, so it's only good at destroying equipment you have access to, like an armored vehicle or helicopter you're abandoning.

What evidence do you have that:
(a) Civilians were targeted?
(b) US soldiers fired upon military forces concentrated with civilian populations?

And by (b) we don't just mean "they are in a civilian city"... that convention is referring to firing upon armed units basically using civilians as human shields.


The US also does not use land mines except for the dimilitirized zone between the Koreas - which has helped keep them at peace. By comparison, Russia, China, other communist nations, and other nations have widely used landmines and never bothered to clean them up. Even back as far as Vietnam, when the US was doing some pretty awful stuff - it was Communist forces which litered civilian areas with landmines - not US.


Sounds like the Army was telling soldiers that its proper use was for signaling devices, and not for burning civilians.

...

There's nothing "conventional" about "conventional" weapons, anyway.

This isn't hiding thousands of troops to conceal an invasion, it is about using reactive chemicals in a populated city. Why lie unless you are covering up, especially so long after the conflict in which the chemicals were used?



good, because I was starting to lose respect for you. check out /112/f5/70764/1.html to see people full on advocating the use of torture and endorsing the reasons behind starting the war



the treaty specifies against civilians. Again, why didn't the US sign it (since we go out of our way to avoid civilian casualties)?



You know, whether an independant contractor is an innocent or whether they are aware of thier position in the politics is an entire different discussion (see Clerks from Kevin Smith, the 2nd death star discussion). Of course it was horrible, but were they totally unaware of entering a war zone or an un-uniformed enemy combatant? Again, not the place to discuss their own liability in placing themselves in a dangerous situation.

and i also didn't forget the video of the US troop killing the unarmed wounded man in the mosque, did you?




I never blamed the ground troops, who were following orders bravely to the best of their ability. that is precicely why i prefaced my later statement with "ordered to kill". the troops on the ground should NEVER be blamed for the decisions of the commanders and architects of war.



Pro American means only one thing to me. What does that mean to you?



But civilians in the way become "collateral damge." Again, I can't and won't blame the ground force grunt troops, we made that mistake in Vietnam. But there were those who gave the orders...



50 mg being the average lethal dose, I am not sure what you mean denying that milligrams aren't deadly (and that isn't counting death via skin burned off, just chemical lethality).



I agree, and so do most people. That is why the souls of those who were killed lay squarely on the head of GWB.



your point? (acid and pesticides are hardly comforting you know). It reacts with oxygen, not good unless you are in the vacuum of space.



please, bottle rockets wont give you Phossy-jaw

I'm surprised this thread lasted this long without dead babies.

Pravda delivers.

You make it sound more than it is ... phosphorous burns for a minute or two in presence of oxygen, then it's gone.

For that matter, there's reactive chemicals being used in almost every city in the US - in pools and in tap water faucets. What is this reactive chemical? Chlorine. OMG Chlorine! Isn't that mustard gas!??? Yes, it's in a different form but Cl- ions are present in the water.
OMG The US is using chemical weapons on all its citizens!!!!!!

OMG People are cleaning toilets and unclogging sinks with reactive chemicals!!!!

OMG Beer companies are advertising reactive chemical abuse!!!!

This is nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

Please, believe the science over the media hype!


Because it's not a chemical weapon? Because it's silly to call it that?


Okay, there's a big difference between building a fictional space station the size of a small moon whose only purpose is to destroy a planet - and being a contractor trying to rebuild Iraq - even if they both are in it for the money.


Okay, so don't bring it up. I mean, they were aware they might be killed ... but I doubt any, until then, suspected ... well, let me not get descriptive. We all remember the images.


I remember. I also remember reading the less-hyped followup reports where the soldier was found well within within Rules of Engagement. Soldiers who were there testified that the man made sudden movements (conveniently edited out by the media). Previous training that soldiers had been given indicated that men were posing wounded then blowing themselves up, and specific training given how to identify and deal with this.


Modern American military training stresses the avoidance of civilians. Either you're accusing the troops, or you're simply mistaken about what the military is ordering.


The opposite of Falluja?
What happened - as far as what was reported - was that these insurgents were systematically being ridden from each community they hid. The military was letting them escape, but Falluja was a holdout point. Once the insurgents entered Falluja, it became the most dangerous place in Iraq.

[quoe]But civilians in the way become "collateral damge." Again, I can't and won't blame the ground force grunt troops, we made that mistake in Vietnam. But there were those who gave the orders...[/quote]
Yes, but once again, you're missing the point. Modern American military strategies involve the minimizing of such losses.


If it's atomized and you inhale it, perhaps. Then again, 50mg of lead from a bullet will kill you just as easily.


Not so squarely. Responsibility is shared partly by all US citizens - a government of the people by the people means that we are responsible for our govenrment. But that's another debate.


If you read further down the page that I linked to, it stated how to stop the burning. Putting water on it will sufficiently stop the reaction enough to clean it off.



They would if fired into your jaw and they kept igniting inside it.

Did your TV not show the footage of clouds of the stuff fanning out from an aerial projectile, then drifting down on the wind? No targetting at all, just like poison gas. In a city ? With a significant civilian presence ?

The only way this stuff reaches into holes where explosives can't, and drives people out, is because of this drifting penetrating "cloud of fine powder" characteristic. Precisely the reason it hits any nearby civilian too.

An explosive weapon damages or kills you, and maybe leaves you in bits to bleed to death. It does not worm its way through your skin, ignite inside you and eat at you from the inside over a period of time. Probably not killing you but leaving you in a frightful damaged state. What would happen if some of this drifting powder entered, and ignited inside, your eyes, as surely a drifting fine powder must? Significant permanent blinding I should think. Its action is a chemical reaction on and beneath the skin. It can be delivered in indiscriminate drifting clouds. Thats a chemical weapon in my book.

If not, why all the initial denials and lying, and changes of story? They indicate the responses of those aware of guilt.

Look, no offense... people should do some research about chemistry before they start delivering truths about it.


The smoke is a result of the intense heat from combustion creating steam in the air along with the release of phosphate - P4O - which is not toxic. Only the pure, unburnt phosphorous is toxic.

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/272308.html


But that's not what burns or poisons people. It's the live phosphorous that frags from the grenade that would burn.


What you describe is no worse than conventional shrapnel damage - what do you think sharp metal does while writing around in your body? Would phosphorous blind a person any more than taking some shrapnel?


I already answered this question.

It's because of people believing in media hype that makes them lie in the first place. It's the same reasoning why everyone is paranoid that nuclear power is unsafe. People with a little bit of scientific knowledge are dangerous - because they don't properly understand the entirety of what it entails.

CCWC Protocols I and II do not ban the use of White Phosphorus.

White Phosphorus will kill you by burning you. It will not kill you with toxicity.

People who are claiming it is a "chemical weapon" need to go back to 5th grade science class, and learn the basic chemical properties of the material being discussed.

No offence taken, Hiro. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Actually, though, your link doesn't say most of that. However, I accept that you have researched it more than I, and maybe, in the "fine powder" formulation, it is indeed all oxidised by the time it reaches the ground. Certainly the reactive surface is very high.

But in that case, if it's a normal explosion effect, with phosphorus fragments (soon droplets) flying about the same way as bits of metal , then how does it have this extra capability of driving people out of holes ? Doesn't make sense, does it ?

Still, I accept your criticism contritely. I should not have relied on my school learning and experiences of the extreme danger of phosphorus ( water submersion, tweezers, etc) augmented only by a very quick google search.

I could go back and do it more thoroughly, and maybe take issue with you. But I don't have time, so I'll accept that you have researched it, and are right. I was insufficiently diligent to quote the detail I did. I stand corrected.

The more general point about international characterisation of this weapon, and the US declining to sign, still stands however.

I expect, to be honest, that my view is colored by my belief that we shouldn't be there, killing and maiming Iraqis on their own soil, at all. By any method. Imagine all this going on in Dallas.