The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
-T.S. Eliot-
It’s not just the President who lives in a bubble, cut off from reality, it’s America as well. We may have convinced ourselves that we’re the good guys and that we’re only trying to spread “freedom” throughout the world, but everyone else knows, or thinks they know better.
White phosphorus – it’s one of the horrors of WW I that was never to be repeated. It’s a chemical weapon that the US may have used against the nation that had no chemical weapons in a struggle to remove a dictator who needed to be removed because he once used chemical weapons in Iraq. Does that make sense?
According to the Independent, In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah.”
In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete. "Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."
The Government has been denying the use of chemical weapons against the Iraqis; weapons like gas and phosphorus, which they claim is only used to illuminate a battlefield. The use of phosphorus on targets like Fallujah contravenes the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, which only allows its use against military targets. We deny - they have the video. Who is the world going to believe? Will there be an Islamic partisan not enraged to the point of action against us?
A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: "A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact." The documentary, entitled Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, also provides what it claims is clinching evidence that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a new, improved form of napalm, was used in the attack on Fallujah.
I doubt that anyone in the world save for Tony Blair and Bush’s gang of thugs in Washington thinks we’re any better than Tamarlane or Attila at this point and our smug disregard of what anyone thinks only serves to isolate us further. Even if these charges are not true, they have the force of truth. There is nothing we can do to redeem our “mission” and nothing we can do to complete it. George W. Bush has betrayed us, betrayed the principles we thought we had, destroyed our good name, killed thousands and sold our birthright to his criminal friends. We may never be able to hold our heads up in the world again.
We’re the good guys – we’re the good guys – hold your hands over your eyes and keep saying we’re the good guys. . . . . .
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6 comments:
I'm a cranky guy.
What's happening to my country?
This story is nonsense. I saw the video of dead bodies. Explain to me how skin "burns" to the bone but the clothes are untouched. It's nonsense. And by the way white phosphorus is allowed to be used on military combatants although why you would want to use an illuminant on people is beyond me.
It's not nonsense. It's now appeared in Field Artillery Magazine and in Infantry Magazine
White Phosphorous in contact with skin causes a chemical reaction in which phosphoric acid consumes flesh. When breathed, it destroys the body from the inside. Breathing the cloud of phosphorus would burn the body while leaving clothes relatively intact.
The kind of shells used for illumination are not the kind of shells used in anti-personel weapons which fragment and blow bits of phosphorus all over the place - they would be somewhat useless for illumination as they do not hang in the air under a parachute like a magnesium flare.
Tell me what the difference is between using such chemical weapons on human beings and anything Saddam has been accused of.
The reason phosphorus does not burn clothes is that it reacts with water in the skin and underlaying tissue (the body is 95% water) to form phosphoric acid which in and of itself is a very corrosive acid that eats the skin and tissue. So pouring water on the chemical merely adds fuel to the fire, so to speak. It's really nasty stuff.
In converting from the pure elemental metal to the acid (reacting with water) it is exothermic (it liberates heat when it reacts with water) which then burns the skin but not enough to cause a fire to clothes. Nasty stuff, kept under mineral oil when shipped from chemical companies as it slowly oxidizes when exposed to air (air contains moisture).
As others have said, WP is an illuminating flare shell, not to be used on the enemy directly.
There are (for dignified nations such as we are supposed to be) rules of engagement we follow - remember the approbation "Saddam used chemical weapons!"? So we don't do that. Or do we? Who gave Saddam the chemicals he did use? We did. Why? He was fighting Iran, who we decided was our mortal enemy. It seems when we use surrogates the gloves come off and we fight dirty.
I thought that we do not descend into the sort of fighting that the Mujahadeen did in Afganistan. That is what I was taught when I was a US Army medic.
Oh well, that was a long time ago.. .(1967-69)
When I was a kid, all the moralizing types tried to teach us that the end never justified the means. Now we are of the Crusader mentality which means that because God want's us to win, anything we do is all right.
It isn't. We used to take pride in being better than our enemies - we aren't.
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