Religions > Atheism > OT: Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
22 Nov 2005 05:34:49 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes |
Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1647716,00.html
We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its assault on
Falluja, where up to 50,000 civilians remained
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 22, 2005
The Guardian
The media couldn't have made a bigger pig's ear of the white phosphorus
story. So, before moving on to the new revelations from Falluja, I
would like to try to clear up the old ones. There is no hard evidence
that white phosphorus was used against civilians. The claim was made in
a documentary broadcast on the Italian network RAI, called Falluja: the
Hidden Massacre. It claimed that the corpses in the pictures it ran
"showed strange injuries, some burnt to the bone, others with skin
hanging from their flesh ... The faces have literally melted away, just
like other parts of the body. The clothes are strangely intact." These
assertions were supported by a human-rights advocate who, it said,
possessed "a biology degree".
.
|
|
| User: "JTEM" |
|
| Title: Re: Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes |
22 Nov 2005 06:06:03 AM |
|
|
"maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote
Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes
Maybe. Who knows? But what we do know is that you haven't
identified *Anything* that is a "war crime."
We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its
assault on Falluja,
Yeah, killing people with tiny bits of red hot, jaggered metal
is just *So* much more civilized than using a shock wave...
So, do you sniff glue? I mean, a lot?
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: OT: Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes |
23 Nov 2005 07:19:20 PM |
|
|
On 21 Nov 2005 21:34:49 -0800, "maff" <maff91@yahoo.com> wrote:
Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1647716,00.html
We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its assault on
Falluja, where up to 50,000 civilians remained
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 22, 2005
The Guardian
The media couldn't have made a bigger pig's ear of the white phosphorus
story. So, before moving on to the new revelations from Falluja, I
would like to try to clear up the old ones. There is no hard evidence
that white phosphorus was used against civilians. The claim was made in
a documentary broadcast on the Italian network RAI, called Falluja: the
Hidden Massacre. It claimed that the corpses in the pictures it ran
"showed strange injuries, some burnt to the bone, others with skin
hanging from their flesh ... The faces have literally melted away, just
like other parts of the body. The clothes are strangely intact." These
assertions were supported by a human-rights advocate who, it said,
possessed "a biology degree".
I, too, possess a biology degree, and I am as well qualified to
determine someone's cause of death as I am to perform open-heart
surgery. So I asked Chris Milroy, professor of forensic pathology at
the University of Sheffield, to watch the film. He reported that
"nothing indicates to me that the bodies have been burnt". They had
turned black and lost their skin "through decomposition". We don't yet
know how these people died.
But there is hard evidence that white phosphorus was deployed as a
weapon against combatants in Falluja. As this column revealed last
Tuesday, US infantry officers confessed that they had used it to flush
out insurgents. A Pentagon spokesman told the BBC that white
phosphorus "was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy
combatants". He claimed "it is not a chemical weapon. They are not
outlawed or illegal." This denial has been accepted by most of the
mainstream media. UN conventions, the Times said, "ban its use on
civilian but not military targets". But the word "civilian" does not
occur in the chemical weapons convention. The use of the toxic
properties of a chemical as a weapon is illegal, whoever the target
is.
The Pentagon argues that white phosphorus burns people, rather than
poisoning them, and is covered only by the protocol on incendiary
weapons, which the US has not signed. But white phosphorus is both
incendiary and toxic. The gas it produces attacks the mucous
membranes, the eyes and the lungs. As Peter Kaiser of the Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons told the BBC last week: "If
.... the toxic properties of white phosphorus, the caustic properties,
are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that of course is
prohibited, because ... any chemicals used against humans or animals
that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical
are considered chemical weapons."
The US army knows that its use as a weapon is illegal. In the Battle
Book, published by the US Command and General Staff College at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, my correspondent David Traynier found the
following sentence: "It is against the law of land warfare to employ
WP against personnel targets."
Last night the blogger Gabriele Zamparini found a declassified
document from the US department of defence, dated April 1991, and
titled "Possible use of phosphorus chemical". "During the brutal
crackdown that followed the Kurdish uprising," it alleges, "Iraqi
forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white
phosphorus (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the
populace in Erbil ... and Dohuk provinces, Iraq. The WP chemical was
delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships ... These
reports of possible WP chemical weapon attacks spread quickly ...
hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled from these two areas." The
Pentagon is in no doubt, in other words, that white phosphorus is an
illegal chemical weapon.
The insurgents, of course, would be just as dead today if they were
killed by other means. So does it matter if chemical weapons were
mixed with other munitions? It does. Anyone who has seen those photos
of the lines of blind veterans at the remembrance services for the
first world war will surely understand the point of international law,
and the dangers of undermining it.
But we shouldn't forget that the use of chemical weapons was a war
crime within a war crime within a war crime. Both the invasion of Iraq
and the assault on Falluja were illegal acts of aggression. Before
attacking the city, the marines stopped men "of fighting age" from
leaving. Many women and children stayed: the Guardian's correspondent
estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians were left. The
marines treated Falluja as if its only inhabitants were fighters. They
levelled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi
Red Crescent and, according to the UN's special rapporteur, used
"hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the
civilian population".
I have been reading accounts of the assault published in the Marine
Corps Gazette. The soldiers appear to have believed everything the US
government told them. One article claims that "the absence of
civilians meant the marines could employ blast weapons prior to
entering houses that had become pillboxes, not homes". Another said
that "there were less than 500 civilians remaining in the city". It
continued: "The heroics [of the marines] will be the subject of many
articles and books ... The real key to this tactical victory rested in
the spirit of the warriors who courageously fought the battle. They
deserve all of the credit for liberating Falluja."
But buried in this hogwash is a grave revelation. An assault weapon
the marines were using had been armed with warheads containing "about
35% thermobaric novel explosive (NE) and 65% standard high explosive".
They deployed it "to cause the roof to collapse and crush the
insurgents fortified inside interior rooms". It was used repeatedly:
"The expenditure of explosives clearing houses was enormous."
The marines can scarcely deny that they know what these weapons do. An
article published in the Gazette in 2000 details the effects of their
use by the Russians in Grozny. Thermobaric, or "fuel-air" weapons, it
says, form a cloud of volatile gases or finely powdered explosives.
"This cloud is then ignited and the subsequent fireball sears the
surrounding area while consuming the oxygen in this area. The lack of
oxygen creates an enormous overpressure ... Personnel under the cloud
are literally crushed to death. Outside the cloud area, the blast wave
travels at some 3,000 metres per second ... As a result, a fuel-air
explosive can have the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon without
residual radiation ... Those personnel caught directly under the
aerosol cloud will die from the flame or overpressure. For those on
the periphery of the strike, the injuries can be severe. Burns, broken
bones, contusions from flying debris and blindness may result.
Further, the crushing injuries from the overpressure can create air
embolism within blood vessels, concussions, multiple internal
haemorrhages in the liver and spleen, collapsed lungs, rupture of the
eardrums and displacement of the eyes from their sockets." It is hard
to see how you could use these weapons in Falluja without killing
civilians.
This looks to me like a convincing explanation of the damage done to
Falluja, a city in which between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians might
have been taking refuge. It could also explain the civilian casualties
shown in the film. So the question has now widened: is there any crime
the coalition forces have not committed in Iraq?
www.monbiot.com
/end
Short answer is 'No.'
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
