US Using White Phosphorus Rounds on Fallujah

Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."

Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/10/MNG6P9P3ER1.DTL

To save Iraq, sir, it was necessary to destroy it.

Excuse me while I go throw up.

•  TheWMDs

  We have met the enemy, and he is us...

  by DrKate on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 10:04:31 PM PDT

•  "friendly" fire

  There was an accident yesterday, where one round of this stuff fell on US troops:

  The confusion was such that at one point, a tank fired a phosphorous round that rained down on the American troops, breaking into a hundred flaming pieces and burning backpacks and gear but seriously hurting no one.

  by silence on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 10:05:07 PM PDT

  •  I've seen it, smelled it, felt the heat

    You never forget.

    Napalm is bad enough - and we've already used napalm in Iraq at least once, en route to Baghdad in 2003, as reported in the San Diego Union Tribune:

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030805-firebombs01.htm

    In Israel, we had to pretend we didn't use phosphorus regularly--our grenades, artillery shells and airforce bombs were all labeled "exploding smoke" - what a cute euphemism, like fireworks.

    But phosphorus just doesn't burn out. It ignites at room temperature and just keeps sparkling and burrowing and sizzling and burning. It's the fucking energizer bunny of incendiary torture.

    Of course, a Geneva Convention bans it - but we never signed it.

    Bombs bursting in air. The phosphor's white glare. The troops were all glad, cause the flag was still there.

    They're dropping 2,000 pound "conventional" bombs, too.

    Remember, every crater is $$ for Halliburton to fill.

    Our Moral Values, on display. America, Destroyer of Worlds.

    by galiel on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 10:25:22 PM PDT

    •  reference

      If you could provide a reference for the phrase "a Geneva Convention bans it-but we never signed it", I would very much appreciate it.

      There wasn't anything concrete in the article you linked to.

      Thanks.

      by Skipbidder on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 11:33:24 PM PDT

      •  asdf

        I think it is a reference to the 1977 protocols (amendments) which the US did not ratify.  Whether the use of phosphorus is banned by the Conventions is open to debate because they do not itemize prohibited weapons.

        by jlynne on Fri Nov 12, 2004 at 01:13:28 AM PDT

      •  1977

        This reference mentions two protocals in 1977 that were not ratified by the US.

        According to the Council on Foreign Relations:
        Are all countries agreed on the rules?
        No. While both the United States and Iraq have ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions, for example, neither has agreed to the 1977 agreements, which deal with guerrilla fighting and other issues of modern war. Generally, rules of war are determined not only by what is in treaties, but also by international consensus and practice. This is called customary international law.

        In illegal wars, do humanitarian laws still apply?
        Yes. No matter what one thinks about the legality of a war--some critics have said the U.S.-led assault on Iraq is unlawful--humanitarian laws must be followed. A strict interpretation of the Geneva Conventions would make illegal all tactics that unnecessarily endanger and target the civilian population.
        

        by joejoejoe on Fri Nov 12, 2004 at 01:33:41 AM PDT

      •  i think he means in Israel

        when he was part of the IDF there.

        Though the US has been shockingly selective about what Conventions and International Laws it has signed, so it could be here instead.

        by bellatrys on Fri Nov 12, 2004 at 03:32:17 AM PDT

        •  Wrong, US not signatory to 1980 Geneva Protocol

          The "Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects"
          Geneva, 10 October 1980

          Protocol II Article 2 clearly prohibits the use described in the article.

                 INCENDIARY WEAPONS (PROTOCOL III)

                                        Article 1

                                       Definitions

          For the purpose of this Protocol:

          1. "Incendiary weapon" means any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or a combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target.

              (a) Incendiary weapons can take the form of, for example, flame throwers, fougasses, shells, rockets, grenades, mines, bombs and other containers of incendiary substances.

              (b) Incendiary weapons do not include:

               (i)  Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;

              (ii)  Munitions designed to combine penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary effect, such as armour-piercing projectiles, fragmentation shells, explosive bombs and similar combined-effects munitions in which the incendiary effect is not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons, but to be used against military objectives, such as armoured vehicles, aircraft and installations or facilities.

          2. "Concentration of civilians" means any concentration of civilians, be it permanent or temporary, such as in inhabited parts of cities, or inhabited towns or villages, or as in camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or groups of nomads.

          3. "Military objective" means, so far as objects are concerned, any object which by its nature, location, purpose or use makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.

          4. "Civilian objects" are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 3.

          5. "Feasible precautions" are those precautions which are practicable or practically possible taking into account all circumstances ruling at the time, including humanitarian and military considerations.

                                        Article 2

                      Protection of civilians and civilian objects

          1.It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.

          2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

          3. It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.

          4. It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.

          The US is NOT a party to this protocol.

          http://www.un.org/millennium/law/xxvi-18-19.htm

          by galiel on Fri Nov 12, 2004 at 06:13:16 AM PDT

•  All Americans are war criminals.

  We all have blood guilt on our hands.

  Those who fight the war are less guilty, but still not innocent.

  The only way to expiate the blood guilt, in my opinion, is to sacrifice your life, or perhaps to renounce the atrocity of U.S. citizenship.

  Oh my God most of us are blind!

  by Timaeus on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 10:33:35 PM PDT

  •  Correction.

    I do believe that those that "fight the war" are less guilty.

    But I meant to type that "those that fight against the war" are less guilty--a little.

    by Timaeus on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 11:15:00 PM PDT

  •  Some asshole named "Darwin Response"

    gives me a 2 marginal rating but doesn't
    give a post rebutting my point. Schmuck!

    by Timaeus on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 11:36:51 PM PDT

•  Is there any consolation ...

  
  ... in knowing that we, here, would never do this?

  Somehow that doesn't comfort me at all.  

  It just makes me feel worse.  

  Because it's done in my name.

  by SusanHu on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 11:07:37 PM PDT

•  Jesus!

  This is the first flat out, unequivocal, no to ways around it, honest-to-God war crime committed by US troops in this war. I hope whatever bastrd ordered the use of this stuff gets a court-martial and maybe a trip the Hague. Oh wait, we didn't sign the ICC, lucky for him.

  If anyone can tell me what necessary military function use of Willy Pete against the insurgents serves, that could not have been accomplished with conventional munitions, other then to make anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with this stuff die a long, agonizing, slow, burning death, I'd like to fucking hear what it is.

  Don't forget, Saddem Hussein used chemical weapons against the Iranian Army, too. I can't remember if WP was one of the ones he used, but it sure shoots our moral clarity in Iraq straight to hell -not that we had any left anyway, or even had any to begin with.

  by Goldfish on Fri Nov 12, 2004 at 12:34:18 AM PDT

  •  Actually, we've used Napalm, too, in Iraq

    We've already used napalm in Iraq at least once, en route to Baghdad in 2003, as reported in the San Diego Union Tribune:

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030805-firebombs01.htm

    And don't get me started on Depleted Uranium rounds left by the ton, which not only poisons generations of Iraqis, especially children, but poisons our own troops as well. We left more than 300 tons of it after Desert Storm, and who knows how much the American and British forces have used this time around - the rounds are much more ubiquitous. And that's not counting all the DU released from the Iraqi tanks we blew up and left smoking for Iraqi children to pick apart...

    And folks seem to have forgotten how US planes bombed a wedding on the Syrian border earlier this year, when the typical celebratory firing in the air which is to them what fireworks are to us, was interpreted by culturally ignorant Americans as a threat and they swooped in for the kill.

    Imagine two entire families and most of a village, celebrating the love and commitment of two young people, looking forward to a life as husband and wife, as the bombs drop down and and the big guns strafe and the body pieces scatter.

    And, what? Nothing.

    What responsibility do the individuals who are "just following orders" have in all this? Is it all the "contractors" fault and the generals? When will we hold the entire military-industrial complex responsible, from top to bottom, and acknowledge that most of the victims of our military might are innocent civilians - and have been so in every conflict in modern history.

    by galiel on Fri Nov 12, 2004 at 06:30:27 AM PDT

    •  and

      What happens to those U.S. soldiers, commanded to commit these war crimes and to torture Iraqi prisoners, once they come home?  How are they reintegrated into society?

      How many Timothy McVeighs and John Allen Muhammads, veterans of first Iraq War, is this War in Iraq creating?

      How prepared is our mental health system to deal with the consequences of those just following orders?  

      by SimoneDB on Sat Nov 13, 2004 at 02:29:16 PM PDT

  •  the torture

    at Abu Ghraib was a violation of the Geneva conventions; as was the holding of detainees without charge in Guantanamo Bay.

    by SimoneDB on Sat Nov 13, 2004 at 02:22:26 PM PDT

    •  Not to sound like a wing-nut

      But the holding of "detainees" at Guantanamo Bay is not a violation of Geneva Convention, because the people being held there do not meet the legal requirements to be prisoners of war. The Geneva Convention was meant to protect soldiers, not the fantical thugs, cut-thorats, and strong-men of a criminal regimen that was regognized by (almost) no one.

      Does that mean that they should be held indefinitely with out access to lawyers, or with
      out judicial review, or be troted out in front of kangaroo courts in the name of "national security"? Absolutely not! This legal fiction that Guantanamo Bay is outside the jurisdiction of the US courts is both ridiculous and dangerous. These prisoners are subject to the laws and protections of the United States, no matter what Bush claims.

      However, while they should be granted the full protection of our rule of law, they are in
      no way entitled to, or deserving of, the protection of the Geneva Convention.

      by Goldfish on Thu Nov 18, 2004 at 03:45:28 AM PDT