Use of Napalm & Chemical weapons in Iraq

[BrokenArrow]

i suggest you read Generation Kill or Black Hawk Down, those are pretty accurate accounts of the type of fighting that goes down in 3rd world countries. if you think THOSE are propaganda then i dont know how you think, both of those readily point out shortfalls in the US strategy in both cases and a few places i can remember in generation kill depict pretty poor conduct by those on the US side. if they were meant to be propaganda i think theyd leave those out.

[YoJimbO]

Originally Posted by NikovK

Could we get a source to work off that is NOT riddled with porn? Say, something with a shred of credibility?

Is the BBC allright?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4417024.stm

[Enforcer1975]

Originally Posted by cleaver_simian

Enforcer... Those stories you hear about people hiding behind children and women... it's propaganda, like the stuff they have about "USA is the Devil" and "infidels", you don't truly believe it... ever tried to hold a child/woman and shoot a gun? not the best tactic

You shouldn't take "hiding behind women and children" literaly. Hiding among them does the job.
What are we than infidels in the eyes of a "true ( misguided ) muslim"? I don't even understand why we try to help them with money so they can print their schoolbooks to teach more hate to the youth. You should hear the tirades in the mosques here in germany, they confronted one with what they recorded the day before, he had no answer. I wonder why they are allowed to build one over here, they would behead you if you tried to raise a christian church over there.

[NikovK]

Originally Posted by YoJimbO

Would be nice, wouldn't it?
By the way NikovK, the fact that it's on the website doesn't mean they created it

There was another thread about this, I just saw it after creating this one, although instead of a link to that vid, it was to a report & responsive statement. Where the hell has the thread gone?

Still porny. I have trouble thinking critically with half-naked women on the screen.

Anyway, I looked over the half-hour "Massacre" video by that Italian news network and feel there are not enough credible military opinions. There's the one guy... who looks pretty in-credible. He says he's an ex-marine but says "the Army" gave him 18+ is military age and a possible target. He says EVERYONE in the city was considered a hostile by the marines going in, but he also says everyone with a weapon was a hostile. 10-year olds with AK's are still holding AKs, give it that. Then there are a lot of peace activists who are going to have their bias. I don't see any credible US or Iraqi officers talking.

Furthermore it says women went back to their homes to find a "white dust", possible WP residue from flare smoke? They were asked to clean their houses out with disinfectant. Now if we were going in to kill everyone, wouldn't we just say its powdered sugar?

If white-phosporous based flares and smokes are dangerous to non-combatants in built-up areas, then America needs to revise its urban war-fighting methods and find illumination and obscurant alternatives to WP. I do not think "massive amounts" of white phosporous were used as a deliberate killing payload. I think what may have happened were ground illumination flares and parachute flares were used in places where the fumes built up. I do not think white phosporous, napalm or other fire/incindiary weapons are "evil", dangerous, cruel, brutal or otherwise inhumane to use in war.

WAR IS DANGEROUS, CRUEL, BRUTAL AND INHUMANE.

War is also rightous, just, noble and brave OR cowardly, wicked, savage and deceitful. It depends on what is in the hearts of the fighting men. I feel that in the heart of the American, British, Australian, Canadian and other citizen-soldier fighting men is a desire to not kill a single civilian if it can be at all avoided, and the question of moral action in combat amounts to how you act with complete understanding. Do you just kill unarmed civilians for a sick high? Do you only fire upon that which is a THREAT, to you or others, percieved or definate? In all human activities there is never perfect understanding. Thus such accidents occur.

If you want to know what true barbarism in urban war is, you should learn about the Rape of Nanking by Imperialist Japanese or Soviet "liberation" of Berlin. Even phosporus bombs pale compared to that.

[Enforcer1975]

Originally Posted by YoJimbO

Is the BBC allright?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4417024.stm

You can't trust the Baghdad Broadcasting Company.

[cleaver_simian]

Originally Posted by Enforcer1975

You shouldn't take "hiding behind women and children" literaly. Hiding among them does the job.
What are we than infidels in the eyes of a "true ( misguided ) muslim"? I don't even understand why we try to help them with money so they can print their schoolbooks to teach more hate to the youth. You should hear the tirades in the mosques here in germany, they confronted one with what they recorded the day before, he had no answer. I wonder why they are allowed to build one over here, they would behead you if you tried to raise a christian church over there.

Well, they say sh*t in mosques and we post it all over the net, I'm not saying their right but we're calling ourselves the moral country and we call ourselves multi-cultural, hence why the west is so damn right, we can't call ourselves that then not live up to it. Anyway, what the hell are the Americans doing shooting and battling around where there are woman and children... and what are the women and children doing there if theres a battle going on, it just doesn't add up... hmmm strange. I don't think they need to give their kids school books saying "west = bad" when we're bombing them and occupying their country, they'll think that anyway. Meh

[NikovK]

Deleted so people will pay attention to my real arguement.

[[R-DEV]Eddie Baker]

I just want to confirm what BrokenArrow has been saying; napalm and white phosphorus are not "chemical weapons" under the definition of any international agreement concerning armed conflict. The claim of the Italian news media that the US has used "banned chemical weapons" in this case is baseless, and probably deliberately misleading and inflammatory.

Read Protocol III of the Geneva 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 for background.

This having been said, burning white phosphorus fragments WILL FUCK YOU UP; they burn right through human bone and must be removed from the victim IMMEDIATELY. For a simulated example, and the real thing is probably even worse, see We Were Soldiers. The US does not use the M34 WP hand grenade anymore; it could send WP fragments out to 35 meters, and the average soldier could throw it 30 meters. WP artillery shells and rockets are used for marking targets and signaling. FAC aircraft, like the A-10 and OH-58D, typically carry Hydra 2.75" pods with WP rockets in this role.

[cleaver_simian]

Yes, and whilst they suicide bomb they're thinking of their cause? I don't think they're thinking of a cause except to have their country back, they don't want our support, obviously.... Major Base of Operations? I thought guerrilla warfare was so difficult because there was no base of operation and no order... hence being guerrilla warfare.

[YoJimbO]

Originally Posted by NikovK

Hey, what the hell are insurgents doing not clearing out the women and children in their major base of operations before the Americans attack? Don't they give two shakes about protecting the rights of civilians and defending their people? Or maybe they'd just as soon have thousands of dead civilians, burned on the altar to bring more support for their cause from the Arab world?

THINK people.

They logically want to create as much of a problem to advancing US forces as physically possible, and as much as I disagree with using civilians as a method, how exactly are they to evacuate the whole city? Firstly, they do not have the authority, yes they have guns, but it takes more than that. Isolated pockets aren't enough to get their people to leave the city.

The fact that the insurgents themsleves didn't flush the people out of the city, is this your case for the discussion? That it makes it ok to just let rip into a crowd of civilians, just because you think there are suspects in that crowd that didn't tell the civilians to leave?

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Eddie Baker

I just want to confirm what BrokenArrow has been saying; napalm and white phosphorus are not "chemical weapons" under the definition of any international agreement concerning armed conflict. The claim of the Italian news media that the US has used "banned chemical weapons" in this case is baseless, and probably deliberately misleading and inflammatory.

With that I agree. Also they aren't technically banned for America, because the US didn't sign the treaty stating that these "banned chemical weapons" shouldn't be used.

Originally Posted by BBC News

Washington is not a signatory of an international treaty restricting the use of white phosphorus devices.

They refused to agree with that ruling. Does this make the US another rogue nation as well as Iraq because they're using internationally banned weapons, then?