White Phosphorus Anyone?

Post Reply New Topic

White Phosphorus

I love the smell of fried skin in the morning.
(Sniff, Sniff)
It smells like, well it smells like Weapons of Mass Destruction highly criminal in nature.
In fact, it smells exactly like crimes against humanity.

Yeah, and it's liberals like you who'd be criticising your military for taking too many casualties if they decided not to use it. Better fried enemy, than fried Yank, no? Or, perhaps secretly you want to see your fellow countrymen dead, to prove a point? Why do you find it impossible to give your own side — your own people — the benefit of the doubt? Your military have justified it's use, quite reasonably.

Anyway, white phosphorous is nowhere near a weapon of mass destruction, anymore than high explosives are. Yes it kills, in an unpleasant way, but so do bullets and shrapnel.

Yes, I was just wondering can the President be impeached for war crimes? There is no doubt he deserves it. And i'm sure i'm not the only one who finds it ironic that we went to Iraq to prevent Saddam using chemical weapons only to use them against Iraqis ourselves. I'm sure Rumsfeld gave one of his typical 's**t happens' responses as an excuse. I'm just surprised the Pentagon had the honesty to admit their crimes against humanity.

And I am one "liberal" who agrees with you.

I think people should keep separate the issues of the rights and wrongs of being in Iraq, from how the military is conducting operations there. Even if you don't agree with the war, and the current attempts to promote democracy, it should be accepted that the military are there as part of your democratic process and are just normal people doing their duty, in very difficult circumstances.

Except 'white phosphorus' isn't a 'weapon of mass destruction' at all. It's like al gore saying 'I used .50 caliber machine guns against personel' and although it sounds dramatic there is nothing morally or ethicly wrong with either in warfare. Most of the 'white phophorus munitions' discharged in Iraq were actually illumination flares!

Machloket

If this 1983 accord you speak of has anything to do with the UN, then no wonder nobody ever gave a crap about it!

Wow, this sure generated some interesting conversation rather quickly.

This is kind of a false dilemma don't you think. At the rate Iraq's troops were surrendering, there is much questioning as to what exactly would have happened if they had not dropped white phosphorus onto the Iraqi soldiers. The fact is that neither you or I know.

Second, it spells out the differences between Clinton's policy and Bush's. Clinton invested heavily into military research of intellegent weapons that would significantly reduce the number of civilian casualties. If the reports from Iraq and Afghanisatan are truthful, these weapons systems seem to work extremely well. Along comes George W. What does he do? He dumps a large amount of a highly controversal chemical onto combatants in a high civilian area. Yea, I think it is a crime and a travesty.

I think I have every right to question the ethics of such an action. We live in a time when the demand for military ethics is very high. I for one am very happy about that. I think that if we are going to take the life of another human being, we ought to be very discerning about how and when we do it.

In a conventional war some of the wanted rules are understandable and would apply, but in our modern wars it just does not apply since most of the smaller country's we war in hide there troupes and the like in with the civilian populations then cry out that we are monsters when we in turn attack those who attacked us in the only ways we so far know how, the USA and other strong country's are getting way to tech for these little country's so they go gorilla on us, I see no real wrong out of necessity and of being realistic. what, you do not think people in street cloths walk up with bombs under there cloths happens do you? perhaps we should just ask them to line up all their little solders with their pee shooters and we do the same with our solders and tanks and our guns and our planes have at it, now wouldn't that be nice short and sweet? (err for us).

Their is a difference between intelligent weapons technology that hits specified targets with high levels of accuracy, and dropping White Phosphorus over a populated area. We have developed intellegent technologies to engage in combat more ethically, I expect us to use that over chemical weapons with a wide spread area.

It also would not hurt to consult with the Israeli military who have engaged arab terrorists in a highly ethical manner for a lot longer then we have.

Those are just two of my many expectations.

White phosporus has been used by the military for many many years. It IS anti personnel, and it IS nasty stuff. IT is NOT a WMD. Better Intel would be a wonderful thing, but in a war where the enemy hides amongst the civilians in order to prevent us from finding them, there will be, and unfortunately so, civilian casulities. But 9/11 created almost all civilian casuilties.... This war is being judged on the premise that we can win aginst an ememy by fighting fair when they arent. I dont like the idea of having to fight dirty, but if it prevents the next big terrorist attack on allied soil.... so be it. Might be my family saved, or even me. The terrorists want civilian casulities because it hurts the general population more. I am in emergency services, and I can tell you that the threat is greater than the average citizen realizes, or wants to for that matter. We train on the posibility of not only a forgin terrorist attack, but also domestic. The threat from overseas, however, is more likely to inflict more damage, both physically and fiscally. They are trained to go after things that are dear to our hearts, as well as our wallets. Inturupting commerce and trade, inflicting real damage to "soft" targets (schools, offices, shops etc) important historical and military locations are all on the terroist "to do list". Just think how much damage to the ecomonoy 9/11 did, and it was really not as huge as it could have been. In this global market, if one major nation suffers, all the others do too. Its a domino effect. And it will hurt the freeworld should something on the scale (or god forbid larger) of 9/11 happens again. If we allow the countries that harbor terrorists, and train terrorists to continue, then we are only allowing the vicious cycle to go on. I for one, do not want to see another 9/11.
so is using a "willy pete" grenade out of the question? As much as I hate to say it, no, if the end result is saved lives.

I don't call invading a country under false pretenses fair.
I don't think that we ever fought fair in Iraq.
I don't think we ever will.
I'm not even sure what fair means in this circumstance.


This is a straw man. The fact is that you don't really know if and when or by whom your family is at risk. One thing is for certain, they will all die. Yet, you will never know when or why until it actually happens. Likewise, you don't know when the next terrorist attack will occur. I'm sure the children and parents in Iraq felt many of the same things the night that the bombs started falling as you did on 9/11.

If 9/11 has relevance, it should be to fight more ethically not less.
We should always use weapons that minimize risks to non combatants.
These non combatants I assure you are someones family, and they feel many of the same feelings for them as you do for yours.

Our actions in Iraq have fueled feelings of hatred by muslim extremists making future terrorist actions more likely, not less.


War veteran angry over Iraq terrorism

Neither of us know; the military in the field do; they should be left to decide — as I've suggested in the first paragraph of that post.

Btw we're talking about Falluja and insurgents, not regular Iraqi troops. Of course that in itself doesn't necessarily make any difference to how you kill someone, but best keep things clear.



It does nothing of the sort. You can't take one or even a few isolated occurences, decided by the military on the ground, and apply it to such a thing. You're using emotive language to create a smokescreen of disgust, and proving nothing!


Indeed. The huge irony being that the cosy environment of freedom and affluence that allows you to sit there and criticise your fellow countrymen fighting in foreign lands, has been created by the violence and military power you despise.

And the US and British troops on the ground are someones son or maybe father; even daughters and mothers. Perhaps even your neighbours, yet you don't appear to give them a second thought.

What do you mean? The USA invaded Iraq on orders from Israel. Israel taught the torturers that disgusting sexual stuff at Abu Ghraib. Israel has taught the USA and Britian about performing terrorist acts and blaming it on the Arabs. The USA is killing muslims for Israel.

Engaged Arabs in an ethical manner? That is a lie. The Israelis torture Palestinians. The Israelis rape men, women and children. The Israelis shoot Palestinians for sport, like tigers or bears.

The Israelis are racists who will not stop until they have destroyed muslims world wide.

That was pretty good ownage of Irishmc. Sounds professional. Are you reading from a republican handout? One of Bush's speech writers could not have penned a better reply. In fact, that sounds almost exactly like what Bush and Cheney said over the past few days.