US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war

Another Bush choice who shoots from the hips and doesn't worry about the future consequences.

Re: US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war


While we shouldn't have lied (and I'm not exactly sure why we did lie), I don't see what the fuss is about.

What business is it of anyone's what weapons we do or don't use.





Reviled???





We didn't use napalm in Fallujah, but we did shell parts of Fallujah with white phosphorus.

No idea if civilians got in the way of any phosphorus fragments.

The areas around destroyed tanks should certainly be cleaned up, but the radiation really is extremely minimal.





We use DU because it is highly effective as a material for armor-piercing bullets.

It takes more than intent. The act has to be illegal.

For instance the death penalty involves intentional killing that is legal and therefore not murder.

If the collateral loss was incurred in a legitimate attempt at a military objective, and there was a reasonable effort to minimize the collateral loss, it is not illegal, and therefore not murder.

They do seem to have gotten a large number of things badly wrong.

Napalm has never been banned. And it most certainly isn't a gas. It is a sticky jel.

And we didn't use it in Fallujah (although we did shell parts of Fallujah with white phosphorus).

"Do unto others as they would have done to you." Nice religious message, don't you think?

So how many lies are acceptable to tell an ally and still expect them to remain an ally? I would imagine Tony Blair feels very stupid these days. Used up.

It's not only Tony Blair. Can you imagine any country in the world today that would follow Bush into another war - as in coalition of the willing?

While it was wrong of Bush to lie, I don't see how it was an appropriate question to ask of us in the first place.

The protocol, which we are not even a party to, allows the use of such firebombs so long as they are against a military target well away from any population center.

We complied with this requirement so far as our use of napalm went.

Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm

By James W. Crawley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

August 5, 2003

American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs - similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War - in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad.

Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs.



Mark 77 Firebomb
"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. Randolph Alles in a recent interview. He commanded Marine Air Group 11, based at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, during the war. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video.

"They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die," he added. How many Iraqis died, the military couldn't say. No accurate count has been made of Iraqi war casualties.

The bombing campaign helped clear the path for the Marines' race to Baghdad.

During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago.

Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.

What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.

Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.

Hundreds of partially loaded Mark 77 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas, Marine Corps officials said. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.

"You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va.

"They were Iraqi soldiers there. It's no great way to die."

Col. Randolph Alles

Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets.

"Incendiaries create burns that are difficult to treat," said Robert Musil, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Washington group that opposes the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as "pretty outrageous."

"That's clearly Orwellian," he added.

Developed during World War II and dropped on troops and Japanese cities, incendiary bombs have been used by American forces in nearly every conflict since. Their use became controversial during the Vietnam War when U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft dropped millions of pounds of napalm. Its effects were shown in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Vietnamese children running from their burned village.

Before March, the last time U.S. forces had used napalm in combat was the Persian Gulf War, again by Marines.

During a recent interview about the bombing campaign in Iraq, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Jim Amos confirmed aircraft dropped what he and other Marines continue to call napalm on Iraqi troops on several occasions. He commanded Marine jet and helicopter units involved in the Iraq war and leads the Miramar-based 3rd Marine Air Wing.

Miramar pilots familiar with the bombing missions pointed to at least two locations where firebombs were dropped.

Before the Marines crossed the Saddam Canal in central Iraq, jets dropped several firebombs on enemy positions near a bridge that would become the Marines' main crossing point on the road toward Numaniyah, a key town 40 miles from Baghdad.

Next, the bombs were used against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, in early April.

There were reports of another attack on the first day of the war.

Two embedded journalists reported what they described as napalm being dropped on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill overlooking the Kuwait border.

Reporters for CNN and the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald were told by unnamed Marine officers that aircraft dropped napalm on the Iraqi position, which was adjacent to one of the Marines' main invasion routes.

Their reports were disputed by several Pentagon spokesmen who said no such bombs were used nor did the United States have any napalm weapons.

The Pentagon destroyed its stockpile of napalm canisters, which had been stored near Camp Pendleton at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station, in April 2001.

Yesterday military spokesmen described what they see as the distinction between the two types of incendiary bombs. They said mixture used in modern firebombs is a less harmful mixture than Vietnam War-era napalm.

"Many folks (out of habit) refer to the Mark 77 as 'napalm' because its effect upon the target is remarkably similar."

Col. Michael Daily

"This additive has significantly less of an impact on the environment," wrote Marine spokesman Col. Michael Daily, in an e-mailed information sheet provided by the Pentagon.

He added, "many folks (out of habit) refer to the Mark 77 as 'napalm' because its effect upon the target is remarkably similar."

In the e-mail, Daily also acknowledged that firebombs were dropped near Safwan Hill.

Alles, who oversaw the Safwan bombing raid, said 18 one-ton satellite-guided bombs, but no incendiary bombs, were dropped on the site.

Military experts say incendiary bombs can be an effective weapon in certain situations.

Firebombs are useful against dug-in troops and light vehicles, said GlobalSecurity's Pike.

"I used it routinely in Vietnam," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, now a prominent defense analyst. "I have no moral compunction against using it. It's just another weapon."

And, the distinctive fireball and smell have a psychological impact on troops, experts said.

"The generals love napalm," said Alles, who has transferred to Washington. "It has a big psychological effect."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James W. Crawley:
(619) 542-4559; [email protected]

The title of this thread is "US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war." The US lied. If our generals called it napalm, it was napalm.

"Fool me once...." The point is that the US cannot be trusted by its allies now. Sad but true. But a temporary state of affairs I'm sure.

Re: US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war


Your right - I can't see why we are all UP in arms over using commercial planes as weapons against civilian targets. It is war - whose business is it any damned way.

TTF

p.s. Go ahead and tell me how my analogy is weak and how us using weapons that cannot be controled, or have lasting effects to the environment like Depleted Uranium has is more ethical.

Depleted Uranium being "minimally dangerous":


"Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.

Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.


DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.

The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.

But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.

A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.

Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.

Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.

The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption.""

Source:


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml

I'm not sure how conservatives do it - to believe that GW Bush is a good christian man who claims "every life is precious." George W Bush is pushing to fund the development of "bunker busters." Bush doesn't give a shet about human life. If conservatives believe that, they are living in la-la land. Consider: He takes the Teri Schiavo case to the Supreme Court because every life is precious.

Panel: Bush's nuclear 'bunker busters' could kill millions
Underground blasts: In the most detailed study of the weapons yet, scientists weigh the consequences
By Ian Hoffman
Oakland Tribune
04/29/2005


Plunging a nuclear weapon into the Earth can destroy foreign command bunkers and tunnels beyond the reach of conventional bombs, and with a smaller explosion than a nuclear bomb detonated at the surface.
But to crush the kind of military hideaway often buried or tunneled under foreign cities, the nuclear "bunker busters" pursued by the Bush administration could kill up to 2 million people, according to an expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences.
"To get a large enough ground shock to defeat a hard, deep target, you're going to have to use a reasonably large-sized nuclear weapon," said study chairman John Ahearn, a former Air Force scientist who advises on weapons issues. "If you use that near an urban area, you're going to kill large numbers of people."
In a chilling and most detailed study yet on the effects of nuclear earth penetrators, scientists this week also cast significant uncertainty on the effectiveness of using nuclear earth penetrators to attack hidden stores of chemical and biological munitions.
An H-bomb's searing heat and radiation destroys stored weapons of mass destruction more effectively than conventional bombs, scientists concluded, but it also could blast live biological agents skyward, where even a small amount of anthrax spores could kill 7,000 to 40,000 people.
To kill germ weapons reliably, "the weapon has to detonate in the middle of the [underground] room, in free flight," said Raymond Jeanloz, an earth scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a frequent adviser to government and academia on weapons matters.
"Most of us came to the conclusion that this is really not a reliable application for a nuclear earth penetrator."

"Clearest evidence to date": Academics at Princeton, Stanford and elsewhere already had come to similar conclusions in earlier studies. The National Academy of Sciences report, ordered by Congress and requested by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is likely to reinforce those and lend ammunition to lawmakers opposed to President Bush's request to continue studies of a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator at two California nuclear-weapons labs, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the study confirms that nuclear bunker busters cannot dig deep enough to prevent large casualties.
"The bottom line is that it would result in the deaths of up to a million people or more if used in densely populated areas," she said in a statement. "This is the clearest evidence to date that our nation should not pursue the research and development of these weapons." The Pentagon repeatedly has cited worldwide growth in the number of underground strategic facilities in potential adversary countries as a threat to the United States and its allies abroad. In December 2001, the Bush administration called for nuclear earth penetrators to attack those facilities, as well as storage locations for chemical, biological and nuclear arms.
The National Academy panel was not asked to assess the military usefulness and nonproliferation implications of nuclear earth penetrators.
"We didn't really get into the merits or demerits of pursuing this particular weapons idea," said retired Adm. Robert Wertheim, who ran strategic acquisitions in the Navy during the 1970s.

Earthquake ammo: But the panel did find that nuclear earth penetrators are 15 to 25 times more effective at destroying deep, underground structures than the bombs and warheads of equal yield in the current U.S. arsenal, all designed to detonate at or above the ground surface.
Earth penetrators take advantage of a phenomenon called coupling that can convert as much as 50 percent of the bomb's energy into powerful ground shocks. By sinking a bomb only 3 meters into the Earth, designers can turn the coupling effect into a veritable earthquake, capable of shaking and crushing even thick-walled tunnels and concrete rooms underground.
The president's request would pay for bomb scientists to test a heavier, more rugged version of the B83, a megaton-class bomb, by ramming it into a wall of concrete

Re: US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war


The key is the deliberate targeting of civilian targets.

That is worth getting upset over. Unless perhaps the perpetrator is taking revenge for a like attack.

9/11 was an unprovoked massacre of innocent civilians.


Using napalm against military checkpoints near bridges, or using white phosphorus against insurgents in Fallujah, is not the same as deliberately slaughtering civilians.





I'm not sure what you mean by weapons that cannot be controlled.

DU would only have long lasting effects near a destroyed tank. And I am of the opinion that we should clean up the areas around destroyed tanks.


The use of DU against military targets is always more ethical that the deliberate slaughter of civilians by any method.

Somewhere between 22,787 and 25,824 civilian deaths in Iraq thus far.

Source:

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

The lancet gives an amount to 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq.

Can these not be called massacre of innocent civilians?

I am sure you would like to call these thousands of deaths collateral damage - but I am also sure that Al Qaeda would call the Twin Towers 'American Infastructure'.

When I talk about weapons you cannot control I am speaking about 'dumb' bombs and many of our munitions such as Napalm and White Phospherous. Not necessarily restrained to your intended target.

You know as well as I do that when you are fighting house to house with tanks, air strikes, mortars, artillery and the civilian population has not left completely that you are as accurate as you can be (within reason) but you know a BUNCH of civilians are going to die.

My point:

I don't think intent can be your only measure of slaughter or massacre nor can it be the only seperation of freedom fighter and terrorist. The result must be measured.

You can be for cleaning up our tank sites but you must realize that these munitions are being used in the house to house fightings in places like Falujah - and they are not being cleaned up. You can attempt to wipe your hands clean of the wholesale death and destruction we are leaving behind but I do not think it is easy as simply saying that our intent is pure.... oh well.

TF

I don't consider either source to be reliable.





Not a deliberate massacre.





Al-Qa'ida openly admits that killing American citizens is one of their goals (i.e. they do it intentionally).





We've used dumb bombs and napalm well away from civilian areas in Iraq.

I don't see how white phosphorus is inaccurate. They can fire those shells with a decent degree of accuracy.





Yes, but we are not deliberately trying to kill those civilians.





What does the result have to do with it?





DU is used in anti-tank rounds. I am not sure that anti-tank rounds saw much use in Fallujah.

We did shell parts of Fallujah with white phosphorus.





I wasn't really trying to wipe my hands of anything.

I was querying why it mattered that we used napalm.

Some people just don't understand what a lie is.

It's part of the modern tendency to refuse to accept responsibility. Funny though, the right peddle it all the time but when it comes time to own up scurry away from it.

goodfielder, Ain't that the truth! They are skilled at rationalizing everything - even lies.