http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.ph ... ed&order=0

Mike Whitney: 'Firebombing Falluja'
Posted on Wednesday, December 01 @ 10:49:41 EST
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By Mike Whitney

The United States is using napalm in Falluja. So far, the military has denied the allegations, but the proof is mounting. On Nov. 28 The Daily Mirror's political editor, Paul Gilfeather filed a report stating: "US troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah. News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world."

For over a week rumors have circulated in the Arab press that both napalm and other chemical weapons were used mainly in the Jolan district of Falluja, a major area of the fighting. Now, despite a US media blackout, more evidence is leaking out and causing a furor in the British Parliament. As Gilfeather reports: "Last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it. Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh."



Blair is being pressed by furious MP's to clarify whether or not he knew that the "banned weapon" was being used. He is also being asked to withdraw British troops if the US continues its use of napalm. As of this writing, Blair's response remains unknown.

The US has already admitted that it used napalm during the siege of Baghdad. The truth was reluctantly confirmed by the Pentagon after news reports corroborated the evidence. The military has tried to conceal the truth by saying that there is a distinction between its new weapon and "traditional napalm". The "improved" product carries the Pentagon moniker "Mark 77 firebombs" and uses jet fuel to "decrease environmental damage". The fact that military planner's even considered "environmental damage" while developing the tools for incinerating human beings, gives us some insight into the deep vein of cynicism that permeates their ranks.

The Pentagon's hair-splitting has done little to obfuscate the facts. Marines returning from Iraq call the bombs napalm and napalm it is. Journalist Simon Jenkins of the British Sunday Times describes the incidents in Falluja like this: "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." It is an excruciatingly painful way to die.

Independent journalists have been reporting for some time now that the US has been using banned weapons in Falluja. Iraqi doctors have noted that many of the bodies they have examined have been "swollen, yellowish and have no smell." Asia Times online has reported that "Americans used chemical weapons in the bombing of Jolan, ash-Shuhada and al-Jubayl neighborhoods. They also say the neighborhoods were showered with cluster bombs"; an allegation that refutes the Pentagon's claim of "precision bombing".

There's no doubt that the US "embedded" media is being prevented from seeing the vast devastation and carnage of Falluja so they won't be exposed to the suspicious looking corpses that still litter the city. So far, their collusive wall of silence has provided fairly good cover for American war crimes. Fortunately, the truth is slowly leeching out due to the efforts of the foreign press and independent media. Soon, the world will get a better rendering of Washington's "moral values" by a full vetting of transgressions in Falluja.

The charges of "war crimes" and use of banned weapons comes on the heels of a confidential report just released by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The report confirms that the US military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The report concludes that the military has developed a system to break the will of prisoners through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions....The construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture." (New York Times)

The report further clarifies that "doctors and other medical workers at Guantanamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in "a flagrant violation of medical ethics... Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to interrogators" to assist in the information-gathering regimen established by the Pentagon. (No one should be surprised that General Geoffrey Miller, who has been at the center of the torture scandal, has been quietly removed from duty at Abu Ghraib. The Bush Administration is trying to anticipate the public reaction to this new wave of allegations and act accordingly.) The rationale for eschewing the Geneva Conventions that was developed at the highest levels of the Bush Administration (and which was identified by the exposing of secret memorandum) can now be more easily understood by the ICRC report. The activities at Guantanamo Bay prove beyond a doubt that the administration will not comply with even minimal standards of decency or humanitarian law. The firebombing in Falluja shows that they won't be constrained by international rules prohibiting the use of banned weapons. With each desperate act, a portrait of the administration as a reckless, criminal enterprise is taking shape. Their inclination to use "whatever means possible" to achieve their objectives is an ominous sign of what's to come.

The U.S. did not sign on to the U.N. treaty which would prohibit the operational use of Napalm and other weapons such as flamethrowers. Many nations, including if I recall Russia and Great Britain, did not adhere to this accord either.

If you had been paying attention to the conflicts in the world for the last 4 years you may have noticed that napalm and flamethrowers were both used in Afghanistan and proved to be incredibly effective at cave warfare. Napalm isnt actually used to burn inside the caves, a large detonation near the opening is enough to facilitate two consequences. 1. The air in the cave will rise exponentially regardless of whether fire spreads inside, this is devastating to the lungs, the bronchioles actually burst. Second the oxygen in the gave will rapidly deplete through combustion leaving the dwellers to asphyxiate.

As is always the case in international law the treaties are based on consent and this U.N. resolution is not binding to the United States.

Suprise, surprise the States didn't sign on. They like to do things their way and they will pay a huge price one day. I just hope I am alive to see it happen.

THIS JUST IN:

Terrorists use airliners to blow up World Trade Center!!!

Terrorists use children to deliver bombs to victims!!!

Extremists cut woman's vagina off because she held a man's hand!!!




I have no problem with napalm. It is but a fraction of the hell these people deserve.

San Diego Union-Tribune August 05, 2003

Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops
Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm

By James W. Crawley

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.

"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. James 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.

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 theSydney (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.

"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."

Really?





FUCK YOU. I am 17395239475982743895792347 times more American than you are, asshole!

More proof you exist only to tug at threads.

Go over to Iraq right now! Go and die for your fuhrer's crusade! Make both of us happy.

Strange... how Iraqi insurgents and Afghani Taliban look like Vietnamese children...

I could have sworn we were talking about Middle Easter affairs, and, more importantly, oh, I dunno... the fucking present.

didn't you read my post to LittleWing on our support of these very acts??? hmmmmm?

wow, you should take a gun and fly to Irak to give them what they "deserve" since your so brave, idiot.

That poor lady lives about 20 minutes from me. She is doing well and has a child now. Just to update you Kenny.

ever heard of learning from your mistakes?

application of past to present?

Bueller?

why does this remind me of panama? I wonder how many mass graves of ours will be discovered later?

You endorsed the use of napalm... I assume that means the same for Vietnam as it does for Iraq.

But if you want to see what its like when an Iraqi shelter gets bombed... Fine...

http://www.godblesstheworld.us/images/I ... er%208.jpg

What exactly would you like to see happen?

Wow. You're not shitting me?

Show me pictures of us dropping napalm from the air on large villages of civilians, or perhaps, the Afghani children who's lungs were collapsed in the caves on the Pakistant/Afghan border.




Cute.

I'm sorry, did I not make myself clear earlier? In my most basic condemnation, I said, "Bad people who commit horrible crimes should die horrible deaths." If you think I'm going to go and give Al Qaeda's senior membership congratulatory handjobs concerning their wonderful successes in jihad, you're sadly mistaken.

God, you're fucking retarded. When did Vietnam happen? Under what circumstances? I'd condone the use of tactical fucking nukes if it took care of the problem, in no other context than the present. What's with you people grasping and pulling at the past so hard??? Perhaps because Vietnam signaled the end of a conservative era, you suckle the honey of its comb to the drought... nostalgia will not stop wars, it will not win elections, and it sure as fuck won't kill terrorists. Give me a break.

so basically the UN is only for telling everyone else what to do other than us? I mean how often did we hear about Saddam violating the UN as a basis for war?