<p>I believe gunpowder is a “chemical” weapon as well. Perhaps the Marines should beat them to death with clubs, or hack them to death with axes and machetes? If the terrorists would just surrender, they could die peacefully of old age, well fed and housed at Club Gitmo.</p>
No, I think our armed forces are doing just fine the way they’re doing it. I just object to the phony labeling of conventional munitions as “chemical weapons” and WMD. I think the option of having them die of old age in custody at Gitmo, eating well, reading their Korans be a fine compromise, though.</p>
<p>Govt’ doublespeak - napalm and white phosphorus are not “chemical weapons” 'cause we use 'em. Their just “standard issue” chemical weapons, and we can use them as we like. Torture is not torture when we do it, or pay for it. Lies aren’t lies until they are found out, and even then, aren’t really lies when they serve our ends.</p>
<p>I know - there are reasons why all of this “makes sense”. There are ALWAYS reasons. After all, in the immortal words of Madeleine Albright, “Its a hard choice, but I think, we think, its worth it.”</p>
<p>Let’s see…basic gunpowder is made of sulfur, postassium nitrate, and charcoal. Sounds like chemicals to me, so, by your definition and that of the looney left British press you cite, we’d be using “chemical weapons” if our soldiers employed firearms. Modern gunpowder is an even more complex “chemical weapon.” So yes, we need to bring back the humanity of the Bronze Age military.</p>
<p>So if a gas that burns is not a “chemical weapon,” (because, c’mon, otherwise everything is a chemical weapon), are you saying that the term is meaningless? There’s no such category? (after all, I guess swords are made of chemicals, too.) Gee everything is, right? </p>
<p>I’m not clear on your position, driver. What makes it “conventional”?</p>
<p>Anyone willing to entertain the preposterous notion that the US is not the Great Satan may find this informative. Or you could continue to believe the Al Jazeera sources that feed The Guardian. Among other things, it addresses the erroneous report that phosporous is a “gas that burns.” </p>
Believe it or not, we have “conventions”–international agreements as to what weapons can or can’t be used pursuant to said conventions. White phosporous is one of the “conventional” payloads that can be loaded into conventional weapons–everything from rifle cartridges to artillery shells–according to international conventions on warfare.</p>
<p>Is this the same State Department that went before the United Nations with “pictures” of chemical weapons depots that two-bit semi-amateur journalists discovered within 48 hours were pro-U.S. Kurdish military headquarters? Or the same State Department that says Mark 77 is not napalm because it is made with kerosene rather than petrol? </p>
<p>Excuse me, but if you read the original article the issue was not whether the chemical weapons are “conventional” but whether they are used within the international agreements as to how they are to be used. AND, nowhere within the Guardian article does it say phosphorus is a gas, so I don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about.</p>
<p>“phosphorus
Phosphorus causes thermal and chemical burns on skin contact and will be absorbed by the skin. Phosphorus is highly toxic, associated with bone destruction and anemia. Ocular irritation and damage is associated with white phosphorus fumes.”</p>
<p>Not something I’d want to encounter. Other MSDS’s note that this is the most dangerous form of phosphorus.</p>
As I said, fairly assessing the State Department’s press release will require suspension of the belief the US is the Great Satan. The “phosphorous as gas” was addressed to Garland’s assertion, although the SD report I posted was in fact addressed to yet another false accusation–that napalm had been used in Iraq. Just fyi, though, WP isn’t a gas either.</p>
<p>Napalm isn’t outlawed, although its use at this point would be a politically bad idea, which is why Al Jazeera and The Guardian chose to characterize their findings that way. WP’s primary use is as a marker for aircraft, and for creating smoke for “screening” purposes, a rather old battle tactic. The fact that battlefield tactics involving anything incendiary can result in death by fire is rather well known, and doesn’t make such tactics “illegal.” It also happens when the terrorists use IED’s to incinerate our soldiers in their APCs.</p>
<p>The point is, Mini, you have exceeded your usual output by posting a quadruple canard: WMD were not found…Chemical weapons were not used…the US didn’t use Napalm…and the US didn’t lie about any of it.</p>
<p>Garland, first, we’re not signatories to Protocol III (that distinction goes back to the sainted Jimmy Carter). Second, the primary use of WP is illumination and smoke screening. The fact that someone might consider the fact that its incendiary characteristics will also serve to clear a terrorist safehouse right quick, so said terrorists can be mercifully cut to pieces with cluster munitions and modern gatling guns carried by aircraft homing in on the smoke–and that the smoke might confuse the enemy and shield our ground forces–doesn’t change things. Try to find something the administration and military have really done that was illegal…don’t manufacture them.</p>
<p>“The point is, Mini, you have exceeded your usual output by posting a quadruple canard: WMD were not found…Chemical weapons were not used…the US didn’t use Napalm…and the US didn’t lie about any of it.”</p>
<p>I think the links make it clear that all four are substantively true (yes, Mark 77 is not “napalm”), and that you are quite bothered by it.</p>
<p>Heh. Fantasize away. Nothing in your OP was accurate, and I’m not bothered by what our troops did in the least. We used M-77 against terrorists in 2003, and I’m not bothered by that. And it wasn’t against the rules of warfare then or now. What does bother me is the fifth column that has dogged this important project for so long. And I know exactly what that expression implies, so don’t give me a pseudo-intellectual lecture about its ramifications. I mean it.</p>
<p>Fire and items designed to produce fire have been used as weapons for centuries. It’s not pretty but it is not illegal or a “chemical weapon” which most would define as causing death by poisoning the system or other similar methods.</p>