So it's official.
Nov. 16th, 2005 05:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaotic_nippleWe used White Phosporus as an anti-personnel weapon in Fallujah after all. Of course the Pentagon had to deny it first, just in case there are one or two people out there who still actually trust anything our current administration says.
FWIW, I, personally, don't really object to using incendiary weapons against enemy troops. The whole point of going into battle is to kill the other side and keep killing them until the survivors surrender. The more casualities you can inflict in a given amount of time, the quicker they'll surrender, and, hopefully, the more they'll think about it before shooting at you the next time. Using any indiscriminate weapon in a area heavily populated with civilians is a bad idea, for publicity reasons if nothing else, but I don't think incendiary weapons are uniquely "evil" in that regard (Unlike, say Depleted Uranium, which really should be banned as a chemical weapon).
The real problem here is, don't those morons in Washington realize that lying about something that's so easily checked on is a bad idea? Granted, the average American voter has the attention span of a gnat, and will fall for just about any fabrication provided you say it with enough conviction; They'll have forgotten this little bit of chicanery within the week. But, that creaking sound you hear? That's a little bit more of what little credibility we still had with the international community, shuffling off this mortal coil.
FWIW, I, personally, don't really object to using incendiary weapons against enemy troops. The whole point of going into battle is to kill the other side and keep killing them until the survivors surrender. The more casualities you can inflict in a given amount of time, the quicker they'll surrender, and, hopefully, the more they'll think about it before shooting at you the next time. Using any indiscriminate weapon in a area heavily populated with civilians is a bad idea, for publicity reasons if nothing else, but I don't think incendiary weapons are uniquely "evil" in that regard (Unlike, say Depleted Uranium, which really should be banned as a chemical weapon).
The real problem here is, don't those morons in Washington realize that lying about something that's so easily checked on is a bad idea? Granted, the average American voter has the attention span of a gnat, and will fall for just about any fabrication provided you say it with enough conviction; They'll have forgotten this little bit of chicanery within the week. But, that creaking sound you hear? That's a little bit more of what little credibility we still had with the international community, shuffling off this mortal coil.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-16 05:23 pm (UTC)"Sometimes I wonder if a certain amount of the horror that ordinary weapons should inspire has been deflected onto chemical weapons and their ilk, as though the distinction between blowing people up and poisoning them constituted a clear and decisive line between civilization and barbarism. Chemical weapons, properly so called, are inherently of limited use on the battlefield; their real utility, perhaps, lies in their ability to make other forms of mass murder seem relatively acceptable."
Here's the link to his whole post: http://bouphonia.blogspot.com/2005/11/smokescreening.html
Thought you'd be interested in what he wrote about white phosphorous.
Take care, Mike --
Kate (Broken Windows)