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Lemme guess, is that because those companies' pension plans hold positions in the equities of those firms?
I see your BBC and raise...
Lemme guess, is that because those companies' pension plans hold positions in the equities of those firms?
Dan, you are one dumb son of a
In my analogy, a dog will NEVER be classified as a cat.
I guess next Dan will publish a shocking expose about how the U.S. army caused eye injuries by shining bright lights at people.
If they can't handle a little shake and bake then don't hang body's on a bridge.
I think the Neolib's attempt to smudge Fallujah battle is a HUGE gamble, it is to take on the core.
Carbon monoxide emissions from the Hummers can cause asphyxiation.
By Dan's definition, Hummers are WMD's.
Some additional info:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/mid...lujah_in_2004/
Pentagon says it used phosphorus in Fallujah in 2004
By Will Dunham, Reuters | November 17, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon acknowledged yesterday that it used white phosphorus munitions in a 2004 offensive in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, but said the weapon is legal and denied that the US military had targeted civilians with the highly flammable substance.
Pentagon officials said that US troops had employed it against insurgent strongholds as an incendiary weapon. But they continued to deny a report on Italian state television last week alleging that the munitions had been used against civilian men, women, and children in Fallujah, some of whom were burned to the bone.
...
Today the US military revealed a new weapon it plans to use to bring mass destruction to heavily populated suburban areas, according to a new report from bastion of journalistic integrity Al Jazeera.
One of their cameramen was shoved by a member of the evil US Delta Forces, but was able to snap a picture of the new weapon before he was escorted away...
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...nitions/wp.htm
White phosphorus results in painful chemical burn injuries. The resultant burn typically appears as a necrotic area with a yellowish color and characteristic garliclike odor.
I watched almost all of the do entary given by Dan (I skipped the bit about the british MP that I thought was a bit boring)
I really didn't see much there that was some "smoking gun" that would cause me to say that the US military are indescriminate butchers. Honestly, if this is the best that anti-war people can do, it says more about the restraint of the US military than anything else.
The do entary showed people whose "skin was blackened" but whose clothes were miraculously untouched.
Being something of a history channel junkie, I watched a rather gruesome bit about the "body farm" that the FBI uses to study the natural decomposition of the human body.
Part of this natural process is a blackening of the corpse. That was pretty much exactly what I saw in some of those pictures. True, some of the dead bodies shown were obviously subjected to fire, as the surroundings were also burnt, but I get the feeling that no small amount of this do entary was civilians who didn't really know a lot about military affairs getting themselves worked up about death in a war zone. It happens.
One of the marines stated that he accidentally killed some civilians when they drove a car full speed towards his position (the civilians were fleeing fighting elsewhere) in the middle of a battle.
Tragic, yes. But should we be completely outraged that mistakes happen in a war zone?
I didn't see any evidence of "yellow colored" burns in the pictures either.
No small bit of that do entary had some less prosaic explanations than the "big bad US military" that they seemed to be trying for.
I will be the first to admit if we f*** up, but a lot of innocent people get killed in war, and that is regrettable. On the whole, the video didn't convince me that our military is guilty of anything other than fighting a war.
Addendum---The thing I think that really led me to not assign much weight to the video is the fact that it never once addressed what the insurgents have done to harm or put civilians in danger.
THAT is simple intellectual dishonesty.
I'm surprised to see you blaming the victims Random...ST 100-3 Battle Book, July 1999: illegal to use against personnel
U.S. Army Command & General Staff College
Fas.org4) Burster Type White phosphorus (WP M110A2) rounds burn with intense heat and emit dense white smoke. They may be used as the initial rounds in the smokescreen to rapidly create smoke or against material targets, such as Class V sites or logistic sites. It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.
Well good thing we didn't deploy them against personnel, we deployed them against buildings
Not at all. I just don't buy into blatant propaganda of any sort without thinking about what I am being told, and by whom. Professional skepticism.
There is some confusion here I think and that seems to be contributing to a bit of this.
There is a bit of a difference between WP smoke rounds and WP incindiary.
I don't doubt that the military used both in fallujah.
Honestly, I don't see much of a problem with using either. Any type of bomb will kill a lot of people, and the type doesn't phase me that much.
I'm generally against the use of any type of incindiary weapon, I thought we had been through this debate with Naplam once before?
It's hard to ignore on which side the CGSC stands on the use of WP incindiary devices...
IndependentThe debate over the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah took a new twist when it emerged the US Army teaches senior officers it is against the "laws of war" to fire the incendiary weapon at human targets.
A section from an instruction manual used by the US Army Command and General Staff School (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, makes clear that white phosphorus (WP) can be used to produce a smoke screen. But it adds: "It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets."
The row has raged since last year when US troops cleared the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah during a two-week operation that resulted in the deaths of 50 US Marines and more than 1,200 insurgents. Though the US at first denied it had used WP, the Pentagon has admitted using the weapon against insurgent targets. It insists the use of incendiary weapons against military targets is permitted.
But military specialists said the "laws of land warfare" taught at the CGSC are the guidelines that the US Army teaches as general principles. The GCSC generally teaches officers of senior rank such as major and colonel. John Pike, of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "These are the general principles about proportionality, doctrine and so on and so forth.
What's the big deal Dan? The Army doesn't use it. The Marines do. Tough .
I guess we should fight to the death with water guns and silly string.
What's the difference between a flash fire incinerating someone and bullets sawing someone in half?
, we used flame throwers extensively in WWII against the Japs, I don't see you with your panties in a bunch over that one.
nevermind we nuked two japanese cities killing hundreds of thousands innocent civilians.... and allowed the russians to rape and kill innocent civilians all the way to berlin...
It's really sad when you think about it. The left has been beaten down so severely that their rallying cry is sparklers and roman candles.
Cripes, if Dan and his parrots got their collective panties in a bunch over a freaking smoke grenade, I'd hate to see it when they learn that the Corps also uses shoulder fired thermobaric rockets to nuke houses that have bad guys in them.
apparently we never signed on to the protocol banning the use of WP...
US defends use of white phosphorus
17.11.05 8.45am
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 counterinsurgency offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, but defended their use as legal.
Army Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the US military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians, contrary to an Italian state television report this month which said the weapons were used against men, women and children in Falluja who were burned to the bone.
"We categorically deny that claim," Venable said.
"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon," added Bryan Whitman, another Pentagon spokesman.
Venable said white phosphorus is not outlawed or banned by any convention. However, a protocol to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons forbids using incendiary weapons against civilians or against military targets amid concentrations of civilians.
The United States did not sign the protocol.
White phosphorus munitions are primarily used by the US military to make smoke screens and mark targets, but also as an incendiary weapon, the Pentagon said. They are not considered chemical weapons. The substance ignites easily in air at temperatures of about 86°F (30°C), and its fire can be difficult to extinguish.
This reminds me to start saving money for my new years firework display.
The New York Times
November 21, 2005
U.S. Is Slow to Respond to Phosphorus Charges
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 - On Nov. 8, Italian public television showed a do entary renewing persistent charges that the United States had used white phosphorus rounds, incendiary munitions that the film incorrectly called chemical weapons, against Iraqis in Falluja last year. Many civilians died of burns, the report said.
The half-hour film was riddled with errors and exaggerations, according to United States officials and independent military experts. But the State Department and Pentagon have so bungled their response - making and then withdrawing incorrect statements about what American troops really did when they fought a pitched battle against insurgents in the rebellious city - that the charges have produced dozens of stories in the foreign news media and on Web sites suggesting that the Americans used banned weapons and tried to cover it up.
The Iraqi government has announced an investigation, and a United Nations spokeswoman has expressed concern.
"It's discredited the American military without any basis in fact," said John E. Pike, an expert on weapons who runs GlobalSecurity.org, an independent clearinghouse for military information. He said the "stupidity and incompetence" of official comments had fueled su ions of a cover-up.
"The story most people around the world have is that the Americans are up to their old tricks - committing atrocities and lying about it," Mr. Pike said. "And that's completely incorrect."
Daryl G. Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, a nonprofit organization that researches nuclear issues, was more cautious. In light of the issues raised since the film was shown, he said, the Defense Department, and perhaps an independent body, should review whether American use of white phosphorus had been consistent with international weapons conventions.
"There are legitimate questions that need to be asked," Mr. Kimball said. Given the history of Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons in Iraq, he said, "we have to be extremely careful" to comply with treaties and the rules of war.
At a time when opposition to the war is growing, the white phosphorus issue has reinforced the worst su ions about American actions.
The do entary was quickly posted as a video file on Web sites worldwide. Bloggers trumpeted its allegations. Foreign newspapers and television reported the charges and rebuttals, with headlines like "The Big White Lie" in The Independent of London.
Officials now acknowledge that the government's initial response was sluggish and misinformed.
"There's so much inaccurate information out there now that I'm not sure we can unscrew it," Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Defense Department spokesman who has handled many inquiries about white phosphorus, said Friday.
The State Department declined to comment for the record, but an official there said privately that the episode was a public relations failure.
The Italian do entary, led "Falluja: The Hidden Massacre," included gruesome images of victims of the fierce fighting in the city in November 2004. American and Iraqi troops recaptured the city from insurgents, in battles that destroyed an estimated 60 percent of the buildings.
Opening with prolonged shots of Vietnamese children and villages burned by American use of napalm in 1972, the film suggested an equivalence between Mr. Hussein's use of chemical weapons in the 1980's and the use of white phosphorus by the American-led forces.
It incorrectly referred to white phosphorus s s - a munition of nearly every military commonly used to create smoke screens or fires - as banned chemical weapons.
The film showed disfigured bodies and suggested that hot-burning white phosphorus had melted the flesh while leaving clothing intact. Sigfrido Ranucci, the television correspondent who made the do entary, said in an interview this month that he had received the photographs from an Iraqi doctor. "We are not talking about corpses like the normal deaths in war," he said.
Military veterans familiar with white phosphorus, known to soldiers as "W. P." or "Willie Pete," said it could deliver terrible burns, since an exploding round scatters bits of the compound that burst into flames on exposure to air and can burn into flesh, penetrating to the bone.
But they said white phosphorus would have burned victims' clothing. The bodies in the film appeared to be decomposed, they said.
In their first comments after the Nov. 8 broadcast, American officials made some of those points. But they relied on an inaccurate State Department fact sheet first posted on the Web last December, when similar accusations first surfaced.
The fact sheet said American forces had used white phosphorus s s "very sparingly in Falluja, for illumination purposes, and were fired "to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters."
The Americans stuck to that position last spring after Iraq's Health Ministry claimed it had proof of civilian casualties from the weapons.
After the Italian do entary was broadcast, the American ambassadors to Italy, Ronald P. Spogli, and to Britain, Robert H. Tuttle, echoed the stock defense, denying that white phosphorus munitions had been used against enemy fighters, let alone civilians. At home, on the public radio program "Democracy Now," Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, an American military spokesman, said, "I know of no cases where people were deliberately targeted by the use of white phosphorus."
But those statements were incorrect. Firsthand accounts by American officers in two military journals note that white phosphorus munitions had been aimed directly at insurgents in Falluja to flush them out. War critics and journalists soon discovered those articles.
In the face of such evidence, the Bush administration made an embarrassing public reversal last week. Pentagon spokesmen admitted that white phosphorus had been used directly against Iraqi insurgents. "It's perfectly legitimate to use this stuff against enemy combatants," Colonel Venable said Friday.
While he said he could not rule out that white phosphorus hit some civilians, "U.S. and coalition forces took extraordinary measures to prevent civilian casualties in Falluja."
Ian Fisher contributed reporting from Rome for this article.
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/worl...hemi.html#more
When Is a 'Chemical' Weapon Not a Chemical Weapon?
Reader Graham Bell offers a do entary contribution to the discussion of the U.S. military's use of white phosphorous, or WP, in Iraq last year, first reported earlier this month in the Italian RAI TV do entary "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre" (in English.).
While a Pentagon spokesman said last week that WP munitions are conventional, not chemical, weapons, and thus not banned by a 1997 treaty, Bell notes the Defense Intelligence Agency had a different view in 1991.
In this April 1991 cable on Saddam Hussein's brutal offensive against Kurdish rebels, the DIA repeatedly describes white phosphorous as a chemical weapon. The report refers to "possible employment of phosphorous chemical weapons." It says the "WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds" and it says word of "possible WP chemical weapons attacks" prompted hundreds of thousands of Kurds to flee the area."
In Saddam Hussein's hands, at least, WP munitions were regarded as chemical weapons.
The do ent is found on "Gulf Link," a Pentagon Web site on "Gulf War Illnesses."
More amateur footage from Fallujah Iraq you won't see on American TV
Apparently, to the wing-nuts in the forum, WP is only a chemical weapon when Saddam uses it against the Kurds...
LinkSUMMARY: IRAQ HAS POSSIBLY EMPLOYED PHOSPHOROUS
CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THE KURDISH POPULATION IN AREAS ALONG THE
IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN BORDERS. KURDISH RESISTANCE IS LOSING ITS
STRUGGLE AGAINST SADDAM HUSSEIN'S FORCES. KURDISH REBELS AND
REFUGEES' PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS ARE PROVIDED.
TEXT: 1. DURING APRIL 1991, THE SOURCE TELEPHONED
BROTHER (SUBSOURCE) < (b)(1) sec 1.3(a)(4) >< (b)(7)(D) >
. DURING THIS PHONE CONVERSATION,
THE SOURCE WAS ABLE TO OBTAIN THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON THE
PRESENT SITUATION IN KURDISH AREAS ALONG THE IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN
BORDERS --
A. IRAQ'S POSSIBLE EMPLOYMENT OF PHOSPHOROUS CHEMICAL
WEAPONS -- IN LATE FEBRUARY 1991, FOLLOWING THE COALITION FORCES'
OVERWHELMING VICTORY OVER IRAQ, KURDISH REBELS STEPPED UP THEIR
STRUGGLE AGAINST IRAQI FORCES IN NORTHERN IRAQ. DURING THE BRUTAL
CRACKDOWN THAT FOLLOWED THE KURDISH UPRISING, IRAQI FORCES LOYAL
TO PRESIDENT SADDAM ((HUSSEIN)) MAY HAVE POSSIBLY USED WHITE
PHOSPHOROUS (WP) CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST KURDISH REBELS AND THE
POPULACE IN ERBIL (GEOCOORD:3412N/04401E) (VICINITY OF IRANIAN
BORDER) AND DOHUK (GEOCOORD:3652N/04301E) (VICINITY OF IRAQI
BORDER) PROVINCES, IRAQ. THE WP CHEMICAL WAS DELIVERED BY
ARTILLERY ROUNDS AND HELICOPTER GUNSHIPS (NO FURTHER INFORMATION
AT
THIS TIME). APPARENTLY, THIS TIME IRAQ DID NOT USE NERVE GAS AS
THEY DID IN 1988, IN HALABJA (GEOCOORD:3511N/04559E), IRAQ,
BECAUSE
THEY WERE AFRAID OF POSSIBLE RETALIATION FROM THE UNITED STATES
(U.S.) LED COALITION. THESE REPORTS OF POSSIBLE WP CHEMICAL WEAPON
ATTACKS SPREAD QUICKLY AMONG THE KURDISH POPULACE IN ERBIL AND
DOHUK. AS A RESULT, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF KURDS FLED FROM THESE
TWO AREAS AND CROSSED THE IRAQI BORDER INTO TURKEY. IN RESPONSE TO
THIS, TURKISH AUTHORITIES ESTABLISHED SEVERAL REFUGEE CENTERS
ALONG
THE TURKISH-IRAQI BORDER. THE SITUATION OF KURDISH REFUGEES IN
THESE CENTERS IS DESPERATE -- THEY HAVE NO SHELTERS, FOOD, WATER,
AND MEDICAL FACILITIES (NO FURTHER INFORMATION AT THIS TIME).
, even Scoop has caught this lie
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