Incinerating Iraqis: The Napalm Cover-Up

[donsu]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/June05/Whitney0627.htm


Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had “lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq.” (6/17/05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American “free press” is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we’ve seen with the treatment of the Downing Street Memo, (which was reluctantly reported five weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn’t embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using “universally reviled” weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who have used them to subjugate the indigenous people.

“Despite persistent rumors of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm” the Pentagon insisted that “US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.” (UK Independent)

The Pentagon lied.

Defense Minister, Adam Ingram, admitted that the US had misled the British high command about the use of napalm, but he would not comment on the extent of the cover up. The use of firebombs puts the US in breach of the 1980 Convention on Certain Chemical Weapons (CCW) and is a violation the Geneva Protocol against the use of white phosphorous, “since its use causes indiscriminate and extreme injuries especially when deployed in an urban area.”
-snip-
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the criminal bloody hands bushgang should be in prison

where are the cops? have they been bought out the same as the media?

whose afraid of the big, bad bushgang?

[Coexist]

1. When this first came out - I used the media blaster

no responses from anyone.

Maybe we should all do this. One more lie for the pile that's going to suffocate him.

[Orrex]

2. Someone here on DU posted links a while back

To pictures of Fallujah's maimed and dead. The phosphorus-burned corpses were like nothing I'd ever seen.

Yessiree, we're winning the hearts and minds, that's for damn sure.

[dr.zoidberg]

3. I saw those pics.

They looked like some of the pictures I saw from Vietnam. To be honest, those pics really didn't affect me as much as a pic of someone having been ripped up by shrapnel. Now that's sick stuff.

[Orrex]

5. No accounting for horror, I guess

The photos of injured children, whatever the cause, have naturally hit me the hardest, but recently the burns have bothered me more than the shrapnel wounds. Not sure why, exactly. One picture of a scorched corpse showed his lips intact (broadly speaking) but flared wide enough to accommodate a softball; his whole face, head, and chest had been burned to leather. Awful, awful stuff.

Numerous websites showcase these photos, and I'm glad that they do. I force myself to view them whenever I can, so that I remain aware of what Dubya is doing in my name.

In a sad way it's good and appropriate that different people are disturbed by different photos; that way (given the range of Dubya's brutality) someone is certain to be disgusted.

[dr.zoidberg]

8. Yeah.

Keep in mind that I have always believed that "dead is dead". The dead don't care how they died, because they are dead. Depending on what faith you believe or if you even have a faith, at least you can hope they went to a better place.

To me war is war. That is it is hell. New weapons may have made war more efficient and "rules" may have made it more "humane" but the fact still remains that in war the objective is to kill somebody. Now, I'm not justifying war. War is only justifiable if a countries existence is on the line and all other options have been exhausted.

On the subject of Bush's' brutality, it is not the most brutal thing I have seen nor read. For example, the Mongolians were a whole lot more brutal that this war. I believe that this war is no more brutal than Vietnam.

Another thing that I have noticed about this war is that when 1 person dies, it's in the headlines. Heh, I remember being told by my grandpa that in WW2 if there was a fire fight and only 1 person died it was considered a fucking miracle.

[Orrex]

10. "Dead" may be "dead," but "killing" isn't "killing"

If you asphyxiated someone with carbon monoxide while he was already asleep, I'd say that that's markedly different from burning his face off with flaming white phosphorus. Sure, afterwards they're both dead the same, but they don't both follow the same path to get there.

We could debate about the relative brutality of Dubya vs. any other homicidal maniac throughout history, but I think the point is that we can do something about Dubya, but there's not much we can do to succor the Khan's victims at this point...

[postulater]

4. The minutes and the pre-war bombing might be explained away

as just part of normal planning and procedure. Not saying they should be but just saying they could get away with it. But if there was napalm used and there is documentation and it is a violation of international law, then this should be followed up on. Napalm should not even exist. For it to be present it had to be approved by the higher ups.

Nominated.

[donkeyotay]

9. Naw, probably just a few more bad apples

"For it to be present it had to be approved by the higher ups."

[postulater]

17. And I was just trying to be optimistic!

:evilgrin:

[HockeyMom]

6. I saw something a while ago

from an Iraqi doctor who gave an interview on the use of naplam by US troops that he was seeing among the patients he treated. I can't remember where I read it, but I am sure you will not find any trace of that interview anymore. Things have a way of disappearing lately.

[LibertyorDeath]

11. I keep all the likely to "disappear" stuff

U.S. used banned weapons in Fallujah – Health ministry

3/3/2005 8:30:00 PM GMT

An official in Iraq’s health ministry said that the U.S. used banned weapons in Fallujah

Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, an official at Iraq’s health ministry, said that the U.S. military used internationally banned weapons during its deadly offensive in the city of Fallujah.

Dr. ash-Shaykhli was assigned by the ministry to assess the health conditions in Fallujah following the November assault there.

He said that researches, prepared by his medical team, prove that U.S. occupation forces used internationally prohibited substances, including mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals in their attacks in the war-torn city.
<snip>
Asked whether limited nuclear weapons were also used by U.S. forces in Fallujah, Dr. ash-Shaykhli said; “What I saw during our research in Fallujah leads me to me believe everything that has been said about that battle.

“I absolutely do not exclude their use of nuclear and chemical substances, since all forms of nature were wiped out in that city. I can even say that we found dozens, if not hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses.”
<snip>
The United Nations banned the use of the napalm gas against civilians in 1980 after pictures of a naked wounded girl in Vietnam shocked the world.

The United States, which didn't endorse the convention, is the only nation in the world still using the deadly weapon.

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_ea...

[HockeyMom]

12. Good Idea

will do from now on.

[realFedUp]

7. kick for news that isn't getting reported.

just put a little burka on that screaming
Vietnamese girl....

[undergroundpanther]

13. This has been covered uip a long time

Here are more articles saying the US used Napalm in the Gulf war.. and in Afganistan..Check the dates...!!And one about bioterror made in the US being blamed on Saddam in 1999!! wow.


JOHN pilger - journalism and the Persian Gulf War
New Statesman, June 26, 2000

As the ceasefire was being negotiated with Iraq, columns of retreating Iraqis and foreign guest workers who had been trapped in Kuwait were attacked by American carrier-based aircraft. They used cluster bombs and napalm B, the type that sticks to the skin while continuing to burn. Returning pilots bragged about a "turkey shoot". Others likened it to "shooting fish in a barrel". Among the fleeing military trucks were old Toyotas, Volkswagens, motorbikes. Defenceless people were strafed as they ran for cover.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4492 ...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030805-99...

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m10781





Daisy Cutters signal switch to crude tactics
Evening Standard (London), April, 2003 by HUGH DOUGHERTY

While other allied bombs are dropped from strike aircraft or American bombers, Daisy Cutters are the size of a small family car - so large that they have to be dropped from the back of a specially adapted Hercules transport plane.

They contain 15,000lb of fuel-air explosives, a variation on the deadly napalm which the US deployed with huge destructive effect - and to massive public outrage - in Vietnam.
The plane carrying the device has to fly above 6,000 feet to escape being destroyed by the blast.

The bomb works by detonating only three feet above the ground, spraying tiny droplets of fuel-based explosive into the air where they create a massive "air burst", a huge explosion, marked by a mushroom cloud visible for miles around.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4153/is_200 ...


Fighting the postwar battles: the end of the gulf war has not brought peace to the Kurds, the Shiites, the Arabs or Israel
US News & World Report, April 22, 1991 by Louise Lief

On the Turkish and Iranian borders, almost 2 million Kurdish refugees are freezing and starving in icy, ankle-deep mud. French doctors who traveled through the Kurdish areas report seeing many victims of napalm and phosphorous bombs dropped by Hussein's Air Force that left their faces blistered with black and white scabs and doctors sponging off hemorrhages with dirty rags. "We need a massive mobilization," says Dr. Francis Charhon of Doctors Without Borders, a French relief group that has sent almost 40 doctors and nurses into Turkey and Iran to help the refugees. "The Kurds are dying."

[genius]

14. I knew about the napalm. I read it in a comic last year.

The kids who put together T"he Continuing Adventures of and the Loyal Opposition" check out their facts and are way ahead of 99% of the news services.

The comic can be read at mhull.rupa.com

[madeline_con]

15. More...

Iraq Regime Admits US Used Mustard, NerveGas In Fallujah
Resistance Report

http://www.rense.com/general63/iirq.htm


IRAQ: US used chemical weapons in Fallujah assault
Doug Lorimer

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p15b.htm


-------------
I also read that survivors said there was the smell of green apples, which is indicative of the use of mustard gas. People returning to the city after the siege said there were large areas where nothing was left alive.

Also, reports of water trucks washing the streets, another indication of gas clean-up.

In some areas that were bombed, the rubble was being picked up with loaders and hauld out in dump trucks. Gas clean-up, again. :(

EDIT: Fallujah 2 is a chemical weapons plant outside Fallujah, used during Saddam's reign. Do you think it was 'convenient', and maybe they got some of the stuff there?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

16. Thank you.

This is an interesting site you link. I've discovered that my government plans to commit genocide against its own people using the public water supply, and that the holocaust was some kind of fiction or mistake!

And all these years I thought those six million dead jews were real. Boy, was I ever stupid!

[madeline_con]

18. ooops

that's not the only place it's available.

The survivors could be lying, to discredit the actions of our brave leader. :sarcasm:

[Coexist]

19. kick

[donsu]

20. kicking - but it's the long 4th holiday - so who cares about anything

yesterday I was wondering what crap would happen over the holidays.

[magellan]

21. BushCo exploit another loophole in order to butcher humanity

Though the US ratified the 1980 UN Convention on "Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects," it did not sign up to the protocol on incendiary weapons (fire bombs) and continues to use such weapons in Iraq. While the US has denied possessing "napalm" in its arsenal on the technicality that the word refers only to the specific mix of gasoline, benzene and polystyrene used in Vietnam and Korea, the Pentagon has admitted to using the MK-77, "an incendiary with a function 'remarkably similar' to that of napalm."
- Humanitarian Consequences of the War and Occupation of Iraq

There are many other reports in .pdf format there.