Fallujah: Napalm By Any Other Name
Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 12:29:37 AM PDT
Veteran journalist Simon Jenkins made just this point in a striking piece recently in the British Sunday Times (A wrecked nation, a desert, a ghost town. And this will be called victory).
"In Vietnam," he wrote, "the Americans destroyed the village to save it. In Iraq we destroy the city to save it."
It seems that, as in Vietnam where napalm and white phosphorus -- unbearably gruesome weapons -- were commonly employed, American troops have already used white phosphorus in Falluja. ("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.")
Anger in Sunni-dominated Baghdad has reached a fever pitch, as an Iraqi physician told a radio station he has examined bodies of people who seem to have died of banned chemical weapons: the bodies are swollen, are yellowish and have no smell. Asia Times Online sources in Baghdad say that people in Fallujah believe the Americans may have used chemical weapons in the bombing of Jolan, ash-Shuhada and al-Jubayl neighborhoods. They also say the neighborhoods were showered with cluster bombs.
Asia Times link.
In August last year, the United States admitted dropping the internationally-banned incendiary weapon of napalm on Iraq, despite earlier denials by the Pentagon that the "horrible" weapon had not been used in the three-week invasion of Iraq.
b]The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel.
Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their use would have been confirmed. A spokesman admitted they were "remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental damage.
But John Pike, director of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: *"You can call it something other than napalm but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The US is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses it." Marines returning from Iraq chose to call the firebombs "napalm".
Mr Musil said the Pentagon's effort to draw a distinction between the weapons was outrageous. He said: "It's Orwellian. They do not want the public to know. It's a lie."
In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marine Corps Maj-Gen Jim Amos confirmed that napalm was used on several occasions in the war.
More word games at the Pentagon. They've recently denied reports that they used napalm against troops in Iraq. Reporters have claimed they did and so to have Air Force pilots We napalmed both those bridge approaches said one.
Turns out the weapons used were "remarkably similar" to napalm, the firebombing agent used extensively during the Vietnam War. Those burning Vietnamese kids running from giant orange balls of fire in the classic pictures were being "napalmed." Highly controversial, it was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980 that the United States refused to sign. The U.S. did claim to have destroyed its napalm arsenal two years ago but here it is napalming Iraqi troops.
When is napalm not napalm? When you switch gasoline for for jet fuel apparently. The new not-napalm has the happy name of "Mark 77," which sounds more like the latest boy band than the latest firebombing agent. Marine spokesperson Col. Michael Daily explained the difference between the gasoline of napalm and jet fuel of Mark 77 in a recent email:
This additive has significantly less of an impact on the environment.
Nice to know the Pentagon is environmentally-senstive when it's roasting people alive.
Category: Iraq
