Muslims, the PC BBC and WP
There are a couple of worthy posts around the local blogosphere this fine morning. First up is one from Farrar on New Zealand Muslims, which has the kind of balance many bloggers fail to deliver on this subject. The comments are well worth reading too.
Second is Russell Brown of Public Address on the BBC and its imaginary use of the term "malicious criminals" as a PC substitute for the term "terrorists". He also notes a further development in the white phosphorus case. The Pentagon itself once classified WP as a chemical weapon.
Second is Russell Brown of Public Address on the BBC and its imaginary use of the term "malicious criminals" as a PC substitute for the term "terrorists". He also notes a further development in the white phosphorus case. The Pentagon itself once classified WP as a chemical weapon.
posted by Rob O'Neill at 12:21 PM
23 Comments:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but even those über-lefties over at The Independent (yes I know Rob) have arrived at the correct conclusion (some 10 days ago):
"Some have claimed the use of WP contravenes the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention which bans the use of any 'toxic chemical' weapons which causes 'death, harm or temporary incapacitation to humans or animals through their chemical action on life processes'.
"However, Peter Kaiser, a spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which enforces the convention, said the convention permitted the use of such weapons for 'military purposes not connected with the use of chemical weapons and not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare'. He said the burns caused by WP were thermic rather than chemical and as such not prohibited by the treaty."
(Courtesy of Scott Burgess at The Daily Ablution)
"The limited-reality consensus ignores the strangeness of our being and the strangeness of the consciousness that lives in us; it maintains a pretence of reasonable thought and action for reasonable objectives. With those thoughts and actions we have achieved the world we find ourselves in now. Goya in his etchings showed us the monsters let loose by the dream of Reason: but Reason, in our time, wide awake and staring, has gone a good way beyond anything that Goya or even Goya and Lovecraft together ever could have imagined." Russell Hoban, The Moment under The Moment
"Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."
(Karl Marx / 1818-1883)
"Little information is available about the health effects that may be caused by white phosphorus. Most of what is known about the effects of breathing white phosphorus is from studies of workers. Most of what is known about the effects of eating white phosphorus is from reports of people eating rat poison or fireworks that contained it.
"Breathing white phosphorus for short periods may cause coughing and irritation of the throat and lungs. Breathing white phosphorus for long periods may cause a condition known as 'phossy jaw' which involves poor wound healing of the mouth and breakdown of the jaw bone.
"Eating or drinking small amounts of white phosphorus may cause liver, heart, or kidney damage, vomiting, stomach cramps, drowsiness, or death. We do not know what the effects are from eating or drinking very small amounts of white phosphorus-containing substances over long periods of time. Skin contact with burning white phosphorus may burn skin or cause liver, heart, and kidney damage.
"We do not know whether or not white phosphorus can affect the ability to have children or cause birth defects in people."
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts103.html
Giving things different names doesn't alter what they are.
FM, I've never claimed WP is a chemical weapon. My complaint is a) US statements on this subject have been repeatedly shown to be false and;
b) US claims that when Saddam used WP it was a "chemical weapon" but when the US used it, it was not.
Now, I am aware that the use to which WP is put to some extent determines whether or not it could be classified as a chemical weapon. The jury remains out as to the use to which the US put WP.
Unfortunately because of the PR cock-ups to date few people believe what the US says about WP any more.
Chris, you're not the first guy to think that there might be some lousy ways to die. In effect, it's why we have certain restrictions in the Conventions. The possibility that this thought might also occupy the mind of an otherwise willingly suicidal terrorist might be the point of it all.
Rob, if you're not trying to make the link between WP and chemical weapons, a reasonable person might wonder why you keep bringing it up? You are correct that its use is a PR problem for the US, but that is in part due to the efforts of persons like yourself. The jury, or in this case "the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons" charged with enforcing the convention, seems to have reached its verdict. See above. But you're right, it will be hard to believe certain people in the future due to their treatment of this story.
The reason I won't make that link, FM, is because the definition of chemical weapons depends on how the weapons were used.
As yet we don't have enough information about that to make a final judgment.
Every few days, however, there is a new development in this story, abnd the trajectory of those developments is not good for the US.
I don't know where it is all going. It may, like many of these things, be going nowhere.
For now, until we have full information, the sheer ineptitude of the way it has been handled, especially by the US Dept of State is a story in itself.
Okay Rob. You might think there's still some wiggle room on the assessment made by the OPCW folks, but I figured the guys at The Independent would be anxious to make that case if there was one. If the US State Department can be wrong sometimes Rob, perhaps you can be too.
If you are going to quote, FM, at least give people a link to the full article you quote from:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1115-03.htm
From that article:
The use of incendiary weapons such as WP and napalm against civilian targets - though not military targets - is banned by international treaty. Article two, protocol III of the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons states: "It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects, the object of attack by incendiary weapons."
Yet there are other, independent reports of civilians from Fallujah suffering burn injuries. For instance, Dahr Jamail, an unembedded reporter who collected the testimony of refugees from the city spoke to a doctor who had remained in the city to help people, encountered numerous reports of civilians suffering unusual burns.
One resident told him the US used "weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud" and that he watched "pieces of these bombs explode into large fires that continued to burn on the skin even after people dumped water on the burns." The doctor said he "treated people who had their skin melted"
There have also been claims that in the minutiae of the argument about the use of WP, a broader truth is being missed. Kathy Kelly, a campaigner with the anti-war group Voices of the Wilderness, said: "If the US wants to promote security for this generation and the next, it should build relationships with these countries. If the US uses conventional or non-conventional weapons, in civilian neighourhoods, that melt people's bodies down to the bone, it will leave these people seething. We should think on this rather than arguing about whether we can squeak such weapons past the Geneva Conventions and international accords."
As I said above, it all depends on how the weapons were used and who on.
Selective quotation is easy.
No selective quoting Rob. Just ferreting out the facts you guys definitely did not want to hear. But I thank you for your efforts all the same because after a week of dancing around the subject, we arrive at the "broader truth". Namely, the US targets, or deliberately and recklessly endangers somehow, civilians.
I don't think there's much that can be done for you Rob. I suppose there will always be people like yourself who will believe the worst of the US military but somehow give the terrorists a free pass. I myself blame only the terrorists for bringing civilians into the fighting and I have a pretty firm idea of who I believe profited most from this little WP propaganda war.
We don't know whether the US deliberately or recklessly did anything FM. There is evidence indicating they might have and there is evidence indicating they might not.
What terrorists do, by the nature of terrorism, is done in public. It speaks vcery much for itself. What the military does is often not done in public.
You may think the military should be given a free pass, not subjected to scrutiny and not be held accountable.
I don't.
Get real Rob. The terrorists hacked off Margaret Hassan's head in Fallujah and the only reason we know about this is because the US went in and found her body in the course of killing the bastards who did this. Along the way, they also documented the torture chambers, the reprisal killings, the hostages and the human shields -- all at the hands of the terrorists. It is public now, that's for sure.
This all occurred, of course, after the US waited for the evacuation of the city. Again, think about who was using civilians as a shield and why it was that there were any civilian casualties at all in the city? It's not a free pass for the military by any means, but it's a sense of perspective that some of you guys definitely seem to lack.
I agree with you FM. Any investigation of what happened there will have to have a sense of perspective. Things happen in war zones that aren't pleasant.
And if everything is above board then there's nothing for anyone to worry about.
But you seem to object to people even asking the questions.
Well not really. Perfectly well-intentioned and non-partisan investigations I welcome. It's true it's difficult to get the measure of someone when all they do is ask questions, but I think you can glean quite a bit from the timing and the nature in the course of a discussion such as this one. I very much doubt that your questions stem from your concern for humanity rather than your politics, and sure, you're quite entitled to go ahead and suggest the same of me. All I'll say is my conscience is clear. I guess we'll leave it for others to decide how you and I both fared.
It's worth noting that the suggestion that WP had been used in Fallujah came up at the time of the assault - there were eyewitness reports of civilians being burned by stuff from the sky. If the US forces were only using it as a weapon against insurgents, they certainly weren't being very careful about who copped it.
But Rob's right: the point here is that when Saddam used WP against rebel fighters the Pentagon was happy to depict as the use of "chemical weapons". When coalition forces did the same, it was ... different.
Cheers,
RB
And it just keeps coming (from The Independent):
US Army rules say: 'Don't use WP against people'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 November 2005
The 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."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article327926.ece
And to continue with the article to find the stuff Rob is shy of mentioning:
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 [well middle rank anyway -- fm]. John Pike, of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "These are the general principles about proportionality, doctrine and so on and so forth."
The Pentagon said it could not account for the discrepancy between its admission that WP was used at Fallujah and the guidance in the teaching manual. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt-Col Barry Venable, said: "For starters, the handbook doesn't say it's banned ... It's also important to remember that WP was used in Fallujah to help dislodge insurgent fighters from prepared defensive positions so that they could then be targeted with high-explosives ammunition."
He also quoted the Army Field Manual, which states: "The use of weapons which employ fire ... is not violative of international law. They should not, however, be employed in such a way as to cause unnecessary suffering to individuals."
The 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons [of which the US is not a signatory] prohibits use of incendiaries against civilians and demands that forces using them against military targets take all available steps to avoid civilian casualties.
Notice how they snuck out last bit in without clarification? And they wonder why they get a bad name.
So, we have a minor error in some teaching material which emphasises some good general principles which Western military forces employ with all weapons, but the US is nevertheless free to use the weapons in the manner that they have. Which is probably why this article was produced on the 19th of November and has gone nowhere since. Very helpful Rob.
And Russell, thanks very much for your contribution.
Yes indeed, an intelligence source once incorrectly referred to WP as a chemical weapon in a classified (and therefore in internal) intelligence report. No doubt he was informed of his mistake though Saddam did use chemical weapons on the Kurds in other instances.
This episode is important though because it demonstrates the lengths some will go to make their case (dare I say the dishonesty?) and those who will perpetuate it.
Sorry, FM, I did what you did earlier and what I criticised you for. I should have found a link that showed the whole article.
"No doubt he was informed..." You have great faith, FM! You sure he wasn't told to describe it that way?
"the US is nevertheless free to use the weapons in the manner that they have"
The manner in which they have is the biggest question mark over this whole issue. That is what is yet to be determined. What civilians were killed, how and in what manner.
Rob, look around for the circumstances for how that report was generated. If the author was not at Kurd himself, he was not far removed from the place when he made that report. I don't expect those guys in the field to be across every UN Convention that's ever been written. Do you? Of course not, and the Italian who did the documentary didn't either. Pure propaganda. And you know which side. How you guys can associate yourself with it I don't know.
And incidentally. Nothing I quoted earlier in this thread was materially contradicted or rebutted by anything else in the article that followed. Unlike your own excerpt thank you very much. So don't pretend we're even.
Finally Rob, in a possibly futile quest to bring this to a close, I popped by the OPCW website and boned up on a few things for you. Here's what I learned (along with a few general observations of my own).
In 1925 the first Geneva protocol prohibiting the use of chemical weapons was signed. The United States and pretty much every Western country were signatories.
Since that time (and even before then), WP has been used in warfare by all of them. In the Second World War WP was used by all allied forces, including in the form of a phosphorus grenade, and most recently was used in Vietnam by Australian and US forces. As far as I can tell, at no time, ever, has any country been referred to the Hague (or the ICJ) in contravention of the chemical weapon protocols for the use of WP.
In the 1980s some nations began negotiations for a new Chemical Weapons Convention.
In May 1991 President Bush (the elder) declared the US would "unconditionally commit itself to the destruction of all our stocks of chemical weapons within ten years of entry into force and propose that all other states do likewise;"
In April 1997 The Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force. WP wasn't on the list for destruction (nor is it ever likely to be).
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons website provides a very useful history, at some length, of the use of chemical weapons in warfare and nowhere does WP appear as an agent.
In fact (here's the killer Rob), Schedule 1 of The Chemical Weapons Convention helpfully lists "chemicals [that] have been used as chemical weapons in the past and/or have very few or no peaceful uses, and thus pose the most direct threat to the Convention". Nowhere in that list does WP appear, despite being in extensive use in all manner of warfare for nearly 100 years.
And of course, most recently we have the quote at the top of this thread from the OPCW indicating that they are not presently entertaining any suggestion of a contravention of the Convention by the United States through the use of WP (or indeed of any chemical).
I should think at this point you should be just about ready to write a bold new post declaring to the world that you are satisfied WP is not a chemical weapon and that any such suggestion is pure propaganda on the part of those contemptible individuals making that claim. That would be the honest thing to do anyway. After all, even The Independent isn't making that claim any more, they're just happy to occasionally report on the other clowns that do (in an effort, no doubt, to make some of the mud stick). You're not as irresponsible as that, are you Rob?
I have to repeat, FM, I've never said it was a chemical weapon!!! Other people have said that, including the Pentagon. Go back and read my first comment in this discussion. I'm inclined to agree with your interpretation.
I repeat again, I'm far more interested in what happened to the civilian population of Falluja. How many were killed, by what and how? I read somewhere that men of fighting age (18 - 40) were not allowed to leave before the assault, but sent back to face their fate, whatever that may have been.
"Although many of Falluja's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault, between 30,000 and 50,000 are believed to have remained during the fighting.
The horrific conditions for those who remained in the city have begun to emerge in the last 24 hours as it became clear that US military claims of 'precision' targeting of insurgent positions were false.
According to one Iraqi journalist who left Falluja on Friday, some of the civilian injuries were caused by the massive firepower directed on to city neighbourhoods during the battle.
'If the fighters fire a mortar, US forces respond with huge force,' said the journalist, who asked not to be named. "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1350926,00.html
http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article327971.ece
Fallujah: the forgotten victims
Sir: The debate about white phosphorus in Fallujah is taking place in a false context. It is conventional wisdom that the citizens of Fallujah were given the opportunity to leave before the bombardment began, but this is false.
The US Army, with British help, threw up a cordon around the city and refused to let any male aged 15-55 out. Those who tried to leave were forced to return at gunpoint. Those who tried to swim the Euphrates were killed by machine-gun nests installed along the west bank. The refusal to let males leave Fallujah was well documented at the time, even by Fox News. It is forgotten today, and replaced by this evacuation myth, in an act of collective amnesia.
Refusing to let refugees leave a war zone and singling people out on the basis of gender are both war crimes, irrespective of the weapons used.
OWEN DYER
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home