DN! on the use of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs

[G_j]

DEMOCRACY NOW! DAILY EMAIL DIGEST
November 8, 2005

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TODAY'S DEMOCRACY NOW!:

* U.S. Broadcast Exclusive - "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre" on the U.S. Use
of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs *

Democracy Now! airs an exclusive excerpt of "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre,"
featuring interviews with U.S. soldiers, Iraqi doctors and international
journalists on the U.S. attack on Fallujah. Produced by Italian state
broadcaster RAI TV, the documentary charges U.S. warplanes illegally dropped
white phosphorous incendiary bombs on civilian populations, burning the skin
off Iraqi victims. One U.S. soldier charges this amounts to the U.S. using
chemical weapons against the Iraqi people.

Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/08/1516227


* A Debate: Did the U.S. Military Attack Iraqi Civilians With White
Phosphorous Bombs in Violation of the Geneva Conventions? *

We speak with a former U.S. soldier who witnessed orders being given to drop
white phosphorous bombs over Fallujah; a Pentagon spokesperson in Baghdad
who admits such bombs were used but denied they were used as a chemical
weapon; and the news director of RAI TV, the Italian TV network that
produced ³Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre.²

Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/08/1516232

[stop the bleeding]

1. This was a good piece by DNOW today - worth listening to

DemocracyNow is always ahead of the MSM

[Rick Myers]

2. The story of WP

In 1669 the Hamburg merchant and alchemist Hennig Brandt heated the residue from evaporating urine with powdered charcoal, and condensed the vapor that was evolved into a waxy solid. This solid glowed in the dark, without heat, an astonishing phenomenon. He called the mysterious substance phosphorus, taken directly from the Greek phosphoros, "light-bringer." This was also the name of the planet Venus as morning star, "Lucifer" in Latin. The discovery created quite a stir, and soon nobody was throwing away urine. Travelling alchemists amazed royal audiences, and it was the talk of the time. A normal person excretes about a gram of phosphorus daily.

It gave the name to phosphorescence, which is the nonthermal emission of light after the stimulus has been removed, in distinction to fluorescence. The light Brandt observed was chemiluminescence, consequent to the combination of the phosphorus with atmospheric oxygen to form the trioxide. This was burning, but the light is not due to thermal excitation. When the pentoxide is formed, there is no chemiluminescence.

Phosphorus is an important agricultural fertilizer, an essential element in metabolism and the transfer of biological energy, a component of matches, an ingredient in pyrotechnic applications, and besides of considerable scientific interest.

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However, WP is NOT like napalm in that it is a solid, not liquid, and it is generally used to mark a target area for other weapons, not as a weapon itself...

[Savannah Progressive]

3. Once burning however, it doesn't go out

If you get Phosphorus buring and it get's on you, you can't put it out. You have to scrape it off. Dip the affected part it water, and it still doesn't go out. Glad it's not used as a weapon, that would be horrific, oh wait. It is horrific.

But, I take note we support the troops who use the Phosphorus, not the use of Phosphorus.

[Burried News]

4. Just a point of information. White Phosphorus is standard

artillery ammunition. I do not know the legality of it's use vis a vis civilians but it has been used for more than 60 years. It is possible that the air force did not drop WP bombs but that the troops called in WP artillery rounds.

Also White Phosphorus (WP) is often used as marking rounds to accurately adjust fire because their strike is very visible. It is possible that the troops were more interested in accurately adjusting fire rather than looking to 'burn them out'? It is very nasty stuff and can only be extinguised by denying oxygen to the fragments - water does not extinguish it.

Very little info about falluja has gotten out so I have no idea as to what has occurred there.

[G_j]

5. please watch (or listen to) the show, -it is how the chemical is used that

determines if it is a legal weapon. Warning! graphic and horrifying