Illegal White Phosphorus Usage

[Starbeast]

[J-WO]

Agh! It burns! It burns!

[Bel_Azad]

Hmm

One group kills thousands of people at random with no warning -

The other group drops millions of cluster bombs and uses chemical weapons against civilians causing misery, poverty and death for millions of people. Has also dropped nukes and wants to take on Iran next. This group will only target non-whites.

You need to hush this up mate - no one wants to talk about it.

Better to start a thread on banning the burkha.

[J-WO]

I'd better apologize for my last post. When I first saw Starbeast's post there was just a white square and I thought it was some surreal joke.

Hope I didn't cause offence to anyone.

[Boneman]

Yeah, there was only blank square when I first saw the thread, and I thought 'What...?' It was only when I got back later that the video was posted.

[High Eight]

White phosphorous is nasty stuff. During WWII, my uncles regiment were equipped with No. 74 grenades. Sticky bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As the article says: if the user was not careful after freeing the grenade from its casing, it could easily stick to his uniform.

This happened several times during 'live ammo' training. Afterthe second time, an order was sent out to shoot anyone it happened to before the bomb ignited - there was literally nothing else they could do and anybody with a no 74 stuck to their clothes was a dead man walking. Eventually. Death from phosphorous burns can take hours.

[dustinzgirl]

Originally Posted by Bel_Azad

Hmm

One group kills thousands of people at random with no warning -

The other group drops millions of cluster bombs and uses chemical weapons against civilians causing misery, poverty and death for millions of people. Has also dropped nukes and wants to take on Iran next. This group will only target non-whites.

You need to hush this up mate - no one wants to talk about it.

Better to start a thread on banning the burkha.

Just for the record, there are many Americans who are against the war on the middle east, and against the choices Israel is making. It has become a genocide, which is worse than a war. Some of us are being targeted by our own police departments for our sentiments and our associations.

[Bel_Azad]

Hi

I was not intending to imply that some Americans were/are not against the war.

I know a number of them at work and socially and we have lots of discussions - sometimes on 'World Affairs' and all I see is that like everyone else - some are for the actions taken in response of 9/11 and some are not. Fair enough.

My point is that no one really knows what is happening over there (in Iraq and Afghanistan) as there is no doubt some media collusion about only reporting 'good' news stories.

One of the problems I see is that the campaigns are against civilian populations or within their midst and it is unclear who are the enemy. It can't be easy to try and win hearts and minds amongst these people when you never know the next person you meet might just blow you up - it must surely affect the soldiers.

The people that we fight now do not wear traditional uniforms of a soldier - how do you know who is the enemy and who is a friend?

And in all this you have Fallujah, Abhu Gharaib, Guantanomo and the countless civilian casualties caused by the 'enemy' and by the 'west' and I am certain the West is held to higher standards than the Taliban etc

Read this story here from the Guardian about US soldiers killing civilians for sport and collecting trophy 'fingers'.

I am always of the belief that if anything like this comes out in the press - there are more disturbing things out there and to a geater extent than we imagine - this is why these wars were always unwinable - it is an occupation with no clear way to identify the enemy -

These incidents ensure that for every step we take forward - we take two steps back.

US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies' | World news | The Guardian

****************************
Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.
Five of the soldiers are charged with murdering three Afghan men who were allegedly killed for sport in separate attacks this year. Seven others are accused of covering up the killings and assaulting a recruit who exposed the murders when he reported other abuses, including members of the unit smoking hashish stolen from civilians.

In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, the killings are alleged to have been carried out by members of a Stryker infantry brigade based in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.
According to investigators and legal documents, discussion of killing Afghan civilians began after the arrival of Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs at forward operating base Ramrod last November. Other soldiers told the army's criminal investigation command that Gibbs boasted of the things he got away with while serving in Iraq and said how easy it would be to "toss a grenade at someone and kill them".