America about to shamed before the world on Italian Satellite TV

Wait...Are you saying that you don't oppose terrorism and the killing of civilians?

Please expand on this statement, I am sure I missed something in there...

 

I love it how you try to put civilian casualities on the same level as those murdered by terrorists. It demonstrates you don't even know what the definition of terrorism is.

The U.S. military does more then any other military to limit civilian casualties. It's the most scrutinized military in world history, and does more to police itself then any other. Torture and intentional killing of civilians are not acceptable, and go punished. The U.S. doesn't want the bad publicity.

However, people being who they are, these things happen. Bombs get misguided and miss their targets, idiots decide to abuse prisioners - which is what happens in all prisons.

But to think the military is intentionally killing civilians in some kind of massacre is a stretch. These things get out, and usually they get out because other soldiers will be horrified enough to make a case out of it. Have some faith in the soldiers that make up our armed forces. Bush may be an ass, but there isn't a mass conspiracy to kill civilians anywhere.

War is an ugly ugly business. When there is war, civilians die. It was a mistake to go to war in Iraq - but rest assured, these things happen in every war. No, that doesn't make it ok - but it also doesn't mean the U.S. military is a bunch of terrorist.

Learn the difference please, and stop trying to defend terrorists.

 

People you can put your boots in the oven but that don't make'm biscuits.

The world did ban the use of chemical weapons. They didn't ban bullets. How people are killed matters. Saddam gassed people, that's is one of things that made him so bad.

If true, the world will not care that our chemicals are legal. If you don't think that "how" someone dies makes a difference in public opinion you haven't been paying attention lately. Hell we pulled out of Somalia because the world saw US soldiers dragged through the streets. If pictures of horrifically burned dead civilians that died because we used some "legal" chemical weapon appear through out the world that could be huge.

 

White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects .


Until I see direct evidence to the contrary, I'm pretty much with Hayes on this one. Yes this is going to look bad to the world, and no I don't think we used WP in an improper way. You can give me all the testimonials you want, most people observing an urban firefight don't know what the hell is going on. There may be nothing more chaotic on earth than urban warfare.

Give me a video of the US dropping loads of WP on a city and I'll change my opinion.

 

some ppl just believe what they wanna believe and hear what they wanna hear.. if italian media is BS then how could US media be any more credible? it goes both ways

 

murder is still murder.. no matter what their views were.. so what... 'ooops' and thats it?

 

What does this article add except (a) more evidence that the woman who made the film is not interesting in an objective assessment of what happened (notice this fictionalized account started with film of napalm drops in Vietnam) and (b) that there is a raging debate in Italy about Italian involvement - yet another motive for her to fabricate a story instead of a documentary. As for 'trying to destroy film' - they could have just killed her too and destroyed her film.

 

Obviously this isn't direct evidence, but there are some pretty gruesome photos at the bottom of this page who are preported to be the victims. When I say gruesome, I mean stomach churningly nauseating, so don't look unless you've got a strong stomach and don't mind a few nightmares. Really, I haven't seen anything quite this nasty in a while so make sure you really want to see it.

I post it only in response to the above as potentially corroborative evidence (though by no means definitive or necessarily central to the civilian question). It also might help people to understand exactly how horrible these things are up close, so they can understand why people abhor them so much.

But what really makes me wonder is the related technical details surrounding the Mk77 firebombs which nobody disputes were used in military actions, and which are also alleged to have been used on the same civilians.

From globalsecurity.org

[rquoter]
MK 77 Mod 5

In March 2003 the Pentagon denied a report in The Age that napalm had been used in an attack by US Navy planes on an Iraqi position at Safwan Hill in southern Iraq. A navy official in Washington, Lieutenant-Commander Danny Hernandez, said: "We don't even have that in our arsenal." The report was filed by Age correspondent Lindsay Murdoch, who was attached to units of the First US Marine Division.

The Mk 77 Mod 5 firebombs are incendiary devices with a function indentical to earlier Mk 77 napalm weapons. Instead of the gasoline and benzene fuel, the Mk 77 Mod 5 firebomb uses kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene. Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, hundreds of partially loaded Mk77 Mod5 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.

There was a report on Al-Jazeera on December, 14, 2001 that the US was using napalm at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. In response, General Tommy Franks said "We're not using -- we're not using the old napalm in Tora Bora."

The US Department of Defense denied the use of napalm during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A rebuttal letter from the US Depeartment of Defense had been in fact been sent to the Australian Sydney Morning Herald newspaper which had claimed that napalm had been used in Iraq.

An article by the San Diego Union Tribune revealed however, on August 5, 2003, that incendiary weapons were in fact used against Iraqi troops in the course of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as Marines were fighting their way to Baghdad. The denial by the US DOD was issued on the technical basis that the incendiaries used consisted primarily of kerosene-based jet fuel (which has a smaller concentration of benzene), rather than the traditional mixture of gasoline and benzene used for napalm, and that these therefore did not qualify as napalm.

[/rquoter]

In short, they've replaced napalm, which the US signed a treaty outlawing, with a slightly altered formula that is functionally indistinguishable from napalm and are saying that it is perfectly O.K. because the benzene concentrations are different. When they were first caught using the psudo-napalm, which was mistaken for napalm, they simply denied they had napalm and didn't bother to mention the psudo-naplam until somebody tracked down evidence and called them out on it. Then they issued their technical denial.


Do they not realize why people were upset with the use of napalm in the first place? It wasn't because of any technical details but because of what it did. Morons. It just makes them look like amoral liars who wouldn't mind bombing civilians if they thought they could get away with it.

 

I bet victims of DU munitions would have gone through the same hell.

 

The US is not a signatory to the convention banning use of napalm. Nor did they use the new substance against civilians. Nor is that substance 'napalm.'

 

You know, I am seriously starting to question your intelligence/sincerity in any debate we've ever had, when you continue to say bullsh!t like this.

I was responding to what Hayes stated, which was the following

That statement is referring to US intentional bombardment/targeting of civilians in WWII (i.e. Dresden in Germany, Nagasaki/Hiroshima in Japan), which were clearly acts of terror regardless of objective. I am not debating whether or not they were militarily 'sound' decisions, we are talking about the morals of it. Hayes clearly states above (unless he misstated it, which is why I asked for clarification) that he doesn't believe those were 'immoral' actions (i.e. the intentional targeting of civilians during WWII).

My point is: if he doesn't view those actions as 'immoral', then that means he doesn't have a problem with state-sponsered terrorism.

Learn to read before you decide to make an arse out of yourself. You have a serious problem...

 

I didn't take a position on whether we should be using it or not. My point is that accusing us of violating a treaty we've signed against its use is incorrect and sensationalizing. In the same way that the original article insinuated we violated TWO treaties we'd signed when that wasn't the case.

I don't know about your question though. I don't see anything morally wrong with using napalm. Although it should be noted that what they were using was not, in fact, napalm. It is very effective against dug in positions - in Iraq specifically it was used against soldiers in such positions, and that saves US soldiers lives. I am open to reconsidering the point though if there is a compelling reason to abandon its use.

Earlier you indicated dead was dead and that you made no delineations between how they got dead. Are you now saying you DO see a difference?

 

DU is only remarkable for the fact that it is heavy and hard. It doesn't radiate. It doesn't shoot flames. It's just heavy.

 

Is the US a signator to anything that bans the use of nuclear weapons?

 

I don't think so. At least not in its totality. Not sure if we've signed anything about specific situations. Why?

 

Would you be ok with using nuclear weapons in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan as long as we weren't violating any international treaties?

 

Sorry, I ignored that post. I thought you were faceciously mimicking New Yorker. I am opposed to terrorism. State sponsored terrorism is when a state funds or otherwise contributes materials to a terrorist organization. WWII and Serbia were acts of war, not terrorism. Terrorism is an act by a non-state actor. States commit acts of war, terrorists acts of terrorism.

If it were my choice I imagine I would avoid it because I can't see the point. As a blanket statement would I preclude it? I don't think so. Are you equating nuclear weapons with WP, or the new version of napalm?

 

Interesting, you mean if a state is involved in 'an act of war' and wipes out an entire town while doing so (say nuking it) then it's not terrorism? So you're saying state militaries can NOT commit terrorism (i.e. the intentional targeting of civilians)?