Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

I really should read my own blog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / The Final Refutation

Reader Interactions

16Comments

  1. 1.

    p.lukasiak

    This is supposed to be funny, right john? I mean, you can’t really be serious in sending us to a website that denies it ever happened when the US admits it did happen…

  2. 2.

    space

    Look, I suppose some people really did buy the documentary, hook, line, and sinker. But they were in the minority. This was NEVER about the documentary, per se. It may very well be a load of crap (it does sound like it).

    Mostly this is about asking questions. Does the U.S. deliberately use WP as an anti-personnel device? If so, did it do so in Fallujah? If so, what sort of precautions were taken? Did WP, in fact, cause sever burns/fatalities to civilians?

    I never claimed to be a military expert. I never claimed to know what happened. And I never claimed that WP flares, intended for illumination, caused these burns. But I do know that the DoD appears to have lied, as they did with the use of napalm.

    Cole continues to dodge the tough questions.

  3. 3.

    vnjagvet

    PL:

    Your interpretation of the linked article is ridiculous. It explains why the deployment of WP is not the nefarious activity implied by the so-called documentary. It does not suggest that WP was not used, but explains the purposes for which it is legitimately used and has been since WWII. It also explains how the shells work and why their use for anti-personnel purposes are inefficient, counterproductive and plain stupid. The inference is that any personnel casualties are purely unintended and one of the sad consequences of war.

    I took my basic training in the summer of 1960, and was trained as an armor officer during the Vietnam era. WP was used in the very same way the linked article describes, and most certainly was not considered illegal in any way despite its propensity to cause fires.

    High explosive shells are far more deadly than WP, as are cluster bomb shells, and the various types of armor piercing shells.

    This is a tempest in a teapot in my view, despite the attempts at demogoguery you and others exhibit here.

    Your assertions are plainly misleading.

  6. 6.

    dorkafork

    Who said we used it as an anti-personnel device? Is there anyone with any credibility claiming such a thing?

    The only credible source cited by the left is an out of context quote in the (pdf) March/April edition of the Field Artillery Magazine: “We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions.” From page 5. But look at the context:

    c. Hexachloroethane Zinc (HC) Smoke and Precision-Guided Munitions. We could have used these munitions. We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions. We had several important targets, often reinforced houses that FOs had eyes on, that would have been more effectively engaged with a precision-guided munition, such as Copperhead with its shaped charge or the developmental Excalibur Unitary round that is concrete piercing (to be fielded in 2006). Barring the use of such precision-guided munitions, concrete-piercing (CP) fuzes would have been more effective than delay and PD fuzes were, but the latter were satisfactory.

    It is quite clear he is talking about hypotheticals about weapons they did not have but could have used. In other words, he did not mean “We didn’t use HC because we’re evil and by the way we saved our WP for lethal missions”. He’s saying “Because we didn’t have HC we used WP for screening missions. If we had had HC, we could have saved our WP for lethal missions.”

    And no, I don’t think saving “WP for lethal missions” means they were trying to burn the insurgents. From the same page:

    b. White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired “shake and bake” missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.

    Did they flush them out by burning them out or by smoking them out? Which do you think would be more effective against a spider hole?

  7. 7.

    Maria José

    TTPs for the 60mm mortar section
    Infantry Magazine, May-June, 2004 by Jason E. L.
    (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IAV/is_3_93/ai_n6366546)

    The section immediately received a call for fire from their forward observers. Within 60 seconds of occupation, the section was placing accurate high explosive (HE) and white phosphorus (WP) rounds onto and in the vicinity of the Iraqi observations posts.
    (…) The Iraqis responded with poorly aimed direct and indirect fires. (…) The Iraqis in one observation post attempted to flee but were fixed with white phosphorus fires. As they attempted to flee again, white phosphorus rounds impacted the vehicle and set it on fire. The section continued to fire a mix of high explosive and white phosphorus rounds into the objective area.

    so????

  8. 8.

    Maria José

    “And no, I don’t think saving “WP for lethal missions” means they were trying to burn the insurgents

    So what about this ?

    ” TTPs for the 60mm mortar section
    Infantry Magazine, May-June, 2004 by Jason E. L.
    (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IAV/is_3_93/ai_n6366546)

    The section immediately received a call for fire from their forward observers. Within 60 seconds of occupation, the section was placing accurate high explosive (HE) and white phosphorus (WP) rounds onto and in the vicinity of the Iraqi observations posts.
    (…) The Iraqis responded with poorly aimed direct and indirect fires. (…) The Iraqis in one observation post attempted to flee but were fixed with white phosphorus fires. As they attempted to flee again, white phosphorus rounds impacted the vehicle and set it on fire. The section continued to fire a mix of high explosive and white phosphorus rounds into the objective area.

  11. 11.

    Slartibartfast

    How a photo of a corpse of a child is supposed to equate to something like we rained fiery death on Iraqi civilians has never really been explained to any satisfactory degree.

  12. 12.

    Maria José

    ” The only thing that article says they set on fire was a vehicle.”

    Ah.
    So the vehicle was empty?

    Where the insurgents were?

    And does this fit with ” ” U.S. forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.””?

    From

    http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Illegal_Weapons_in_Fallujah.html

    I mean…The WP, falling, ” impacted the vehicle”.That ” sets ” on fire ”
    SO they say.But i think ” impact ” people, too, when falling…or can the Wp avoy the persons?

    And the same way that WP falling has ” impacted ” the insurgents , could ” impact ” the civil people that was around?
    So, how can Usa government in that page say that?

    Cause i think that surely USa has not used lethal weapons on civil people,sure not voluntarily, but has used ” legal ” weapons in not accurate way

    ( sorry if i write bad, but i am italian, and while i understand quite well english , i often do errors in writing )

  15. 15.

    dorkafork

    “So the vehicle was empty?”

    It doesn’t say whether the vehicle was occupied or not, but it doesn’t matter. For example, I don’t think anyone expects anti-tank weapons to be used only against empty tanks, or that they should somehow not harm the tank driver. That would make tank battles rather difficult.

    And it’s not surprising WP would be used against an “observation post”. Here’s the html version of a Marine Corps PowerPoint presentation on artillery:

    SHELL WHITE PHOSPHORUS

    Shell white phosphorus (WP) has four uses: incendiary, marking, obscuring, and screening. It can be used to destroy the enemy’s equipment or to limit his vision. It is used against the following:

    1. Vehicles.

    2. Petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) and ammunition storage areas.

    3. Enemy observers.

    Note: Shell WP can be used as an aid in target location and navigation. It can be fired with fuze time to obtain an airburst.

    The obvious reason to use WP against enemy observers is “obscuring”, to prevent the observers from observing anything.

    I don’t really care that the State Department lied/got it wrong on how WP was used. I’ve seen no evidence that US soldiers violated rules of war, and that’s what most important. I think State just got it wrong. Why lie about screening missions?

Comments are closed.