News Brief, Everything Is Everything Edition

11 Responses to News Brief, Everything Is Everything Edition

1. Mark Kraft says:

   June 28, 2007 at 2:03 am

   Speaking of Michael Gordon, the NY Times reporter in Baaquba that you cited, he said the following on an interview on NPR:

   “They’ve not only cut off the fighters, they’ve also cut off half of the city’s population (Baquba’s pop: 270,000), because there are thousands of civilians, and they also can’t get out. Americans in fact are discouraging them from trying to leave. They say “stay in your homes. Just sort of wait out the fight and you’ll be okay.” but a lot of people seem determined to leave anyway, because they’re trying to get to the marketplace and the other side of the city, there are students who are trying to take exams, and a lot of them are trying to flee the fighting. . . there have been civilian casualties. I was just talking to our photographer and he had seen people who are hurt by phosphorus shells.”

   This from NPR’s interview with him, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11259008

   So, there you go. White phosphorus apparently used in Baaquba too. Not a good day to be an Iraqi civilian.
2. MichaelW says:

   June 28, 2007 at 3:58 am

   White phosphorus apparently used in Baaquba too.

   If you actually knew what this was, you would realize how silly your comment is.
3. Mark Kraft says:

   June 28, 2007 at 5:10 am

   I know very well what white phosphorus is. On its most benign level, it can just be white, pretty innocuous smoke. However, if used in a concentrated manner, it showers areas with small, burning hot particles which burn as long as they are exposed to air, and, in some cases, even when submerged in water. The best way to put them out is to cover them in something such as mud. It also can produce very levels of superheated gas, fires, etc. and can burn clear through fortified structures and into buildings.

   What the NY Times reporter mentioned were actual civilian injuries from white phosphorus, which presumably means white phosphorus burns, or perhaps internal damage of the lungs, etc. from inhalation. That is indicative of concentrated use of WP, which, as was mentioned in the U.S. Army’s March/April 2005 “Field Artillery” Magazine, were used for lethal missions, in “shake and bake” attacks, which are a mix of HE ordinance with WP ordinance, designed to drive people out of their positions and kill them. The report specifically mentioned the effectiveness of WP for “lethal” missions, infact. See http://sill-www.army.mil/famag/2005/MAR_APR_2005/MAR_APR_2005_FULL_EDITION.pdf for details.

   Satellite photos of Fallujah showed a city where huge sections of the city either burnt to the ground or were leveled, so a major attack like this on a city of about 280,000 people is very disconcerting from a humanitarian POV, especially in a situation in which the NY Times reported that none of the civilians were being allowed to leave the city.
4. MichaelW says:

   June 28, 2007 at 8:38 pm

   See here for an explanation as to why your comment was silly (i.e. it’s not an illegal or illicit weapon, and does not do anywhere near the damage attributed to it).

   WP is used to smoke the enemy out of spider hole and trenches, and then HE is used to kill them. WP will hurt if the skin is exposed to it, and you will die if near the impact of explosion, but it is not an artillery device per se. The reason they wanted to “save it for lethal missions” was because it is effective in exposing the enemy, not because it is used to kill them (directly anyway).
5. Mark Kraft says:

   June 29, 2007 at 1:15 am

   See http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/General/Censored0245.html and http://insomnia.livejournal.com/631662.html … there are longstanding U.S. military policies dating back to before WWII forbidding the use of WP against enemy personnel.
6. Mark Kraft says:

   June 29, 2007 at 1:24 am

   Specifically, WP was banned by the US military because effects were found to be both indiscriminate and a cause of unnecessary suffering under the Geneva Conventions.

   That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Ashcroft/Gonzales/Rumsfeld era has issued in all sorts of charming new interpretations to the Geneva Conventions and the law of land warfare which somehow help justify such needless civilian suffering, as was witnessed in Baaquba this week.

   When your personal lawyer interprets the nation’s laws and international agreements, it’s perhaps not surprising that you can find ways to justify any injustice that you want.
7. MichaelW says:

   June 29, 2007 at 2:09 am

   So we’re back to my original comment in that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
8. Mark Kraft says:

   June 29, 2007 at 2:08 pm

   …and yet you cannot / refuse to explain why, precisely, that is.

   By your own admission, WP does cause significant injury when used in bombardments, and, indeed, causes even more injury and damage when people are faced with either being affected by the toxic gases, heat, fire, etc. or trying to run away, at which point they are hit by HE ordinance.

   In short, WP / HE “shake & bake” missions are a kind of “force multiplier”, more deadly than being bombarded by either HE or WP by itself. And WP wounds have traditionally been seen by the U.S. military as in violation of the Geneva Conventions / Law of Land Warfare, two more facts you aren’t denying, regardless of whether they are on a list of specifically banned weapons that the U.S. is not a signatory to.

   You, sir, are a consumate expert in the art of self deception. Like the current Bush administration, there appears to be nothing you cannot justify.
9. MichaelW says:

   June 29, 2007 at 2:56 pm

   Again, Mark, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you only think you do. WP is not banned and never has been. You apparently don’t even read your won sources much less the one I linked for you.

   Moreover, WP does not cause fire as you seem to believe. It is not an incendiary, although it has been used in incendiary bombs as a masking device. IIRC, one of it’s most prevalent uses is in tracer bullets.

   Again, WP is not banned, is not illegal and has never been banned by the US Military.
10. Mark Kraft says:

    June 29, 2007 at 4:27 pm

    What part of “White Phosphorus Bombs as anti-personnel weapons (are) a contravention of the Geneva Conventions” and “it is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets” do you not get?

    These weapons were not allowed even prior to WWII, because they do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants and cause indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering, when used against personnel targets in urban environments.

    Don’t believe me? Here is a link from the Global Policy Forum, of the UN Security Council. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/weaponindex.htm

    They say, flat out, “Coalition Forces have used indiscriminate and especially injurious weapons in Iraq that are banned by international conventions or widely considered unacceptable.”

    What we are arguing about here is not whether the U.S. military currently bans or does not ban WP. Clearly, they do not.

    What we are arguing about are these three points:
    - There are longstanding international agreements which the US is a signatory to, in which the US military previously and clearly indicated that WP use against personnel was in violation of the Geneva Convention AND the Law of Land Warfare.

    - The very organization which is responsible for overseeing the Geneva Conventions clearly states that the U.S. has violated these international agreements in the current conflict.

    - As it says in Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution :
    Article. VI.
    “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land”. In other words, any treaty which the U.S. makes with other nations IS law.

    So, which, if any, of these points do you refute?
11. MichaelW says:

    June 29, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    Look, Mark. I get it. You think that the US is a rogue nation that violates international law as a matter of course. You seem to have difficulty reading as well, although you are quite adept at linking to and quoting verbatim from various propaganda sites (The Global Policy Forum? Please). I’ve pointed you in the right direction, but you don’t seem to be able to get there. I’ll now link to and highlight some of the analysis of the Fallujah assault prepared by David P. Fidler (all emphasis mine):

    Both the 1925 Geneva Protocol on the use of poisonous gases and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) prohibit the use of chemical weapons in armed conflict.[10] The United States is a party to both of these treaties. WP munitions contain chemicals but are not necessarily chemical weapons because their uses for marking or illuminating targets, creating smoke screens to cover military maneuvers, and incendiary purposes are allowed by the CWC as “[m]ilitary 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” (Article II.9(c)), as long as the types and quantities of the chemicals are consistent with such purposes (Article II.1(a)). To bring the use of WP munitions under the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons in the CWC, it would have to be established that WP (1) is a toxic chemical or precursor chemical; and (2) was used for purposes prohibited by the CWC.

    [...]

    The argument that the use of WP munitions in Fallujah constituted a prohibited use of a chemical weapon is difficult to sustain because WP munitions can be used as incendiary weapons against enemy military targets (see below). The “shake and bake” uses of WP munitions appear to have used the incendiary capabilities of these munitions to dislodge insurgents from entrenched positions. The use does not reflect intent to kill or incapacitate insurgents specifically by exposing them to the toxic chemicals produced in the fire and smoke generated by detonation of WP munitions.

    [...]

    The difficulty with the RCA [riot control agents] argument is that permitted uses of WP munitions as marking, illuminating, screening, and (in certain circumstances) incendiary weapons also produce smoke that contains toxic substances that might be temporarily irritating and disabling. These recognized uses of WP munitions have not previously been considered to bring such munitions within the ambit of the CWC’s rules on RCAs. In addition, the “shake and bake” uses of WP munitions appear to have been open-air detonations and not releases of WP within enclosed spaces.

    [...]

    The use of WP munitions in Fallujah has also been challenged as a violation of Protocol III to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons. Protocol III deals with Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons.[13] The United States, however, is not a party to Protocol III. Thus, it does not apply to the U.S. use of WP munitions, unless the rules in Protocol III can be considered customary international law binding on the United States.* For purposes of this Insight, both Protocol III and the customary international law are applied to the use of WP munitions in Fallujah.

    … There is no indication that the use of WP munitions in Fallujah constituted an intentional attack on civilian populations or civilian objects, even if such use may have resulted in civilian deaths, injuries, and collateral damage to civilian property. In addition, even if the WP munitions were used against a military objective within a concentration of civilians, the after-action report from Fallujah indicated that ground forces delivered the WP munitions, which means they were not air-delivered weapons.

    [...]

    It is difficult to apply these rules to the U.S. assault on Fallujah. The U.S. attack produced civilian casualties and property damage, but it is not clear how much of the civilian deaths and damage to civilian property can be attributed to the use of WP munitions as opposed to other weapons employed in the attack. Also unclear is whether sections of Fallujah subject to WP munitions use were inhabited at the time of such use, given the exodus of civilians from Fallujah prior to the assault. It is, thus, hard to assess whether the U.S. use of WP munitions in Fallujah violated the rule found in Article 2.3 of Protocol III and customary international law.

    The ICRC states that, under customary international law for both international and non-international armed conflict, “[t]he anti-personnel use of incendiary weapons is prohibited, unless it is not feasible to use a less harmful weapon to render a person hors de combat.”[15] The “shake and bake” missions were directed at insurgent forces and thus could be considered anti-personnel use of an incendiary weapon. Such use raises questions about how U.S. military doctrine interprets international law on anti-personnel use of WP munitions. The U.S. military has claimed in the past that “[i]t is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.”[16] The U.S. government’s position in the wake of the WP controversy has been [ed. note: actually it has always been] that it is permissible to use WP munitions as incendiary weapons against enemy combatants.

    From the perspective of the customary rule as stated by the ICRC, it is not clear whether the WP munitions were being used to render insurgents hors de combat. The stated purpose of the anti-personnel deployment of the WP munitions was to dislodge them from trenches and spider holes and thus to expose them to high explosive ordinance. Whether less harmful weapons were on hand to achieve the stated objective is not clear. Dislodging weapons with potentially less harmful direct effects than WP munitions, such as RCAs, are banned from being used as a method of warfare by the CWC. Further investigation would be required to reach a more definitive assessment under customary international law on this issue and perhaps also to clarify U.S. military doctrine on the anti-personnel use of WP munitions.

    [...]

    International humanitarian law prohibits (1) the use of weapons that are by nature indiscriminate; and (2) indiscriminate use of other weapons.[17] Some commentary on the U.S. use of WP munitions in Fallujah asserts that U.S. military forces used these munitions, and other weapons, in indiscriminate ways that led to large-scale civilian death and suffering.[18] The United States admitted having targeted insurgents with WP munitions but denied using WP munitions indiscriminately.[19] WP munitions are not by nature indiscriminate weapons because they can be directed at specific military objectives and used in ways that minimize incidental loss of civilian life and damage to civilian property.

    The extensive damage caused by the U.S. assault on Fallujah raises questions, however, about how the U.S. military used a variety of weapons. It is difficult to identify credible independent information to verify or refute allegations concerning indiscriminate use of WP munitions and other weapons by U.S. military forces. Without further information, no conclusion can be reached as to whether the U.S. violated this aspect of international humanitarian law during the assault on Fallujah.

    [...]

    The Italian television documentary portrayed WP munitions as particularly nasty weapons because of the way in which WP rapidly burns through skin and tissue upon contact with the human body.[20] This portrayal raises questions under international humanitarian law’s prohibition on the use of weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.[21]

    The problem with viewing the use of WP munitions in Fallujah as violations of this prohibition is that use of such munitions for marking, illuminating, screening, and (in certain circumstances) incendiary weapons against enemy targets has long been recognized as legitimate with full knowledge of its potential effects on the human body. The prohibition against using a weapon in a manner that produced superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering might more directly apply if WP munitions were used for the specific purpose of killing or injuring enemy combatants. This reasoning overlaps with the customary prohibition on the use of incendiary munitions as anti-personnel weapons discussed above. Again, the stated purpose behind the use of WP munitions in Fallujah was to dislodge insurgent forces in order to make them vulnerable to attack with high explosive weapons. Thus, the primary intention behind the use of WP munitions appears not to have been to destroy enemy combatants through incendiary-related death and injuries.

    So there you have it, Mark. While the use of WP in certain situations is certainly controversial for some, it is not illegal or illicit under the laws of the US. It also does not appear to have implicated any of the provisions of either the CWC or the Protocol III (to which the US is not a signatory). Again, the uses of WP by the US are clearly legal.

    *“customary international law”
    : It should come as no surprise that I have grave difficulty accepting concept that effectively criminalizes actions of those who have not agreed to be bound by such laws. Furthermore, from what I understand, the whole concept of “customary international law” is directed at the most egregious actions conducted in the international sphere that have no legitimate or customary basis anywhere (e.g. genocide). The use of WP as a marking, illumination and masking device, as well as to dislodge combatants from entrenched positions, does not even begin to reach this level of prohibition even if we were to assume that such laws apply to the US.