Lapsed Modernist

is your brother in Fallujah?

I just sent an email to my reporter friend asking for more info.

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I'm sorry, I hope I am not being rude, but I am unclear about your original reply. Were you being sarcastic? Do you think it's impossible that the US army is using chemical weapons on Fallujah? We Napalmed them last year, why not Agent Orange now?

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well, nothing against your brother personally but good-hearted people in such situations behave in ways they may not otherwise. History shows this, so does this study (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996727) and so did the Milgram shock experiments, which actually demostrated that the only salient index of whether someone wouldn't go along with morally reprehensible actions wasn't kindness or empathy, but rather a proclivity for resisting authority.

Why were the links speculative? Because they weren't in the corporate mainstream press that has been largely ignoring what is happening in Fallujah? You have a first-hand witness describing damage characteristic of chemical warfare. And I've heard this through other channels as well. Why is my use of "gassing" inappropriate? If chemical weapons are being used, they are usually released in gas form. There already have been precedents of Napalm use in this war (http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030810-napalm-iraq01.htm). Why not chemical weapons?

And while yes, a death is a death, chemical weapons are a crime against humanity and against all international treaties and conventions. It is a weapon of genocide, and a civilian population cannot protect itself from it. No wonder the US is trying to do away with the Hague.

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> No wonder the US is trying to do away with the Hague.

let's not use media speak and refer to "the u.s." -- it is the repubs, not "we", not "the u.s.", not "america". it is the repubs who have been wishing away the u.n., villifying the int'l criminal court. they tolerate the u.n. because the u.s. has veto power over any binding decisions of action in the security council. they will fight with every vote and tactic they can think of against the ICC because it would hold members of the "party of personal accountability" accountable, and it wouldn't exercise their will. they've ignored the World Court's numerous decisions against their actions in Nicaragua. this all goes back to the founding of this country when the slave-holding states got the senate put into the constitution and got a 3/5s vote for every slave a slave holder controlled.

and those who don't believe that ordinary soldiers would commit war crimes have little knowledge of the history. here is this year's pulitzer prize winner in investigative journalism, the toledo blade's report on "tiger force's" crimes in vietnam:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section%3FCategory%3DSRTIGERFORCE&e=9748

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let's not use media speak and refer to "the u.s." -- it is the repubs, not "we", not "the u.s.", not "america". it is the repubs who have been wishing away the u.n., villifying the int'l criminal court.

Hear hear!

they've ignored the World Court's numerous decisions against their actions in Nicaragua

Not to mention Congressional decisiouns against their actions in Nicaragua, dammit! (Unless you're referring to something more recent that I've missed.)

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vulgarlad.livejournal.com

facts schmacts. obviously, you're with the terrorists...and hate our freedom...and are probably best friends with Michael Moore.

~the lad

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seltix.livejournal.com

umm, see, what happened was...

oh! the wmd's!! we found them!! in falluja! can you believe it? wow, huh?!?

aaaanyway, see, there were all these biological weapons. and they just, umm, went off. damn it. so, you know, we're like, protecting everyone by not letting them in. we're kind of quarantined and stuff. but just until everything clears up.

we'll umm, we'll take care of any casualties by, like, burning them. oohhh... ummm, that may mean we'll have to keep people out a little longer too. until the smoke clears and stuff.

you may want to even back up further. you know, just in case the smoke gets near you.

ok! thanks! bye!!

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I thought agent orange was a defoliant, or am I getting my wars mixed up?

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yes, it is a defoliant. It is referred to as "Agent Orange Gas" but I guess technically it is sprayed. Okay, so they are spraying or gassing the people under siege in Fallujah.

Saddam Husein used chemical weapons against his own people!..

I guess it's okay to use them against people that are not your own? But wait, in the PNAC Global Empire discourse, aren't all people Subject of Empire AND Lambs of God?

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I guess, what I find puzzling is that Agent Orange was not used as an anti-personnel weapon. I imagine that it is fairly toxic to mammals, but it was used to kill forests. It was, basically, used to make the Vietnamese rainforests look a little more like the Texas panhandle. So, the question is, why defoliate Fallujah (what's there to defoliate?), or, is this a new use? Not terribly important, I guess... but puzzling.

And... I want to clarify... that Saddam Hussein statement is not quoting me, right? On account of I never said that?

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I changed "Agent Orange" to "poisonous gas" because now that I think about it in all discussions about this I am not sure if people meant Agent Orange for real or if that was a metonymic substitution for "chemical warfare."

Of course I am not quoting you on Saddam! I am quoting the general pathetic-ironic "outrage" formula under which "support" was amassed.

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Yeah, if it is a metonymic substitute, it's an interesting one. The thing about agent orange is that I don't think it's prohibited under any treaty, and I don't think it is usually talked about as a WMD or even a non-conventional weapon. What it did to Vietnam, though, was a horrendous atrocity, for which I don't think there is a legal category (yet?) . It left entire areas of rainforest looking like the Texas panhandle. But, as far as I know, ecocide is not yet considered a war crime (in any formal sense). Now turning southeast asia into a desert is one thing. Turning Iraq into a desert... well, it doesn't seem like as much of a challenge.

Of course I am not quoting you on Saddam! I am quoting the general pathetic-ironic "outrage" formula under which "support" was amassed.

Phew! I mean, sometimes I do talk in my sleep, and ...

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I was under the impression that the big deal about Agent Orange wasn't just the "ecocide" (good term, btw) but the effects on the humans...both the civilians and the Vietnam vets, all kinds of horrible physical side effects and neurological disorders.

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Yeah, but I think those were mostly long term. Not to imply that that's okay, but it makes it relatively unattractive when the goal is to kill lots of people quickly.

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warpsmith.livejournal.com

I actually read that they were using some gasseous form of napalm.

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where?

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(I am aggregating media "coverage" of this)

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warpsmith.livejournal.com

This isn't the source I had originally seen, but it was the first hit in a google search.

http://theotherwashington.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/21/32937/834

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i don't know how reliable the daily mirror is, but they have this:

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/news/page.cfm?objectid=14920109&method=full&siteid=106694

FALLUJAH NAPALMED
Nov 28 2004
US uses banned weapon ..but was Tony Blair told?

By Paul Gilfeather Political Editor

US troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah.

News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world.

And last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it. Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh.

Outraged critics have also demanded that Mr Blair threatens to withdraw British troops from Iraq unless the US abandons one of the world's most reviled weapons. Halifax Labour MP Alice Mahon said: "I am calling on Mr Blair to make an emergency statement to the Commons to explain why this is happening. It begs the question: 'Did we know about this hideous weapon's use in Iraq?'"

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That would both make more sense and is making me nauseous.

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chelvis.livejournal.com

Oh Yeah, Al Jazeera, impeccable credentials. Totally beyond reproach, those guys are "top shelf". They win tons of awards; and journalism schools are always inviting them to speak.

ps: the US has Robots with Guns!!!
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65885,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

robots. with guns.

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how come you're writing about this faluhjah/iraq/war crimes stuff? in particular, how come you're not writing about "jeopardy?" don't you know that someone on a game show is no longer on the game show? "nightline" spent a half hour of a nat'l broadcast covering this. the w.post used several inches of its front page to report on this momentous event of our times. thankfully, "after 9/11" the mass media and the country gained some perspective about what's really important.

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These are very important and contentious issues, and while I support every attempt to hold the US accountable for the crimes it has and is committing in Iraq, it seems to me that probably a few words of clarification might be in order:

I. Agent Orange

Agent Orange is a highly toxic herbicidal aerosol. It is sprayed from planes, and can't be released in a gaseous form like, say, sarin. Also, unlike sarin it won't kill you very quickly (and thus wouldn't really be considered an anti-personnel weapon). Instead, it'll poison you over the medium- to long-term, and give you a variety of diseases, including nearly every variety of cancer, and your kids will be born with really fucked up deformities. Oh, and in addition to denying the enemy troops cover, it'll also kill all your food crops. Consider that collateral damage.

The Guardian has a good
article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,923715,00.html) about Agent Orange.

While it was used in Vietnam ostensibly as a defoliant, the US military was well aware of what it would do to humans. As one military scientist admitted in 1988: "When we initiated the herbicide programme in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the military formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the civilian version, due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned."

Agent Orange was supplied to the US primarily by everybody's favorite chemical company, Dow, and also by everybody's favorite pharmaceutical/"life sciences" company, Monsanto. Don't even get me started on Terminator seeds.

It is extremely implausible that the US has been using Agent Orange in Fallujah. For one thing, as far as I know none of it was manufactured after the 1970s. And, as somebody else pointed out, there is nothing to defoliate in Fallujah. And, finally, I think the US military is more concerned with killing Iraqis right now, rather than over a span of years (though I'm sure they don't shed too many tears about that).

Also, as you probably know, the US has been working with the Colombian government for years now to use other highly toxic defoliants (both chemical and, more recently, biological) against the coca crop there in a manner that many have likened to low-intensity warfare.

Finally, while herbicides such as Agent Orange were definitely used essentially like chemical weapons, they are unfortunately not treated as such by the various international treaties and conventions governing non-conventional weapons. Although I personally think they should be outlawed, these chemicals are ostensibly used to kill plants, not people. And it's worth keeping in mind that, awful as Agent Orange is, it is qualitatively different from the chemical weapons covered by the CWC and other treaties, many of which--like VX or sarin--can kill thousands of people pretty much immediately with one little sniff. Don't get me wrong, though, I would gladly include Agent Orange under the CWC.

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II. Napalm

Now, onto napalm. Napalm is one of a variety of lovely so-called incendiary devices (which also include such things as Molotov cocktails and fuel-air bombs). They are designed to burn shit down--ostensibly buildings and other inanimate objects but also The Enemy. Napalm, which in its original formulation was essentially gasoline mixed with soap, was designed during WWII to
overcome the pesky problem of fires going out too quickly. It was used to devastating effect in the firebombings of Dresden and Japan.

Napalm is not a gas, either, but rather a kind of gelatinous burning goo that is dropped in bombs which splatter it far and wide. When it gets on you it won't go out and causes horrible burns and, generally, horrible death. It was used by the US in WWII, Korea, Vietnam (remember the famous picture of that little girl?), and the Gulf War. Although the US claimed that it destroyed all its napalm in 2001, in fact it essentially just gave it a different name. The Federation of American Scientists has more (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/mk77.htm). As Andy Buncombe has written about in The Independent, this New-And-Improved! napalm has been used on a number of different occasions in Iraq over the past two years. It's possible that these "Mark 77 firebombs" were used in Fallujah this time around.

Unfortunately, incendiary devices are also not considered chemical weapons by the major relevant treaties such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (which the US has actually ratified). Protocol III of 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 (http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/texts/BH790.txt) (aka the CCWC, 1983) does, however, outlaw the use of incendiary devices against civilians. Article 2 states in part:

1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.

2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.

The US almost certainly violated Article 2.2 in Iraq last year, and may well have done so again in Fallujah. Unfortunately, the US is also one of the rogue states that are not a signatory to the CCWC (not that it would really matter anyway, since the US simply ignores its international legal committments at will and nobody dares hold it accountable) and I believe may be the only country in the world currently using napalm. Still, customary international law prevents attacks that fail to discriminate between military and civilian targets, and the use of napalm may arguably fall under that category. For what it's worth.

Oh, and in case you're curious, napalm is now manufactured by--that's right--Dow Chemical.

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III. White Phosphorous

What is most likely responsible for some of the most gruesome casaulties in Fallujah is White Phosphorous. WP is a waxy substance that combusts when exposed to air, and it has been being used by the military for a variety of purposes since at least WWII. Packed into artillery shells and grenades it is used for everything from creating smokescreens to illuminating targets to
signalling to fucking people up. If WP gets on your skin it will burn all the way down to the bone, and is extremely difficult to put out.

As reported (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/10/MNG6P9P3ER1.DTL) in the San Francisco Chronicle, the US has been using WP in Fallujah:

"Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

"Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, 'The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.'"

White Phosphorous is extremely nasty shit (http://globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm).

Unfortunately it, too, is not outlawed, even in the CCWC, which does not count as incendiary weapons "munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems." (Protocol III, Article 1.b)

Oops--collateral damage again!

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IV. Final Points

Not all chemicals, even when used in a military context, and even when they hurt or kill civilians, are considered "chemical weapons." This is perhaps unfortunate, but some will argue that it is worth distinguishing between napalm, which may give you cancer in 20 years, and sarin, which can kill thousands of people in a matter of minutes.

Chemical weapons can be used in perpetrating genocide or crimes against humanity (http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/icc/statute/part-a.htm#2)--as they arguably were by Saddam Hussein at Halabja--but are hardly synonymous with them. CW and BW are notoriously difficult to deploy and were hardly necessary for, say, the slaughter in Rwanda and Cambodia. And, of course, the ultimate WMD is a nuclear bomb, as the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki know better than anybody.

That Sunday Mirror article is shite. Napalm is not a gas. The US is not (unfortunately) "banned" from using it, even if other States Party to the CCWC are. And governments will not be "stunned" by its use. I mean, the US has been using it all along and everybody already knows that. Buncombe is more accurate in calling it "controversial."

There is a good chance that no "banned" weapons have actually been used in Fallujah, and that the fucked up burns have been caused by the use of (unfortunately legal) White Phosphorous. Of course, it's always possible that the US did use some sort of illegal or unknown chemical agents (I certainly wouldn't put it past them), but at this point it is probably counterproductive to claim "chemical warfare", without more evidence--at least if you want to go by the international legal definitions.

That is not to say that war crimes have not occurred in Fallujah, because they have. In fact, I assembled evidence on precisely this subject for the New York session of the World Tribunal on Iraq (http://www.worldtribunal.org/Events/NewYork.htm) this past spring, in addition to researching and writing a number of reports (http://cesr.org/taxonomy/page/and/33,20) on US violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Iraq. I'm too tired to summarize that stuff right now, but can tell you that the place to start is by looking at issues like "proportionality" and "necessity" and at things like the US blocking access to medical relief and shooting at ambulances. Somewhat less spectacular than "chemical warfare" but, much as I deplore this war and occupation, I don't think you're going to nail them on that, and you may risk your credibility (in a legal, technical sense--not a moral sense) if you make that claim.

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Thanks for the clarifications. (I was the "what's to defoliate in Fallujah" person).

I assembled evidence on precisely this subject for the New York session of the World Tribunal on Iraq this past spring

In what capacity? (Just curious).

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No problem. I wrote that stuff late last night, so hope it came out more useful than annoying or pedantic or inaccurate.

As for the WTI, I was the Coordinator of the Human Rights and Conflict Program at the Center for Economic and Social Rights.

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this is all very, very useful and informative. Thank, Jacob!

As for the WTI do you by any chance know a woman named Alpa Patel. She works (or she may have just quit, actually) for Democracy Now; she was coordinating the extra segment for our Shocking and Awful series that is all on the WTI.

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You're very welcome.

I don't believe I met Alpa, although we did tape some of our interviews with eyewitnesses in Iraq for the WTI at the DN studio. The only person I really know there is Amy G.

Were you at the Tribunal? I didn't know that you did a Shocking and Awful segment about it. Do you know the NYU folks (e.g the radical/chic Turks)?

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I wasn't at the Tribunal (I've seen footage Alpa worked on in the office, though. I was sort of supposed to help with editing on it but I was too entrenched in finishing the "Empire & Oil" segment that was kind of my baby to really help with Tribunal).

It wasn's supposed to be part of Shocking and Awful at first, I don't think; it was going to be an 11-part series, but then two extra segments kind of happened; a 28-minute piece called Baghdad produced by Dario Bellini just kind of fell into our hands and we didn't really do anything to it, just added it as a segment, and Tribunal was pretty much all Alpa's project.

It's the last one in the descriptions:
http://www.deepdishtv.org/shocking/shockingprograms.htm

Don't know the NYU folks personally, but I think I know who you are talking about.

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I just tried to watch the "Empire and Oil" segment but apparently FSTV has exceeded its bandwidth allocation and I couldn't get the clip. Sounds great. Have you read Michael Klare's recent book Blood and Oil? He's great on the global political economy of oil and I highly recommend the book (as well as his earlier Resource Wars).

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you may have seen this web site already, but i didn't see mention of it here so i'm passing it along. the w.post's military/pentagon correspondent thomas ricks wrote an article about it in today's (sunday) edition (page A20), comparing this site with the pentagon's "PowerPoint" slide show (www.washingtonpost.com/nation is the only detail provided about how to see this online -- free subscription required).

article title: "images of fighting in Fallujah compel at different levels"

subtitle: "blogger's display is more graphic than a military slide show"

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