Making Incendiary Claims

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An F-15E Strike Eagle from the 391st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, launches heat decoys during a close-air-support mission over Afghanistan, Dec. 15, 2008. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon

In wake of last week’s airstrike in Afghanistan in which upward of 120-147 civilians may have been killed, there are now charges of white phosphorus being used in the battle as some of the hospitalized victims have unusual burns.

AP:

KABUL (AP) — Doctors voiced concern over ”unusual” burns on Afghan villagers wounded in an already controversial U.S.-Taliban battle, and the country’s top human rights groups said Sunday it is investigating the possibility white phosphorus was used.

The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians — but left open the possibility that Taliban militants did. The U.S. says Taliban fighters have used white phosphorus, a spontaneously flammable material that leaves severe chemical burns on flesh, at least four times the last two years.

Using white phosphorus to illuminate a target or create smoke is considered legitimate under international law, but rights groups say its use over populated areas can indiscriminately burn civilians and constitutes a war crime.

~~~

Human rights groups denounce its use for the severe burns it causes, though it is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory.

Even if white phosphorus were used as a weapon, let alone used at all, how would it constitute a war crime anymore than, say, dropping bombs? Those can kill indiscriminately and leave ghastly wounds, as well. Since human (re: anti-war) rights groups can’t dissuade the use of conventional weapons, they have to scaremonger over something like white phosphorous, which, if it had been used by our military, would have been used for purposes of illumination or smokescreen.

In Kabul on Sunday, hundreds of people marched near Kabul University to protest the U.S. military’s role in the deaths. Protesters carried signs denouncing the U.S. and chanted anti-American slogans.

The incident in Farah drew the condemnation of Karzai, who called for an end to airstrikes. The U.S. has said militants kept villagers captive in hopes they would die in the fighting, creating a civilian casualties controversy.

And what would happen if these protesters had their way? If Karzai’s public denouncement and calls for airstrikes to end, came about? In the long-term, how many more civilian casualties then? How much longer the conflict?

This is the kind of news coverage the Taliban and al-Qaeda feed off of, and fuel. If they can’t win on the battlefield, they will try to do so through the media.

This Ain’t Hell also points out the bias:

Of course, the story here is that the Taliban is using white phosphorous against civilians, AP can’t bring themselves to tell that story – they’d prefer to feed the anti-American conspiracy by alluding to US’ use of white phosphorous. The US does use what the troops refer to as Willie Pete to conceal movement and disorient the enemy – it makes a very nice smoke screen – and it’s legal under the laws of land warfare to use willie pete in that role.

In Journalism 101, students are taught that they should tell the story in three places, once in the headline, once in the first paragraph and again in the body of the article. Apparently, at the Associated Press, they tell half of the story in the headline and the same half of the story in the first paragraph.

The AP should offer a clarification here, lest they be accused of perpetuating media myths and distortions:

The U.S. military used white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004. Israel’s military used it in January against Hamas targets in Gaza.

The U.S. military’s use of white phosphorus in Fallujah was not as an incendiary type of WP, but as smoke.

Nor was Israel’s use of WP in its offensive on the Gaza Strip illegal.

It’s just more enemy red herring propaganda and smokescreen for the real abusers of human rights and their sympathizers/enablers.

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Willey Pete is more useful as a terror weapon than as an actual casualty producing agent. The stuff produces horrible burns that don’t heal well, and the smoke is toxic, so it’s nice for clearing someone you really don’t like out of a hole, but the fragments from HE give you a better distribution of wounding power and take more bad guys down.

WP is a useful smoke agent when you want a really quick obscuring action, but the stuff burns so hot, the smoke rises quickly. Base ejection smoke rounds produce a much better screen.

So we don’t use it much.

I believe the rounds used in Fallujah and by the Israelis in Gaza, were a different type; a base ejection round that use pads soaked in a phosphorous compound that gives off a lot of smoke. They have little igf any incendiary effect.

It’s terror value makes it a more valuable weapon to terrorists.

The attacks on our use of Willey Pete are nothing more than attacks on our ability to wage war. The proponents of those attacks should be stuffed in a small space, and a few Willey Pees thrown in on top of them.

more and more, the Telegram article (linked below) and others read more like an after-action report that one can piece together what probably happened, and u will not here on CNN:

human shields are a known tactic used by Taliban, AQ and others. this is NOT the news. nor is this a NATO or US/Coalition problem. what SHOULD be the news, is that this was a ground engagement by Afghan forces with (at least) a full company-size Taliban combat force armed to the teeth. this happened in the Western province of Fariz (Farah) and the ONLY action on the part of NATO/US was the call in – by the Afghanis – for air strikes on their known targets.

as with almost all air-ground targets, they must be marked in combat. there are several ways to do this, but most effectively and expediently, and the way the Afghanis are trained, is to use Willy Pete mortar “marking rounds” or rockets. there were exactly 13 aerial strikes exactly on targets that were marked BY THE AFGHANIS. from all accounts, and using common sense, the fast movers had NO REASON to drop incendiaries of any kind. they simply pounded the beejeezers out of the targets illuminated and/or marked by the Afghanis.

Afghani mortar units are well-known for grabbing the wrong rounds and sending downrange inappropriate rounds on all kinds of targets. in the heat of battle, they tend to grab whatever is in the case next to them and fire at will. when fast-movers or choppers are called in, they have been known to mark with whatever they got. it is entirely believable that the Afghanis “marked” the same houses that had the human shields in, with WP, instead of offsetting the marker rounds by some degree (ie: to tell the aircraft “100 meters north from my mark”)

but be sure of this: if ANY fast mover or chopper had actually used one of our even smaller incendiary bombs – we would not be talking about ANY survivors. period. it would’ve been hell on earth, fire and brimstone from the sky. …trust me.

this incident smacks of Afghani incompetence as per usual. – reeko

http://www.telegram.com/article/20090510/NEWS/905100415/1052

Obama will soon find he will either have to stand and fight or pull up stakes to cut and run. The media and world opinion have made Obama and if these kind of contrived incidents by the Taliban continue, the media and world opinion will tell Obama he will have to cut and run because too many innocent civilians are being killed and injured to justify fighting in Afghanistan. The people that support Obama would rather see the US military fail in disgrace rather than finish the job that was started in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The first evidence of Obama trying to hold his treasonous left at bay was renaming the the War on Terror to Overseas Contingency plan.

The Taliban set up this whole scenario of having the Americans look like they slaughtered all those civilians with air strikes in an obvious ploy to have the air strikes stop because of their devastating effectiveness against the Taliban. Now we just have to watch and wait to see what orders the military will receive from the spineless civilian jellyfish CiC that is now in command of our military.

I’m pretty sure I really can’t tell the difference from Obama’s supporters and the Taliban, they would both like to see the defeat of the US military and have them leave Afghanistan and Iraq in disgrace.

I came across this article in the London Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-who-killed-120-civilians-the-us-says-its-not-a-story-1682310.html

From the article:

the US military’s claim that the Taliban had run through the village hurling grenades, supposedly because they had not been paid their cut of profits from the opium poppy crop, was just a delaying tactic. Usually the US military delays admission of guilt until a story has gone cold and the media is no longer interested. “First say ‘no story’,” runs an old PR adage, “and then say ‘old story’.” By the end of the week the US was admitting that the grenade-throwing Taliban story was “thinly sourced”

Jennifer, u may be on to something there. here is a report from the Navy Times that supports the fact that it wasn’t Afghani incompetence at all like i stated, but rather a stockpile of WP inside the Taliban houses (where they had human shields of course) which would of course cook off during any ordnance drop by NATO/US.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/05/ap_afghanistan_battle_051109w/

fwiw, and since i am heavily involved in shipping supplies into Iraq and Afghanistan, i’ve put together a powerpoint and pdfs of a long list of Taliban/AQ actions in the AfPak since the Nov elections that are either coincedence at best, traitorous on our part at worse. i am starting to believe the latter.

Obama has now relieved General McKiernan of command of OEF. that my friends, is HUGE. HuffPo and other Obama-media are still headlining it as the general “stepped down” and others as “replaced” but, trust me, being relieved is the same as being FIRED.

and there are dubious reasons. McKiernan knows how to win in AfPak, and also knows that the Obama Administration has deliberately (ok, call it “ignorantly” if u like) cut off our armies on the field of battle. McKiernan knows this, and is doing everything in his power to keep his armies fighting, including everything in his power to bend what rules he can to resupply his troops. Obama and his goons are doing everything in their power to see that we don’t win.

did you know that the MPSA (military postal service agency) kicked in their “contigency ops” to
Afghanistan this year? what that means is all mail goes priority – direct into area. just last summer, it took us 2 to 3 months to get a package downrange to the FOBs in OEF. now, just last month we confirmed that we can now get a package downrange there in as little as a week.

AND more examples: our troops are down to one hot meal a day at most FOBs/COBs. they are forced to share toiletries. milk is pulled from chowhalls by 9am. it is estimated that 80 percent of POL (petroleum and lubricants) are lost before arriving. generators for electricity are rationed for fuel consumption. same same for air support! the Taliban/AQ blew the Khyber Pass bridge shortly after Obama was sworn in. they completed destroying the other bridges last month. Clinton deliberately gave up our ONLY air resupply base, Manas AB in Kyrgyzstan. oh yes u bet your sweet ass, the Obamaists have a PLAN…

its hard to fight when u don’t have enough gas for air cover, vehicles or generators, and our troops are cutoff in the field. ask Napoleon. ask Rommel. ask Sherman. and Gen Mckiernan knows that. it is WHY he was fired.

There are three kinds of smoke available:
(1) White Phosphorous: Quick smoke
(2) Hexane: Long lasting smoke.
(3) Diesel injected into the manifold of a piston engine tank gives off a nice white smoke. Alas, this smoke is normally behind the tank making the lead tank a very obvious target.

The Hague convention forbids using weapons which cause unneccessary pain and suffering. The US didn’t sign that one. When using smoke as a marking or screening agent, in any case any incidental casuaties are considered necessary.

WP round are probably coming from the arsenals of Pakistan and Iran, and being given to the Taliban.

I saw something about this on the news tonight;
The biggest problem is YOU KNOW there are Americans who’ll be so quick to condemn US instead of giving any thought to what the Taliban is probably doing, NOT US.
It’s the Murtha Factor…….’Blame America First’….and don’t kid yourselves that the enemy’s very aware of our Left’s refusing to err on AMERICA’S side…they’re playing us like a fine violin.

Reeko #5 says:
“*Obama has now relieved General McKiernan of command of OEF. that my friends, is HUGE.”

Sunday May 10, 2009
Marine Corp News:
“*Days before a May 4 U.S. airstrike allegedly killed Afghan civilians in Farah province, Taliban commanders met across the border in Quetta, Pakistan, to hatch a plot to turn Afghan public sentiment against U.S. forces, according to a military source in Afghanistan who is familiar with the incident.
“*Army Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told reporters May 7, “We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of these civilian casualties.”
Link:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/05/marine_airstrike_050809w/

reeko is right, looks to me like the Obama administration isn’t going to let General McKiernan telling the truth and defending his men get in the way of “smart power” (AKA appeasement and apology) …
‘White Flag day” coming to Afghanistan real soon….smart power my a$$.
.

Marine Corps. News:

“*Days before a May 4 U.S. airstrike allegedly killed Afghan civilians in Farah province, Taliban commanders met across the border in Quetta, Pakistan, to hatch a plot to turn Afghan public sentiment against U.S. forces, according to a military source in Afghanistan who is familiar with the incident.

“*Army Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told reporters May 7, “We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of these civilian casualties.”
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/05/marine_airstrike_050809w/

And for telling the truth and defending his men Army Gen. David McKiernan is fired ?

Like reeko says:
Obama has now relieved General McKiernan of command of OEF. that my friends, is HUGE.

Obama administration “Smart Power” in action…seriously I have to ask whos side are they on ?
.

Third attempt to post this link:

“*Days before a May 4 U.S. airstrike allegedly killed Afghan civilians in Farah province, Taliban commanders met across the border in Quetta, Pakistan, to hatch a plot to turn Afghan public sentiment against U.S. forces, according to a military source in Afghanistan who is familiar with the incident.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/05/marine_airstrike_050809w/
.

Philly nj…good information. I just wish I thought most Americans, like us, believe it. I really fear too many think our military can do no right and that the military issues ‘fake’ information like this to cover for itself. The Left’s done SO much damage I fear that the truth can’t come out.
Imagine how buoyed our enemies are by that?