I recall during Gulf War I that reporters were hectoring General Schwartskopf because Iraqi troops were being killed by bulldozers and it was cruel and inhumane. At the time I wondered what sort of killing would be acceptable in their eyes.
Thanks for really nailing the question in fine Wizbang fashion.

I disagree. Willy Pete is a terrifying weapon that will deter even the most committed jihadi. Throwing in a few rounds of this compound will send the signal that we mean business and we ARE going to kill you. It sets the tone of the battle to come. Semper Fi

That's easy - (channelling troll)

A humane weapon is whatever terrorist murderers use to kill innocent civilians and an inhumane weapon is whatever we use to fight terrorists.

It gets worse. There is talk that they are planning to equip every soldier with the most inhumane weapon I've heard of lately. It is quite simple, but terribly effective and brutal. It consists of a tube. Inside the tube is an explosive charge that when ignited sends a metal projectile toward the intended victim. The projectile hits with such force it injures, maims, and may even kill. The first version of the device sent out only one projectile, but it has been modified to send out multiple projectiles. Why isn't anyone looking into the use of these weapons?

Hmmm.

Actually WP mortar and artillery rounds are fairly common in all armies. Both for creating smoke and for injuring enemies.

And have been in use since before WWII.

White Phosphorous is an effective and scary anti-personnel weapon. The large amounts of light and smoke are by-products of incredibly large amounts heat generated by the burning WP. When burning WP is very difficult to extinguish and does quite a number on exposed skin. Might not burn all the way through a limb, or torso, but it will try it's very best. WP works very well against bunkered enemies when firing a round into the structure is more efficient (read less loss of freindly life) than storming it by hand. It is also effective agains grouped opponents in the open when you don't want to risk collateral damage from excessive shrapnel etc. It will break up a formation of enemies very quickly. WP is also used to create a wall between you and the enemy when you need to reposition rapidly.

You do realize, of course, that the phrase "chemical weapon" is a bit of a misnomer. Gunpowder it technically a mixture of chemicals and elements that produces light and heat when exposed to a spark or fire. WP is an element that will undergo a chemical reaction when contacted with air - it bursts into flame.

Amazing how we categorize chemicals into acceptable and unacceptable when they all can kill. I suppose the defining characteristic is how painfully a compound destroys somebody.

You missed the point. It was used in a civilian setting. Sounds like your gonna support your president even if he calls off the election and names himself President of the United Dictatorship of the Americas.

A 2x4 is full of chemicals too, but it's not a chemical weapon.

Civilian setting?, Randy? You mean like teargas, which IS a chemical agent but is not banned for crowd control?

This reminds me of that Depleted Uranium nonsense some years back. "Oooh, it's mildly radioactive and called 'Uranium', so it's a covert nuclear war!" ...

Saw the supposed pictures. Victims had burned skin or what appeared to be carmelized skin YET their clothes are intact.

Sorry, if you are hit with WP it's going to burn the clothes, skin, bone etc. What I saw in the pictures being passed as proof is what dead bodies look like when exposed to the elements for a couple of weeks after death.

Willing to bet a true investigation into the deaths would revel the civilians were most likely executed by the terrorists and their bodies left behind to foist Yet Another Great Big Lefty Lie about the war.

Unless, of course, they are going to claim WP causes Spontaneous Human Combustion...

White Phosphorous grenades
"White phosphorus (also used in smoke grenades) … has a potent incendiary effect, burning at a temperature of 2800°C (5000°F)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_grenade

I have a family member who had a white phosphorus grenade thrown in his fox hole in Vietnam. He pick it up to throw it back, but didn't get it away quickly enough. He had third degree burns over one side of his body and forth degree burns on his arm - a forth degree burn is one that goes all they way to the bone. His buddies had to put the fire out with dirt – water doesn’t work with White Phosphorous. He still can't spend too much time out on hot days - he doesn't have enough sweat glands and pores to cool his body.

“Use of white phosphorus is not specifically banned by any treaty, however the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (Protocol III) prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations or by air attack against military forces that are located within concentrations of civilians. [2] The United States is among the nations that have not signed this protocol.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_incendiar

I left a chemical weapon in my toilet this morning.... it was most unpleasant.
I'm only sorry I didn't get to share it with Randy.

There is no such thing as fourth degree burns.
Third degree is the worse type.

> To shoot directly at someone or something with it
> is pretty damned stupid, and our service members
> just can not be that stupid.

Just watch the video.

The helicopter is firing grapples of white stuff on the houses.

As an AA would say, you are in Denial.

lkkonoishi

link here

Yes there is.

At least have the decency to google a bit before you call someone a liar.

Asshole.

peterpoe, I watched the video.

Where did you see those houses again?

And have you actually ever seen a burned body? Eyebrows and clothing aren't usually present.

I think I've seen the best spinsters ever this year.

That kool aid must be damn good.

I think my favorite is "gunpowder is a chemical weapon"
Did you borrow that from Saddam's Minister of Truth?

Reasons to liberate Iraq.
1. Chemical and Biological weapons
2. Saddam's human rights abuses like torture chambers

Two things that we do ourselves.

I suppose it is somewhat admirable that Republicans will defend their own to such an extent. But is there a limit?

My wife served in Viet Nam as an Army Nurse...she treated OUR guys and old men and women and children whose skin was peeled by napalm. Women and children in Iraq burned by our troops? I pray it isn't so. If it is..at what point do we say ENOUGH? I will wait for more proof but as this government lies about almost everything it will have to be from other sources. I am assuming those posting like this is funny to not condone the burning of children. Posters who talk crap like "we mean business and WE are going to kill you" believes this includes children, you are obviously a sick person with no children.

As long as dishonest and/or delusional political sell-outs continue to generate and propagate half-truths and outright lies, those who value truth and honesty will continue to refute them.

P.S. Bo ... have you ever seen chemical burns? (for you to use the name of the source of American Rock-n-Roll is a sign of disrespect to this person)grow up and post your real name as I do.. Drew Edmondson (my real name and proud of it)

I stand corrected (which I am willing to do)after furthur checking phos it appears would burn clothing so I do have more doubts..however my previous comments other than that still stand...children in this town were killed and the name Bo D. should not be used..

U.S. State Department sez:

Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. 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 Field Artillery magazine, March/April '05:

"The munitions we brought to this fight were . . . illumination and white phosphorous (WP, M110 and M825), with point-detonating (PD), delay, time and variable-time (VT) fuzes...

"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."

Oops forgot the link to the magazine (pdf).

Yes, there it says that WP was used:

A. As a psychological weapon
B. To flush insurgents out so that they could be killed with HE

WP would burn clothing, also. What we have here is a mounting propaganda lie with no relation to reality.

Propaganda, indeed. Noooo. We don't shoot no WP at people. From Fallujah, the First Battle:

Here's a scene from the first battle for Fallujah.

Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.

"We had all this SASO (security and stabilization operations) training back home," he said. "And then this turns into a real goddamned war."

Just as his team started to eat a breakfast of packaged rations Saturday, Bogert got a fire mission over the radio.

"Stand by!" he yelled, sending Lance Cpls. Jonathan Alexander and Jonathan Millikin scrambling to their feet.

Joking and rousting each other like boys just seconds before, the men were instantly all business. With fellow Marines between them and their targets, a lot was at stake.

Bogert received coordinates of the target, plotted them on a map and called out the settings for the gun they call "Sarah Lee."

Millikin, 21, from Reno, Nev., and Alexander, 23, from Wetumpka, Ala., quickly made the adjustments. They are good at what they do.

"Gun up!" Millikin yelled when they finished a few seconds later, grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and holding it over the tube.

"Fire!" Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it.

The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.

They say they have never seen what they've hit, nor did they talk about it as they dusted off their breakfast and continued their hilarious routine of personal insults and name-calling.

Andy,

Mortars are indirect fire weapons. Indirect fire weapons almost *never* have line-of-sight to what they are firing at.

There would be a forward observer that could see the target and indeed would have called in the fire mission.

That's a nice try, though, to get people to believe that soldiers are just randomly firing stuff into places.

Andy,

Get one of those soldiers to tell exactly what they did themselves. Quotes. Then let's see how much farther this little tale can fall apart.

First they use pictures of fried bodies with clothes on as "proof". When they are told that WP burns clothes... well... um... Damn.

Now we're letting journalists talk on the behalf of soldiers. Gee, I never heard of a journalist taking liberties with the testimony of soldiers before... Never...

If anyone is still reading:

Doctrinally WP is used: as smoke, to destroy petroleum and ammo storage areas, and to destroy equipment (equipment that is not armored or very lightly armored – it is not effective against tanks). Doctrinally, WP is not employed against personnel. WP artillery and mortar rounds are not an effective luminary because they explode and burn too fast. WP may be the agent used in flare rounds, but in that use the canister is suspended from a parachute to prolong the illumination time.

WP is not a direct fire round. Mortars and artillery are indirect fire weapons – they are not fired directly at the intended target (line of sight, like a tank shooting another tank). Although some WP rounds are usable in tanks, they are still used in an indirect application. WP is just not destructive enough to be effective in a direct fire roll. Most tankers would not waste the magazine space by carrying WP rounds.

In an infantry support roll, WP would most likely be used to provide momentary obscuration to cover maneuvering troops. The WP smoke cloud dissipates rather rapidly, allowing the troops to re-engage the enemy positions in relatively short order. WP is not a good choice for urban use in that WP does not burn through concrete and mortar very well. Yes WP will nastily burn a person, but it is rarely fatal, so it is not a good choice to be used against personnel – not like a daisy cutter that will take out darn near a battalion of soldiers in the open. HE and penetrating rounds would be more suitable for use against enemies inside buildings. Actually tanks would be the weapon of choice, but if you aren’t supported by tanks, you depend on what you have.

That is the doctrinal aspect of WP.

WP does have a significant psychological effect. It generates a huge flash of light followed by miniature stars trailing billowing white smoke. There is the aspect of burns if it hits someone, but again that’s not terribly effective. The smoke masking the enemy’s ability to see is probably the single greatest benefit. In combination with HE rounds in rapid succession it probably would make the enemy think that hell has just come to the surface.

What WP is not. It is not a chemical weapon; it does not attack the respiratory, circulatory or nervous systems in the body nor cause organs to shut down. It is not a direct fire round; although if it was the last round left in a tank, it would probably be used as such. It is not designed to be employed as an antipersonnel round. It simply isn’t that effective.

Hope this helps clear up some mysteries of WP. Again, in the middle of a battle you use what you brought to the best of your ability. The objective being to make the other guy die for his cause.

Drew, you astonishingly dense little imbecil.

First, you blurt out something about chemical burns in less than half the time it would have taken for you to have educated yourself thoroughly upon the properties of burning white phosphorus.

Then you jump on me about my choice of monikers, insisting that it's disrespectful to Bo Diddley somehow to use a phonetic respelling as an online pseudonym.

You have no idea that my entire life has been spent within about a 45 minute drive of his hometown. You have no clue how much his music influenced my own musicianship, nor how elated I was to sit in on a jam session in a little Delta juke joint with Bo Diddley himself.

You weren't aware of the hours I spent listening to and talking with Willie Foster and George Lee. You haven't played on stage at the Dockery Plantation or the Subway Club, and you probably couldn't find "where the Southern cross the Dog" if your life depended upon it.

In short, you don't know me, yet you judge me based upon your own prejudices. If anything is disrespectful to Bo Diddley, it's a self-righteous, delusional fuckstain like you thinking you're somehow defending his honor by attacking someone who has more respect and more ties to his music than you can ever hope to acquire.

(my humble apologies to the regulars here--you guys know this is far beyond my normal tone, and I normally try not to venture this far off-topic, but this shithead touched a nerve)

Now, bo diddley didn’t stand no mess,
He wore a gun on his hip and a rose on his chest,

Bo diddley’s a gunslinger,
Bo diddley’s a gunslinger,
Yeh, ah-ha (he must be!),
Yeh, ah-ha (sure ’nuff!),

Rock on Dude^^

Get one of those soldiers to tell exactly what they did themselves. Quotes. Then let's see how much farther this little tale can fall apart.

Did you even bother to follow the Field Artillery link, Seixon? It's an after-action review. It doesn't get much more direct than that.

That's a nice try, though, to get people to believe that soldiers are just randomly firing stuff into places.

Of course they weren't. The reporter was simply trying to convey that the soldiers didn't see the shells' impact, not that they were firing at random.

The point of the "shake and bake" strategy is to hit people. It says it right in the excerpt I provided: "sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week."

The defense and state departments are trying to claim that WP was not being used directly as an anti-personnel weapon. Obviously, that's not true.

Old Soldier,

Excellent summary. Thanks for taking the time to explain this.

My great uncle was a white phosphorus mortar man in WWII. He helped lead the way onto the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He told me many stories of launching those shells, from the initial assault (they were apparently the weapon of choice against pill boxes), on to the march from France in to Germany.

Yes, the word “Chemical” appeared in the early description of my uncle’s battalion. Maybe that’s where some of the confusion comes from. But from day one, the use of white phosphorous has always been considered acceptable under the modern rules of warfare.

But most of the tactics used by the "insurgents" in Iraq (and especially in Falujah) were outlawed many years earlier. We don't seem to hear much about that for some reason.

"The defense and state departments are trying to claim that WP was not being used directly as an anti-personnel weapon. Obviously, that's not true."

The link you use to 'prove" your point is military, and I have seen exactly one instance of the State Department saying we used them for illumination only. Now if you put your throbbing little pecker back in your pants, have a nice cold Cream Soda, and think about it, isn't it most likely the guy at the State Department just made a mistake? Maybe you have never in your whole life said something you thought was true, that turned out to be wrong, but most adults have at least once or twice. If you really want to help the terrorists, go over there and get fitted for a vest, but I am getting pretty sick of you little peckerheads digging up these bullshit accusations to try to smear the fuckers who are dieing for your ass.

How many civilians would have died if they had bombed that fucking shit-hole into cinders? Bombs are still quite legal you know, and we would have lost a lot less Marines. Use your head.

Don't worry about Andy, he just learned the difference between a helicopter and a howitzer only yesterday.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/otb/wp-comments-popup.php?p=12607&c=1

I do wonder about his motivation though...