posted March 08, 2006 04:45 PM              

You want the truth? I dont think you can handle the truth! (News you won't find on CNN)

Veteran admits: Bodies melted away before us.

Shocking revelation RAI News 24.

WARNING

This video contains images that depict the reality and horror of war.

It should only be viewed by a mature audience

posted March 08, 2006 05:11 PM              

Those still pictures already made me sick...

(maybe I'll look later if I get the courage)

But somebody here told us they are NOT chemical weapons, and not banned/illegal....

posted March 08, 2006 05:19 PM              

The MK-77 is the primary incendiary weapon currently in use by the United States military. Instead of the gasoline and the benzene fuel used in napalm, MK-77 use kerosene-based fuel, which has a lower concentration of benzene. The Pentagon has claimed that the MK-77 has less impact on the environment than napalm. The mixture reportedly also contains an oxidizing agent, making it more difficult to put out once ignited [1] [2].

The effects of MK-77 bombs are so similar to those of napalm that even many members of the US military continue to refer to them as "napalm" bombs in informal situations. (The official designation of Vietnam-era napalm bombs was the Mark 47.)

Use of aerial incendiary bombs against civilian populations, including against military targets in civilian areas, was banned in the 1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III. The US however, has only signed Articles I and II, not Protocols III, IV, And V.

and...

US intelligence classified white phosphorus as 'chemical weapon'
By Peter Popham and Anne Penketh
Published: 23 November 2005
The Italian journalist who launched the controversy over the American use of white phosphorus (WP) as a weapon of war in the Fallujah siege has accused the Americans of hypocrisy.

posted March 08, 2006 05:27 PM              

quote:

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Especially when the threat of chemical warfare was one of the very things cited as a reason to remove Saddam Hussein.

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posted March 08, 2006 05:28 PM              

"White phosphorus is not listed in the schedules of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It can be legally used as a flare to illuminate the battlefield, or to produce smoke to hide troop movements from the enemy. Like other unlisted substances, it may be deployed for "Military purposes... not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare". But it becomes a chemical weapon as soon as it is used directly against people. A chemical weapon can be "any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm".

White phosphorus is fat-soluble and burns spontaneously on contact with the air. According to globalsecurity.org: "The burns usually are multiple, deep, and variable in size. The solid in the eye produces severe injury. The particles continue to burn unless deprived of atmospheric oxygen... If service members are hit by pieces of white phosphorus, it could burn right down to the bone." As it oxidises, it produces smoke composed of phosphorus pentoxide. According to the standard US industrial safety sheet, the smoke "releases heat on contact with moisture and will burn mucous surfaces... Contact... can cause severe eye burns and permanent damage."

and then we come to this report from a US military magazine - Field Artilery Magazine, March 2005 edition... "We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."