Q: When is WP a Chemical Weapon?

[Orville Wrong]

A1 (in practice): When used (allegedly) by the U.S.

A2 (in fact): It's not.

[markalot]

Translation please.

[george]

Widespread Panic?

[weeone]

Winnie the Poo

[Emperor Wog]

Fear is a chemical reaction.

[Orville Wrong]

White Phosphorous (http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/10/stories/2005111006541600.htm)

[clonE]

Widespread Panic?

that's who I thought of at first too!

OW is probably referring to the recent allegations that the US used phosphorous bombs in the siege of Fallujah. phosphorous bombs are banned worldwide. they sear flesh real bad, right to the bone in some instances (not sure what kind of proximity is neccessary for that.)

The US has admitted to using the banned bombs, but we used them to light up the night, not actually attacking anyone, so, technically speaking, we didn't violate the ban.

I'm not saying I agree with this logic, I suppose it depends on what the definition of 'banned' is. Don't you hate it when politicians use verbal semantics to do what they want?

[weeone]

White Phosphorous (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts103.html)
What is white phosphorus?
White phosphorus is a colorless, white, or yellow waxy solid with a garlic-like odor. It does not occur naturally, but is manufactured from phosphate rocks.

White phosphorus reacts rapidly with oxygen, easily catching fire at temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above room temperature.

White phosphorus is used by the military in various types of ammunition, and to produce smoke for concealing troop movements and identifying targets.

It is also used by industry to produce phosphoric acid and other chemicals for use in fertilizers, food additives, and cleaning compounds. Small amounts of white phosphorus were used in the past in pesticides and fireworks.

How can white phosphorus affect my health?
Little information is available about the health effects that may be caused by white phosphorus. Most of what is known about the effects of breathing white phosphorus is from studies of workers. Most of what is known about the effects of eating white phosphorus is from reports of people eating rat poison or fireworks that contained it.

Breathing white phosphorus for short periods may cause coughing and irritation of the throat and lungs. Breathing white phosphorus for long periods may cause a condition known as "phossy jaw" which involves poor wound healing of the mouth and breakdown of the jaw bone.

Eating or drinking small amounts of white phosphorus may cause liver, heart, or kidney damage, vomiting, stomach cramps, drowsiness, or death. We do not know what the effects are from eating or drinking very small amounts of white phosphorus-containing substances over long periods of time. Skin contact with burning white phosphorus may burn skin or cause liver, heart, and kidney damage.

We do not know whether or not white phosphorus can affect the ability to have children or cause birth defects in people.

How likely is white phosphorus to cause cancer?
The EPA has determined that white phosphorus is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity in humans. There are no studies available in people or animals that suggest white phosphorus causes cancer.

Has the federal government made recommendations to protect human health?
The EPA has listed white phosphorus as a Hazardous Air Pollutant. The EPA requires that spills or accidental releases into the environment of 1 pound or more of white phosphorus be reported to the EPA.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) have all set the inhalation exposure limit for white phosphorus in the workplace during an 8-hour workday at 0.1 milligram of white phosphorus per cubic meter of air (0.1 mg/m³).

[purple_octopus]

Aside from my personal opposition to the war in Iraq, here are my thoughts on white phosphorus:

In the air, white phosphorus reacts rapidly with oxygen to produce relatively harmless chemicals within minutes. In water, white phosphorus reacts with oxygen within hours or days. In soil, white phosphorus may stick to particles and be changed within a few days to less harmful compounds.
Combined with the fact that it is used mainly to identify targets, I don't think it matters much if they sprinkle you with WP a few moments before they bomb the fuck out of you. It's not as though the WP is being used as the actual weapon. It's war, people. It isn't supposed to be pretty.

[euro60]

I'm not saying I agree with this logic, I suppose it depends on what the definition of 'banned' is. Don't you hate it when politicians use verbal semantics to do what they want?
It depends on what the definition of "is" is ;)

[REMgirl]

WP is a weapon if you use it as one. I know how you all LOVE the Daily Kos, so here it is:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/164137/436

Just posting a different opinion. :)

[Orville Wrong]

WP is a weapon if you use it as one. I know how you all LOVE the Daily Kos, so here it is:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/9/164137/436

Just posting a different opinion. :)
It's a weapon to be sure. Just not a chemical one as defined in the applicable treaties (i.e. those that kill or incapacitate with toxicity).

It's a weapon that lights shit on fire, which is about as conventional as you get in the annals of warfare.

Are these Italian documentarians and Kos Kidz also willing to admit there were WMD in Iraq, considering the Republican Guard had WP ordnance?

[purple_octopus]

Are these Italian documentarians and Kos Kidz also willing to admit there were WMD in Iraq, considering the Republican Guard had WP ordnance?

Of course not, silly.

I've missed you, Orville. Where have you been hiding?

[BigSugar]

Of course not, silly.

I've missed you, Orville. Where have you been hiding?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! White Phosphorus text!!! kill it KILL IT!!!

technically, gunpowder is a chemical weapon. C4.....chemical weapon.

by the time the marines attacked Fallujah, nearly the entirety of the civilian population had left, and those that remained were warned. so be it.

[Shlep]

WP is used for illumination and for directing artillery fire; when it hits the ground, it erupts into a huge plume of smoke which forward observers can use as a reference to tell the cannon-cockers to either adjust fire or that they're hitting the target.

If it gets on you, then yeah, consider your whole day seriously fuckin' ruined. Then again, I believe that having pointy lead projectiles enter your flesh at speeds well beyond that of sound, or getting sliced up by jagged metal fragments, getting aerated by dozens of BBs flying out of a Claymore mine, or blown apart by explosives also sucks pretty bad.

As for allegedly using them against civilians: I often wonder why, when some bunch of lefty assholes starts accusing US troops of indiscrimminantly killing civilians, nobody can ever seem to produce a rationale. Unless you believe that US troops decided, for no real reason, to slather WP on civilians in a act of gleefully sadistic murder that does nothing to help accomplish the mission while scores of journalists from news agencies around the world with cameras trained on them watched. I have a nice, 17-minute vid file from the BBC where an imbedded reporter followed a Marine grunt unit around during the battle; the Marines continually put themselves at heightened risk to avoid allowing the dumbasses who decided to hang out in a town that was about to be beseiged to get hurt.

Furthermore, the civilian populace was warned of the impending attack, a move which, I think it should be noted, likewise alerted the insurgents and put the lives of US troops at increased risk for their benefit. If they stayed behind, then they acted stupidly.

But hey, none of this surprises me. I remember before the invasion of Iraq, critics of US policy were screaming bloody murder because US forces planned to use "illegal chemical weapons" in the assault (and, it followed, made Bush no better than Saddam since he did the same thing). What they either conveniently forget to mention, or glossed over, was that the "illegal chemical weapons" in question were riot control agents like CS teargas which US troops planned to use to flush out buildings where snipers might be hiding and which were made illegal under a stupid treaty to which the US was a reluctant signatory. Apparently, the right-minded folks in the world preferred that the grunts unleash a massive fussilade of small-arms fire, call in an airstrike, or use directed tank fire against a building that civilians might be hiding in instead of using a sinister weapon that would make them cough and cause their eyes to sting for a few minutes.

[Docta]

by the time the marines attacked Fallujah, nearly the entirety of the civilian population had left, and those that remained were warned. so be it.

just like those dumb f'ks in n'orleans eh?

[clonE]

As for allegedly using them against civilians: I often wonder why, when some bunch of lefty assholes starts accusing US troops of indiscrimminantly killing civilians, nobody can ever seem to produce a rationale. Unless you believe that US troops decided, for no real reason, to slather WP on civilians in a act of gleefully sadistic murder that does nothing to help accomplish the mission while scores of journalists from news agencies around the world with cameras trained on them watched. I have a nice, 17-minute vid file from the BBC where an imbedded reporter followed a Marine grunt unit around during the battle; the Marines continually put themselves at heightened risk to avoid allowing the dumbasses who decided to hang out in a town that was about to be beseiged to get hurt.
.

heard a pice on NPR last week, where they were investigating the Lancet report from 2004, that estimated the civilian death toll in Iraq at around 100,000. What they found was that the estimate was probably accurate, if not a little low (data from Fallujah was even omitted from the final estimate). For the first time, over half of these civilain deaths were due to violence, rather than the usual scourges tha accompany war (famine, disease.)

That being said, they also found no evidence of crazed GIs randomly shooting at people. most of the violent deaths were due to aerial attacks (still US caused,) but when soldiers on the ground killed civilians, the soldiers often went over and apoligized to the surviving family members (doesn't bring anyone back to life, but at least our guys aren't sadistic assholes.)

[BigSugar]

just like those dumb f'ks in n'orleans eh?

right. b/c a hurricane and a military attack are EXACTLY ALIKE.

but those people that stayed in NOLA voluntarily.....fuck 'em. yup. i said it. we'll help on our schedule, but quit your bitching. those people that the mayor and gov. abandoned who had no options, then we'll help you first. here, have a nice waterlogged school bus to live in and a copy of this evacuation plan to use for toilet paper.

[Spoon4613]

right. b/c a hurricane and a military attack are EXACTLY ALIKE.

but those people that stayed in NOLA voluntarily.....fuck 'em. yup. i said it. we'll help on our schedule, but quit your bitching. those people that the mayor and gov. abandoned who had no options, then we'll help you first. here, have a nice waterlogged school bus to live in and a copy of this evacuation plan to use for toilet paper.
I can just feel the love. :rolleyes:

[weezer6]

when i was in the army, we had smoke grenades, wp grenades, and high explosive grenades. i never used a wp grenade, but i thought they were mainly used to destroy equipment. you popped one off on top of something metal, and it burned on down through, rendering the equipment inoperable. maybe smoke grenades had a white phosperous mixture to produce the smoke, but we would throw them and run through the clouds of smoke ourselves. the only negative effect i experienced was the weird vertigo feeling you get standing in the smoke.

i didn't realize wp had been outlawed, when did that happen?

[Orville Wrong]

i didn't realize wp had been outlawed, when did that happen?
Never did. It's still part of our -- and everybody else's -- arsenal.

[Shlep]

when i was in the army, we had smoke grenades, wp grenades, and high explosive grenades. i never used a wp grenade, but i thought they were mainly used to destroy equipment. you popped one off on top of something metal, and it burned on down through, rendering the equipment inoperable. maybe smoke grenades had a white phosperous mixture to produce the smoke, but we would throw them and run through the clouds of smoke ourselves. the only negative effect i experienced was the weird vertigo feeling you get standing in the smoke.

Well, I think the hand-held smoke grenades didn't use Willie Pete but some other harmless chemical. WP grenades I think were intended to destroy equipment and/or create smoke, though the only time I saw a chemical incendiary grenade I thought it contained something called "thermite." An instructor at Parris Island pulled the pin and dropped one into a metal ammo can filled with water, whereupon it proceeded to burn like hell, submerged in water, until it melted a hole in the can.

The smoke grenades mounted on the side of armored vehicles used WP; we had to button up all the hatches before discharging them, lest some of it hit us.

i didn't realize wp had been outlawed, when did that happen?

It didn't. So far as I know, napalm never was "outlawed," just disapproved for use in certain circumstances. I believe it's still a-ok for use on strictly military targets.

[jd1]

WP smoke is most commonly delivered through aerial rockets or artillery shells, I think, rather than hand-held weapons like grenades. WP rockets are certainly used to mark targets for follow-up attack by other aircraft.

WP explosions are spectacular and readily recognizable--they look like a bunch of white, smoky "arms" radiating out from the blast, rather than a big orange fireball. You see them in a lot of movies.

Every nation in the world uses WP munitions. That means international law doesn't prohibit them, per se, though it would certainly prohibit their indescriminate use on civilians, or other noncombatant targets.

--JD

[Shlep]

Every nation in the world uses WP munitions. That means international law doesn't prohibit them, per se, though it would certainly prohibit their indescriminate use on civilians, or other noncombatant targets.

--JD

Indescrimminate, descrimminate, or any other use of any weapon against civilians, non-military targets, or for that matter enemy combatents actively trying to surrender is, of course, prohibited.

[BigSugar]

just read this:

Italian communists held a sit-in Monday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome to protest the reported use by American troops of white phosphorous.

aaaahhhhhhh!!!! you mean that NOW we have to face the Italian communists!!?? i thought that Fredo and Alphonse had moved on to greener pastures. *sigh* ;)

"Long live the Peoples Judean Front!"
"Fuck off!! We're the Peoples Front of Judea!"
"Well, who's the Peoples Judean Front?"
"He's over there......."

[PeterABnny]

Some stuff on said attack and WP here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10064711/

Thought it was kinda interesting.