Thursday, December 01, 2005
Killing Them Softly
Gen Pace said no military went to greater lengths to avoid civilian casualties than the US army. He said white phosphorus, a chemical that burns on exposure to oxygen, producing a bright light and lots of white smoke, was used primarily to illuminate a battlefield or to hide troop movements.
“It is not a chemical weapon. It is an incendiary. And it is well within the law of war to use those weapons as they’re being used, for marking and for screening,” he said.
If it comes into contact with human skin, white phosphorus can ignite and burn down to the bone if it is not exhausted or extinguished.
An Italian TV channel has reported that the US used white phosphorus against civilians in Falluja, and showed pictures of burned bodies.
The US has denied this.
“A bullet goes through skin even faster than white phosphorus does,” Gen Pace said.
“So I would rather have the proper instrument applied at the proper time, as precisely as possible, to get the job done, in a way that kills as many of the bad guys as possible and does as little collateral damage as possible. [Ed. note: my 2nd favorite redleg underscores that point here]
Before the inevitable rush of "Oh, that brute!" comments starts up, later on John points to an even more interesting exchange between General Pace and Don Rumsfeld that may give you a different picture of Marines and their concept of warfare:
When UPI’s Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that “obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility” other than to voice disapproval.
But [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace] had a different view. “It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it,” the general said.
Rumsfeld interjected: “I don’t think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it’s to report it.”
But Pace meant what he said. “If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it,” he said, firmly.
This exchange was so typically Marine that I had to laugh. A commenter on another forum was shocked and appalled that General Pace had the temerity to disagree with Mr. Rumsfeld in public, but Marines disagree with each other - quite vocally, but respectfully - all the time. They are not shy about stating their opinions. What people fail to understand is the General Pace reports to the President, not Don Rumsfeld.
Returning to the WP issue, on the strength of an Italian news report (Giuliana Sgrena anyone?), off we go to try and convict our own forces in the media and over the Internet, no evidence required. The NY Times wants WP banned on the strength of an Italian crockumentary that can't even get easily checkable 30-year-old facts correct:
The film shows United States Air Force jets dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages and includes famous footage from 1972 of Kim Phuc Phan Thi, a 9-year-old girl, fleeing after napalm burned her clothing off. But the aircraft that dropped the napalm on her village in 1972 was South Vietnamese, not American.
The weaselly WaPo isn't much better, raging all over the US Army in a manner reminiscent of John Kerry. Notwithstanding the fact that WP is legal and that he isn't sure he believes the allegations, Mr. Arkin comes out unequivocally foregainst it:
I for one am reluctant to pronounce whether the use of white phosphorous for "shake and bake" missions in Fallujah and the evident blundering use of white phosphorous in areas known to be occupied by civilians is illegal. Neither am I buying the State Department's line that the use of white phosphorous in this way -- that is, to possibly inflict unnecessary suffering -- is not "illegal" use. What I'm sure of is that the use of white phosphorous is not just some insensitive act. It is not just bad P.R. It is the ill thought out and panicked use of a weapon in an illegitimate way. It is a representation of a losing strategy.
He has a point, you know. This is America. While we're conducting house-to-house missions, is it really too much to ask in this enlightened day and age that that 19 year old PFC work in a little P.R. and keep his mind on the reaction from Cairo while he's taking incoming RPG fire? Maybe hand out a few MREs? Sensitivity, people.
Seriously, while I don't mean to suggest for one moment that this matter ought to be hushed up, a little healthy skepticism and a large dose of common sense are in order. First of all, we are at war. In any war, no matter how hard we try (and we do try extremely hard, if for no other reason than embedded reporters lie in wait for the unwary soldier who reacts in the "wrong" way to an enemy who haven't the decency to wear a uniform or insignia so they can be distinguished from innocent civilians) there will be what is euphemistically called "collateral damage".
That's the kind of thing that gives our soldiers and Marines nightmares. They don't think it's funny - they're over there putting their lives on the line for these people, unlike the critics who sit around hoping one of them will screw up and give them another handy anti-war talking point. They have a vested interest in keeping innocent Iraqis alive - their goodwill makes them more likely to cooperate with us and report on the insurgents' activities, as they are doing now in greater and greater numbers.
What critics don't like to admit is that "collateral damage" occurs because the "insurgents" (gosh, war is full of euphemisms on both sides, isn't it?) use innocent men, women, and children as human shields. But this is a fact the media don't like to report. The sad truth of war is that insisting the military stop all operations because civilians might inadvertently be killed is about as smart as saying you can't walk through your garden because you might crush hundreds of innocent life forms with your big feet. You just try to be careful. The allegation that using WP is somehow reprehensible or contrary to the laws of war is well refuted here. Typically, we find that critics of WP do not even begin to know what they are talking about. But why should that surprise us?
WP is a useful tool for the control of fires on the modern battlefield. Without it, we would have to use HE for spotting rounds. HE has a vastly greater lethal radius. HE fills the air with red hot metal. If it hits you, it will burn the crap out of you.
The guys who get hit with fragmentation rounds will tell you. They’ll cuss up a storm and tell you “it burns, it f-cking burns!”
Yep. Just like white phosphorus.
The flash burns from a 155 shell explosion will also fry flesh brown, much like in a few of the pictures flying around.
The fragments from a 155 High Explosive shell will shatter or puncture the walls of schools, nurseries, orphanages, apartments, and hospitals alike. The fragmentation from a WP shell does not have anywhere near the velocity or penetrating power of a WP round.
I’ve seen the overpressure from an HE shell shatter windows more than 1000m away from the blast. Needless to say, it plays havoc with eardrums at closer ranges, and the concussion alone from a 155mm HE shell is known to whip soldier’s heads around so much that they get brain damage to go along with their shattered eardrums, even if they escape the fragmentary effects of such a shell.
But this is the shell that would have to replace the WP shell in the doctrinal marking role on the battlefield.
Jason makes many valid points, among them that without WP, more shells would have to be fired to mark the same target (i.e., more "collateral damage" in a civilian area), close air support would be vastly more difficult (higher casualties and more "collateral damage"), and finally, because WP smoke is less visible, the possibility of friendly fire (accidentally firing on our own forces) goes way up.
None of these are good things. In the end, it matters little to an innocent civilian whether he or she is killed by WP, an artillery round, or bombs dropped from a jet because the target was not well marked. Dead is dead. But the best summation is this: in the end, what we're talking about is limiting damage to innocent civilians during wartime. Jason counters:
Banning the use of WP will kill more civilians – the exact opposite of the effect the NYT editorial board desires. The exact opposite of what everyone desires, except, of course, the mujahedeen.
Lastly, John Donovan (the 2nd favorite redleg referred to earlier) does a great job of dissecting the video showing the burned corpses:
The "crockumentary" as Bob so succinctly puts it, is flawed from the opening, they started losing me when they were showing the napalm footage from Vietnam, talking about how the canisters already "glowed blue" from friction as they were released. Note to Sigfrido - not much "glows blue" due to friction - and the rest of the aircraft would have, as well - but aluminum does take on the dominant colors - like sky blue - around it. And the cloudy mist around the canisters from release is simply an artifact of airflow in a humid environment - fly into Orlando some muggy afternoon and watch the vortex contrails off the wing.
The 'bodies with strange injuries' such as burned flesh but unburned clothing. Welcome to nature at work. Putrefaction in unrefrigerated dead bodies. Most of the bodies I saw in the video looked like week-old corpses, not chemical casualties. I've seen bodies like that live, and there was nothing shown in the video that suggests otherwise to me.
The dead animals? Blast concussion kills, and doesn't always leave obvious marks on the surface, such as bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose, etc. The dead rodents in the cage? Certainly possible smoke inhalation from fires now extinguished - or victims of dehydration after the owners fled?
Lastly - in all the videos - to include those shot by soldiers in combat - did anyone see US or Iraqi troops wearing gasmasks or protective gear? D'you think we'd have been using chemicals without MOPPing up?I doubt it.
I think Bob has the right of it. Crockumentary.
It's amazing to me that the American media apparently have nothing better to do than sensationalize the use of a legal weapon during an activity, the entire purpose of which is to kill people. I have lived and worked around Marines my entire adult life, and while they're no angels, they are good people. They hold themselves - voluntarily - to a higher standard than the rest of the population and in return the media do nothing but nitpick them to death. Interestingly, after reviewing the evidence, this blogger decided that the WP account he'd linked to earlier was flawed.
I'd like to see more of this kind of rational debate and review replace the hysteria and fact-free bloviation that goes on in the lamestream media. This is what a free society with a vigorous First Amendment is all about, and I commend the gentleman for being open minded enough to inquire further into the issue. Would that our media were similarly inclined; but as this Captain comments, they are only interested in exposing our pale underbelly to the enemy:
I’ll tell ya what,I'm here NOW in Iraq and if I have to use WP, believe me its going down range. With your fellow Americans being killed by cruel weapons here indiscriminately and used against their own Iraqi civilians our tactics and uses back during the Fallujah battle were right on. 99% of civilians were out of Fallujah. The point of using WP against civilians is off the mark. Young Marines and Soldiers battle day to day here using very careful and controlled combat techniques that are conducted with discipline. The fact of an IED exploding covering my Marines with oil and attempting to burn them to near death and cause other Marines mental wounds to discourage them from fighting is the injustice but you don’t hear of that skylined. We used WP correctly and legally.
Update: John Donovan's analysis is seconded by this LA Times piece. It's pretty devastating.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Dec 01, 10:15:00 AM:
You know, it isn't the debate for me, as I know our guys will definately be surgical in their combat practices.
What zings me is what the Donovan pointed out in the crockumentary. Cut and spliced, doctored evidence for an agenda.
That type of garbage is inexcusable...I am sick to death of trumped up atrocity stories to maintain the baby killer image. I hate fifth column tactics and this one is egregious, playing on the ignorance of people.
By 
Cassandra, at
Thu Dec 01, 10:32:00 AM:
Well, since I'm sleeping with the enemy I've been hesitant to comment on this, but I figured it was time to weigh in.
By Gordon Smith, at
Fri Dec 02, 07:37:00 AM:
It was a terrifically poor decision to use WP in Fallujah. There are other ways to light a field, and using a chemical that has been referred to as a weapon by the Pentagon and has many of the properties we value in chemical warfare is ignoring the psychological effect on the populace.
WP does terrible things to the people it lights on, but we don't mean to do that. Sorry, innocent civilians, my bad.
This is no way to win a war of ideas.
By Cardinalpark, at
Fri Dec 02, 08:59:00 AM:
SH -
What are your qualifications to discuss the use of white phosphorous? Are or were you in the military? Have you been trained to use weapons of any sort? Were you a graduate of any sort of military academy?
What weapons would you support the use of against the al qaeda and baathist enemy we were fighting in fallujah and around iraq?
Oh..and by the way...were there any "innocent" civilians left in fallujah by the team we rettok the city in Nov of 2004?
By , at
Fri Dec 02, 12:16:00 PM:
I sleep with the enemy too. And no matter how hard we try, there are those who will get hurt.
Gone are the days when civilians could gather to watch the battle and either
loot the field or run for their lives.
We do our best, but we all know if the peacenik crowd screams for a war for the most noblest of reasons (after all, they have the moral imperative, don't you see, as war is only morally justified when a peacenik gets angry)
they will do it better and cleaner than anyone else. That is why their Presdient was impeached for lying, and
their Senator has Cambodia seared into his memory, and well, you get the idea.
When they can prove that the intent of our going beyond the boundaries was to commit atrocities, I will listen. But they will have to do it with the evidence not being doctored.
By Cassandra, at
Fri Dec 02, 03:39:00 PM:
Screwy, did you even bother to read Jason's post? Please do read it and think about it for a minute or two with an open mind.
There is nothing wrong with using WP to mark; in fact, as I explained it is better than the alternatives since it is more visible and reduces the chances of indiscriminate fire, both by arty and aircraft.
re: WP does terrible things to people it lands on: So does a 155 MM howitzer round.
If it *hits* you, it matters very little whether it's a WP round or an HE round. You will not be just merely dead, but truly, quite severely dead in both cases, I assure you.
And keep this in mind: our guys have to *handle* this stuff, and they are firing it in areas where their own people can be moving (battle is confusing), a *fact* that the media like to leave out for all the hysteria about how horribly lethal and awful and terrible it is. They are very careful with it. You have no idea (but I do, because my husband has been an FDO at all levels including coordinating fire support for a full-blown CAX) how careful these guys are about this stuff.
When they train in the US they train in areas where if they fire out, they will be fried up the ying-yang. And they can kill their own people. So they are very, very careful - this isn't a game.
By , at
Sat Dec 03, 10:22:00 AM:
There you go, making sense. Dead is dead. What we the squeamish get upset about is the manner of passing.
Cass, I had a screed planned but it was going to get ugly, so I am saying this:
We use our weapons of choice in as surgical a manner as possible. Same with our tactics. The main mission getting accomplished it the point.
And no, I won't apologize for that.
