mohammmad
01-12-04, 13:14
Firebombing Falluja
By Mike Whitney
Al-Jazeerah, December 1, 2004
The United States is using napalm in Falluja . So far, the military has
denied the allegations, but the proof is mounting. On Nov. 28 The Daily
Mirror’s political editor, Paul Gilfeather filed a report stating: “US
troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining
insurgents in and around Fallujah. News that President George W. Bush has
sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel
banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the
world.”
For over a week rumors have circulated in the Arab press that both napalm
and other chemical weapons were used mainly in the Jolan district of
Falluja, a major area of the fighting. Now, despite a US media blackout,
more evidence is leaking out and causing a furor in the British Parliament.
As Gilfeather reports: “Last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as
furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it. Reports claim that
innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into
human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh.”
Blair is being pressed by furious MP’s to clarify whether or not he knew
that the “banned weapon” was being used. He is also being asked to withdraw
British troops if the US continues its use of napalm. As of this writing,
Blair’s response remains unknown.
The US has already admitted that it used napalm during the siege of
Baghdad. The truth was reluctantly confirmed by the Pentagon after news
reports corroborated the evidence. The military has tried to conceal the
truth by saying that there is a distinction between its new weapon and
“traditional napalm”. The “improved” product carries the Pentagon moniker
“Mark 77 firebombs” and uses jet fuel to “decrease environmental damage”.
The fact that military planner’s even considered “environmental damage”
while developing the tools for incinerating human beings, gives us some
insight into the deep vein of cynicism that permeates their ranks.
The Pentagon’s hair-splitting has done little to obfuscate the facts.
Marines returning from Iraq call the bombs napalm and napalm it is.
Journalist Simon Jenkins of the British Sunday Times describes the incidents
in Falluja like this: “Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds
that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water.
Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin,
a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.” It is an excruciatingly
painful way to die.
Independent journalists have been reporting for some time now that the
US has been using banned weapons in Falluja. Iraqi doctors have noted that
many of the bodies they have examined have been “swollen, yellowish and have
no smell.” Asia Times online has reported that “Americans used chemical
weapons in the bombing of Jolan, ash-Shuhada and al-Jubayl neighborhoods.
They also say the neighborhoods were showered with cluster bombs”; an
allegation that refutes the Pentagon’s claim of “precision bombing”.
There’s no doubt that the US “embedded” media is being prevented from
seeing the vast devastation and carnage of Falluja so they won’t be exposed
to the suspicious looking corpses that still litter the city. So far, their
collusive wall of silence has provided fairly good cover for American war
crimes. Fortunately, the truth is slowly leeching out due to the efforts of
the foreign press and independent media. Soon, the world will get a better
rendering of Washington’s “moral values” by a full vetting of transgressions
in Falluja.
The charges of “war crimes” and use of banned weapons comes on the heels
of a confidential report just released by the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC). The report confirms that the US military has intentionally
used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture"
on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
The report concludes that the military has developed a system to break
the will of prisoners through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement,
temperature extremes, use of forced positions….The construction of such a
system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be
considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading
treatment and a form of torture." (New York Times)
The report further clarifies that “doctors and other medical workers at
Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in "a flagrant
violation of medical ethics… Doctors and medical personnel conveyed
information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to
interrogators” to assist in the information-gathering regimen established by
the Pentagon. (No one should be surprised that General Geoffrey Miller, who
has been at the center of the torture scandal, has been quietly removed from
duty at Abu Ghraib.
The Bush Administration is trying to anticipate the
public reaction to this new wave of allegations and act accordingly.) The
rationale for eschewing the Geneva Conventions that was developed at the
highest levels of the Bush Administration (and which was identified by the
exposing of secret memorandum) can now be more easily understood by the ICRC
report. The activities at Guantanamo Bay prove beyond a doubt that the
administration will not comply with even minimal standards of decency or
humanitarian law. The firebombing in Falluja shows that they won’t be
constrained by international rules prohibiting the use of banned weapons.
With each desperate act, a portrait of the administration as a reckless,
criminal enterprise is taking shape. Their inclination to use “whatever
means possible” to achieve their objectives is an ominous sign of what’s to come.
By Mike Whitney
Al-Jazeerah, December 1, 2004
The United States is using napalm in Falluja . So far, the military has
denied the allegations, but the proof is mounting. On Nov. 28 The Daily
Mirror’s political editor, Paul Gilfeather filed a report stating: “US
troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining
insurgents in and around Fallujah. News that President George W. Bush has
sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel
banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the
world.”
For over a week rumors have circulated in the Arab press that both napalm
and other chemical weapons were used mainly in the Jolan district of
Falluja, a major area of the fighting. Now, despite a US media blackout,
more evidence is leaking out and causing a furor in the British Parliament.
As Gilfeather reports: “Last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as
furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it. Reports claim that
innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into
human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh.”
Blair is being pressed by furious MP’s to clarify whether or not he knew
that the “banned weapon” was being used. He is also being asked to withdraw
British troops if the US continues its use of napalm. As of this writing,
Blair’s response remains unknown.
The US has already admitted that it used napalm during the siege of
Baghdad. The truth was reluctantly confirmed by the Pentagon after news
reports corroborated the evidence. The military has tried to conceal the
truth by saying that there is a distinction between its new weapon and
“traditional napalm”. The “improved” product carries the Pentagon moniker
“Mark 77 firebombs” and uses jet fuel to “decrease environmental damage”.
The fact that military planner’s even considered “environmental damage”
while developing the tools for incinerating human beings, gives us some
insight into the deep vein of cynicism that permeates their ranks.
The Pentagon’s hair-splitting has done little to obfuscate the facts.
Marines returning from Iraq call the bombs napalm and napalm it is.
Journalist Simon Jenkins of the British Sunday Times describes the incidents
in Falluja like this: “Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds
that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water.
Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin,
a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.” It is an excruciatingly
painful way to die.
Independent journalists have been reporting for some time now that the
US has been using banned weapons in Falluja. Iraqi doctors have noted that
many of the bodies they have examined have been “swollen, yellowish and have
no smell.” Asia Times online has reported that “Americans used chemical
weapons in the bombing of Jolan, ash-Shuhada and al-Jubayl neighborhoods.
They also say the neighborhoods were showered with cluster bombs”; an
allegation that refutes the Pentagon’s claim of “precision bombing”.
There’s no doubt that the US “embedded” media is being prevented from
seeing the vast devastation and carnage of Falluja so they won’t be exposed
to the suspicious looking corpses that still litter the city. So far, their
collusive wall of silence has provided fairly good cover for American war
crimes. Fortunately, the truth is slowly leeching out due to the efforts of
the foreign press and independent media. Soon, the world will get a better
rendering of Washington’s “moral values” by a full vetting of transgressions
in Falluja.
The charges of “war crimes” and use of banned weapons comes on the heels
of a confidential report just released by the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC). The report confirms that the US military has intentionally
used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture"
on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
The report concludes that the military has developed a system to break
the will of prisoners through "humiliating acts, solitary confinement,
temperature extremes, use of forced positions….The construction of such a
system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be
considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading
treatment and a form of torture." (New York Times)
The report further clarifies that “doctors and other medical workers at
Guantánamo were participating in planning for interrogations, in "a flagrant
violation of medical ethics… Doctors and medical personnel conveyed
information about prisoners' mental health and vulnerabilities to
interrogators” to assist in the information-gathering regimen established by
the Pentagon. (No one should be surprised that General Geoffrey Miller, who
has been at the center of the torture scandal, has been quietly removed from
duty at Abu Ghraib.
The Bush Administration is trying to anticipate the
public reaction to this new wave of allegations and act accordingly.) The
rationale for eschewing the Geneva Conventions that was developed at the
highest levels of the Bush Administration (and which was identified by the
exposing of secret memorandum) can now be more easily understood by the ICRC
report. The activities at Guantanamo Bay prove beyond a doubt that the
administration will not comply with even minimal standards of decency or
humanitarian law. The firebombing in Falluja shows that they won’t be
constrained by international rules prohibiting the use of banned weapons.
With each desperate act, a portrait of the administration as a reckless,
criminal enterprise is taking shape. Their inclination to use “whatever
means possible” to achieve their objectives is an ominous sign of what’s to come.