...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, November 09, 2005
      ( 5:47 PM )
 
Suffer Not the Little Ones

Ahem...for those of you fundies..that's a quote from Jesus about how you shouldn't treat children badly. I'm with Hunter, a regular poster on the Daily Kos blog - I think it should be a stated policy of the United States not to burn the skin off little children. But evidently, our government and military thinks differently.

In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete.

"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."

-- The Independent, US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah

Whether you call it chemical weapons or incindiaries or whatever - we are using weapons that shame us as a nation. Need more evidence? A first-hand testimony also appears at the Kos:

I knew from watching similar explosions in training exercises that the cloud raining down on the target area was a white phosphorus round. They shot about 5 of them from my recollection.

I recall thinking, "Man, that is some evil stuff there." Knowing what I know about Willy Pete, it would be a terrible way to die. White Phosphorus is supposed to be used to mark targets for aviation flying high over an objective area. And I know for a fact that no fixed-winged aviation was dropping ordnance in that area, it was too close to friendlies. I know this for a FACT.

We are committing crimes against humanity and we are engaging in a war that puts our own soldiers in the unenviable positions of being in the middle of horrific actions on all sides, and that puts the civilian population of Iraq in even more devastating danger than it could have imagined when our troops first marched through the streets. We have GOT to stop this. We cannot continue to pursue a conflict like this that makes us the baby killers and sends the message to the world that we couldn't care less.

Hunter makes a very clear argument - I encourage you to read the entire post. His conclusion is cogent and I completely agree:

So in conclusion, I am going to come out, to the continuing consternation of Rush Limbaugh and pro-war supporters everywhere, as being anti-children-melting, as a matter of general policy.

Furthermore, I would suggest to the President of the United States that if you find yourself in the position where your on-the-ground forces find melting the skin off of children to be the preferable of all available options, your military outlook is well and truly fucked, and you might perhaps start considering alternative means of stabilizing the country.

Thank you for your time.


There has to be a better way.

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