'Improved'
Napalm For Falluja
With 'Improved' Effect
By Mike Whitney
02 December, 2004
Zmag
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 Mirrors 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 MPs 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, Blairs
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 planners 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 Pentagons
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 Pentagons claim of precision
bombing.
Theres no
doubt that the US embedded media is being prevented from
seeing the vast devastation and carnage of Falluja so they wont
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 Washingtons 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 wont 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 whats to come.
Also Read
'Unusual Weapons'
Used In Fallujah
By Dahr Jamail