Reply #81: Of course it'll destroy lungs and organs when inhaled, FIRE has a

[DS1]

tendency to do that. White Phosphorous is used in two different ways. One way it in a grenade or other small device that's placed on top of enemy equipment and ignited - and it burns hot enough to melt through any steel until it hits the ground and probably keeps going. It's also used as an illumination flare, because it burns incredibly brightly.

It is NOT a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon. They used to be called NBC weapons, but GE lobbied to have it changed so "Weapons of Mass Destruction" was coined.

Battlefield chemical weapons are classified of weapons that only harm people, they are no good against hardware. There are irritant agents that can cause severe blistering ( in the lungs if inhaled ), there are nerve agents which effectively shut you down as a human, there are oxygen-transfer blocking agents which means you suffocate ( or drown in your own blood ) and there are a few other types of chemical weapons that don't need to be listed.

What I'm saying is that WP isn't designed or designated as a WMD by ANY country. Now, using it against civilians is both brutal and underhanded as hell, and I definitely don't condone it but you must understand that WP is not a WMD. Because when you go telling all your friends and neighbors that we are using WMD against Iraqis, and one of them who knows a thing or two about warfighting asks you which WMD we've been using and you say "WP", then you're going to be immediately discredited as an idiot. I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm saying that's what you'll end up looking like in the eyes of the people you've been telling this.

So, like I said, it's brutal and horrible to rain fire down on people, but White Phos is NOT technically a WMD. Argue instead about the U.S.'s skirting of the rules of humanitarian rules and regulations by detonating illumination flares far lower than they are designed, in order to wipe out vast swatches of people.