Reply #21: I agree with you about Hackett and it is important to note that...

[IndyOp]

like most war crimes, people in the military can usually justify them -- and most who participated in the actions must justify them to keep their sanity.

Example: White phosphorus in Fallujah. White phosphorus is "acceptable" in war if NOT aimed at people -- if it is used to 'light up' an area at night. If aimed at an empty field it lights up the area and is not a crime.

The problem is that civilians in Fallujah had white phosphorus burns.

Hackett will argue that this happened because the Iraqi civilians were some place the US troops did not expect them to be.

If US troops aimed white phosphorus at civilians as a weapon then that is a war crime.

And we are stuck again with the following: How do we know the US troops' intention?

US troops have used a chemical cousin of napalm in Iraq. A quote below keeps the waters murky - the napalm hit Iraqi soldiers that the US troops did not expect to be on a bridge. So it sounds like it was not a war crime. Then again - the quote also indicates that "the generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect." So do the generals love the big psychological effect of deforestation (in the desert - maybe olive trees)? Or do the generals love the big psychological effect of Iraqis seeing other Iraqis whose skin has melted off because of the napalm?

US marines have, in fact, already +admitted+ that they have used an upgraded version of napalm. A weapon which uses kerosene rather than petrol was deployed when dozens of bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad. Andrew Buncombe reported in the Independent on Sunday:

"'We napalmed both those bridge approaches,' said Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11.

"'Unfortunately there were people there... you could see them in the cockpit video. They were Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.'" (Buncombe, 'US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq,' Independent on Sunday, August 10, 2003)

Allegations about the use of weapons that have "melted" people have appeared in the US press. For example, the Washington Post reported that: "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." (Jackie Spinner, Karl Vick and Omar Fekeiki, 'U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah,' Washington Post, November 10, 2004)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7936