But There Have Been Other Reports About Napalm&Phosphorus Use In Iraq!!
This was reported in 2004 on various Independent News sites, including Democracy Now.
At the time, there was No Concrete Evidence – only speculation based on Iraqi Nationals’ accounts of what happened.
I think the real news here is that Giuliana Segrena may have had the videotape of the injuries caused by the chemicals, thus proving the speculation was correct all along.
This may be why there was an attempt on Giuliana Sgrena’s life – they didn’t want this information to get out!
Giuliana Segrena
The paper’s online site is in Italian, and I don’t read Italian, but anybody who does can take the visit. I never could find a Link, on the site, for an English Version, either in visits before or today!
The Links and Story below the Fold:
U.S. Used Chemical Weapons In Iraq
Veteran admits: Bodies melted away before us.
By RAI
The Americans are responsible for a massacre using unconventional weapons, the
identical charge for which Saddam Hussein stands accused. An investigation by
RAI News 24, the all-news Italian satellite television channel, has pulled the
veil from one of the most carefully concealed mysteries from the front in the
entire US military campaign in Iraq.
The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997
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* U.S. Broadcast Exclusive – “Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre” on the U.S. Use
of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs *
Democracy Now! airs an exclusive excerpt of “Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre,”
featuring interviews with U.S. soldiers, Iraqi doctors and international
journalists on the U.S. attack on Fallujah. Produced by Italian state
broadcaster RAI TV, the documentary charges U.S. warplanes illegally dropped
white phosphorous incendiary bombs on civilian populations, burning the skin
off Iraqi victims. One U.S. soldier charges this amounts to the U.S. using
chemical weapons against the Iraqi people.
* A Debate: Did the U.S. Military Attack Iraqi Civilians With White
Phosphorous Bombs in Violation of the Geneva Conventions? *
We speak with a former U.S. soldier who witnessed orders being given to drop
white phosphorous bombs over Fallujah; a Pentagon spokesperson in Baghdad
who admits such bombs were used but denied they were used as a chemical
weapon; and the news director of RAI TV, the Italian TV network that
produced ³Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre.²
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10PM-1AM Tonight 11-08-05 Stream It If You Don’t Have A Local Radio Connection To ‘Air America’
The Independent UK:
“Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.
Ever since the assault, which went unreported by any Western journalists, rumors have swirled that the Americans used chemical weapons on the city.
On 10 November last year, the Islam Online website wrote: ‘US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988.'”
The full story — accompanied by a very graphic and disturbing video produced by Italian television and scheduled for broadcast tonight can be found HERE:
Once again, the rest of the world is shown graphic proof of US troops, acting on orders from George W. Bush, committing war crimes; incinerating civilians, destroying hospitals, bombing neighborhoods, obliterating whole sections of a city in a mad act of revenge against “terrorists” who have the temerity to resist the invading US military.
This is all — the war, the political corruption, the inability to function in the aftermath of natural disasters at home, the ruining of our financial resources, the domestic criminality of the ruling clique, the sanctioning of torture (!) — becoming much worse than the inability to perform even the most basic functions of government (which is an incompetence the Bush Crime Family demonstrates daily).
It is taking on the nightmarish feel of a horrific dream from which one struggles to escape.
The most recent example of the uselessness of Bush himself was the so-called economic summit of hemispheric leaders in Argentina. Bush walked out after making one of his useless press conference cum photo op appearances. No meetings, no discussions, no plans made for regional economic security. Nothing. Bush arrives. People violently protest his presence in their country. Bush struts for the cameras. Bush leaves and flies to a fund-raiser in Virginia after a quick stopover for another photo-op, this one in Panama.
It is all appalling.
It is disgusting.
And we have another 39 months of this.<br Or do we?
Join me tonight for the discussion.
It falls in line with the earlier reports and rumors. It makes sense combined with accounts of odd rules and regulations that covered re-entry to Fallujah.
I’d say yes, it’s probably true.
Great Diary Jim!
It was a Quicky!!
I had just gotten home and received this in one of my NewsLetters, Quickly sent it out to a Number of Groups and Individuals.
Did a quick look here, to see if it was up and didn’t, now there is another with the Video Link, I’ll keep this one up as it’s got more info and is abit differant than one over at KOS!!
Be back shortly have to connect to a few others on this, also sent it over to Dave, at AfterDowningStreet
and he Quickly put it up there!!
This is Extremely Tragic but may be the Added Evidence to Bring ‘War Crime’ Charges against the U.S. Civilian/Military Leadership of the Debacle In Iraq!!
This will Not Be Excepted by Many so Watch the Extreme Sparks Fly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Napalm-lite.
Hideous.
Napalm is not a patented recipe. It is a type of incendiary: jellied liquid fuels. The word does not get retired along with previous formulations.
Let’s not give an inch. The government has no right to circumvent truth by dictating semantics.
“It has a big psychological effect.”
Like torture, without the off switch.
Yes, I’d call it napalm. But as Juan Cole points out napalm and white phosphorous aren’t what people mean by a “chemical weapon”. I think we need to be careful here to keep credibility.
</ brokenrecord>
the link in my diary is to an english version of the documentary
Same with mine, as I just visited your’s, mine is out of Information Clearing House
The Referance to ‘Italian’ in my Diary is Not for the Video but the NewsPaper where this is coming out of!!
I can’t watch the video. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.
Were we ever the good guys? Don’t tell me, DuctapeFatwa, I already know the answer.
Just don’t watch it. Accept it as fact and move on.
I’ve spent the last 20 minutes trying not to throw up.
Can someone explain to me how sanctioning this at the highest level of command distinguishes Bush from Hussein in torturously killing innocent people?
Many Americans believe that
Thank you for the thoughtful reply.
I always sense an improving image when the term ‘many’ is used rather that ‘all’ or ‘most’ in referring to Americans. If I could modify your answer slightly…
1)Because ‘we’ have a virtuous ultimate goal and the end justifies the means
2)Sadly, the overall opinion many Americans might have is that innocent people are only killed as a completely unavoidable consequence of pursuing a virtuous goal.
I don’t think the above reasons given are productive but they are possible.
as Mr. Danger likes to put it, “with the terrorists.”
You should specify in your modification that the virtuous end desired by the exceptionalists is that US seize resources and impose its superior will on the rest of the world, so that they may know the freedom of putting US business interests above their own well-being.
And yes, if toward this noble end, some loss of life that may have been innocent of anti-American sentiment is unfortunately lost during a routine napalm dropping operation on a village here and there, then their loved ones can be proud that they died for a just cause, to defend the very excellent quarterly statements of Halliburton, et al, and thereby become, in their own right, heroes in the war on terror.
I don’t think the ones it applies to would notice. The scary part about that mindset is that it believes it’s the right and honorable thing. It can’t see or acknowledge what’s actually going on.
tells me that white phosphorus and napalm are not classed as “chemical weapons.” They are, he says, “incendiary devices.” He also says, that “war is hell” and “war is not a pretty thing.” Today napalm is used where in centuries past the equilalent was boiling oil, he says, both melt flesh from bone. He further notes that women and children are used as shields and it’s too bad they get dusted with the enemy; that’s just the way it is and has been forever. He is now barfing in the bathroom.
Help me with this: Is there an international agreement that the US signed not to use napalm or “willy pete”? Why are these weapons classed as “unconventional”? Why is this incident a war crime while using “explosive weapons” is not? What’s the difference? Women and children die from bombs and bullets just as surely as they do from these devices.
I’m horrified as is my husband. He is likely more horrified because he has direct memories instead of videos. I’m looking for a clarification of what makes this incident more shameful than the rest of the war? Or any war, for that matter?
War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’
the use of napalm violates the geneva conventions, but they’re “quaint” and “outdated” so i guess it doesn’t matter. besides, this is MK77, not napalm. kinda like a machete is a blade, not a knife…
Very Well Put Cedwyn!!!!!
Like many of the Phrases used to Change, remember Re-Vionist History!!
i.e. Double Speak, and it’s been going on for a Looong Time!!!!!!!!!!
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Should be ‘Re-Visionist History’!!
I see that the Geneva Conventions, 1949, declared “incendiary devices” off limits and this was meant to apply to atomic weapons. Then in 1980, napalm was explicitly defined as an “incendiary device.” Again, in 1996, the use of all “incendiary devices” was prohibited — that would include willy pete and any permutations of same no matter what their names.
So, I guess my hangup is two-fold: Exactly why is it more horrible to have flesh melted as compared to it being blown to bits? Why is the former forbidden while the latter is considered “conventional,” as in, acceptable?
The second fold is helping my husband come to terms with the fact that he engaged in war crimes even tho it wasn’t “explicitly” outlawed at the time. We’re having a rough time in our household this evening…
But, the main point of my previous posting was to prevent people from using the term “chemical.” Yes, I know napalm is a chemical compound but it’s application is incendiary, thus it’s classification. Both have been outlawed but we need to call demons by their proper names if we’re to have a chance of containing them.
sjct, I’m a Vietnam Vet ’70-’71, my last year of a four year hitch.
I don’t know if your husband ever saw, first hand, what Napalm Does, I Have, and the Using of Children and Women as Shields Does Not Apply, Napalm like Bombs Kill and Maim Any and All within their Cover Zone!!
As described in the Video Phosporous turns into a Cloud that Burns the Flesh Off of Any Living Thing in a Wide Cover of Meters, same for Napalm!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I have known my husband for just the last 6 years and his experiences in Nam come out as prompted. He’s never sat down and told me everything from start to finish and, frankly, I don’t want him to do so; my hippie soul probably couldn’t handle it. He was in-country, two tours, 1966-70, and stayed with the Marines until ’76. He told me this evening that he saw what napalm does and he’s trying to justify the use of it. He’s talking about jungles full of “gooks” and “too bad if women and children burned with them.” He’s reverting to his programming in self-defense of his sanity. Now we’re not going to talk about it anymore… I think it’s wise of me to let sleeping dogs lie on this issue, don’t you?
A little while ago I said — in a kind tone of voice — “Honey, you committed war crimes” and he replied, “People shouldn’t go to war without accepting that horrible things will happen. That’s what it is.” So, there it is — basically. Everytime the war drums start to beat, somebody needs to put out a movie with graphic footage to let people know exactly what they are committing themselves to have others do in their names. Atrocities and horrific deeds are going to happen; that’s the nature of war. So we need to stop wars. Period.
sjct, you’re right in stopping the talking, for now.
I think your Husband may, at some point, open up more, but It can be Extremely Hard to Explain What Actually Happens In ‘Hell’, and that’s what it is!!
I know Way Too Many Vets, including WWII and Korea, who this Conflict have Rekindled their PTSD, a few too Extreme’s!!
Your Husband sounds like he was a Combat Grunt who saw his share of Action. The ‘War Crimes’ you may think of or speak of may or may not actually have happened, at least to him. But a War/Conflict is a Differant Mentality, one of Survival on Both Sides!
And Believe Me I Can’t Explain It, especially in this form of Communication!
I can say, just Be There for Him, as you already know. And I Hope He Has No Need To Feel Any Guilt Because There Probably Is None, And He Shouldn’t!!!
How did RAI manage to air this?
Does Berlusconi want to distance himself from l’amico George seeing as the polling numbers do not predict a pleasant outcome for the election in spring of 2006?
And from Reuters – a possible accord between Berlusconi and the opposition on a gradual withdrawal of Italian troops.
ROMA (Reuters) – Il governo italiano e l’opposizione di centrosinistra potrebbero raggiungere un accordo per un graduale ritiro delle truppe italiane dall’Iraq … * snip *
Unfortunately, the Tuesday edition of Manifesto is not available for non-subscribers until Wednesday (3:00 PM for the West Coast).
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by GIULIANA SGRENA
Il Manifesto 23 November 2004 — We buried them, but we could not identify them because they were charred from the napalm bombs used by the Americans.
Mustapha Ahmed Abed lost his leg in theattack by U.S. troops on the city of Fallujah
People from Saqlawiya village, near Falluja, told al Jazeera television, based in Qatar, that they helped bury 73 bodies of women and children completely charred, all in the same grave.
The sad story of common graves, which started at Saddam’s times, is not yet finished.
Nobody could confirm if napalm bombs have been used in Falluja, but other bodies found last year after the fierce battle at Baghdad airport were also completely charred and some thought of nuclear bombs.
No independent source could verify the facts, since all the news arrived until now are those spread by journalists embedded with the American troops, who would only allow British and American media to enrol with them.
But the villagers who fled in the last few days spoke of many bodies that had not been buried: it was too dangerous to collect the corpses during the battle.
Fallujah The Day After
Z-NET Dec. 1, 2004 — 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”.
● US State Dep’t :: Did the U.S. Use “Illegal” Weapons in Fallujah?
Syria-Iraq Border, Tal Afar and Euphrates River Valley
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
I just wanted to bring attention to the dates of the articles in your post. This isn’t a ‘breaking report’ just like the other newly discovered mistakes and manipulations. All of this has been available as it’s happened.
recently, so it has now become “credible” as opposed to the “dubious terrorist propaganda” it was when it appeared only in scruffy little local papers and sites who never attend Pentagon press briefings 😉
The Mk77 is the only napalm weapon left in the U.S. inventory according to the Federation of American Scientists. The Mk77 is a 500-lb. canister of napalm dropped from an aircraft. It is not “fin-stabilized” meaning it just tumbles from the plane and hits in the general direction it is dropped.
What is frightening is the fact that DoD apparently feels it needs MORE Mk77s. In early 2004, the Army’s Rock Island, IL Arsenal issued a “Sources Sought” notice from companies capable of making Mk77s. See the link to a copy of the announcement.
Incendiary devices… I was just thinking after passing this diary along…
I hope this video is the incendiary device that blows apart the Red Regime.
Somehow also fit into this story and her Attempt’s at Counting the Innocent’s Killed in Iraq?
Marla Ruzicka
Marla’s NGO Group ‘Civic Worldwide’
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Marla’s Killing was just that, as she was on her way to the Baghdad Airport returning to the States with her Reports!!!
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Thank you!!!
Marla was from my county. I remember the rednecks calling her all sorts of horrible names.
We lost an angel! I believe she was murdered.
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Riverbend – Bagdad – on Marla Ruzicka
Mon Apr 18th, 2005 at 06:58:08 PM PST
Marla Ruzicka Dies in Her Line of Duty
Sat Apr 23rd, 2005 at 10:15:40 PM PST
In an e-mail message to a friend, Marla Ruzicka described the girl sitting on her lap in a Baghdad photo: "This is Harah, she was 3 mts old when her mom threw her out of the window of the car and all her family members died when a US rocket hit the car - now she is big and healthy -we help her- thought you would like to see the photos."“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
The documentary will be broadcasted by Rai News 24 on November 8th at 7:35 AM and 7:05 PM, Europe. A downloadable version is presently available in English, Italian or Arabic at this link.
on the legal intricacies
basically, yes; they’re illegal, but the u.s. didn’t ratify that part of the geneva conventions. charming
I believe is how the firebombing of Fallujah can be best described. A year has passed and the truth slowly filters its way to the consciousness of Americans. Sickening to say the least.
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Italian RAI report covering for the n
thtime since November 2004, the illegal use of munitions and the wasting of opposition warriors and civilians, is definitely a war crime. History will judge event as another black page of military power abusing the rights of Fallujah residents, a city of 250,000 souls before U.S. attack.The U.K. provided backfill for U.S. forces near Baghdad, and is certainly complicit in many cruelties of detainee abuse and offenses against Geneva Conventon rules in time of occupation of a sovereign nation.
Today on CNNi, a spokesperson of RAI television made the comparison with fascist bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica.
Revisiting Guernica
The horror of U.S. forces attacking Fallujah ::
Fallujah: Napalm By Any Other Name ◊ by Avila @dKos
Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 01:29:37 AM PDT
Thank you for diary: RECOMMENDED.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY
The only thing more disgusting that what happened to Fallujah is the discussion about this video going on over at dKos right now. The bulk of it is a ghoulish running debate about whether it would look bad for Democrats to refer to white phosphorus as a chemical weapon.
Well shit, I guess it’s okay if a bunch of civilians were fucking melted if we can make a talking point out of it.
You know what? The indiscriminate killing of civilians, whether it is done with incendiaries, nerve gas, bullets, or goddamn wooden spoons is morally wrong. It doesn’t matter whether the result or the means are technically legal or not; the people who do it are inhuman criminals who should be brought to justice. Period.
By all means, let’s do whatever is necessary to cast out the scumbags who dragged us into this war, but spare me the Orwellian framing bullshit. If the only measure of value one has is whether one is persuasive or not, then mere truth becomes irrelevant.
I do not think truth is irrelevant. I do not think mercy and compassion are valuable only when they can attract votes. I used to think of myself as a fairly agnostic and amoral person, but seeing now the mind-boggling moral vacuum of both left and right, I am starting to realize there is a wide, wide gulf between an honest philosphical agnosticism and the darkness that has infiltrated our politics.
of US politics. Torture, melting flesh from bones, any and all crimes against humanity become “wedge issues,” things that should not be debated in the mainstream, lest the corporations who receive a benefit from the crimes cease to favor this or that politician, whose devotees failed to stay on message.
Bush better find his spider hole.
Somehow I would find great justification in seeing Saddam and Bush handcuffed together..
My heart is turning to stone..
I am shocked and sick. This is the first time that I have heard of any of this, but I couldn’t help noticing the bodies in Fallujah looking so odd in many of the photos that I saw. I don’t profess to be any sort of expert on corpses though.
I heard the story itself over a year ago….