Is the U.S. Losing its Moral Authority on Human Rights?

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He is only an ‘official’ at the health ministry. Could be anyone. And he said we used “mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals”. Do you seriously believe we used these things in Fallujah? And if we did, that the main stream press didn’t report it???

This is rubbish and you know it.
 
Also this Sunni orderly (or whatever he is) claims we used napalm in Fallujah. If we did huge, distinctive plumes of smoke would have been seen for miles. CNN would have caught them in their cameras. Also the smell of napalm is very distinctive, and the world press knows what it smells like. They would have reported it.

Sorry, this propaganda being propagated by al-Jazeera won’t fly. And al-Jazeera wonders why they have the reputation they do. Maybe they sould actually research their stories before reporting the propaganda.
 
That Italian reporter who was shot at by US soldiers also is supposed to be involved in exposing the use of napalm by the US. Apparently the US, after denying it, admitted to using it, an upgraded type too! one which the Pentagon says it doesn’t consider the same thing.

Some other places carried the napalm story:
Sunday Mirror
The Independant
 
WASHINGTON, August 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The United States admitted dropping the internationally-banned incendiary weapon of napalm on Iraq, despite earlier denials by the Pentagon that the “horrible” weapon had not been used in the three-week invasion.

An upgraded type of the weapon, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns, was used in March and April 2003, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad, the Independent reported Sunday, August 10.

“We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches,” the paper quoted Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11, as saying.

“Unfortunately there were people there … you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were Iraqi soldiers. It’s no great way to die,” said Alles.

On March 22 a correspondent for Sydney Morning Herald, traveling with U.S. marines reported that napalm was used in an attack on Iraqi troops at Safwan Hill, near the Kuwait border.

His account was based on statements by two U.S. marines officers on the ground.

“Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the observation post was obliterated. I pity anyone who is in there,” a Marine sergeant said

The Pentagon insisted at the time the statement was “patently false”.

“The U.S. took napalm out of service in the 1970s. We completed the destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm,” Lieutenant-Commander Jeff Davis, from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Defense had said.
 
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gilliam:
Maybe they sould actually research their stories before reporting the propaganda.
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What? And destroy their reputation?
 
‘Generals Love Napalm’

But a Pentagon official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday that U.S. forces used the new type against Iraqi forces in their drive towards Baghdad and defended their use as legal and necessary.

The official, who did not wish to be identified, said that U.S. marines jets dropped the fire bombs at least once to destroy Iraqi positions at Safwan.

"It is like this: you’ve got [an] enemy that’s hard to get at. And it will save your own lives to use it. There were no international conventions against it, the official said.

Marines used the bombs on at least two other occasions during the drive to Baghdad, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported this week.

“The generals love napalm, … it has a big psychological effect,” the paper quoted Alles as saying.

Marine Corps Maj-Gen Jim Amos confirmed to the paper that napalm was used on several occasions in the invasion.

A 1980 U.N. convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm. The U.S., which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon, as it was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war, according to the Independent.

The revelation that napalm was used in the invasion of Iraq, while the Pentagon denied it, has outraged opponents of the war.

“Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon,” Robert Musil, director of the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility, told the British paper.

“It takes up an awful lot of medical resources. It creates horrible wounds.” Musil said denial of its use “fits a pattern of deception [by the U.S. administration]”.

It Is Still Napalm

The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel.

John Pike, director of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: “You can call it something other than napalm but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The U.S. is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses it.”

Musil said the Pentagon’s effort to draw a distinction between the weapons was outrageous.

“It’s Orwellian. They do not want the public to know. It’s a lie,” he said.

After the offensive on Iraq ended, Iraqis began to complain about unexploded cluster bombs that still litter their areas and the U.S. forces failed to take them away.
 
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gilliam:
He is only an ‘official’ at the health ministry. Could be anyone. And he said we used “mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals”. Do you seriously believe we used these things in Fallujah? And if we did, that the main stream press didn’t report it???

This is rubbish and you know it.
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Another grad of the Bagdhad Bob School of Journalism…sigh.

I read a book once by someone who said someone told him the moon was made of cheese. I guess now ff “someone” says “sumpin” we all ought to believe it especialy when it’s posted on the propaganda pages. As if Chris Matthews wouldn’t jump on this story with Katie Couric wiping her eyes with a kleenex and Ted Kennedy wuldn’t be on my rooftop shoutng and screaming, Kerry would be muttering “war criminals” …sure.
 
In war you use all kinds of weapons. As they say, “war is hell” and I have to agree with that.

Not sure why one would want to use napalm in a city though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, tactically. You could easily cause a firestorm. Which, obviously, didn’t happen in Fallujah. Somewhere, someone, has to bring common sense into this.

By the way, you dig into this al-Jazeera report and it gets absolutely rediculous: Asked whether limited nuclear weapons were also used by U.S. forces in Fallujah, Dr. ash-Shaykhli said; “What I saw during our research in Fallujah leads me to me believe everything that has been said about that battle. I absolutely do not exclude their use of nuclear and chemical substances, since all forms of nature were wiped out in that city. I can even say that we found dozens, if not hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses.”

If we were using nukes in Fallujah, don’t you think we would hold back on letting people back into the city? Again, I think this is nonsense.
 
jdnation said:
‘Generals Love Napalm’

But a Pentagon official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday that U.S. forces used the new type against Iraqi forces in their drive towards Baghdad and defended their use as legal and necessary.

The official, who did not wish to be identified, said that U.S. marines jets dropped the fire bombs at least once to destroy Iraqi positions at Safwan…
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This was in 2003 and it was against fixed positions. That makes sense. It doesn’t make sense to use this weapon in a city.
 
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gilliam:
If we were using nukes in Fallujah, don’t you think we would hold back on letting people back into the city? Again, I think this is nonsense.
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I think they have gotten it mixed up with the depleted uranium from the bombs (which can be considered like a nuclear material) that have been dropped on Iraq and Fallujah. It has been affecting both the Iraqis and US troops. It may have been unavoidable.
 
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jdnation:
I think they have gotten it mixed up with the depleted uranium from the bombs (which can be considered like a nuclear material) that have been dropped on Iraq and Fallujah. It has been affecting both the Iraqis and US troops. It may have been unavoidable.
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We use it in armor too. A lot of noise has been made about it, without many facts being presented.

On the other side, if there are people who have obviously been exposed to WMD, maybe, just maybe, it is because there is a stash of it somewhere nearby???
 
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gilliam:
On the other side, if there are people who have obviously been exposed to WMD, maybe, just maybe, it is because there is a stash of it somewhere nearby???
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Right inside a city? Doesn’t seem likely. But supposing they were, in which case they would have been used, if known, which they weren’t, or they are still there and not found, or they’d have to have gone off admist the fighting, in which case the US would’ve certainly reported it, or been blamed for it themselves.
 
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jdnation:
Right inside a city? Doesn’t seem likely. But supposing they were, in which case they would have been used, if known, which they weren’t, or they are still there and not found, or they’d have to have gone off admist the fighting, in which case the US would’ve certainly reported it, or been blamed for it themselves.
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Never know… a lot of experienced people were in the city when we got there (the smart ones seemed to have gotten out when the getting was good). They could have had some stuff laying around and played with it. Or kids did. Happens all the time in war.
 
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jdnation:
A 1980 U.N. convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm.
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And we don’t use napalm against civilian targets.

In fact, we avoid hurting civilains whenever possible (unlike the terrorists, I might add. Who actually target civilians with whatever they have handy, including phosphorus bombs).
 
The US is a moral authority? Scary thought. Make a list of all the countries on earth that still execute their citizens. We’re certainly not in the best of company in that group…

Namaste…
 
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Liberanos:
The US is a moral authority? Scary thought. Make a list of all the countries on earth that still execute their citizens. We’re certainly not in the best of company in that group…

Namaste…
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Or which, until the recent SC decision, allowed the execution of juvenile murderers, or which allows (allowed?) the torture of prisoners in wartime. We can hardly claim the high ground.
 
I don’t think Al-Jazeera can be faulted for simply reporting what a health official said at a news conference specifically designated to release pleminary information on the agency’s findings. I believe this guy about as much as you do, but to blast Al-Jazeera for simply reporting what he said seems a bit irresponsible, IMO.

A press conference with a health agency is called, and Al-Jazeera reports what is said by an official at the conference. They don’t take any opportunity to pontificate on the atrocities of the U.S. They bring us the news, we, as responsible readers, sift through it. That an official made some outlandish claims is hardly Al-Jazeera’s fault. Would you rather have them not report on the conference at all, or take the chance to editorialize how silly the claims are and step into the realm of telling us what to think? I’m honestly confused about what you expect from them.
 
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