This is what is being done in our name, by our government:
First watch the video here: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110805Z.shtml
White Phosphorous defined: Spontaneously flammable chemical used for battlefield illumination Contact with particles causes burning of skin and flesh Use of incendiary weapons prohibited for attacking civilians (Protocol III of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons) Protocol III not signed by US
Then read these two news articles:
US used white phosphorus in Iraq
US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said.
"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.
The US had earlier said the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - had been used only for illumination.
BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial is a public relations disaster for the US.
Col Venable denied that white phosphorous constituted a banned chemical weapon.
Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance against civilians.
The US state department had earlier said white phosphorus had been used in Falluja very sparingly, for illumination purposes.
Col Venable said that statement was based on "poor information".
'Incendiary'
The US-led assault on Falluja - a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency west of Baghdad - displaced most of the city's 300,000 population and left many of its buildings destroyed.
Col Venable told the BBC's PM radio programme that the US army used white phosphorus incendiary munitions "primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases.
"However it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants."
And he said it had been used in Falluja, but it was a "conventional munition", not a chemical weapon.
It is not "outlawed or illegal", Col Venable said.
He said US forces could use white phosphorus rounds to flush enemy troops out of covered positions.
"The combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives," he said.
San Diego journalist Darrin Mortenson, who was embedded with US marines during the assault on Falluja, told the BBC's Today radio programme he had seen white phosphorous used "as an incendiary weapon" against insurgents.
However, he "never saw anybody intentionally use any weapon against civilians", he said.
'Particularly nasty'
White phosphorus is highly flammable and ignites on contact with oxygen. If the substance hits someone's body, it will burn until deprived of oxygen.
Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone."
A spokesman at the UK Ministry of Defence said the use of white phosphorus was permitted in battle in cases where there were no civilians near the target area.
But Professor Paul Rodgers, of the University of Bradford's department of peace studies, said white phosphorus could be considered a chemical weapon if deliberately aimed at civilians.
He told PM: "It is not counted under the chemical weapons convention in its normal use but, although it is a matter of legal niceties, it probably does fall into the category of chemical weapons if it is used for this kind of purpose directly against people."
When an Italian TV documentary revealing the use of white phosphorus in Iraq was broadcast on 8 November it sparked fury among Italian anti-war protesters, who demonstrated outside the US embassy in Rome.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm
Published: 2005/11/16 11:25:36 GMT
and the other article:
U.S. admits using white phosphorous as weapon
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pentagon officials acknowledged Tuesday that U.S. troops used white phosphorous as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Falluja last November.
At the same time, they denied an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material had been used against civilians.
Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said that while white phosphorous is used most frequently to mark targets or obscure positions, it was used at times in Falluja as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants.
"It was not used against civilians," Venable said.
The spokesman referred reporters to an article in the March-April 2005 edition of the Army's Field Artillery magazine, an official publication, in which veterans of the Falluja fight spelled out their use of white phosphorous and other weapons. The authors used the shorthand "WP" in referring to white phosphorous.
"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition," the authors wrote. "We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE (high explosive)" munitions.
"We fired `shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."
The authors added, in citing lessons for future urban battles, that fire-support teams should have used another type of smoke bomb for screening missions in Falluja "and saved our WP for lethal missions."
The battle for Falluja was the most intense and deadly fight of the war, after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. The city, about 35 miles west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River, was a critical insurgent stronghold. The authors of the "after action" report said they encountered few civilians in their area of operations.
Italian communists held a sit-in Monday in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome to protest the reported use by American troops of white phosphorous. Italy's state-run RAI24 news television aired a documentary last week that alleged the United States used white phosphorous shells in a "massive and indiscriminate way" against civilians during the Falluja offensive.
The State Department initially denied that U.S. troops had used white phosphorous against enemy forces. "They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters," a department Web site said.
The department later said the statement had been incorrect.
"There is a great deal of misinformation feeding on itself about U.S. forces allegedly using `outlawed' weapons in Falluja," the department said. "The facts are that U.S. forces are not using any illegal weapons in Falluja or anywhere else in Iraq."
Venable said white phosphorous shells are a standard weapon used by field artillery units and are not banned by any international weapons convention to which the United States is a signatory.
White phosphorous is a colorless-to-yellow translucent wax-like substance with a pungent, garlic-like smell. The form used by the military ignites once it is exposed to oxygen, producing such heat that it bursts into a yellow flame and produces a dense white smoke. It can cause painful burn injuries to exposed human flesh.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
16 November 2005
13 November 2005
05 November 2005
Race in America - Post Commentary
How did she come to a worldview so radically different from that of most black Americans? Is she blind, is she in denial, is she confused -- or what?
Rice's parents tried their best to shelter their only daughter from Jim Crow racism, and they succeeded. Forty years later, Rice shows no bitterness when she recalls her childhood in a town whose streets were ruled by the segregationist police chief Bull Connor. "I've always said about Birmingham that because race was everything, race was nothing," she said in an interview on the flight home.
When she reminisces, she talks of piano lessons and her brief attempt at ballet -- not of Connor setting his dogs loose on brave men, women and children marching for freedom, which is the Birmingham that other residents I met still remember. A friend of Rice's, Denise McNair, was one of the four girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. That would have left a deep scar on me, but Rice can speak of that atrocity without visible emotion.
She doesn't deny that race makes a difference. "We all look forward to the day when this country is race-blind, but it isn't yet," she told reporters in Birmingham. Later she added, "The fact that our society is not colorblind is a statement of fact."
But then why are the top echelons of her State Department almost entirely white? "That's an artifact of foreign policy," she said in the interview. "It's not been a very diverse profession." In other words, there aren't enough qualified minority candidates. I wondered how many times those words have been used as a lame excuse.
One of the things she somehow missed was that in Titusville and other black middle-class enclaves, a guiding principle was that as you climbed, you were obliged to reach back and bring others along. Rice has been a foreign policy heavyweight for nearly two decades; she spent four years in the White House as the president's national security adviser. In the interview, she mentioned just one black professional she has brought with her from the National Security Council to State.
As we were flying to Alabama, Rice said an interesting thing. She was talking about the history of the civil rights movement, and she said, "If you read Frederick Douglass, he was not petitioning from outside of the institutions but rather demanding that the institutions live up to what they said they were. If you read Martin Luther King, he was not petitioning from outside, he was petitioning from inside the principles and the institutions, and challenging America to be what America said that it was."
When Rice was growing up, her father stood guard at the entrance of her neighborhood with a rifle to keep the Klan's nightriders away. But that was outside the bubble. Inside the bubble, Rice was sitting at the piano in pretty dresses to play Bach fugues. It sounds like a wonderful childhood, but one that left her able to see the impact that race has in America -- able to examine it and analyze it -- but not to feel it.
Saturday, November 5, 2005; Page A17
Eugene Robinson [op-ed, Oct. 25] thinks that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has a worldview different from other African Americans because she doesn't understand the African American experience. As a white American, I, too, have trouble understanding the African American experience as defined by Robinson.
I have trouble understanding what is wrong with confronting racial inequality by overcoming barriers and achieving great things, by remembering and honoring the struggles of the past, or by simply building self-confidence and self-esteem as a child by learning to play Bach fugues on the piano.
Whatever a majority of African Americans may feel about George W. Bush and his policies, how does Rice's being a Republican make it so easy to dismiss this extraordinary woman's rise from segregated Birmingham to one of the most powerful positions in this country? Do you have to be a Democrat to be an authentic African American? If that is what Robinson believes, who is really inside the bubble?
-- Stefan Silzer
I would like to attempt to answer Silzer’s comments regarding Robinson’s October 25th article. Silzer claims to be unable to ‘understand the African American experience as defined by Robinson”. He goes further suggesting that the ‘realty’ is one in which people refrain from attempting to “overcome barriers and achieve great things… or by building self-confidence…as a child by… play [ing] piano”.
Unfortunately the reality for African Americans in this nation is not that simple. While we white people have the privilege to believe that if people work hard they can accomplish anything, people of color in this nation are faced with the additional burdens of active and subtle racism.
Children whom are from working class backgrounds rarely have the leisure time to spend playing instruments and are instead working to supplement their parent’s income. Furthermore, they are faced with greater obstacles in admission to higher education due to culturally biased tests, poor high school educations, and nepotistic selection practices. People of color routinely pay more for housing and cars. This list goes on.
As much as we would like to chalk racial inequality up to individual shortcomings, I think our nation’s history and current state speak volumes to the fact that the American dream does not exist for everyone.
- krissy haltinner
Rice's parents tried their best to shelter their only daughter from Jim Crow racism, and they succeeded. Forty years later, Rice shows no bitterness when she recalls her childhood in a town whose streets were ruled by the segregationist police chief Bull Connor. "I've always said about Birmingham that because race was everything, race was nothing," she said in an interview on the flight home.
When she reminisces, she talks of piano lessons and her brief attempt at ballet -- not of Connor setting his dogs loose on brave men, women and children marching for freedom, which is the Birmingham that other residents I met still remember. A friend of Rice's, Denise McNair, was one of the four girls killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. That would have left a deep scar on me, but Rice can speak of that atrocity without visible emotion.
She doesn't deny that race makes a difference. "We all look forward to the day when this country is race-blind, but it isn't yet," she told reporters in Birmingham. Later she added, "The fact that our society is not colorblind is a statement of fact."
But then why are the top echelons of her State Department almost entirely white? "That's an artifact of foreign policy," she said in the interview. "It's not been a very diverse profession." In other words, there aren't enough qualified minority candidates. I wondered how many times those words have been used as a lame excuse.
One of the things she somehow missed was that in Titusville and other black middle-class enclaves, a guiding principle was that as you climbed, you were obliged to reach back and bring others along. Rice has been a foreign policy heavyweight for nearly two decades; she spent four years in the White House as the president's national security adviser. In the interview, she mentioned just one black professional she has brought with her from the National Security Council to State.
As we were flying to Alabama, Rice said an interesting thing. She was talking about the history of the civil rights movement, and she said, "If you read Frederick Douglass, he was not petitioning from outside of the institutions but rather demanding that the institutions live up to what they said they were. If you read Martin Luther King, he was not petitioning from outside, he was petitioning from inside the principles and the institutions, and challenging America to be what America said that it was."
When Rice was growing up, her father stood guard at the entrance of her neighborhood with a rifle to keep the Klan's nightriders away. But that was outside the bubble. Inside the bubble, Rice was sitting at the piano in pretty dresses to play Bach fugues. It sounds like a wonderful childhood, but one that left her able to see the impact that race has in America -- able to examine it and analyze it -- but not to feel it.
Saturday, November 5, 2005; Page A17
Eugene Robinson [op-ed, Oct. 25] thinks that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has a worldview different from other African Americans because she doesn't understand the African American experience. As a white American, I, too, have trouble understanding the African American experience as defined by Robinson.
I have trouble understanding what is wrong with confronting racial inequality by overcoming barriers and achieving great things, by remembering and honoring the struggles of the past, or by simply building self-confidence and self-esteem as a child by learning to play Bach fugues on the piano.
Whatever a majority of African Americans may feel about George W. Bush and his policies, how does Rice's being a Republican make it so easy to dismiss this extraordinary woman's rise from segregated Birmingham to one of the most powerful positions in this country? Do you have to be a Democrat to be an authentic African American? If that is what Robinson believes, who is really inside the bubble?
-- Stefan Silzer
I would like to attempt to answer Silzer’s comments regarding Robinson’s October 25th article. Silzer claims to be unable to ‘understand the African American experience as defined by Robinson”. He goes further suggesting that the ‘realty’ is one in which people refrain from attempting to “overcome barriers and achieve great things… or by building self-confidence…as a child by… play [ing] piano”.
Unfortunately the reality for African Americans in this nation is not that simple. While we white people have the privilege to believe that if people work hard they can accomplish anything, people of color in this nation are faced with the additional burdens of active and subtle racism.
Children whom are from working class backgrounds rarely have the leisure time to spend playing instruments and are instead working to supplement their parent’s income. Furthermore, they are faced with greater obstacles in admission to higher education due to culturally biased tests, poor high school educations, and nepotistic selection practices. People of color routinely pay more for housing and cars. This list goes on.
As much as we would like to chalk racial inequality up to individual shortcomings, I think our nation’s history and current state speak volumes to the fact that the American dream does not exist for everyone.
- krissy haltinner
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)