March 31, 2003
Powerful prose by the inimitable Jimmy Breslin:
… Blood from a bombed baby in Baghdad goes over the wide choking sands and it crosses mountains and then great land masses and then suddenly, over a channel, it is in Westminster, in London, and people look at the sidewalk and wonder where these large blood spots came from, and the officer on duty in front of 10 Downing Street looks at the door handle and worries, how did this get here without me seeing this and having it cleaned? He has a servant rush to the door with cloth and polish and he wipes the blood and polishes the door handles and then walks off and the guard happens to glance at the door handle and the blood is back, smeared bright new red over the polished handle.
The baby’s blood is off to rush over the ocean, a strange red cloud poised to rain and it floats over the green of the Washington parks and goes down a sloping street to the State Department, where as a man opens a car door for Colin Powell he suddenly notices blood on the door handle and he quickly unfurls a handkerchief and wipes the handle and Powell gets in and the car goes off and the man who held the door is left in the driveway and he sees the red that is still on Powell’s door handle. …
The red cloud then comes down on the White House lawn and it does more than sprinkle, it splashes the helicopter of the president and he strolls out with his wife, his dog and his chesty walk and slight smirk and the wife at his side is smiling, for it is the end of the week and we are good, decent Christian people, God bless us and God bless everybody, and as they are about to get into the helicopter, an Air Force officer rushes up in alarm and says, please, just give us a moment, and he has three people scrubbing so quickly to clean the blood from the helicopter and then Bush and his wife get aboard and they fly off to Camp David, for where else would you go on a weekend, and as they have neglected to have two men hanging out of the windows and inspecting the sides of the craft in midair, nobody can see the blood back on the helicopter. …
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Colin Powell,
Iraq
March 30, 2003
The piece of metal is only a foot high, but the numbers on it hold the clue to the latest atrocity in Baghdad.
At least 62 civilians had died by yesterday afternoon, and the coding on that hunk of metal contains the identity of the culprit. The Americans and British were doing their best yesterday to suggest that an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile destroyed those dozens of lives, adding that they were “still investigating” the carnage. But the coding is in Western style, not in Arabic…
In the Al-Noor hospital yesterday morning, there were appalling scenes of pain and suffering. A two-year-old girl, Saida Jaffar, swaddled in bandages, a tube into her nose, another into her stomach. All I could see of her was her forehead, two small eyes and a chin. Beside her, blood and flies covered a heap of old bandages and swabs. Not far away, lying on a dirty bed, was three-year-old Mohamed Amaid, his face, stomach, hands and feet all tied tightly in bandages. A great black mass of congealed blood lay at the bottom of his bed.
… The missile sprayed hunks of metal through the crowds _ mainly women and children _ and through the cheap brick walls of local homes, amputating limbs and heads. Three brothers, the eldest 21 and the youngest 12, for example, were cut down inside the living room of their brick hut on the main road opposite the market. Two doors away, two sisters were killed in an identical manner. “We have never seen anything like these wounds before,” Dr Ahmed, an anaesthetist at the Al-Noor hospital told me later. “These people have been punctured by dozens of bits of metal.” He was right. One old man I visited in a hospital ward had 24 holes in the back of his legs and buttocks, some as big as pound coins. An X-ray photograph handed to me by one of his doctors clearly showed at least 35 slivers of metal still embedded in his body…
“This is a crime,” a woman muttered at me angrily. “Yes, I know they say they are targeting the military. But can you see soldiers here? Can you see missiles?”
“I had five sons and now I have only two _ and how do I know that even they will survive?” a bespectacled middle-aged man said in the bare concrete back room of his home yesterday. “One of my boys was hit in the kidneys and heart. His chest was full of shrapnel; it came right through the windows. Now all I can say is that I am sad that I am alive.”
… Hussein Mnati is 52 and just stared at me _ his face pitted with metal fragments _ as bombs blasted the city. A 20-year-old man was sitting up in the next bed, the blood-soaked stump of his left arm plastered over with bandages. Only 12 hours ago, he had a left arm, a left hand, fingers. Now he blankly recorded his memories. “I was in the market and I didn’t feel anything,” he told me. “The rocket came and I was to the right of it and then an ambulance took me to hospital.”
Rasoul Hammed Najeed stood outside his home sobbing uncontrollably for his five-year-old son, who was killed while playing near a busy Baghdad vegetable market when an air raid struck.
“After this crime, I wish I could see [US President George Bush] in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth,” he cried.
Another man, identified as Saad Abd Qasim, stood as if in a trance, unable to speak.
Friends said his wife, his child and the wife of his son had been among the 50 to 60 people Iraqis say were killed in the raid…
The raid took place in the run-down, working-class district of Shula in north-west Baghdad, inhabited mostly by Shi’ite Muslims.
Most of the one-storey shops in the immediate area were demolished. The ground was covered with blood and broken glass. Reporter Hassan Hafidh said he saw 10 corpses…
“Is this the humanity that Bush is talking about? He has no mercy at all. May God make him fail,” said Ali Kadhin, whose three-year-old son was badly injured in the attack…
Dr Sakhari said he had counted 15 children among the dead - one had died in his arms.
“I ask Bush and Blair to imagine how they would feel if their child died in their arms,” he said.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Iraq
ABOARD USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, March 28 (Reuters) - American pilots who bombed Baghdad on Friday spoke of the thrill of a successful attack in the teeth of fierce anti-aircraft fire.
“It was exhilarating,” Commander Jeff Penfield said after landing his F/A-18E Super Hornet back on the Abraham Lincoln, which is supporting the U.S.-led invasion force from the Gulf.
“It was all nice and calm in the city,” he said. “Once those bombs hit all hell broke loose. I bet we saw 15 SAMs (surface-to-air missiles), about three or four up our way so we had to defend a couple of times.
“What I felt more than anything was exhilaration.”
… Up in the skies over the Iraqi capital, Penfield led a “strike package” of three planes that dropped 1,000-pound laser-guided bombs on mobile targets near the city.
“…[Y]ou get an element of excitement because that’s where the best targets still are and those targets have to go away so the ground forces can go in.” …
“I can’t sleep yet,” said Penfield. “I’ll go down and get something to eat, unwind, bask in the glory a little bit.”
At the base camp of the Fifth Marine Regiment here, two sharpshooters, Sgt. Eric Schrumpf, 28, and Cpl. Mikael McIntosh, 20, sat on a sand berm and swapped combat tales while their column stood at a halt on the road toward Baghdad. For five days this week, the two men rode atop armored personnel carriers, barreling up Highway 1.
They said Iraqi fighters had often mixed in with civilians from nearby villages, jumping out of houses and cars to shoot at them, and then often running away. The marines said they had little trouble dispatching their foes, most of whom they characterized as ill trained and cowardly.
“We had a great day,” Sergeant Schrumpf said. “We killed a lot of people… We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?”
To illustrate, the sergeant offered a pair of examples from earlier in the week.
“There was one Iraqi soldier, and 25 women and children,” he said, “I didn’t take the shot.”
But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down.
“I’m sorry,” the sergeant said. “But the chick was in the way.”
Regardless of whether or not I condone their actions, I have no illusions: I fully expect my country’s servicemen and women to take pride in their jobs. I expect them to feel proud they have performed to their highest degree of skill.
But that a human being could be so devoid of emotion, so deep in denial about the consequences of that job, that he rejoices in the “exhilaration” of being the one responsible for “hell breaking loose” in a city that moments before was “all nice and calm” frankly sickens me.
When a man’s idea of “a great day” is killing “a lot of people,” my compassion for that man and my “support” for him ends.
I have no doubt this kind of brain-dead, barbaric gung-hoism is limited to a small minority of troops. At least, I hope so.
I pray Commander Penfield and Sergeant Schrumpf are the last of a dying breed. But I know they are are not.
With visions of William Calley in my head, it sometimes takes extra effort to “forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Penfield and Schrumpf do not make the task any easier.
And I don’t know if I can ever forgive them. Even we bleeding-heart liberal pacifists have our limits. And those, like Penfield and Schrumpf, who revel in this sort of perverted, inhuman bloodlust push me far beyond my limit.
“The chick was in the way” - ?
My disgust for these individuals defies words.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Iraq
March 28, 2003
The only thing I know about Slovakia is what I learned first-hand from your foreign minister, who came to Texas.
— George W. Bush to a Slovak journalist, after meeting
with Janez Drnovsek, Prime Minister of Slovenia
Knight-Ridder News Service
June 22, 1999
This just in from Ljubljana! Hundreds of Slovenians hit the streets Wednesday to protest their country’s inclusion in President Bush’s $75 billion Iraq war budget as a partner in the war against Iraq. The White House asked for $4.5 million for Slovenia as part of the grants to members of the vast “coalition of the willing.”
Small problem: The lovely Alpine nation isn’t a member. “When we asked for an explanation, the State Department told us we were named in the document by mistake,” Prime Minister Anton Rop said at what Reuters called “a hastily arranged news conference.”
This of course would not be the first time someone confused Slovenia and Slovakia…
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Europe,
George W. Bush,
Random Stupidity
The war against Iraq was going extremely well, Prime Minister John Howard said today…
“I believe in all the circumstances (it is) going extremely well,” he told reporters.
“To those who are suggesting that because it hasn’t in effect resulted in complete victory in the space of a week, I suggest they take a reality check and understand a number of things.”
“Complete victory”? Those boys rationed down to a single bottle of water per day would probably settle for one lousy supply convoy getting to its destination.
Or do you mean it’s going “extremely well” because the only Australian casualty so far has been a news cameraman?
Bush has said he believes, as commander-in-chief, that he should be the last person in the chain of command to express doubts or worries about what his administration is doing, fearing that would quickly demoralize his team.
So, Georgie, you’re afraid to hurt somebody’s feelings by questioning the massive screw-ups in Iraq? Or were you ever in the driver’s seat at all? Well, at least we know who’s not in charge. Call to tell us who’s really calling the shots? Rove, Cheney, Rummy, Perle? Or all of the above?
Oh, wait a minute! If Georgie isn’t really running the show, that’s what John Howard must have meant by things going “extremely well.”
US-led forces have yet to get their hands on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein but they may have hit him where it hurts — sinking his luxurious yacht, a British commander said.
And I was worried that we weren’t making any progress. Now, let’s blow up his SUV — that’ll really hurt!
Despite official statements that everything is fine on America’s southern border, the Bush administration seems to be giving cold treatment to Mexican President Vicente Fox after Mexico’s decision not to back the U.S. stand on Iraq in the U.N. Security Council.
In sharp contrast to their much-publicized friendship two years ago, when they bragged about being on the phone constantly to consult on major issues, President Bush waited four days before returning a call from the Mexican president, senior U.S. officials told me.
“Fox wanted to test the waters, to see how the relationship was,” says one U.S. official familiar with the conversation. “He should realize that the relationship has been affected.”
That’s right, Georgie, piss off both our nearest neighbors. At least Fox has the class not to stay mad about Javier Medina.
Felicitaciones, Señor Presidente, para tener los cojones para hacer el primer gesto de amistad. Me disculpo por el “hissy fit” de Señor Bush.
Despite the desert conditions of the Iraqi campaign, many American soldiers are sporting deep-green combat fatigues. Why are some troops donning woodland camouflage?
According to published reports, the Pentagon simply goofed by not anticipating the demand for sand-colored desert fatigues, formally known as battle-dress uniforms. When Army and Marine units were preparing for deployment, several discovered that they lacked enough desert BDUs to outfit each soldier with the requisite three outfits. The UPI reports that the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, headquartered at Fort Hood, Texas, chose to dress all its troops in the more traditional green fatigues — commonly referred to as woodland BDUs — rather than have only some don desert dress. Homogeneity is generally preferred among military commanders…
Oh, heavens, that makes all the sense in the world! Mixing dark-green camouflage and desert-sand would be like wearing white after Labor Day! We simply can’t sacrifice good fashion sense for a little safety, can we?
Military leaders insist that the shortage of desert BDUs will not affect the safety of American soldiers. They point out that Iraq’s terrain is not entirely Sahara-like, and that green camouflage may actually work better near the banks of the Euphrates River, where vegetation and mud are present.
What a relief. Now we just have to hold our collective breath until they make it to the river. But considering their progress so far…
Ignoring a presidential ban, Afghanistan’s farmers are growing more opium poppies than ever throughout the country, including areas previously free of the crop, officials said Thursday…
The production of opium, from which heroin is refined, was wiped out under the hard-line Taliban regime, but farmers began planting it again when the religious militia was deposed in 2001 during the U.S.-led war on terror. Some farmers ripped up their wheat fields to plant the lucrative drug-producing plant, which brings in hundreds of times the revenue.
Oh, so that’s what we “liberated” Afghanistan for!
Or is there some sort of dirty deal in the works?
April, 1978: Soviet-backed coup in Afghanistan sets stage for explosive growth in Southwest Asian heroin trade. New Marxist regime undertakes vigorous anti-narcotics campaign aimed at suppressing poppy production, triggering a revolt by semi-autonomous tribal groups that traditionally raised opium for export. The CIA-supported rebel Mujahedeen begins expanding production to finance their insurgency. Between 1982 and 1989, during which time the CIA ships billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to guerrilla forces, annual opium production in Afghanistan increases to about 800 tons from 250 tons. By 1986, the State Department admits that Afghanistan is ‘probably the world’s largest producer of opium for export’ and ‘the poppy source for a majority of the Southwest Asian heroin found in the United States.’ U.S. officials, however, fail to take action to curb production. Their silence not only serves to maintain public support for the Mujahedeen, it also smooths relations with Pakistan, whose leaders, deeply implicated in the heroin trade, help channel CIA support to the Afghan rebels.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Afghanistan,
Australia/NZ,
George W. Bush,
Iraq,
Latin America
Time magazine reports that the president poked his head into the office of Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, in March 2002 and told three senators sitting there: “[Expletive deleted] Saddam. We’re taking him out.”
Now, that’s just wrong. Georgie would never say “expletive deleted.” Heck, he probably couldn’t even pronounce the word “expletive.” What he really said was, “F–k Saddam. We’re taking him out.”
That word, he can pronounce. Just ask Al Hunt. In fact, you’d be surprised at some of the two-syllable words Georgie can pronounce, with very little effort.
What do you mean, I missed the point of the article? As they say in Texas, not hardly. You think the idea of invading Iraq — inspections be damned — just popped into Little Georgie’s head in March of 2002?
Haven’t you been listening? The plans have been in the works for ages; Wolfowitz’s people finally put it on paper in early 1992, and the newly-formed PNAC presented the plan to Bill Clinton in 1998.
Hey, don’t get on Bill’s case — King George I had plenty of opportunity to take out Saddam, and declined. The momentum from the “win” in Kuwait would have been enough to garner support both at home and abroad — and might have even won Poppy another four years in office.
(Come to think of it, if we’d known all along Iraq was such a threat, why didn’t Little George make it a major talking point of Campaign 2000?)
And don’t give me that tired old excuse that congressional Democrats wouldn’t let George I act on his own. The CIA director-cum-Veep and his ex-boss waged unconscionable war, trained, funded, and armed terrorists (hint: initials include OBL and SH), and installed puppet dictators throughout the Mideast and Latin America without so much as a “screw you” to Congress or the American people, for far less legal or ethical reasons (and with far more disastrous results) than Poppy could have armed himself with.
(And they accuse peaceniks of “aiding and comforting the enemy”?)
So don’t try to feed me that old line about Bush I being “prevented” from doing any damned thing he wanted.
What Poppy did do was miss his window of opportunity — and the neo-cons had to wait for Junior to hit the trifecta.
So, the big, whoop-de-doo Franks “revelation” is old news — at least to those of us who have been paying attention.
Still, one wonders if Georgie Boy has fingers enough to plug any more leaks.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Bill Clinton,
George H.W. Bush,
George W. Bush,
Iraq,
Latin America,
Misc. Bush Lackeys,
PNAC & PNACers,
Ronald Reagan
…who wrote a letter to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, whining about “left-wing” media, calling us peaceniks “America bashers” who “spend their nights burning flags” (oh, yeah, right, can’t walk through my living room for all the ashes!) and “starting fights with those who oppose their views” (sure — and you oughta see the other guy!), yada yada yada ad nauseam — the same paranoid crap I’ve heard a thousand times… but for one difference:
Today, I salute YOU, Mr. William R. Schaffer, for giving me the opportunity to say something I have longed to say, all my life, to an ignorant, brainwashed, hysterical, reactionary, hypocritical, First-Amendment-usurping, robotic, Limbaugh-parroting, garden-variety extremist warmonger who has never entertained an original thought in his life.
You wrote:
I’m ashamed to be living here and ashamed to be part of the fighting force protecting their rights.
And I reply:
Mr. Schaffer…
Love it or leave it!Damn, that felt
good!
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Uncategorized
March 22, 2003
Regarding the use of napalm in Iraq, I have found exactly ONE other supporting link:
There is a lookout there, a hill referred to as Safwan Hill, on the Iraqi side of the border. It was filled with Iraqi intelligence gathering. From that vantage point, they could look out over all of northern Kuwait.
It is now estimated the hill was hit so badly by missiles, artillery and by the Air Force, that they shaved a couple of feet off it. And anything that was up there that was left after all the explosions was then hit with napalm. And that pretty much put an end to any Iraqi operations up on that hill.
This was also broadcast yesterday by CNN reporter Martin Savidge.
What’s disturbing is this: A Google search returns numerous links to a single article from Realcities.com (which serves news to dozens of different newspapers in the U.S.), containing the phrase: “In addition, about 20 GPS-guided 2000-pound bombs, cluster bombs and napalm…”
[IMG]
But apparently the only reference to napalm is in Google’s snapshot of the link. You can click the links and search the news archives all you want, but you won’t find any mention of napalm.
Can you say “dedacted”?
(Incidentally, I’m confident that the mention of napalm is in reference to Iraq, and not Vietnam. There was no such thing as a “GPS-guided” bomb during the Vietnam era.)
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Iraq
March 21, 2003
So, they think they got Saddam?
Nah. I didn’t believe it the first, or third, or fifth time they said it, and I don’t believe it now. Seriously, folks, exactly how far are we expected to suspend our disbelief after the 3,497,649 reported slayings of bin Laden? He’s dead. He’s not. He’s on the run. He’s dead. He’s…
But then, Osama’s not important anymore. Hey, I didn’t say it; Mr. Bush did. Of course, he said a lot of things about Osama in the first six months after 9-11…
The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.
— George W. Bush
September 13, 2001
I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority. I am truly not that concerned about him.
— George W. Bush
March 13, 2002
Hmm.
Well now, really… It must be awful gosh-darn hard for such a busy, important man to remember everything he says — he must be purty darn well near exhaustion, what with all them weekends at Camp David. Heck, he was so plum tuckered out after giving the order to start bombin’ them wicked heathens Wednesday night, he was tucked in with his teddy before 11:00 p.m., lettin’ that good ol’ boy Tommy Franks bomb away while visions of Tomahawks danced in his head.
Anyway, just for kicks, let’s say Osama– I mean Saddam! is dead. Let’s say they hit him in the first strike (although ABC News identifies last night’s lone dead civilian as a taxi driver in the wrong place at the wrong time).
More TV news tells us that members of Saddam’s Republican guard are surrending “in droves.” And they’ve got the video to prove it. Okay, let’s take that at face value too.
Now, you righties might think we lefties would be our awful little hypocritical selves and suffer some sort of deranged disappointment at the swift accomplishment of Mr. Bush’s current primary objective (at the moment it’s “regime change” — although that objective can switch to “disarmament,” “Iraqi liberation,” or “kickin’ hell outta them all’s what’s harborin’ terra-ists” at any moment).
See, some righties (not all of them, mind you — just a few loud ones) think we peaceniks secretly want to see a protracted, bloody conflict, so that we can look down our long, bony, elitist noses and spit, “I told you so.”
Sorry to let you down, but if we thought this invasion was actually over, we’d be out in the streets again — only this time, we’d be weeping for joy that the conflict was so short, with (under the circumstances) a truly minimal loss of life.
But, when the celebrations were over, we would say this:
If the conquest of Saddam really was so quick and easy, then it appears Saddam wasn’t the big, bad threat y’all made him out to be.
Nevertheless, this is all fantasy. I’d bet my 11-year-old economy car that Saddam is very much alive and well — and has been absent from Baghdad for weeks. (I expect the moment Dan Rather exited the palace, Saddam darted out the back way, through the kitchen.)
The point? Nobody wants a long “war” — but a protracted conflict would benefit the warmongers, not the peaceniks.
After all, the more difficult it is to conquer Iraq, the more justified the reiteration that Iraq is a threat.
And — while I’m not a tinfoil-hatter — the prospect of never finding, capturing, or killing Saddam (or Osama, for that matter) would be an even greater benefit to the warmongers.
No, no, dear reader, I’m not suggesting that either Saddam or Osama has been accidentally-on-purpose allowed to get away (although if I were to suggest it, it would hardly be my own original thought). I’m saying that never knowing what happened to either Big, Bad Wolf would simply benefit the ongoing cause of Mr. Bush & Co.
That is all I am saying, so don’t anybody dare twist my words.
And why would it be a benefit?
If you’re a leader — of a nation, a Boy Scout troop, or the Marketing Department where you work — your employment depends on making yourself indispensible. And when you’re leading a nation, in order to justify your own existence, you need a perpetual state of war — and for that, you need a bogeyman.
And that’s hardly an original thought, either. Every great thinker and every successful warrior knows that.
Sun-Tsu knew it:
The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
Edward Abbey knew it:
All governments need enemies. How else to justify their existence?
And Herman Göring certainly knew it:
People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism.
Now, one last time: I’d never accuse anybody in the Bush admin of planning such a thing. All I’m saying is that the eternal disappearance of Saddam and/or Osama would only benefit those who need an excuse for keeping us in fear, and thus at war.
Every country needs its Emmanuel Goldstein. We have two.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
George W. Bush,
Iraq,
September 11
If you think you can’t be shocked or awed, try this:
Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald.
A legal expert at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva said the use of napalm or fuel air bombs was not illegal “per se” because the US was not a signatory to the 1980 weapons convention which prohibits and restricts certain weapons. “But the US has to apply the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and take all precautions to protect civilians. In the case of napalm and fuel air bombs, these are special precautions because these are area weapons, not specific weapons,” said Dominique Loye, the committee’s adviser on weapons and IHL.
I don’t know about you, but I am not reassured by the “International Humanitarian Law” disclaimer. (And how did we get away with squirming out of yet another international treaty?)
The question is not whether the use of napalm by U.S. troops “legal,” but rather, is it moral?
What is napalm? Officially, it’s a defoliant — which we dropped all over Vietnam, to firebomb vegetation, housing, and people.
Why would we use a defoliant in a desert? Beats me. But there is no question that napalm is one of the most effective — and cruel — eradicators of human life (warning: graphic and disturbing):
Napalm itself is a jelly obtained from the salts of aluminium, palmitic or other fatty acids, and naphthenic acids. These acids give a viscous consistency to gasoline so that an incendiary jelly results. We have developed the habit of calling ‘napalm’, not only the napalm itself, but also the material resulting when it is mixed with gasoline to form the incendiary weapon…
Since napalm is essentially an incendiary product, it sets fire to any combustible matter with which it comes in contact. A human being in the open cannot protect himself against it. Napalm acts not only by burning but has an equally devastating effect which consists of a complicated process whereby shock, absorption of oxygen from the air [deoxygenation], smoke and noxious gases become lethal. The Surgeon-General of the French Army has described the massive poisoning by carbon monoxide after a napalm attack and points out that none of those burned in the central strike area survives because of this phenomenon. Only those who have been on the periphery of the strike zone can survive the massive deoxygenation.
During the Second World War, troops found Japanese shelters which had been struck by napalm bombs in which all the occupants were dead without having been burned at all. These soldiers had died, apparently without pain, and with an expression of fright and surprise frozen on to their faces; they had been instantaneously and massively poisoned by carbon monoxide. The only way to escape the asphyxiating effects of napalm is to flee into the open air - where the direct destruction by burning from flaming splashes is greatest. In a strike zone it is almost impossible to escape the effects of napalm by taking shelter, for one cannot hold one’s breath for the time it takes napalm to burn off. The carbon monoxide poisoning itself paralyses the will and robs the victim of the ability to move…
Survivors of poisoning who have received emergency treatment exhibit permanent neurological after-effects which range from mild to very severe…
The second and most evident effect of napalm is the burn. The explosion of a 200-litre napalm incendiary bomb precipitates massive destruction by flames in a circle about 240 feet in diameter. In that zone the heat is from 1,800-3,600°F and the carbon monoxide release is massive; within this zone, there will be no survivors. Outside this zone unsheltered individuals will suffer burns from flaming splashes of napalm of a gravity in proportion to the amount of cutaneous surface affected. Parts not protected by clothing - face, hands, often the upper and lower members will be burned. The fire affects the clothing also, which can contribute to localized burning, rendering the effect worse…
Besides the extent and depth of burning, age is a determining factor since the effects are more severe on children and the old…
Any adult burned on more than ten per cent of the body, or any child burned on more than eight per cent, is considered critically burned…
In napalm burns, a final element is of great importance; this is the gravity of facial burning. Eye burns can lead to loss of one or both eyes. Nasal and ear passages involved develop extended suppuration and necrosis which abscess with unbearable pain to the patient. The face becomes hideous with psychological trauma of formidable proportions. There are other lingering damages: lesions of the bone, which do not show up on X-rays, and appearance of cysts of certain joints and bones of the hand - for instance, the metacarpus - which persist for many years after the initial burning…
It can be seen that in countries with good medical organization it is possible to reduce the mortality from severe burning. In underdeveloped areas, or during great cataclysms such as war, this is another matter…
It is obvious that under repeated bombardments which destroy structures which might be used for evacuation - when medical personnel are overworked and subject to lethal attacks themselves - these ideal conditions we have described are impossible. There is no resemblance between conditions prevailing when treating accident victims during peacetime and victims of deliberate attacks. The emergency treatment of a mass of burn victims in areas remote from medical centres and without adequate means of evacuation presents insuperable problems. It is therefore inadvisable in such conditions to try to save the worst case, who will, no matter what is done, die within a week…
I do not have definitive statistics, but it seems that only about thirty per cent of those wounded by napalm and not killed outright can be saved. If the victim does survive, the dermatological consequences of napalm burns are especially serious…
Lastly, concerning the medical effects of napalm recovery, there is the spectre of secondary cancers. Old burn scars show a frequency of skin cancer out of proportion to such appearance in normal skin. This cancer consists of a spino-cellular epithelioma with a negative prognosis because of the rapid invasion by the malignant cells of the related ganglion areas.
Napalm, to conclude, whether it is used strategically on the battlefield or in the bombardment of urban areas or village collectives, is a means of extensive undiscriminating destruction. It affects primarily human beings, livestock, crops and light inflammable structures such as houses. Its use in heavily populated areas will produce immense loss of life from burning and asphyxiation. In survivors, corporal injuries of the greatest gravity with functional sequels which prevent the resumption of normal life are the rule.
And then, of course, there is always Kim Phuc.
The question is: What are we doing using napalm? We supposedly destroyed the last of it two years ago:
At a low-key ceremony this morning at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Station in San Diego County, the final two canisters of Vietnam-era napalm will be recycled and sent on their way to Texas and Louisiana, where they will be blended into fuel used in industrial furnaces.
The Navy says this appears to be the last napalm in the U.S. military. Asked why the military seems to be discarding napalm as a weapon, a Navy spokesman said “there are more modern and efficient means to use in war these days than napalm.”
Posted by: Sapphocrat
Filed under:
Iraq
