US admits using white phosphorous as incendiary in Fallujah

[Tribesman]

it is rather clear that an incendiary weapon like WP is not covered by this convention as it is not dependent on its toxic properties (which are a secondary, albeit very nasty effect).

Secondary effect , thats how the Germans justified their early gas attacks in WWI wasn't it , they were not gas shells they were shells that contained gas , the primary "intent" was to cause an explosion the gassing was just a "secondary effect" . That way they were not breaking any conventions or treaties .

[Seamus Fermanagh]

AOI?

Not sure if this is what you're asking, but QED means

Quod Erat Demonstratum, loosely translated as "As has already been demonstrated"

[Papewaio]

My first post in the other thread still stands:

Not nice, but apparently legal...

[Ser Clegane]

it is rather clear that an incendiary weapon like WP is not covered by this convention as it is not dependent on its toxic properties (which are a secondary, albeit very nasty effect).

Secondary effect , thats how the Germans justified their early gas attacks in WWI wasn't it , they were not gas shells they were shells that contained gas , the primary "intent" was to cause an explosion the gassing was just a "secondary effect" . That way they were not breaking any conventions or treaties .

OK - how about some facts?

Do you have any numbers from this WP attack or any other WP attack that would show that poisoning is indeed the primary effect of this weapon?

If you have read my comments in the other thread on this issue you will hopefully understand my view on this.

While it is IMO clear that the use of WP is not covered by the chemical weapons convention under the given definitions, I see that one could argue that this definition should include weapons like WP as these weapons have effects that are indeed similar to the chemical weapons that are defined in the relevant convention.

That they are not covered is probably one of the reasons that there are some protocols that cover the usage of weapons that fall under the current definition of conventional weapons, such as incendiary weapons or anti-person mines.
As things stand, the US decided not to sign these protocols, and one can certainly draw conclusions regarding this decision made by US administrations.

Personally, I consider the use of weapons like WP in urban areas that are still inhabited by civilians as abhorrent and against the spirit of conventions such as that against the use of chemical weapons.
However, I think discussing whether it is illegal or not distracts from the IMHO more important discussion whether it is acceptable or not, as the former can easily be refuted and thus the discussion does not lesd anywhere.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It would appear that a majority of those disconcerted by the USA's use of white phosphorous munitions in this assault are also those who believe our invasion of Iraq to have been illegal/immoral/premature in the first place.

Setting aside your opposition to us being there at all (not asking you to discard your beliefs, merely to set them aside for the purpose of discussion), how should US forces have addressed the situation?

If you are facing non-conventional forces intermixed with civilians in a built-up urban area, you have a number of choices, none of which are thrilling.
You could:

A) cede control of the area to the non-conventional forces. This would minimize civilian casualties (barring some kind of pogrom by the non-conventionals) and minimize your own casualties, but would be a victory for the opposition allowing them to reinforce, develop a base, etc.

B) conduct a slow and painstaking infantry assault moving from room to room and house by house without the use of explosive devices or incendiaries or chemicals and carefully waiting for a positive identification before firing on any target. Since the non-conventional forces will be under no such restrictions, there will still be significant civilian casualties, but your forces will not contribute to that. Your casualties will be very high, since the defender has all of the tactical advantages in this scenario.

C) Use some form of chemical agent to discomfit the enemy and force them to leave many/all of the positions. The civilians intermixed will be harmed by this approach nearly as much as the non-conventional defenders, but the subsequent assault can move forward with fewer casualties and a greater likelihood of success. A number of civilians will require significant medical treatment. It is difficult to discern if civilian casualties will be less than in scenario "B," though it seems likely, but chemical injuries are more difficult to treat than standard trauma.

D) Identify enemy positions at range and hammer them with high-explosive munitions. Civilian casualties will be significant. The follow up assault will take casualties -- no bombardment zeros the opposition.

E) Identify the general area occupied by non-conventional forces and demolish it with lethal area-effect weapons. Civilian casualties will be horrific, but casualties to your own troops following up will be minimal.

F) use tactical nuclear weaponry to effect "e" above. Virtually everthing in the primary blast area will be eradicated, including civilians. No losses will be incurred by your forces. Radioactive contamination will be a concern, as will the political repercussions of this act.


Given a range of choices analogous to this -- remember, you've agreed to set aside the decision to be there in the first place for the sake of this discussion -- which choice is the most practical?

[Papewaio]

G) Play Celine Dion and have them either surrender or head to the showers and scream out "Arghh get it off me, I feel so unclean!"

[Adrian II]

Given a range of choices analogous to this -- remember, you've agreed to set aside the decision to be there in the first place for the sake of this discussion -- which choice is the most practical?

Interesting post and a good question for debate. I would be happy to partake, but I can not because I know too little about the modus operandi, the range of weapons, tactical capabilities and information position of the U.S. army plus the situation on the ground in that town (like everybody else here, I have never been to Fallujah). I am constantly racking my brains about a decent political solution to the whole imbroglio, but we have discussed that issue elsewhere and at length. I am looking forward to other peoples answers.

EDIT
Maybe there are some good clues in the Battle for Basra in March 2003, when the Brits took the town without too many casualties after highly selective bombardment and with the use of good human intelligence.

[Hurin_Rules]

I fail to follow your logic Seamus.

You assign numbers to a list of options, but of course there are a whole host of options available here. Are you saying this was the most effective option, and so the US was forced/wise to use it? If that is the case, napalm or nuclear weapons would be far more effective. That doesn't mean they are either moral or legal.

[Watchman]

Gee, maybe the terrorists will start playing nice and we can all have a group hug instead of fighting terriorsts in urban centers? (While I usually make a distinction between the insurgency and terrorism, the enemy in Fallujah were using terror attacks agains civilians on the rest of the country--they were by definition terrorists.)

What amazes me is that people want us to tie BOTH arms behind our backs while fighting these guys. Treaties like this are not going to interest us, because they will be abused by people like Adrian for political reasons, and by terrorists for tactical ones.

It is humorous that nations that don't have to deal with the problems directly think they should dictate our methods to us.

And contrary to your assertion I find nothing morally repugnant about using incindiaries on these terrorists.

Oh go away Red. What you're essentially saying is that just because the opposition uses nasty, underhanded, repulsive, barbaric and generally unwholesome tactics and methods it gives you a carte blanche to do the same.

Which is bull, at least unless you intend to render your moral standing to their level.

Them's the breaks. The cops don't use the same methods the mob does either, now do they ?

The most ardent adherents of the logic of "the end justifying the means" have always been tyrants, fanatics and terrorists; one is allowed to expect better from a country claiming to be a civilized nation, plus a general upholder of human rights, freedom et all.

You're also making the assumption you can play fast and loose with these sorts of things without lowering your ethical standards on the long term on the side; this has a serious stench of hubris about it. People act civilized partly so as to avoid getting used to acting uncivilized, if you see what I mean.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

EDIT
Maybe there are some good clues in the Battle for Basra in March 2003, when the Brits took the town without too many casualties after highly selective bombardment and with the use of good human intelligence.

HUMINT can make a world of difference. On those occasions where the USA has had it, our operations have been both more selective and more effective. The Brits (and USMC? or did they bypass?) did quality work in Basra.


Hurin

Yes, part of my argument is that the tactical choice made was one of the better ones available on an unpleasing list. All of these choices involve the deaths and injury of people who aren't combatants and really shouldn't be involved.

If you discount morality entirely, than the nuclear stuff becomes practical, but to discount the moral component entirely is to cede victory to the concept of terrorism if not to the particular terrorists in question. Not fun.

If you know a way of actually generating an open field fight with the terrorists/insurgents please let us know. Most of our military types dream of an engagement -- even facing long odds -- where they don't have to worry about innocents. Many of our opponents simply don't worry -- or use them as shields to make us hesitate.

[Devastatin Dave]

Oh go away Red.

Gotta defend Red on this one. He should go away simply because you disagree with him? So much for debate. Many times (in fact most of the time) I have disagreed with him, but he has as much of a right to his opinions as you do.

[Watchman]

Eh, don't take it literally. Think of it as more of a general expression of being-fed-up-with-something, along the lines of "gimme a break". Plus a rough estmate of how highly I rate his points, mind you.

[Devastatin Dave]

Understood...

[Kagemusha]

It would appear that a majority of those disconcerted by the USA's use of white phosphorous munitions in this assault are also those who believe our invasion of Iraq to have been illegal/immoral/premature in the first place.

Setting aside your opposition to us being there at all (not asking you to discard your beliefs, merely to set them aside for the purpose of discussion), how should US forces have addressed the situation?

If you are facing non-conventional forces intermixed with civilians in a built-up urban area, you have a number of choices, none of which are thrilling.
You could:

A) cede control of the area to the non-conventional forces. This would minimize civilian casualties (barring some kind of pogrom by the non-conventionals) and minimize your own casualties, but would be a victory for the opposition allowing them to reinforce, develop a base, etc.

B) conduct a slow and painstaking infantry assault moving from room to room and house by house without the use of explosive devices or incendiaries or chemicals and carefully waiting for a positive identification before firing on any target. Since the non-conventional forces will be under no such restrictions, there will still be significant civilian casualties, but your forces will not contribute to that. Your casualties will be very high, since the defender has all of the tactical advantages in this scenario.

C) Use some form of chemical agent to discomfit the enemy and force them to leave many/all of the positions. The civilians intermixed will be harmed by this approach nearly as much as the non-conventional defenders, but the subsequent assault can move forward with fewer casualties and a greater likelihood of success. A number of civilians will require significant medical treatment. It is difficult to discern if civilian casualties will be less than in scenario "B," though it seems likely, but chemical injuries are more difficult to treat than standard trauma.

D) Identify enemy positions at range and hammer them with high-explosive munitions. Civilian casualties will be significant. The follow up assault will take casualties -- no bombardment zeros the opposition.

E) Identify the general area occupied by non-conventional forces and demolish it with lethal area-effect weapons. Civilian casualties will be horrific, but casualties to your own troops following up will be minimal.

F) use tactical nuclear weaponry to effect "e" above. Virtually everthing in the primary blast area will be eradicated, including civilians. No losses will be incurred by your forces. Radioactive contamination will be a concern, as will the political repercussions of this act.


Given a range of choices analogous to this -- remember, you've agreed to set aside the decision to be there in the first place for the sake of this discussion -- which choice is the most practical?

Sorry Seamus but if we are talking what the US did in Fallujah. The option what they actually did, was c) and d) together.As the article in the other thread stated the Us artillery and Mortars shelled Fallujah with both Phosphorus and HE rounds. What they did was basicly they forced the inhabitants and the enemy combatants out of the houses, with the Smoke and fires that using of WP resulted and then killed the people with HE or burned them with WP. The bottom line is was this necessary? And how does it differ of the so much critizised artillery tactics used by Russia in Chezhenia?

[Watchman]

Personally speaking, I'd incidentally appreciate it if people didn't try to justify dubiously ethical methods with reducing friendly casualties. After all, when the chips are down it's a fact that soldiers get paid to die for things and civilians don't...

[Xiahou]

Soldiers get paid to die? That's a new one on me....

[Papewaio]

Personally speaking, I'd incidentally appreciate it if people didn't try to justify dubiously ethical methods with reducing friendly casualties. After all, when the chips are down it's a fact that soldiers get paid to die for things and civilians don't...

Soldiers get paid to protect their nation. If any dieing is to be done it is the other sides soldiers/warriors/resistance fighters/insurgents/terrorists not your own soldiers as meat shields for your civilians or theirs.

the true role of infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, not to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, not to impale itself on hostile bayonets, but on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine-guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward.

I agree with John Monashs tactics that infantry are not there to die but are to be supported with the maximum amount of resources possible.

[Watchman]

So ? It doesn't change anything about the fact that when you get down to the fundamentals, the role soldiers fulfill in a community is to fight, kill and if necessary die when needed. That's the basic reason of existence of the whole profession. All the rest is really just additional paraphenelia such as how exactly they go about fulfilling these duties, when, where, why, with what tools etc etc, or if they can make themselves useful during peacetime too.

Particularly in a professional (which in practice means mercenary; soldiers serve in return of financial benefits) army like the American one (indeed, particularly the American one which has fought about one war per decade since WW2...) this adds up to their lives being as-such worth less than those of the civilians; after all, they have on their own accord, for whatever reason, entered into a profession where getting killed in combat is an expected health hazard, and thus don't really have too much in the way of complaint coming if it happens. Conscript armies, based on the legal obligation of the citizens to serve under arms, are a bit different issue, but with them it can be argued that the risks of military service are a part of the "membership fee" the community demands from its inhabitants.

Civilians, conversely, have not conditionally rented their lives away in such a fashion. Hence, it is morally unsustainable to argue for tactics that incur considerable risks to civilian populations with the safety of one's own soldiers.

[Papewaio]

Professional soldiers are volunteers. As long as they are part of a countries armed forces they are not mercenaries. It would pay (pun intended) for you to get your definitions right. Nor does getting paid negate their right to life. Mercenaries get paid not to die but to protect people and objects.

Civilians get all the fruits of conquest and the benefit of not having in general to put their lives on the line. Soldiers and Civilians are equal citizens and as humans have equal right to life.

[Proletariat]

In this instance, putting the lives of enemy civilians over the lives of your own soldiers (citizens) is preposterous.

American Military actions must serve the lives of Americans first. Doing otherwise would be ineffectual at best, and treasonous at worst.

[Watchman]

In my books fighting in return for payment (as opposed to, say, legal obligation) amounts to "mercenaries". The semantics of the matter don't particularly interest me.

I won't contest the thing about all humans having an equal right to live, but that was never the issue anyway.

Be they volunteers or mercenaries, however, the point is that unlike for example the hapless civilian population of, say, Fallujah the soldiers have chosen to embark on a potentionally quite dangerous career, and if you ask me this makes them to a fair degree responsible for any loss of life or limb that might happen. IMHO this also means they are to a degree responsible for not endangering the likes of civilians, sort of like how truck drivers are expected not to endanger pedestrians.

[Proletariat]

In my books fighting in return for payment (as opposed to, say, legal obligation) amounts to "mercenaries". The semantics of the matter don't particularly interest me.

So your books say that only those who fight for free escape the definition mercenary?

Mercenary

1 Motivated solely by a desire for monetary or material gain.
2 Hired for service in a foreign army.

[Watchman]

Never said that, did I ?

[Proletariat]

No, but what you're saying doesn't make sense to me, nor does it jive with the definition of a mercenary.

US soldiers in Fallujah aren't mercenaries.

[Watchman]

US soldiers in Fallujah aren't mercenaries.

By my definitions they are, because pretty much the whole US military is essentially a mercenary outfit. The same goes for any professional army.

You see, I divide armies to about three categories based on their recruiting method. Mercenaries are those whose soldiers have no external obligation to serve, but are rewarded for their services in some fashion by their masters (that professional national armies serve only a single, fixed paymaster is of no consequence here). Conscripts are those serving due to external obligation to their masters, and usually also salaried - but this is by no means automatic. The final category aren't really armies at all (proper, organized armies fall to either of the previous categories) but irregular forces, whose members are neither obliged nor paid by their masters to fight but do so purely for their own reasons.

Of course, the above categories are by no means set in stone or final - conscript armies invariably have a corps of salaried full-time professionals, mercenary armies may find themselves obliged to become conscript armies due to circumstances (think the British in WW1), and irregulars may fill their ranks by forcibly recruiting new members or hiring people or get established enough to "graduate" into either of the two categories. And of course badly mauled mercenary or conscript armies may dissolve into irregular forces - this at least partially happened in Iraq, for example.

Obviously what motivates (or doesn't) individual soldiers in any army has no part in this typology, due to the simple fact that it can A) be externally manipulated B) comes in such a dizzying number of permutations as to be a functionally meaningless mess; the criteria is the primary source of new recruits.

[Papewaio]

IMHO this also means they are to a degree responsible for not endangering the likes of civilians, sort of like how truck drivers are expected not to endanger pedestrians.

Well IMDHO if a car swerves across the road I don't expect the truck driver to kill himself trying to protect the car driver.

[Papewaio]

By my definitions they are, because pretty much the whole US military is essentially a mercenary outfit. The same goes for any professional army.

You see, I divide armies to about three categories based on their recruiting method. Mercenaries are those whose soldiers have no external obligation to serve, but are rewarded for their services in some fashion by their masters (that professional national armies serve only a single, fixed paymaster is of no consequence here). Conscripts are those serving due to external obligation to their masters, and usually also salaried - but this is by no means automatic. The final category aren't really armies at all (proper, organized armies fall to either of the previous categories) but irregular forces, whose members are neither obliged nor paid by their masters to fight but do so purely for their own reasons.

Of course, the above categories are by no means set in stone or final - conscript armies invariably have a corps of salaried full-time professionals, mercenary armies may find themselves obliged to become conscript armies due to circumstances (think the British in WW1), and irregulars may fill their ranks by forcibly recruiting new members or hiring people or get established enough to "graduate" into either of the two categories. And of course badly mauled mercenary or conscript armies may dissolve into irregular forces - this at least partially happened in Iraq, for example.

Obviously what motivates (or doesn't) individual soldiers in any army has no part in this typology, due to the simple fact that it can A) be externally manipulated B) comes in such a dizzying number of permutations as to be a functionally meaningless mess; the criteria is the primary source of new recruits.

I'm quoting you in full to make sure you don't edit on the fly.

Making up your own definitions as you go is not a valid way to prove anything.

Mercs serve anyone for money. Volunteer soldiers serve their country. They are a form of public servant. Mercs are private contractors who serve corporate interests in general.

Volunteer soldiers are normally held in higher esteem then conscripts, while mercs are seen in the same light as pirates, brigands and CEOs.

[Watchman]

It's the pedestrians we're talking about.
*sigh*
Or, if you want me to stop playing around with metaphors and wring it out of wire, the US soldiers are the truck driver, the Iraqi civilians are the pedestrians and the insurgents are the dangerously driving biker gang.

[Tribesman]

OK - how about some facts?

Do you have any numbers from this WP attack or any other WP attack that would show that poisoning is indeed the primary effect of this weapon?

Primary effect ? where did I say it was the primary effect ?
Hey , just pointing out a previous historical incident of secondary effects Clegane ,
Besides which WP is for smoke/target marking , fire starting is a secondary effect , toxic poisoning from inhalation is a secondary secondary effect , burning on the other hand would be a primary secondary effect of smoke markers .
Then again it wasn't being used for marking was it , "shake and bake" is described by the US forces as Phsycological warfare .


US soldiers in Fallujah aren't mercenaries.
Certainly not , but it was the death of 4 mercenaries in Fallujah that triggered the assault .

[Watchman]

*shrug* Your definitions, not mine. I explained those already. Personally, I see little reason to cover the main purpose of soldiers or the fundamental reality of professional armies with any rhetorical fig leaves. Notice that there were no implicit or explicit values involved in my typologies - I'm far too avid a student of military history to make any generic judgements one way or other merely on the basis of a combat force's recruitement method. Well, not counting press-gang methods.

Besides...

Volunteer soldiers are normally held in higher esteem then conscripts,...

...you do realize that the Iraqi insurgents are by and large volunteers ? Or at least to my knowledge they're neither salaried nor legally obliged to fight for the cause(s) they obviously feel very strongly about...