No longer is WP a chemical weapon, it appears, nor is it illegal to use.
Despite still not recognizing all of the legitimate military uses and still advancing additional flawed premises, the backtracking has begun. You can compare the language and assertions in previous posts made by Kos and Co. and this statement to admire the brazenness. It is nice to know that today, at least temporarily, our grunts are no longer war criminals.
In the military, there is a word for retreat- exfiltration.
Much more here.
And this link provides another summary (with pictures of the evil chemical weapon in use!).
And for the snarkiest posts on the matter, Dorkafork, who links to a real nasty type of chemical weapon and then provides us with this rejoinder:
Side effects of white phosphorus apparently include complete credulousness in war opponents.
See also here regarding the much discussed and little understood Protocol II.
ppGaz
This is wonderful news, if the world revolves around the assumtion that the wording of DKos diaries is the real issue at hand here.
It isn’t. The flap over the “CW” words is just a flap.
The larger moral, policy and political arguments remain.
Take points away from me for failing to get all giggly over BJ winning a semantic victory over a blogsite that gets a million page views a day, while people continue to get killed.
Sorry to burst this little bubble.
PS – I don’t know any reasonable person who thinks that our troops are war criminals. Maybe everybody who has ownership of the bandwidth can ponder how it is that the rhetoric gets pushed to those extremes in the first place.
Maybe an honest debate about the war three years ago would have gone a long way to abating that problem? Too bad that opportunity wasn’t made available.
neil
Hey, man, I’m all for this. Let’s get all the facts out there and let the people decide. I’m sure the American electorate, as fond of nuance as it is, will be happy to grant the moral distinction between merely melting the flesh of civilians, and gassing them to death. Let’s make sure that everybody understands that we took the Iraq mission on assuming that we would be using these weapons in such a way that civilians would be killed. Get it all out in the open and let the people decide.
KC
I just came from dkos and was happy to see the clarifications in his post. Lets face it: he knows he jumped the horse too quickly here, John.
John Cole
And there we go- IT JUST HAPPENED! We melted the skin off of people, because NEIL says so.
There is no doubting that innocent civilians have died in Iraq. The difference between whether they were killed accidentally when our troops were using due caution or the fact that they were killed in indiscriminate shelling using ‘chemical weapons’ are two different animals altogether.
neil
Because I said so? You’re blaming _me_ now?
Personally, I think it’s worse if they were killed accidentally when our troops were using due caution. That means that the mistake that caused innocents to die was made at a higher level — i.e., starting the war in the first place.
This is a discussion that should have taken place years ago. Too bad it takes pictures of dead children to provoke it.
Slide
John (Joe McCarthy) Cole:
Ok officially WP discussions are now in the same category with Cindy Sheehan and Katrina discussions that demonstrate what a cheap shot artist cole can be when his panties get all bunched up.
ppGaz
Well, I’ve been ready to stipulate that from the get-go. I think most reasonable people will conclude it.
So where’s the real beef here?
If you read the other (original) thread on this topic from top to bottom, one might conclude that the ‘war’ everyone is talking about is a war between Americans.
The terrorists have won, then. Time to pack it in.
Back to baby-eatin’.
Pb
Dammit, Neil, stop melting the skin off of people. Next, you’re going to tell me that you used “chemical weapons”… sheesh.
Marcus Wellby
John, I did not see it as demonizing the grunts. I think the left, for the most part, makes a lot of effort to avoid the Vietnam-eque “spitting on the troops” — as well they should. I am pretty open-minded when it comes to what 20 year old kids need to do to live through combat.
Using hyperbole and strechted facts to go after the policy makers is well within the “rules” of the blog world. Hell, it might make you look like an ass, but opinions often do, whether grounded in reality or not.
Kimmitt
The only difference between Daily Kos and other blogs on this sort of thing is that when the Kossacks get something wrong, they tend to correct it in a few days, rather than pretending that they were right all along until we all get tired of caring.
ppGaz
Point to Kimmit.
srv
The war is here. Truth and Lies. Republic and Empire. Iraq is a projections/reflection of our faith or paranoia, depending on what you believe.
Dave Ruddell
I’m not sure I’ll give him that point just yet. Can we have some exapmles of this at dKos please? I’m not accusing them of being worse than the rest of the blogosphere, but I’m gonna need some convincing before I can believe they’re better.
And yes, I’m honestly interested in examples, I’m not just trying to snark. Actually, that would be a useful meta-blog; The Examples of Bloggers Admiting They Were Wrong Blog.
Geek, Esq.
There’s such a lack of information as to what happened there, that I’m not ready to condemn or exonerate.
If they were selectively using the stuff against a few insurgent lairs, okay. If they were pumping entire neighborhoods with it, war crime.
Lines
Smallest blog ever.
KC
I’ll give Kimmitt his point too.
Mike S
Same here.
ppGaz
Well, Dave, I sincerely hope that a bunch of people will take the time to pore over the Kos archives (which as far as I know are 100% online and free) to help you out and save you the trouble of doing it yourself.
Kos is a wide open place where many diarists compete for bandwidth, and therefore it has a somewhat self-correcting quality about it. Quite different from the “I speak, and then I might let you comment” model. They don’t get a million page views a day over there because Marcos is so brilliant (although, he is). It’s because of the wide variety of opinions and styles that you find around there.
Dave Ruddell
Okay ppGaz, no need to get all shirty (love that term). I just thought Kimmit might have had some examples of the main players at dKos (Kos, Armando, openthread (oh wait…)) admiting to a mistake that he could reference. I only read the front pages there, not the diaries unless they get promoted. I can’t recall ever seeing a post titled ‘Whoops’ or something like that. Not that I’ve seen that on other blogs either. Certainly I have seen updates make minor corrections, but again, with no more regularity than other blogs. My point is that dKos does not seem special in this regard.
ppGaz
I think it’s special in a number of regards, but that’s just me.
Marcos himself is quite the remarkable chap.
I don’t buy into everything that they do over there. The ritualistic opposition to recent SCOTUS nominees, for example. But one of the things I like about the non-Bushmonkey world is the fact that we lefties can fight like rats. Sweetness and harmony is for Jim Jones followers, and Republicans. To coin a phrase … fuck that.
guyermo
Dave Ruddell
Here is a diary that demonstrates what you were talking about. Sure there is a little snark, but the apology was sincere.
You could also check tags for an “Apology” tag or use the search function if it worked. As it is, I remembered this one from a few days ago and was the quickest to find.
Steve S
This is cool.
dKos has now become the center of John’s universe.
I’m assuming you mean amongst each other, cause most of my time on dKos is spent arguing with democrats. :-)
Dave Ruddell
guyermo,
A little? Seriously though, thanks for the link.
ppGaz
Yes. Amongst ourselves.
People who can’t argue amongst themselves and then come to agreement shall be called “for us or against us” Republicans.
Dobsonites.
Rovians.
Bushmonkeys.
Hunter
If you really think that Kos post constitutes a “walkback”, I’m not sure what to say. The exact post that blew your gaskets yesterday also stipulated that WP is not a “chemical weapon”, made no claims as to the legality or not of using it, made no assertions about “war crimes”, opined strongly that firing it into a city with a known civilian population is a moral f—ing disaster, and expressed frustration that we have managed to put ourselves in a position so bad that doing so has become a viable military calculation. And this new post, like those yesterday, clearly asserts that it was indeed used as a ground weapon in Fallujah, as the video footage clearly shows. So what’s the change?
Of course WP has legitimate uses. Firing it into a city with civilians isn’t one of them. I’d be similarly ticked off if we dropped 2000 pound bombs or anything else in the same area, since it would have the similar predictable effect of Causing Dead Civilians. So do we think there’s any middle ground here, between “you hate the troops” and “please don’t blow the holy crap out of children?”
I won’t belabor the point. Clearly the killing of civilians happens, and has happened with regularity, and will continue. It’s an inevitable fact of war, especially when your war plan all but requires you to go into deeply insurgent-friendly cities and kill anyone who puts up a fight or looks like they might be thinking about it.
We can only hope that they love their freedom so much that they’re going to forgive us all this, because if they act like I would act, if you killed my kids, or my wife, or my extended family, the U.S. isn’t going to have peace for the next thirty years.
But yes, if the biggest thing on your mind right now is whether or not shooting WP or anything else into civilian neighborhoods is technically legal, what the hell, I’ll cede you the point. Glad it makes you feel better.
pmm
C’mon Ppgaz, you know better. You’re acting like all the intra-party rasslin’ and thus intellectual honesty is confined to the left side of the aisle. Aside from the fact that Mr. Cole has a tag labeled ‘Republican Stupidity’, I can think of all sorts of debates occuring within the right. And anytime you want to point to ‘for us or against us Republicans’, there’s probably a fairly sizable faction of ‘for us or against us Democrats’. How about we just agree that both parties have folks who put policy over politics, and vice versa?
John Cole
Hunter, it most certainly was. First, the post had a ‘chemical weapon’ tag that has since been removed (convenient, that!), and Kos noted:
That was a direct reference to the only other previous post made on the front page, by Kos, in which the following was stated:
In short, Kos has moved from calling WP an illegal chemical weapon that was used by our troops to massacre civilians just like Saddam Hussein to the sudden realization that WP is not banned, not a chemical weapon, nor against any international law. Not just technicially, but not at all any of the above.
Again with the kill anyone and everyone bit. They just massacred EVERYONE in sight, didn’t they? War criminals!
As for your enlightend approach to the issue, thank you for explaining that the US should not have a policy of ‘melting the skin off children.’ It is easy to recognize why you are a front page diarist!
Maybe one day soon you will even recognize the US does not have that policy. Now that would be real progress.
Yes, it would be lovely if no innocent civilians are killed, and I would love it if you have any tactical advice on how to avoid that (other than Leave Iraq, which is not going to happen). But certainly even you can recognize that charges ‘we are illegally using chemical weapons to massacre civilians’ all of a sudden changing to the more moderate (but still inaccurate) ‘we are immoral and only technically not using illegal weapons’ constitutes a ‘walkback.’
Slide
WP Logic Scorecard
Hunter 99
Cole 0
TallDave
Sanity wins a round, albeit belatedly, at Kos. Will wonders never cease.
On to the next (patriotic!) smear of our troops. I hear they’ve also been deploying DHMO, one of the deadliest chmecials on Earth. Dihydrogen monoxide kills thousands every year, including 250,000 last year, yet our troops use it constantly!
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/dhmo.htm
I demand a war crimes tribunal.
guyermo
Dave,
I think it’s a little snark. This would qualify as ALOT of snark.
Dave Ruddell
Guyermo,
Who said pimpin’ ain’t easy?
The Captain of the O
Technically, phosporus is a chemical weapon…it’s right there on the periodic table. Of course, so is lead…
Hunter
It now strikes me that we’re talking about different posts, yesterday, but here goes; the tags are controlled by users, so aside from editing the obviously silly ones out, they are the editorial judgment of users. They’re a user-contributed index, I wouldn’t read much into them. Ditto on Kos’ one-liner introduction, but I can state with certainty that my own post did not assert that WP is a “chemical” weapon.
I have to say — and this is directed more at Protein Wisdom, etc., than you personally — I thought yesterday that the main point of contention was that the United States would never do such a thing as to use WP as an antipersonnel weapon, or use it in a city. Now, in the very post you link to and others, it’s clear we do and did, and so everybody’s dropping that point and merely talking about how harmless the substance is, other than (according to right-wing sites you’ve linked to) being able to burn through steel, causing severe “chemical burns” — Protein Wisdom’s quote, not mine — on both clothes and flesh, and persistently reigniting upon exposure to oxygen. Yeah, except for that, it’s peachy. And we don’t fire it at targets, except for the documented cases where we do.
So is firing WP or anything else into a civilian-populated area a war crime? No, not except in rare circumstances. It’s just urban war. “Shock and Awe”, we called it before, when we were dropping 2000lb bombs into the heart of a major city. It’s how the game is played.
The United States does not have a policy of melting the skin off of children. It also, apparently, does not have a policy sufficiently precluding it, as the repeated insistence on asserting legality of child melting has clearly shown. Ha ha ha, the sincere bloggers shout! “Water” is a chemical too, therefore them kids ain’t dead! I think the preferred defenses in this discussion tell us everything we need to know about the priorities of the various parties, and I feel quite comfortable with mine.
Look, you have every right to be mad about this stuff (and so do I). It’s powerful stuff. We can argue about the justifications for civilian deaths, and at what point they are “worth it”, and how many dead children equal “freedom”.
But we don’t get to pretend they’re not happening, we don’t get to pick our noses and pretend that these civilians just happened to die of natural causes at the exact moment they were hit with munitions, and the right frankly doesn’t get to be incensed when people bring it up as a valid and powerful measure of the costs, implications, and possible outcomes of the war. You think talking about civilian casualties sucks? Well, yeah, that’s sort of the point. How do we think the people in Fallujah feel right now, you think they need either you or me to tell them?
I’m going to continue to write about the negative implications of the war, and I’m going to continue to write about them in powerful ways, words willing. Others are also welcome to bound into the discussion as they wish. In this case, I wrote a post which I felt every human being on the planet could agree with — that these civilian deaths are morally repugnant, were entirely predictable given the nature of the conflict, and that it is a fiasco beyond words that we’re putting our troops in the situation where such urban combat is forced upon them.
Apparently we can’t even get that far, these days, because through word games and blanket condemnations of those that raise the point, we’re not even willing engage the most basic point: that we’re fighting in civilian neighborhoods, and that significant numbers of those civilians are well and truly dead.
jg
Kos says:
And this get interpreted as an attack on the troops? He specifically said ‘Bush’. How could it be any clearer he’s talking about civilian leadership and decision making ranks? Troops are people in theatre. No one’s is saying a word about them.
You want to pass a repeal of the Estate and Gift Tax, call it the Death Tax. You want to quickly put down anti-war protests, say they’re attacking the troops. People like TallDave eat it up.
I wish I could find a link to where I read this but it seems the only people spitting on troops were pro-war squares, they were spitting on soldiers like Kerry who were against the war. I grew up believing hippies hung out at airports looking for soldiers to spit on. The power of the noise machine in action.
ppGaz
Mr. Cole is a liberal, we’ve long ago established that.
He just hates to admit it.
“Debates” on the right?
Yeah. Okay. “The right” is pimping an administration that can’t brook dissent among its own fucking cabinet.
Don’t give me “debates” on the right.
Steve S
I would like to tag this as ‘Brent Scowcroft’.
thank you
JC
John Cole,
You aren’t addressing Hunter’s point – you address “tags”, and other such miscellanea.
So – straight out – how are you with the policy of usingWP as an antipersonnel weapon, or using it in a city?
That’s the MORAL argument. And yes, 2000 LB bombs and bunker-busters fit into this category. Is this an APPROPRIATE response, given the enemy, given the nature of the urban populace?
What I mean by that is in the midst of two large armies fighting in a city, it may be the appropriate policy. But in the matter of doing counter-insurgency work on a smaller base of insurgents mixed with a population(swarm and hold), it’s ethically challenged.
John Cole
I have already addressed this issue.
I am not against using it as an anti-personnel weapon.
Jason
You morons are so clueless. You don’t have any standing to talk about the ethics of using WP anywhere because you know nothing about the doctrine, you know nothing about WP’s effects, you know nothing about how it’s used, you know nothing about the tactical alternatives on the ground, you know nothing about anything relevant to the point.
Nothing.
The depths of your ignorance is truly profound, and wrapping yourselves in the hides of dead Iraqi babies just adds to the pathos and absurdity of your argument.
You cannot claim that the effects in the photos came from WP. In fact, in many of the photos, it’s clear that the effects did NOT come from WP, because the clothing would have been burned along with the flesh.
But you put so much credulousness in everything these commie film producers have to say. You believe some Iraqi “biologist” (couldn’t find a doctor?), you believe some asswipe E-4 who doesn’t know crap but heard about WP on the radio, you believe everyone except people who actually do know the doctrine and the ordnance and do know what the hell they’re talking about.
You cannot claim that any of the dead in these photos would be alive today had they been hit with HE instead of WP. And since WP is rarely used by itself, except in a pure marking mission, you couldn’t separate the HE casualties from the WP casualties if you wanted to.
You cannot claim that overall civilian casualties would be lower, over time, by allowing Zarqawi to fester unmolested in Fallujah. You know nothing about the spillover effect of the base in Fallujah into surrounding areas in Baghdad and Ramadi. You know nothing about the operational context.
You know nothing about using WP as a fire control technique to MINIMIZE collateral damage and friendly fire.
You know nothing of the political context of the battle. Many of the troops engaged were Iraqi, and a number of fire missions were conducted in support of Iraqi troops.
You know nothing of the aftermath of the battle. Fallujah is now one of the quieter towns in the Sunni Triangle. It’s actually a success story. They had successful elections. They have a functioning police force.
You people are clueless. Painfully clueless. You are so wrapped up in your cluelessness that you have lost all touch with how clueless you are.
You people are quick to bemoan the cost of everything but grasp the value of nothing.
Jason
John S.
Sorry, you just antagonized half the people reading.
Maybe next time you can try making your point without resorting to schoolyard antics.
ppGaz
Wow, now that’s original.
Jason
Calling a spade a “spade” isn’t a school yard antic.
My arguments here have been grounded in fact, in knowledge of doctrine and fire support procedures, and in first-hand knowledge of urban warfare in the Sunni triangle as well as first-hand knowledge of the effect of ordnance on flesh.
In short, my arguments have a foundation a little firmer than something I saw on TV. And no one has been able to engage me on the topic from a position of similar knowledge.
If that fact antagonizes “half the people here,” that just tells me which half the morons are on.
It’s really more their problem than mine.
I notice you weren’t able to deploy a substantive point yourself. Just accuse me of ‘schoolyard antics.’
Let me know when you’ve done some homework beyond watching a 10 minute video presentation and hanging out on some blog.
Jason
ppGaz
I can’t think of two words more likely to insure that almost nobody will pay any attention to the words that follow.
I have no comment on the substance of your beef with these “people” but I’m just giving you some practical blog advice.
daddyx
As I posted on INDC…
WP rounds/grenades are used in a variety of manners, from flares, usage in screening troop movements, and also as a offensive weapon against the enemy.
WP rounds are not banned by any treaty the US is obliged to. Nor are smoke and Obscurant rounds considered to be direct chemical weapons.
We also retain the legal ability to use these incendiary weapons to place high priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law.
As a matter of fact the usage of White Phosphourus and Fuel air bombs are not restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects.
Now as offensive as melting the flesh off of babies may be to some, that hyperbolic inferrence is even more offensive to the people in the military who put themselves in harms way to safeguard the lives of civilians around combat zones.
It’s war, deal with it…
Steve S
I agreed with what you wrote, right up until the word ‘moron’.
Seriously, you ain’t helping your case. Either is John Cole’s hysterics. Not that I much agree with Hunter’s hysterics either.
I’m simply tired of hysterics.
I’m forming the non-hysterical party, where we will laugh at all of ya alls.
JohnGalt
Am I the only one who wonders why the right is so quick to condemn those emerging WP experts among the left, when they all surprised the left with their typography expertise only a year ago?
Froggy
Wanna know beyond reasonable doubt that Willie Pete does NOT create a “lethal cloud” spanning a 1/4 mile? Because it comes in phreaking hand grenades with a fuze of less than 5 seconds. I’m pretty sure if you threw one, you wouldn’t be able to unass the area in 5 secs.
Cutler
Jason: 9999999999 Morons: 0
Love the way you avoid any attempt to address what he says, preferring to avoid him on a technicality [“you’re mean!”, this after you call his military brethren war criminals].
Clueless is the nice way of putting it.
John S.
Yes, but calling a spade a “moronic and crudely shaped metal earth-fucker” is an entirely different matter.
And coated in a candy shell of arrogance and rudeness.
It’s hard to get to the meat of what your offering when folks have to first come across the aforementioned bitter candy shell.
A lack of manners and civility is your problem.
Because I don’t engage in substantive discussions with people who resort to namecalling. If you want to elevate your argument to a point where it will be joined by others, take it out of the schoolyard.
I haven’t watched any such video, nor have I commented on the matter. I am talking about your commenting style, and your further attempt to heap scorn on me proves that it is grotesque, at best.
Good day, sir.
Jason Van Steenwyk
I can see it now… the linkies will seize on Froggy’s last post here and say “See!!! The Bush Administration has failed to teach our troops how to throw!”
Jason
Well, see, if you know what the heck you’re talking about, it isn’t arrogance.
Want to know what REAL arrogance is? Someone coming to an internet chat board and accusing our FOs of war crimes for the routine and doctrinal employment of a common ordnance that the layman doesn’t have a clue about, and then when corrected by a 12 year veteran of two combat arms MOSs and an Iraq war veteran, doesn’t have the common sense to backtrack their ignorance.
I don’t suffer fools gladly. I don’t have time. I’m not your tutor, and I’m not your babysitter. I have training schedules to write, and several LTs to train who are a hell of a lot more deserving of my time than you, and who are actually teachable.
I’ve taught call for fire classes on many occasions to other officers and to senior NCOs. I’ve taught it at the professional level. I was involved in fire missions in combat (usually I was the one getting on the radio to STOP the fire mission, in order to preserve civilian life. Q37 radars have a way of registering false positive aquisitions.)
I know how it works, and I know the doctrine as well as any non 13-series guy out there.
If someone is carping with ideas that are clearly, flatly false, and I point out to them that they don’t know what the f*ck they’re talking about, that’s not me being arrogant. That’s me stating a fact. The arrogance if any, is theirs.
And if they want to deploy their misconceptions in the context of a politics debate, or in the context of trying to tar American troops, including my own soldiers, of war crimes, then I am going to be ruthless about pointing out their ignorance on the subject matter, and drawing it out into bold relief.
Arrogance isn’t telling someone who’s ignorant that he’s ignorant. Arrogance is being corrected by someone who’s not ignorant, and then trying to carry the point anyway.