The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #129840   Message #2951867
Posted By: Emma B
25-Jul-10 - 11:29 AM
Thread Name: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
"Israel's were made by USA which does not manufacture or use chemical weapons"

The USA has not ratified Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons either

"While the use of incendiary weapons against civilians is illegal by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (1980), this is not binding on the United States because it is not a signatory" - Wiki

"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breaches 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.
We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. .. We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."
From Fighting For Fallujah: A New Dawn for Iraq, by John R. Ballard (2006)

The use of WP as a weapon against enemy combatants, as justified by the US above, is not actually specified in Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. BUT if used as a weapon in a civilian area, it WOULD be prohibited.

An embedded reporter for the North County News, a San Diego newspaper, Darrin Mortenson wrote of watching Cpl Nicholas Bogert fire WP rounds into Fallujah. He wrote: "Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused."

Commenting on the use of WP by American forces in Fallujah
Kathy Kelly, a campaigner with the anti-war group Voices of the Wilderness, said:

"If the US wants to promote security for this generation and the next, it should build relationships with these countries. If the US uses conventional or non-conventional weapons, in civilian neighourhoods, that melt people's bodies down to the bone, it will leave these people seething.
We should think on this rather than arguing about whether we can squeak such weapons past the Geneva Conventions and international accords."

The same advice surely applies to Israel