DOWNING STREET: THE FIRES OF HELL

 
THE FIRES OF HELL
Some Call Love the Fire of Heaven. What does one call the fire of hell on this earth? In our perverse place between the shining heights and the dark depths, even the most lawless occasions yet have limits, lest some bellowing beast of oblivion swallow last memory of morality in its hideous mouth.  Even war has laws.  Wisdom would place limits on what savagery we would inflict upon our enemies.  In our foolishness we have also lied to our British friends in the War on Iraq.

June 17, 2005: American officials lied to British ministers over the use of "internationally reviled" napalm-type firebombs in Iraq. Yesterday's disclosure led to calls by MPs for a full statement to the Commons and opened ministers to allegations that they held back the facts until after the general election. [5]

The story of the United States use of MK 77 has been out there for anyone willing to see it.  Our blindness revealed may now be fatal to the way the world sees us.  In a war fought for public reasons of removal of weapons of mass destruction, we have used a weapon no other country has in its arsenal.  If our leaders feel no shame about this, why have the military lied about this weapon most famously rememberd for the infamous Viet Nam era photo of Kim Phuc.

THE STORY OF MK 77 IN IRAQ FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES PAINTS ONE SAD PICTURE One hesitates to look at horror, but not to look is worse.  Would the British have joined the dubious battle on the plains of Iraq had they known such weapons would be used?

"THE HORROR, THE HORROR"
   Joseph Conrad The Heart of Darkness

Literature has endeavored to tell such tales, as in daily chronicles here revealed.  The tales told here are remniscent of Conrad one hundred years past or of Dante's Inferno more long ago.  What we see below is not fiction, but horrid reality,  the devil's hell come to this earth, hell's fire used by a putative array of  heaven's avenging white angels.  Exterminate the brutes, exterminate them all.

Chronicles of Deaths Already Told
"I pity anybody who's in there," a marine sergeant said. "We told them to surrender."[1]

“Usually we keep the gloves on,” said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division’s Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. “For this operation, we took the gloves off.” [2]

Your story ('Dead bodies everywhere', by Lindsay Murdoch, March 22, 2003) claiming US forces are using napalm in Iraq, is patently false. The US took napalm out of service in the early 1970s. We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm. - Jeff A. Davis, Lieutenant Commander, US Navy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. [3]

A navy spokesman in Washington, Lieutenant Commander Danny Hernandez, denied that napalm - which was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980 - was used.  "We don't even have that in our arsenal," he said. [3]

Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.  What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.[1]
 
Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."[2]

The distinctive fireball and smell have a psychological impact on troops, experts said. "The generals love napalm," said Alles, who has transferred to Washington. "It has a big psychological effect." [1]

Since the American assault on Fallujah there have been reports of "melted" corpses, which appeared to have napalm injuries. Last August the US was forced to admit using the gas in Iraq.  A 1980 UN convention banned the use of napalm against civilians - after pictures of a naked girl victim fleeing in Vietnam shocked the world. America, which didn't ratify the treaty, is the only country in the world still using the weapon.[4]

American officials lied to British ministers over the use of "internationally reviled" napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.[5]

Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as "pretty outrageous.' "That's clearly Orwellian," he added.[1]]

The war in Iraq has been told as a morality tale of black and white. Our President has spoken of finding evil doers and doing them in.  Some would say the world holds greys.  Others might say now white is black.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning.  It smells like . . . . . victory.  Some day this war is gonna end."

Lieutenant Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

The wise always aim high knowing they will fall short. The terminally stupid never pick up and let things fall where they may.  Or may not.  The insanity of war begins with  a first resolution, fierce,  without foresight of result.  Apologists will say results can never be exactly forecast.  One must question always a death's design.

MK 77: SPECIFICATIONS FOR A DUMB BOMB
A fire bomb is a thin skinned container of fuel gel designed for use against dug-in troops, supply installations, wooden structures, and land convoys. Fire bombs rupture on impact and spread burning fuel gel on surrounding objects. MK 13 Mod 0 igniters are used to ignite the fuel gel mixture upon impact. The Mk-77 is the only fire bomb still in service, replacing the BLU-27.

While the MK-77 is the only incendiary munition currently in active inventory, a variety of other incendiary devices were produced, including the M-47 Napalm bomb, the M-74 incendiary bomb, and white phosphorous and munitions manufacturing. Production of these devices continued during the Korean conflict, though various demilitarization and decontamination programs were initiated in the late 1950s. Munitions destroyed included M-47 Napalm-filled bombs and incendiary cluster bombs.

The containers of napalm bomber are very light and fabricated of aluminum, with a capacity for about 75 gallons of combustible gel. They lack stabilizing fins, and consequently acquire a tumbling motion on being dropped that contributes to the scattering of the combustible gel over a wide area.

Napalm is a mixture of benzene (21%), gasoline (33%), and polystyrene (46%). Benzene is a normal component of gasoline (about 2%). The gasoline used in napalm is the same leaded or unleaded gas that is used in automobiles. Gasoline is a mixture of hydrocarbons, which burn in an engine. It is a clear liquid, made from crude oil that burns and explodes easily. It naturally contains some benzene (which makes gas smell the way it does). Gasoline is lighter than, and floats on, water, but it will not mix with water. It dissolves grease and oil but will not dissolve polystyrene by itself, more benzene must be added to it. If gasoline is inhaled or swallowed, it can be dangerous or fatal. Breathing it results in an intense burning sensation in the throat and lungs, resulting in bronchitis and, eventually, pneumonia and possibly death. Swallowing gasoline results in inebriation (drunkenness), vomiting, dizziness, fever, drowsiness, confusion, and cyanosis (blue color).

MORE >>> GLOBAL SECURITY

If we deceive ourselves in what we do abroad, what fate awaits us at home?
Our language and our people are worthy of respect.  When words are used to win dark argument, someone holds light away from the truth.  When truth is twisted and words double back upon themselves our society ends up in knots. Consider the meaning of the words Weapons of Mass Destruction and who has used them.

NATO defines "chemical weapons" as "a chemical substance which is intended for use in military operations to kill, seriously injure or incapacitate people because of its physiological effects." Evidently burning someone to death doesn't qualify a "physiological effect"; it seems that only chemicals that kill you from the inside out qualify. In today's news, we learn that "American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad" (and, incidentally, denied it until now because they were only asked if they were using napalm, rather than firebombs in general). Needless to say, though, there is no suggestion in the press that the US was employing "chemical weapons." After all, burning someone to death with "kerosene-based jet fuel" is so much more civilized than killing them with poison gas.
FROM: LEFT I

Grim war makes dark monsters of men who enter conflict in supposed defense of light. Our means betray our ends.  If in the middle of conflict we cannot see the errors of our means, we can come to no good end.

SOURCES FOR THIS STORY

[1] Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops’, San Diego Union Tribune, August 5, 2003
[2] ‘U.S. drives into heart of Fallujah’, San Francisco Chronicle,  November 10, 2004.
[3] 'Dead bodies are everywhere', Sydney Morning Herald,  March 22, 2003
[4] 'Fallujah Napalmed', Sunday Mirror UK,  November 28, 2008.
[5] 'US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war, Independent UK,  June 17, 2005.

A GREAT SOURCE: VOICES IN WILDERNESS
CHECK OUT: LEFT I ON NEWS
NOTE: Eli at Left I posted on this above on August 5, 2003.  The Heretik applauds his efforts.

 

Comments

[Eli]

Atrocities in defense of liberty is no vice!

...or something...

[NYMOM]

Hi...

First time visitor...

I liked your comment that:

"Even war has laws."

The thing is when we're the biggest bad boy on the block, who is there to ENFORCE the laws against us...

I mean generally it's the US doing the enforcement...so who do we go to now...unless it's internal forces like organizing an impeachment of a sitting President or something similar...how to even begin however, who will start it????

That's the question????

[Agitprop]

Rumsfeld = Lt. Kilgore

I can recall in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 an interview with a soldier who said that they "napalmed" a bunch of Iraqis. He spoke of the burning flesh. Another example of the Iraq-Vietnam analogy...

[oldwhitelady]

The pictures and the post is very depressing. It's also irritating & frustrating. I wonder how the rightwingers can tolerate and approve of this? Most claim to be Christians. Really?

[zencomix]

I've got a post that relates to this today.

[Rob]

Chilling. I'd like to know if the Iraqi quasi-gov't was told beforehand. If they found out afterwards, how did they react?

[Michael Hussey]

Joe, you should check out the Apocalypse Now Redux dvd. There's a scene where Kurtz reads a Time magazine article. In the piece, a military advisor tells Nixon that the war "feels different, smells different." Kurtz sarcasticly asks Williard, How does the war smell to you, soldier."

[Murphy the Bichon Frise]

We have, in the eyes of the world, become the evil doers, again. I hate that!

Maybe we need some sort of movement saying, "I'm not that kind of American" I believe everyone would understand what it means.

[NYMOM]

But other then discussing the metaphors of Vietnam what CAN we realistically DO to punish the man responsible for this...which is the President...

That's the question...

[Aaron]

Perhaps you've read the article in Harper's Magazine, June 2004, "Beyond Fallujah: A Year with the Iraq Resistance," by Patrick Graham the Canadian journalist. If not check it out, because it exposes what was really happening during the uprisings there. While some in the media were portraying the fighters in the town as coming from outside the country and not being Iraqis who actually lived in the city, Graham's article, taken from his experiences while he was actually in the city, makes it clear that that was not the case.

In fact the resistance in Falluja was a tribal response to an invading army, much the way he these people have been responding for hundreds of years to invaders. The Marines employed all of the vast resources of the US war machine "...took the gloves off" to take on these tribal fighters, because of the ferocity of their defense.

These events mirror what US forces encountered in Vietnam, people who are defending their land against foreign invaders. This is the kind of mindset that motivates people to climb into a car loaded with explosives and blow themselves up trying to take out the enemy.

[NYMOM]

Well after reading that coloredfella's blog I don't feel so bad...as I know people are working towards some form of justice and maybe this President won't be allowed to get away with what he's done...

[s]

NYMOM: Realistically speaking, if enough people are fed up with the government, either there WILL be a shift in the government through voting patterns, or there WILL be a civil war in the United States. So to answer your question, realistically, if Bush tries to pull a Hitler, we can rebel, either peacefully as Martin Luther King, Jr. did so respectfully in the 1960s, or as the south did in the 1860s. While the cause of the south (to protect slavery) was not nessisarily a cause that was good and just, the face behind that cause was simply to protect state rights to NOT accept a law if they felt it slighted them.

[Myst]

I bloged about this on the 17th and on the 18th I emailed all 100 Senators in the US to ask "Why are we using NAPALM on the Iraqis?", citing the article about the US lying to the UK about it.

It should be interesting to see their responses.

Myst

[KritterK]

Well, speaking as someone who has actually been outside of the us (outside of the typically college backpacker) Very interesting to hear how many of you hate your own country. How embarrassing! So what do you suggest? submit to Russian/ Iran/ Taliban Rule? Just "take it bitch" is what we should hear from now on? or do you all still believe that America may not get it right all the time, but it still is the best choice over most, with the best intentions and opportunity. or would you rather be muslim like the O-man