White Lies, White Phosphorous

Photo Courtesy of Montreal Gazette

              

                Chemical warfare; it’s something we hear about when we hear of the Bolsheviks in Russia or the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany in the early part of the 20^th century. Hitler used plenty of it, and most recently, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein employed chemical warfare against his own people. Terrorists use chemical warfare all of the time! Remember the anthrax scare just a decade ago? At least the United States does not stoop to that deadly inhuman type of warfare. Or do they?

                Most of us are familiar with the United States’ use of napalm in the Vietnam war. Even though we used it in World War II, controversy over it did not come about until Vietnam. The US used this chemical to “defoliate” the jungles of Vietnam and to flush out opposition hiding in the brush. Unfortunately, defoliation isn’t the only thing that napalm does. According to Vietnamese-American.org napalm has a primary effect of sever burning. These burns are not first degree in nature, they aren’t even second or third degree burns. The majority of napalm burns are fourth degree burns, burns that eat the skin and penetrate to the muscles. Two-thirds of napalm victims will be burned to death and those that aren’t will take months or years of healing and may never fully recover. On top of that, carbon monoxide poisoning, burning of the windpipe, shock, bone structure changes and organ damage.(Vietnamese-American)

                Napalm sounds like a pretty serious weapon when compared to exchanging fire in hand to hand combat. Perhaps another lesser known chemical weapon used was white phosphorous. WP, or its nickname “Willie Pete” can have similar but often worse effects than that of napalm. WP burns much deeper than napalm and as a US serviceperson in Vietnam said “one drop is enough; it’ll keep burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorous poisoning,” (Third World Traveler)

                Fortunately the US does not engage in chemical warfare. In fact, President Nixon even started the campaign to END the use of all chemical munitions. Well, the United States does adhere to this rule, it just changed the classification of what a chemical weapon is. Just in 2005, the US admitted to using white phosphorous in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the fact that they had denied using napalm and white phosphorous; US Ambassador to London Robert Tuttle said that the US “do not use napalm or white phosphorous as weapons”.  (BBC)  We must read between the lines here, they don’t use these chemicals “as weapons” does not mean they don’t use them.  They have just classified “how” they use them as not weapons.

                However, in an issue of the Army’s Field Artillery Magazine, a captain wrote that “WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition.”  Make no mistake, the US is still very much involved in the use of chemical warfare where it sees fit.  Even if its tell little white lies about it.