WP

Does anyone recall that silly debate on NPR this winter, some lefty groups attacking the military for using white phosphorus in Iraq?
listen here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5019073

The contention from the anti-military groups was that white phosphorus, or "willy-peter" or "WP" is a chemical weapon, and therefore in contradiction of some anti-chemical weapons act from Geneva. The counterpoint from the military was that WP is used primarily to obscure, distract, and confuse, and therefore is not a chemical weapon and is perfectly legal. It was a complete charade. Sure, it's a chemical weapon in that it's made of chemicals, but then again so are cordite and TNT. IT's not a chemical in the sense of mustard gas. Thinking of this debate, I was asking Preecha Nitsisupha, or "Spotlight" about it. It's a ferocious incediary that will burn the meat off of your bones even underwater.

begin transcript, Preecha Nitsisupha, one of the Thai F.A.Gs fighting for the Americans in Laos. FAGS are the guys who run deep into Indian Territory to find the enemy and call in airstrikes.

PN:
"When they outside and they coming, maybe we have like, white phosphorus bomb or 500 lb. or 1000lb bomb, and they ask us what, we have to recommend them what they use. If the [enemy] people in the bunker or in the concentrations, we have to use the white phosphorus bomb because they not allowed for napalm.
“White phosphorus, it burns. If it hit you, they will go and cut the body. Yes hot. It burn you. It can burn the glass and the metal and whatever, it burn everything. So the thing that protect you, you have to get the [???] off of you, you have to cut it off, because it will not [afford shelter?]. Yes, it keep going .”

“Napalm not allowed. We don’t use. We mostly use the white phosphorus. So if the enemy concentrate or something, we use this. It burst in the air, before it hit the ground. It hit a big area. You see a lot of smoke. It burn the grass and everything. That will be a lot of, there will be a lot of wounded troops afterwards.”

...the killing in the town, everything is coming down. If that time is overrun[battle with the Vietnamese T-34s on skyline ridge he previously described], Skyline [ridge, overlooking the American/Hmong HQ Long Tieng] coming back, everybody would have to go. We lost the position for sure. When the tank coming, how you fight? They come booumm and pak! Afraid. And not only tank coming, believe me. A lot of people would be following. Vietnamese people. Not just tank coming, tank coming you know, they are follow by. So that night we can hold the position. And when that is turned, we can counter them back. After that they, the next couple days, we had the b52 coming, and we destroy almost two GMs. 335 and 148 or something? One GM is three battalion. One battalion for our side, about 450 or 500. For them should be the same. So they are get injuried, killed, and cannot find replacement, so they have to start to withdraw. And then we more attack. Put more heavy on the bomb. Made a lot of airstrikes, a lot. Almost every day,… before when I am in the position, make every day, for the enemy, counterfire and shoot at, incoming something, and we have to request… at least every day.
[Were they PL or Vietnamese?]
“North vietnamese. Lao only a little bit. They just only support, not the fighter. The fighter are Vietnamese. “
“Vietnam who is control everything. Pathet Lao is just, not too many. Support. Vietnamese they put at that time about sixty thousand. At first we did not know when we coming back. Even when I am in position one thing we did not know, the troops, they coming, the enemy, how they coming. But before they coming, go outside, they come back later and maybe we can see them, then they shoot, and can not going out of the bunker. At first I make a try outside, outside the bunker, and after when they shooting.

end transcript:

The whole WP discussion last november was such a silly contest of semantics. Is it a chemical? Yes yes it's evil, no no we just use the smoke from it to hide our movements. Sure, the smoke from burning steel and meat and sand and plastic. What irritated me about the debate was that everybody knew already what was going on, and they were trying to find legal grounds to either attack or justify the war in Iraq. It's a war. It's nasty. Weapons are designed and used to kill as many people as possible.

The trouble with these stupid modern wars between the first world and the third world is they can't be won. There's two different sets of rules. The first world feels that it must set some example of nobility and proper behavior when fighting. The third world has very few resources compared to us, so they weapon they choose is "by ay means necessary."

The only way to win a war is by the old rules, the rules used by the old empires. Kill everyone, burn it all down, enslave who's left, and then, your enemy will no longer be able to fight back. That's the only way. Otherwise, you'll end up in a quagmire until the political will runs out in the country which values its lives more. There's no room for these rules in war, and since we must behave in this way, respecting human life and so on and so forth, why bother fighting? How's that go, "the only thin in the middle of the road is yellow lines and dead armadilloes"? What a stupid waste.

Of course there are complexities to it, but honestly, we haven't won a war since World War two. After the horror of which, new rules were established. I wonder if the framers of those rules had the idea of making war impossible in the formation of those rules.