16 January 2009

something to say on Gaza.

Willy Pete rounds

I seem to recall the Germans wanted these things banned after WW2 as a war crime. Tank crews loved the things in clearing out hedgerow trenches. Put a couple of those in the likely vicinity of MG-42 nests and the Wehrmacht troopers manning the trenches are either burning alive or running away as fast as possible before they become so. You can't easily put out the chemical involved either (you basically have to smother it somehow, difficult because the human body has oxygen to feed the flame with, or take off the clothes it is burning through before it gets to your skin). Wiki had this on it: In the 1944 liberation of Cherbourg alone, a single U.S. mortar battalion, the 87th, fired 11,899 white phosphorus rounds into the city. Which seems like a lot until you consider they're also used as smoke rounds to obscure the battlefield.

Of course, using them on a soldier as a matter of course in warfare is a bit different than collateral targeting in a civilian area. (and even the use on soldiers can be a highly contentious subject). There's even international treaties that ban the use of them against civilians. I'm not sure that Israel has signed them. Or Russia (who used them in Chechnya). I know we didn't sign the things, but we supposedly employ some R.O.E which is intended to accomplish the same effect.

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