US-led Coalition Admits Using WP in Mosul

[grunge]

Well if there were no people about there would be no need for a smoke screen

Well, as you know Bullets can travel quite a distance!. This smoke screen could have been hundreds of meters away from anyone and still been effective.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

When i was in the Royal Navy we just fired smoke grenades from the mortar's or shells from the guns if we needed a smoke screen would never dream of using phosphorus shells for a smoke screen.

What was in your smoke grenades? Were they M34s?

 

[Drewmanc]

We've carried white phos as marking grenades for years, in the Middle East we usually carried 2/4 HE and 2 white phos. All other coalition forces carried white phos as well. Non story.

 

[Damocles]

Think some of your reply needs unpicking here. To deny any link between Western foreign policy and what Saddam did is not only naive but plain wrong. Of course he was a dictator able to kill thousands and thousands in crimes against humanity but he was "our man". The Americans sold him the fucking chemical weapons - in the course of my work I've met several who lived through Halabja and they detested Saddam but they also knew what the West was up to with their Middle East policies. The Americans could not let anyone threaten their oil and political interests and most of all IsraelThat's why the west backed Saddam as he slaughtered the Iranians whilst not giving a shit as so many Iraqis were also slaughtered. Then our man got a bit giddy and went into Kuwait- I've also been there - but he had to be put into his box as he started taking on Israel. There is no way any sort of pan Arab progressive government alliance can ever be allowed. Why do you think after the Arab Spring led to a more secular focussed govt post Mubarak that Morsi led an American backed coup to gain power undemocratically and lo and behold Egypt is back in its box. The Palestinian tragedy has been well told and continues to play out in front of us. I was there not too long ago and saw first hand how Palestinian towns next to certain UN declared Israeli settlements only receive water 12 or so days out of each month whilst the settlements have it 24 hours s day. look at the Sabra and Shatila massacres of men women and children by Sharon supported by the US. The US led war machine never stops and needs constant feeding- read Robert Fisk on the region of other researched evidence.

No one in their right mind can ever justify or ever explain the barbarism of IS a lot of whose funding comes from our mates the Saudis. There is no causal link between what they do and any Western policies - they are backward, evil people using young impressionable losers to do a lot of their dirty work. But there are a lot of Arabs/Muslims in this country or abroad who instead of completely shunning and isolating the extremists point to our policies and some of the awful things we have done and say "now you know how we feel"
There is a growing movement that is saying - why don't we just stop bombing people for a bit and try another approach which is actually about promoting peace and stability
You may disagree but don't pretend Saddam worked in isolation from the West.

Holy shit.

Not only is most of that factually wrong,but it's dangerously, absurdly, 100% provably wrong.

Who the fuck is teaching you and Ricster this stuff because they're total lies?

 

[SWP's back]

Ask the Shia who he systemically genocided, black bagged and tortured over the past several decades how they feel about him. Including the 150,000 he killed as part of the Shiite uprising in 1991. Or the families of the 50,000 Kurds that he killed with mustard gas when they rebelled in the North.

Do you know why you keep finding Iraqis who have nothing bad to say about Saddam?

Because he fucking killed all the ones who did.

As I said earlier, your views are immoral. They're warped by a stupid causality, they're warped by a stupid protectionism of a Stone age culture and they're warped by a bad understanding of history. You say you've become educated but you haven't, you've just become contrarian. Western policy has nothing to do with why ISIS is killing gay people. It has nothing to do with Saddam gassing a quarter of a million people.

And your attempt to morally equate international military actions with terrorism who target kids at a concert is a fucking disgrace.

I quite agree and I don't understand why he hasn't been banned and reported to the authorities.

Very much agree with both posts.

 

[Ricster]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...phorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria/

Thanks to all those who believed me and stuck up for me with your pm's. Im back and will leave the link above for everyone to read.

Nope, not happy, because more innocent lives have been lost with unlawful killings due to actions that are illegal under the Geneva Convention.

Not that that has stopped the US before.

Iraqs WMDs
Bombing hospitals

Those are 2 more war crimes on huge scales that the Americans have been allpwed to get away with.

 

[SWP's back]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...phorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria/

Thanks to all those who believed me and stuck up for me with your pm's. Im back and will leave the link above for everyone to read.

Nope, not happy, because more innocent lives have been lost with unlawful killings due to actions that are illegal under the Geneva Convention.

Not that that has stopped the US before.

Iraqs WMDs
Bombing hospitals

Those are 2 more war crimes on huge scales that the Americans have been allpwed to get away with.

And I and many others had managed to read that article when this discussion first started.

Read this part from your article:

"The often-controversial munitions are common in western militaries and are used primarily to create smoke screens...

U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting in Iraq and Syria, would not confirm the use of the munition but said in an email that the U.S. military uses it in “accordance with the law of armed conflict” and that white phosphorus rounds are “used for screening, obscuring, and marking in a way that fully considers the possible incidental effects on civilians and civilian structures.”

So absolutely nothing new that we didn't already know or had spoken about. I'm not even sure if you've actually read it yourself as it makes it clear that it's neither illegal under the Geneva Convention or a war crime. That's just your own bluster that you've attached to your post in the hope no one would actually read the article.

I'd also refer you back to this statement I shared over a week ago:

In a statement, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command in Mosul rejected reports of the use of white phosphorus by Iraqi and coalition warplanes in Mosul.

The report stated the alleged chemical attack was an “intentional smoke screen to protect civilian lives.”

The statement said some news and social media sites published inaccurate reports on the use of phosphorus during the military operations against IS in Mosul.

On June 3, several civilians were fleeing IS-held areas toward the Iraqi security forces near Jimhuri hospital in western Mosul, and there was the danger of being targeted by IS snipers, the statement added.

“We relied on the international coalition to launch smoke screen attacks to hide the movement of the civilians from the IS extremists’ line of sight,” the report continued.

“[We wanted] to give the civilians a chance to flee toward the Iraqi forces,” the statement informed, stating the forces “succeeded in rescuing the civilians and protecting their lives.”

The Iraqi command explained that such smoke screen attacks were previously used in several areas in eastern and western Mosul for the purpose of protecting civilians from enemy fire.

 

[Damocles]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...phorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria/

Thanks to all those who believed me and stuck up for me with your pm's. Im back and will leave the link above for everyone to read.

Nope, not happy, because more innocent lives have been lost with unlawful killings due to actions that are illegal under the Geneva Convention.

Not that that has stopped the US before.

Iraqs WMDs
Bombing hospitals

Those are 2 more war crimes on huge scales that the Americans have been allpwed to get away with.

If you're playing war crimes Top Trumps then I'm going to start listing the ones by the people you proclaim as victims, and would have to raise the post character limit to do so.

 

[west didsblue]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...phorous-in-populated-areas-in-iraq-and-syria/

Thanks to all those who believed me and stuck up for me with your pm's. Im back and will leave the link above for everyone to read.

Nope, not happy, because more innocent lives have been lost with unlawful killings due to actions that are illegal under the Geneva Convention.

Not that that has stopped the US before.

Iraqs WMDs
Bombing hospitals

Those are 2 more war crimes on huge scales that the Americans have been allpwed to get away with.

Strange how you're happy to criticise the US but refuse to criticise IS.
Anyone would think you're a supporter of terrorism.

 

[SWP's back]

Strange how you're happy to criticise the US but refuse to criticise IS.
Anyone would think you're a supporter of terrorism.

That's one thing people could say.