Is it okay that they would die? No, you don’t like to see any innocents get killed. But they take direct responsibility for their choice in such a life and death decision. If you are told that the car you’re standing next to is going to explode in 10 minutes and you choose to stand there and die, doesn’t your own decision play a rather large role in your death?

Let’s also be clear: it’s not like WP was the primary choice of weaponary for this assault. The vast majority of ordinance was regular explosive mortars and other such artillery, grenades, machine guns, assault guns, and weapons dropped/fired by planes. Much more deadly to all those outside OR inside buildings. The whole WP thing was used strategically per specific command (and most often for its primary purpose of illumination and marking).

Okay…but when this message was being delivered to citizens, did the message contain the fact that the military planned to dispurse a harmful chemical agent into the air above their homes? No, it didn’t.

I mean think about it, a foreign occupying force is in your country saying, “leave the city now, we are going to attack it feriously”. The Iraqi people are a proud people; and a lot of innocent people simply refused to leave their homes. Does that make it okay that they may have been killed/maimed by a chemical agent? I don’t think so. Nothing to do with political gamemenship for me. To me the issue is a humanatarian one.

WARNING: (U) THIS IS AN INFORMATION REPORT, NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE. REPORT CLASSIFIED

While I’ve seen some anti-war sites acknowledge this document for what it actually is, I’ve seen even more such sites use this document to generate such eye-catching headlines as “US Military says WP is a chemical when used by Saddam”, “Pentagon says…”, or in your case enkidu, “The US Government says…”.

Not exactly an accurate assessment of the relative weight of this raw piece of intel data filed by an analyst.

Look, I’m sure that while building a case regarding Saddam’s war crimes, that people were a lot more liberal in how they viewed some of his tactics being illegal actions. But most of it was pretty blatant stuff that didn’t need any refinements made to it.

I just thing this whole “gotcha” game being played the select pieces of raw intel reports is, in my view, a silly exercise for silly people playing political gamesmanship.

Let’s focus on the big picture issues like establishing some markers for when troop levels can start going down and work together as a Country on holding the Government accountable for an expedient, yet sensible, withdrawal from Iraq, that can give the Iraqi people back full control of their fates.

I can’t honestly say if this one ‘cherry picked’ intel report had a large or little impact on bushco rationale for the Iraq war. It does fit the profile…

It isn’t very clear cut, but it is a war crime to intentionally target civilians or urban areas (again, it was supposed to be nothing but baddies in there, but there was [tragic] collateral damage) with incindiary weapons. I think our troops wouldn’t fire on civs. Period. Full stop.

SUBJ: IIR 2 243 1050 91/POSSIBLE USE OF PHOSPHOROUS CHEMICAL
WEAPONS BY IRAQ IN KURDISH AREAS ALONG THE IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN
BORDERS; AND CURRENT SITUATION OF KURDISH RESISTANCE AND REFUGEES

The USgov called WP use on Kurdish rebels and civilians (yes I already mentioned that Craig) a use of Chemical Weapons. I am sure I could google other instances where Saddam used WP, or maybe napalm or nerve gas or worse. Maybe WP is only a chemical or illegal weapon when used in massive quantities (ie a bomb from a plane) rather than a artillery shell (smaller quantity, more accuracy in targeting ie not indiscriminantly frying the whole village when you want the guys holed up outside the palm grove).

If you want to believe that the military was obviously trying to be “deliberately misleading” with something that isn’t even illegal in how it was used, that is your right. I choose to offer an alternative in this specific situation since it is quite unclear why a routine weaponary activity would elict a muddled initial response. It may not be the right one, but I think the point that the military brought unnecessary suspicion upon itself by its actions is worth examining various reasons why it came about. To critique my opinion on the basis that I’m just clearly rationalizing for known liars doesn’t really give any thought to the points of discussion at all.

I try to add comment that isn’t full of slogans and unthinking parrot talk, while understanding that I have certain beliefs and ideas that pre-dispose me to thinking certain ways on issues. If that makes me naive and foolish to some people, so be it. But to give lip service to the idea that the same mental traps of inherent beliefs and pre-conceived notions can affect your own thinking, but in reality dismiss contrary arguments as patently biased and lacking merit on their own terms, you risk looking pompous and smug with your opinions.

Those who profess to know “the” truth often really know “their” truth.

I also think you’re being naive if you believe the Pentagon spokesperson’s initial denials were some sort of innocent “fog of war” misstatement. Yes, there were soldiers in the field, and authors of pieces in military magazines, speaking matter-of-factly about using WP for shake-and-bake in Falluja. And yeah, that’s not exactly indicative of a “close-to-the-vest, insidious, dirty little secret by an evil military machine.” But again, that’s more of a strawman argument of yours than an honest response to what I wrote.

For myself, I think it’s clear that, as with the pre-war WMD intelligence, the professional analysts and the soldiers on the front lines had a pretty clear picture of reality. The farther up the chain of command you went, though, and the closer you came to the civilian appointees of the Bush administration, the more the truth receded into a fog of self-serving spin and deliberate lies.

The current Republican leadership in this country is thoroughly corrupt and dishonest, with the extent of that corruption and dishonesty becoming more apparent with each day’s headlines. I don’t question your desire to retain some sort of wall between these events and your own principled conservatism, but to the extent you’re willing to twist logic and perception into pretzels to argue that black is white and deliberate misleading is some sort of innocent mistake, I think you’re making yourself look kind of foolish.

As I stated in previous posts, our men and women over there are in general decent honest people with good, decent command and oversight. WP can be delivered as ‘lawful munitions’ via artillery shells. Whether that is smoke, illumination or ground burning ’shake n bake’ is up to the commanders in the field. Most of the world is pissed we won’t outlaw WP entirely (not to mention our refusal to sign on to land mine treaties). So it was kinda dumb to use something we as a nation have accused Saddam of using (pretty clear he did use WP).

We used WP against insurgents and probably burnt civilians in the process. Regretable, but that is war (a stupid, counterproductive illegal war, but there we are).

- - - - - - - - - -

enkidu Says:
November 26th, 2005 at 12:19 am
WP is legal munitions if used against combatants (ie not just for lighting and smoke screens). Agreed.

errr, maybe not?
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_22431050_91r.html

I’ll clip the lead bit for you Craig: “SUBJ: IIR 2 243 1050 91/POSSIBLE USE OF PHOSPHOROUS CHEMICAL
WEAPONS BY IRAQ IN KURDISH AREAS ALONG THE IRAQI-TURKISH-IRANIAN
BORDERS; AND CURRENT SITUATION OF KURDISH RESISTANCE AND REFUGEES

What I don’t appreciate in Tucker’s opinion piece is the inference that WP was used as a weapon against civilians simply because it was used in an urban setting (Falluja). There is no clarification regarding the efforts made to clear nearly the entire civilian population (despite the obvious result of allowing many of the enemy to slip out as well) for a week ahead of the assault.

What hurts the “hearts and minds” campaign more? The use of a military tool of war in as responsibile and appropriate of a way as possible, or internet and media sources who purposely misconstrue a weapon as a chemical one being purposely delivered against innocents? Don’t think for a second that anti-American sources in the Middle East are hesitant to use any credible (or credible-looking) source they can to bolster false claims that they can expand into even bolder lies!

I don’t agree that the fact that the military talking heads stumbled over themselves in their initial denials means that the use of WP in Falluja has got to be evil. For as long as military operations have been chronicled, misstatements and screwed-up public announcements have routinely ocurred. To put it broadly, the fog of war often extends to the press room as well. This seems even more likely as the culprit when you have military magazines giving straightforward acknowledgement of WP (as weaponary)in Falluja well before this whole tempest in a teapot developed. Not to mention, soldiers of all stripes matter-of-factly talking about WP use, and its distinction from chemical weapons.

Not exactly a close-to-the-vest, insidious, dirty little secret by an evil military machine!

Also, since the press and the military already have a wary view of each other, I can easily see an accusation made by the press regarding WP as a chemical weapon and its reported “illegal” use eliciting a reactionary early response of “oh no, we didn’t use this” until further investigation showed how and when WP was actually used, which brought a more accurate answer. (The cynics would say it was ONLY because of documented discrepancies.)

So, I guess we’re left with arguing whether the military lies about how its weaponary is used, versus screwing up the communication of war actions through official press channels. Obviously, people’s pre-conceived ideas of the trustworthiness of the military is going to rule opinion.

There are better ways and arguments that the anti-war crowd can certainly make in this whole war issue than to waste air and bandwidth over nuanced definitions of chemicals and framing WP use in a way that could delve into gray areas of international weapon protocals.

If this group ever decides to focus on bigger-picture issues rather than chasing fragments that lead nowhere, they might actually make traction in the minds of those they want to reach.