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[commedieu]

Even Israel says it stopped using white phosphorus (after images like this were circulated):

I sort of see what you mean, maybe. But those people very well could have drowned to death or inhaled hot wood chips too..

I mean... you know?

 

[Skyzard]

I sort of see what you mean, maybe. But those people very well could have drowned to death or inhaled wood chips too..

I mean... you know?

Seriously. Some of the posts here have been infuriating.

 

[Lime]

But the real problem in today's society is radical Islamic terrorism. What we are doing is just spreading freedom and peace, and all these 'monsters' clearly deserve it. Let's shut down our borders while we bomb the shit out of the Middle East for decades and once a reaction to us killing civilians hit out our doorstep, we blame it on religion and race.

People cry and pray whenever losses in the West are lost due to crazy extremists, and they ask for immediate political change, but when we are killing children and civilians in the Middle East it's 'necessary' and no one bats an eye.

 

[Twig and Berries]

The moral decay was inevitable given who is CinC.

Obama was pretty bad too in this regard, don't forget. Civilian casualties? Fuggedaboutit!

 

[kirblar]

No, we get away with it because no one will stop us.

Our internal policies match (and sometimes exceed) that of other weapons treaties, but even if they didn't and we said "Yes we dropped WP on ISIS" nobody would stop us from doing it again.

We aren't doing it because it's not effective in the current conflict.

I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to grasp that if we actually wanted to kill a lot of people, we have far more effective ways of doing it at our disposal, and wouldn't waste our time with it.

 

[Robot Pants]

The moral decay was inevitable given who is CinC.

Dude what the fuck is this? Seriously.
Stop with this stuff. Spell it out it takes three seconds

 

[Skyzard]

I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to grasp that if we actually wanted to kill a lot of people, we have far more effective ways of doing it at our disposal, and wouldn't waste our time with it.

Assad has bombs too. Why didn't he just use those?

How about to terrorise the enemy:

potent psychological weapon against the insurgents

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4442988.stm

The combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stm

^ those aren't Assad's men, they're the US's.

 

[Cirion]

I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to grasp that if we actually wanted to kill a lot of people, we have far more effective ways of doing it at our disposal, and wouldn't waste our time with it.

You are actually right, most of the time you level just some buildings to get two snipers, but then you and their like are nowhere to be found to defend the several hundreds of dead civilians that are produced by such actions, after research produced by quality media directly contradicts the lies and excuses produced by the US military.

SEVERAL people in this thread explained why the use of white phosphorus is destructive, immoral and dangerous. You ignore all this to give flimsy excuses and real try-hard spinning. You all should apply to take Sean Spicers job.

 

[notsol337]

So I did quite a bit of reading on White Phosphorus in the interim here.

While I still don't think the point of the Iraqi police forces that shot white phosphorus on June 3rd was to use a chemical weapon to kill people, it does appear (per the Kurdish reporters in the area) that some people were killed by the white phosphorus. That is not something I support.

I also looked at the MSDS for White Phosphorus, and did some reading into alternative methods of dispersing smoke to obscure vision.

White phosphorus looks like it was a poor choice for this exact incident. The white phosphorus smoke stays really hot much longer than I had initially thought, and some of the residue in the smoke can burn your lungs once it hits oxygen if it's managed to get in there without burning.

The fact of the matter is that white phosphorus is not good to use around civilians. Fire white phosphorus into an open area to obscure the enemy's vision while shooting at your tanks.

You can, though, process white phosphorus into red phosphorus, which needs to actually be burned to start smoking. Red phosphorus does not ignite on contact with oxygen, and the smoke is much safer for anything alive to breathe. If the point is to save lives, this would be a better choice of material to prevent line-of-sight weapons fire into civilians.

That being said, thanks Skyzard and Commedieu for being personal with your speech. I'm really glad you guys took the time to make sure I was aware that I support terrorism and am a scumbag. I didn't know that before today.

 

[Skyzard]

So I did quite a bit of reading on White Phosphorus in the interim here.

While I still don't think the point of the Iraqi police forces that shot white phosphorus on June 3rd was to use a chemical weapon to kill people, it does appear (per the Kurdish reporters in the area) that some people were killed by the white phosphorus. That is not something I support.

I also looked at the MSDS for White Phosphorus, and did some reading into alternative methods of dispersing smoke to obscure vision.

White phosphorus looks like it was a poor choice for this exact incident. The white phosphorus smoke stays really hot much longer than I had initially thought, and some of the residue in the smoke can burn your lungs once it hits oxygen if it's managed to get in there without burning.

The fact of the matter is that white phosphorus is not good to use around civilians. Fire white phosphorus into an open area to obscure the enemy's vision while shooting at your tanks.

You can, though, process white phosphorus into red phosphorus, which needs to actually be burned to start smoking. Red phosphorus does not ignite on contact with oxygen, and the smoke is much safer for anything alive to breathe. If the point is to save lives, this would be a better choice of material to prevent line-of-sight weapons fire into civilians.

That being said, thanks Skyzard and Commeidieu for being personal with your speech. I'm really glad you guys took the time to make sure I was aware that I support terrorism and am a scumbag. I didn't know that before today.

All the complaints about white phosphorus have been when they're used in populated areas. That's when it becomes a chemical weapon.

No one has an issue with it being a smoke screen in the middle of nowhere to cover troops/tanks. That hasn't been the case once in this thread.

You're the only one who has made this personal by calling people jerks.

And I was absolutely right to call out your mental gymnastics comparing boiling water to white phosphorus.

 

[notsol337]

All the complaints about white phosphorus have been when they're used in populated areas.

No one has an issue with it being a smoke screen in the middle of nowhere to cover troops/tanks.

You're the only one who has made this personal by calling people jerks. And I was right to call out your mental gymnastics comparing boiling water to white phosphorus.

That's why I took the time to go and research things. Red phosphorus smoke is not the same as white phosphorus smoke. The analogy was wrong. That doesn't mean you have to consistently say "This guy is stupid."

I was wrong. I see that now. You can say someone is wrong without using inflammatory language, that's all.

For what it's worth, I'm also sorry I said you're being a jerk. Really, you're just passionate about something you care about and I guess there's nothing wrong with that.

Seriously, I hope you have a good day.

 

[RustyNails]

Guys, why do they hate us????

 

[commedieu]

So I did quite a bit of reading on White Phosphorus in the interim here.

While I still don't think the point of the Iraqi police forces that shot white phosphorus on June 3rd was to use a chemical weapon to kill people, it does appear (per the Kurdish reporters in the area) that some people were killed by the white phosphorus. That is not something I support.

I also looked at the MSDS for White Phosphorus, and did some reading into alternative methods of dispersing smoke to obscure vision.

White phosphorus looks like it was a poor choice for this exact incident. The white phosphorus smoke stays really hot much longer than I had initially thought, and some of the residue in the smoke can burn your lungs once it hits oxygen if it's managed to get in there without burning.

The fact of the matter is that white phosphorus is not good to use around civilians. Fire white phosphorus into an open area to obscure the enemy's vision while shooting at your tanks.

You can, though, process white phosphorus into red phosphorus, which needs to actually be burned to start smoking. Red phosphorus does not ignite on contact with oxygen, and the smoke is much safer for anything alive to breathe. If the point is to save lives, this would be a better choice of material to prevent line-of-sight weapons fire into civilians.

That being said, thanks Skyzard and Commeidieu for being personal with your speech. I'm really glad you guys took the time to make sure I was aware that I support terrorism and am a scumbag. I didn't know that before today.

*Commedieu

I don't think you support terrorism, and im sure if this were real life, we'd have a good time. I just know, deep down inside, that WP is a mistake in anywhere near a populated area. 9 out of 10 times, I'ts a poor choice. And in that context, it does more harm than good.

The arguments about alternative ways that one could be killed are asinine when the subject is WP use near populated areas or in them. I'll stand by that. im sick of this bullshit stalemate that wastes all of our taxes and kills youths that know no better. i dont mind the folks that know what they are getting into.

 

[notsol337]

The argument that there are more efficient ways to kill people is being used to say that this wasn't an intentional attack to kill civilians. I see that it has been used to drive people into more effective weapons, but I don't see that being the case in this instance.

I think it's appropriate to look at each use of white phosphorus in context of the usage, as the definition of what type of weapon it is seems to change based on context.

I'm no longer saying "this was the best option" because white phosphorus isn't the best thing to use in a populated area. That being said, I don't know what the other options were. If the US is giving white phosphorus to the Iraqi police force, then we should probably be giving them red phosphorus as well.

 

[MisterFalcon]

I don't understand why it's so difficult for people to grasp that if we actually wanted to kill a lot of people, we have far more effective ways of doing it at our disposal, and wouldn't waste our time with it.

Those people who are trying to defeat ISIS should just keep charging into ISIS positions without smoke or fire support. They probably don't have any families that will be angry about their deaths, only those killed by America have these.