[lit-ideas] Re: White Phosphorus
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:17:51 -0600
JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote:
From GlobalSecurity.org:
Click here: White Phosphorus (WP)
<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm>
Someone know what "HE" and "HC" stand for?
"HE" is "High Explosive." It's the standard explosive artillery shell
or bomb; a fairly thin metal outside with a lot of very high energy
explosive inside. When it explodes, it has such a high rate of expansion
that it crushes cement and shreds bodies. This has never been declared a
prohibited weapon, even though it's effects on the body are to make it
into hamburger. I didn't see any "HC" on this website, and I don't
recall anything like "HC."
<>And apparently I no longer comprehend English. This statement is
beyond my understanding: "The use of white phosphorus or fuel air
explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the
Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on
Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional
Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have
Indiscriminate Effects."
WP shells have some explosive inside, surrounded by phosphorus, and
encased in a metal outside. The explosive is much less than in "HE" so
when the shell breaks apart, rather than breaking into thousands of tiny
sharp shards that tear everything up into tiny shards, the WP shell
breaks into fairly larger fragments. These key-sized pieces (or larger)
can slice limbs off, or cut a body badly, but the body still looks like
a body, not like hamburger.
"HE" shells can start fires; you see a lot of burned-out American
viehicles as a result of "HE" improvised explosives. The bodies burned
in such an event are usually charred beyond recognition because the fire
is generalized. But "WP" burns in a very localized way. Although it can
start large fires, and is used as an incindeary weapon to start fires,
when the phosphorus burns the person directly, it's usually a localized
burn, not general over the whole body. Small dime-sized pieces of
phosphorus are scattered by the shell exploding, and a piece this size
on the skin soon burns down deep into the body, without doing any other
damage so that the person feels the burn fully. But these burns can be
quite local; a person mgiht get one chunk of phosphorus on them and a
severe burn to the arm an inch around and three inches deep, with no
other injuries.
I'm sorry to be so graphic, but it's essential to really understand the
whole "HE" and "WP" controversy. High explosive shells typically tear a
body up so badly that it no longer even looks human. "WP" can cause
extremely severe burns but it does not typically destroy a whole body.
If you see photos of bodies that have generalized burns rather than spot
burns, it's probably due to HE explosions or some secondary fire; if you
see bodies that have extremely severe local burns but that do not appear
over most of the body, the person probably was burned by "WP."
I would have no preference in which way is a worse way to die, or to be
injured; they are both horrible.
The U.S. has said that it carefully targets the enemy and tries to avid
civilian casualties, but I once again recommend to the list a radio
interview with one of the Pentagon officers whose job was doing the
targeting. In that interview, he said that durring the war a bomb could
not be dropped if it would cause more than 30 civilian casualties. But
that means the "careful" targeting that the U.S. is continually citing
allows for 29 civilian deaths for every bomb dropped! This has nothing
to do with the type of bomb; I suspect that most of the horror stories
about "prohibited" munitions are the result of old-fashioned "HE" bombs
and artillery fire.
The radio interview is here:
http://www.thislife.org/pages/archives/archive05.html
Julie Krueger
wondering what counts as "excessively injurious".
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