The other day, David Schraub posted on the possible use of phosphorus as an incendiary weapon in Iraq, specifically in Fallujah. His post is here.
His post aroused a good deal of commentary, as did mine over at The Reaction — see here. Many of the comments are quite interesting, but the general response was that a) phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon; b) there’s nothing wrong with using it; and c) war is hell.
Check out the posts for the various responses.
It seems that this story was pushed by Italy’s RAI network and picked up by the anti-war Independent in the U.K. Then the BBC and The Christian Science Monitor reported on it. Some consider it to be anti-American propaganda. Maybe.
Here’s Juan Cole: “The Americans’ moral fibre is being destroyed from within by things like Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and other atrocities. In the end, America may not any longer be America. The country that began by forbidding cruel and unusual punishment is ending by formally authorizing torture on a grand scale, and by burning small town Iraqis down to the bone with white phosphorus.”
I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I do think that America’s “moral fibre” has been weakend by the dark side of the war on terror and the war in Iraq. So, of course, has America’s reputation and credibility.
And consider this: If phosphorus was used against Fallujah’s civilian population, is this not a serious problem on both a moral and a public relations level? Does it not look bad, given that one of the stated reasons for going to war was Saddam’s use of un-conventional weapons against his own people?
(One wonders what Amnesty International will say about this. And how the White House will respond.)